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spencer-reid-in-a-pool · 3 years

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It Was You All Along (Part 7)

Author’s note: So that wasn’t much of a break, but I couldn’t resist! Here is the next installment of the series, featuring a meme I made myself to reflect the vibes of the first half of this part! And yes, it is supposed to be that pixely. It adds spice. Also, I tried to be as vague as possible describing reader’s outfit towards the end so that you could imagine it the way you wanted! As always, feedback is appreciated, and I hope you all enjoy! Link to my ask box!

Tags: @ayyyyitswednesdaymydoods @blackjay04 @weaselbee04 @bravelittlesunflower @mxsmwndr

A voice called for me, but I didn’t quite process it. I was too busy trying to fix this gigantic, gaping hole in Geralt’s trousers. Melitele knows if I don’t do it, he would just walk around with it decorating his attire.

The voice called for me again, but this time I ignored it on purpose. If I lost concentration, I would prick myself with the needle...again. And I didn’t really want to turn my fingers into more of a bloody mess than they already were.

I heard footsteps beside me, but I didn’t realize how close they were until a rush of coldness surrounded my body. Not only coldness, but wetness. A bucket of ice cold water had been dumped on me, causing me to scream and drop what I was doing as I stood up in shock.

“Julian!”

His real name still felt unfamiliar on my lips. I had taken to calling him that every so often, usually when I was angry with him, or when I was messing with him. It was for that reason, I think, that he froze so suddenly when I spoke. He wasn’t used to it either, even though he was the one that suggested I start using it more.

The bucket made a small thump sound as it hit the ground beneath us, and Jaskier raised his hands up in an apology. But he also backed away like a scared animal. I almost felt bad for him. Almost, but not quite.

“Now, (Y/N)...I was just trying to get your attention is all. It’s quite important, you see.”

I gathered my skirts in my hands and stomped towards him, scowling and shivering the whole way.

“What could possibly be so important that you couldn’t wait until I was finished? And what made you think dumping cold water on me was a good idea?”

I didn’t give him a chance to respond before I starting running towards him, my clothes making a sloshing noise against my skin. A string of curse words left his mouth as he took off trying to get away from me. He could be quite fast when he wanted to be. But no way was I going to let him get away from me that easily.

As soon as he picked up speed, so did I. He wove through the trees surrounding our campsite, going in between them like a maze. Eventually we made it back to where we started. My spot was near a tree and the pants I had been working on were visibly in a bunch on the ground. But behind that was the river that I’m assuming the idiot got the water in the first place. I wonder if I could lead him back there... and “accidentally” knock him in.

As luck would have it, I didn’t even have to put that thought into action. He had made his way to the edge of the river, and turned quickly on his heel trying to run away from me again. But he slipped on the muddy bank, and fell right into the water himself.

Coming to a stop, a sharp laugh came from my chest suddenly. And I laughed even harder when he bobbed above the surface, hair sticking to his forehead and his fancy doublet soaked.

“That’s what you get!” I yelled to him between bouts of laughter.

While Jaskier pulled himself out of the water unceremoniously, I heard more footsteps behind me followed by a thud. Geralt must be back. Only one man I know could walk and sit down that heavily.

I turned towards the sound, and sure enough, Geralt was sitting down on the log he had claimed as his earlier. He took one look at me and one look at Jaskier who was now standing on the bank of the river, shivering like his life depended on it.

“I don’t even want to know,” said Geralt with a twitch of his eyebrow and a roll of his eyes.

Night had fallen now. I couldn’t help but reflect on the past few months since that attack at our camp. Things had been pretty boring since then honestly. But I guess I couldn’t complain. Being bored was better than being in danger.

Geralt was asleep and snoring at an unholy volume. This of course caused a glance between Jaskier and I, and sent us into a fit of silent laughter together. The kind of laughter that had your stomach hurting and your mouth open with no sound. The kind that had you grabbing onto your friend for dear life. Which is precisely what the two of us were doing right now. I had such a grip on Jaskier’s arm, I thought he surely must be in pain. But if he was, he made no mention of it and kept laughing with me.

However much time had passed, it seemed to only be a few minutes. And I still had my hand on his arm, although my grip definitely lessened. He didn’t notice this either, and simply looked into the dying flames with dried tears from his laughter on his cheeks. My gaze lingered a moment too long on his cheeks, and I began to think about how gentle his eyelashes looked against his skin as he blinked.

Heat rose in my cheeks and I silently withdrew my hand from his arm. This seemed to catch his attention though.

“Composed yourself now? Don’t need to steady yourself from anymore laughter?”

There was a glint in his eye as he asked me the questions. I had to keep from smiling.

“That depends. Got any jokes?”

He stood suddenly and rested a hand on his chin, making it seem like he was deep in thought.

“You look as if you are composing a new song, Julian.”

“I’m a musician, my dear, I am always composing.”

He paced around the fire, which was even lower than before. The way he took everything so seriously was something that entertained me, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself because of it.

Suddenly, he opened his mouth in a silent “Aha!”

“(Y/N), why must you never use a broken pen?”

I paused for a moment and scrunched my face in thought, trying to come up with an answer. But before I could, he delivered the punch line.

“It’s pointless, darling.”

I snorted at the same time Geralt groaned. The fucker was awake.

Jaskier almost jumped out of his boots at the sudden noise, which only caused me to laugh again. The pain in my stomach from earlier was back, but I couldn’t keep from laughing.

“Have you been awake this whole time, Geralt?” Jaskier yelled in surprise.

“Long enough. Don’t you have anything better to do? Like sleep?”

Jaskier open and closed his mouth a few times before settling on a simple, “Right,” in response. He then took his spot a few feet away from Geralt and laid down for the night.

“Goodnight, Geralt.” Jaskier said with a stifled yawn.

Geralt simply grunted in return, rolling over so his back was facing Jaskier.

“Goodnight, (Y/N),” Jaskier called in my direction.

“Goodnight, Jaskier. And goodnight Geralt!”

“Hmph,” was all I got in response.

There was a silence over our camp now. But it was too quiet. The kind of quiet that felt like it would be broken at any moment now. Jaskier’s voice was what broke it, of course.

“Goodnight, Roach.”

“Oh, yeah! Goodnight, Roach and Lily!” I called out excitedly.

“How could I forget Lily? Goodnight, Lily!” Jaskier parroted.

“Oh, for the love of-” Geralt groaned loudly, sitting up and gathering his things. He promptly moved farther and farther away from us, settling on a spot under the cover of darkness in the trees.

I snickered to myself as I got my things ready to lay down. Annoying Geralt had become one of our favorite things to do together over the past few months.

It became silent again, and I could hear Jaskier’s even breathing now, signalling that he was asleep. I had the feeling I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Call it instinct, I guess.

I laid down on my back and stared up at the sky. Jaskier and I were closer than ever, and it was so nice. But I needed more. I craved more. They say time heals all wounds, but my heart was still shattered after all these months had gone by. I was still so in love with my best friend that it hurt. Even more than it did before.

Jaskier had been acting differently lately though. He called me more nicknames, and he was even more of a flamboyant disaster than when I first met him. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him with any random women in bars or taverns anymore. Could he-? No. No way. I must be out of my mind.

My fingers instinctively went to the dagger Geralt had given me a while ago. Sometimes I would run my hands along the inscription, trying to remind myself to be brave like it said. I could almost laugh at myself right now. I was being anything but brave when it came to Jaskier.

“Could you please calm your nerves down? I can feel them from over here,” a gruff voice said in the distance. Geralt. Of course.

“Sorry to disturb you. Maybe you should move to another new spot, even farther away. Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask. How is Yennefer?”

I didn’t have to have Witcher senses to feel how that comment landed.

Morning came much more quickly than I was hoping it would. It meant today was the day we had to get moving, which meant we would be moving closer to the situation I had been trying to avoid thinking about. The ball.

I seemed to be the last one awake, and I could feel the energy as soon as I had rubbed the sleepiness from my reluctant eyes. Geralt sad brooding in the corner of our camp, and Jaskier was flitting about getting everyone’s things together. It was easy to see who was excited and who was not.

“Today is the day, you sad sack of...sadness,” Jaskier vocalized in regards to Geralt.

“I know. Don’t remind me.”

I almost laughed as I sat up from my spot on the ground. Geralt wasn’t looking forward to this, and truth be told, I wasn’t either. At least part of me wasn’t. The other part couldn’t help being excited in a childlike way. I had never been in a castle before, let alone a ballroom. Although I couldn’t help but feel like I would be out of place, and painfully so.

“Don’t look so excited, Geralt.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened at the last one.”

I winced and realized that he was right. Although Jaskier had told me some of what happened, I was almost certain that he watered down the events of Pavetta’s betrothal ball in doing so.

The man in question turned to look at me, apparently just now realizing I was awake.

“There you are! Come on, we are losing daylight!”

“Jaskier, do I even really need to come? Geralt is only going to be your body guard, so I don’t really have a purpose.”

“Don’t be silly. You must come! We couldn’t just leave you by yourself for hours at a time. These things do tend to take a while.”

I rolled my eyes and stood, stretching as I did so.

“I am a grown up, you know. I can take care of myself. Afraid I might get kidnapped?”

Jaskier scoffed and continued packing, mostly ignoring my comment. But it was true, I could take care of myself. Geralt had taught me some things with the dagger over the past few weeks, and I felt confident in my abilities.

“Well if I must go, at least be careful with my dress and things. I’m sure Yennefer paid good money for them.”

“The witch probably stole them, more like.”

I watched as Jaskier carefully started packing my things, and tried not to cackle when Geralt made a comment about shoving his foot somewhere it didn’t belong in reference to Jaskier.

Today was going to be quite...something.

Since we had done most of the travelling yesterday, what was left for today didn’t take long. We made it to the castle in no time it seemed.

Lily and Roach were tied up in the stables, in the same stall actually. I was quite happy that the stable master was willing to do that. They always seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

I sat in my borrowed room getting ready, and I was assuming that Geralt and Jaskier were in their own rooms doing the same thing. But that thought was at the back of my mind now as I looked at myself in the mirror. Or at least, what I think was myself. I didn’t really recognize the woman staring back at me.

Yennefer had picked out the most beautiful, elegant, and intricate floor-length ballgown I could ever imagine. It was sleeved as well, with lace adorning them to match the bodice. The skirt was made of layers on layers, it seemed, and with every move I made it swished gently to follow. It was even in my favorite color. I wonder how she knew? I don’t remember telling her...

She had also gotten me some jewelry to match, and the metals and gems complimented my skin tone perfectly. How did she know all this? I had only met her once, and it was very briefly. I would have to thank her for all this later.

Not long after I had finished getting dressed, jeweled, and made up, a knock sounded at my door.

“Come in,” I called.

Jaskier entered in his outfit for the night. It was a dark, silky purple with golden accents along the doublet’s center, and my breath hitched in my throat when I saw him in the reflection of the mirror I sat in front of.

“You look breathtaking, darling,” he said in a whisper as he approached me.

Hopefully he didn’t notice the blush creeping up the sides of my neck. I don’t think I would ever get used to his names for me.

“You don’t look too bad yourself. Compare that to when you fell into the water yesterday and looked like a dying animal, you basically are a different person.”

Jaskier feigned anger, but I could tell he was amused.

“Do you like your clothes? I made sure to tell Yennefer all your favorite colors and shiny things.”

My heart skipped a beat. He had told her all of that? I didn’t even know that he knew those things about me.

I stood before really thinking about what I was doing, and turned to face him, the shock evident on my face.

“You told her all that? I didn’t know that you knew such trivial facts about me...Thank you.”

He chuckled and ran a hand through his hair.

“Of course I know. And it was no problem. I had to make sure she didn’t dress you in an unflattering way.”

I tilted my head in thought, almost as a reflex, and it caught his attention.

“What are you thinking about, (Y/N)?” Jaskier asked me quietly with a crooked smile.

“I seem to be thinking about everything and nothing at once...but I am mostly wondering how you convinced the people hosting this ball to let me in. Geralt is your security, of course, I get that. But how did you get me in? I’m no one special.”

He was silent for a moment and stared at a spot past me, for almost so long I didn’t think he would reply. But then he did, with an odd look on his face that showed happiness and some other emotion I didn’t recognize.

“I told them you were my muse. A musician cannot perform without their muse.”

My mouth twitched as if to fall open in shock. but I didn’t let it. I didn’t want him to see how this affected me.

“I’m your what?”

“My muse. You know, inspiration?”

I shook my head furiously, matching the speed at which my heart was beating.

“I know what it means. But why did you tell them that? You couldn’t have come up with a better excuse to get me in here? You didn’t have to lie to them.”

You couldn’t have come up with a better excuse in order to keep me from getting my hopes up?

He looked at me with a smile. But it was a pained smile. Then for a second, it looked like he might speak. Until Geralt passed by the open door way and told Jaskier it was time to go. The crowd was waiting on him.

I stood frozen in the same spot I had been in, and I watched them leave. First Geralt, then Jaskier following behind him. At the last second before leaving the doorway, he stopped, placing a hand on the frame.

Finally he turned to me, and looking over his shoulder, he simply said:

“I didn’t lie.”

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axwalker · 3 years

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CREEP: I’m a creep

HIGH SCHOOL AU

Pairing: Drake Walker and Lexie O’Brien -- Book TRR

A/N 1 This came up to me after I got an ask from @nestledonthaveone

I was listening to my iPod on my way home from work yesterday & Radiohead's Creep came on. One of my favorite songs, and I think the lyrics are great for an angsty Drake fic. It reminds me of him. Could you please write an angsty fic inspired by the song? I love how you write angst!!

I used to hear this song when I was a teenager, so when I read this ask, I immediately wanted to write something angsty but situated in high school.

This is part one of two.

I hope you enjoy it @nestledonthaveone 💕

A/N 2: Because they’re younger than usual, I decided to change my FC --just for this fic. I’m still picturing Michiel and Valerie when they’ll be older though.

A/N3: I’m participating in @wackydrabbles Prompt #105 It's definitely ... interesting.”

Thank you ladies!

WARNINGS: Parental abuse. Eventually some lemons. ALL MY FICS ARE 18+

Tags in the comments.

LEXIE

I’ve always loved sunsets. The entire sky is painted orange and pink, streaking with white light and many other colors; I can’t take my eyes away from it. Sunsets remind us that no matter what is happening in our lives, the sun will be out again tomorrow. It’s raw, beautiful, and comforts me—the thought of the sun watching over me. I sit on my porch, my knees against my chest. I’m wearing a white tank top and jean shorts to fight the intense heat that invades Cordonia in early September. I fix my eyes on the sky, wishing a miracle. Something that takes me away from my father and his new wife. Away from the pain of losing mom.

“What are you doing?” The voice is so resonant, deep, and rasping. Slowly, I sit up and look around, pushing my long, brown hair out of my eyes. I raise my head, and I see him. Drake Walker.

My breath catches, and I cross my arms over my breasts, knowing the thin material of my shirt isn’t keeping me remotely modest. What is he doing here? At this time, no less. I go to school with Drake. We’re both sophomores at Valtoria High School. He’s six foot two, with strong shoulders, and has a knowledge of life in his eyes that boys our age simply don’t possess. We have five classes together, and he sits through them like a statue, his chocolate eyes unreadable. Tall, dark, and angry. Handsome in a hard way that makes the other girls nervous when he walks down the hallways. Not me, though. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve stared at him from behind my locker door, breath trapped in my lungs, wondering what he’s thinking of behind his brooding eyes.

“I asked, what are you doing? This isn’t a safe place to be alone at night. You should get inside.”

“Inside is no safer.” Why would I say that? My first time talking with this boy, and I tell him my deepest secret? His eyes narrow at me.“I mean, there’s not a lot of crime in this part of Portavira.” That loosens the tension in his broad shoulders. “I’m looking at the sunset. I love it. It’s so beautiful and wild.” I bit my bottom lip noticing his eyes dip to catch the action.

“It’s definitely ... interesting,” he says, noncommittally. “There are things I like more.”

“Like what?” I ask.

He shrugs but looks back down at me, wrestling with something. He lifts a hand, brushing the very tip of his fingers down my cheekbone. “You,” he rasps.

Drake’s deep brown eyes look at me with something I’m only on the cusp of understanding. Is it…lust? His fingers move down my jaw, traveling slowly over the hollow of my throat to tease one of my tank top’s straps. “I like you. I can’t seem to stop…wanting. Wanting you to look at me. Wanting you…period. It’s why I sit behind you in all your classes, O’Brien. You don’t know that?” My knees start to tremble. I’ve always wondered how we end up in the same classes every single semester. He’s arranged for it to happen? He…likes me? That much? Say something, dork. Don’t act like it’s not mutual.

As if I haven’t lain my bed after school, when no one is at home and touched myself while thinking of Drake Walker. I must be doing a terrible job of keeping that secret to myself because Drake’s breath begins to grow shallow. “O’Brien.” He drops his forehead to mine, the pads of his thumb rubbing the soft skin of my neck. “Have you ever been kissed?”

I can’t talk, so I shake my head.

“Please,” he groans. “Let me.”

My head is spinning. “Let you what?”

“Kiss you. Finally.” His hands move to cradle my head, making me feel delicate, like something special. His minty breath is close to my ear, setting off an ache low in my belly. “I need to kiss you, O’Brien. I need it.” He leans down and kisses the corner of my lips in the most torturous, exquisite way. My heart is beating wildly in my chest when he puts his soft lips on mine for the first time. My first kiss is an amazing one. He bends his head, and his mouth finds mine with soft pressure. I thought he would be rough or impatient may be clumsy, but I didn’t expect the gentle way his lips caress mine. The way he coaxes my own lips apart before I’m even aware of it. My knees buckle, but he holds me firmly against him. He kisses me as if this wasn’t our first time but our last. It’s the most erotic moment of my life, but all too son Drake leaves my lips. I only feel urgency. Want so deep that it burns inside of me. It has existed between us all along, hasn’t it? Not one-sided. A yearning pull between two people, orbiting each other in the earthly, incongruous setting of school.

Drake opens his mouth to say something, but my name is shouted in the distance. From inside the house. With glittering eyes, Drake drops his hands to his side, though it obviously pains him to do so. He gives me a chaste kiss on my cheek. One second later, the back door of my house opens, revealing my father, his imposing frame backlit by the interior.

“Alexis!” I start to tremble; I try to speak, but I can’t. ““What are you doing out here this late?” There’s a tight smile in his voice. “Did you come out here to retrieve the handyman?” I do a double-take, noticing the strain forming around the corners of Drake’s mouth.

“Handyman?”

“Yes.” My father chuckles, coming forward to clap a hand down on Drake’s tense shoulder. “He’s here to repair a leak in the attic. Liam called you by the way.” Drake can’t look at me now, his gaze cast over my shoulder. Empty. A minute ago, we were equals. But my father’s words have called into focus one very important thing. I’m rich, and he’s very poor. It just didn’t matter. To me, it still doesn’t. But the economic divide between us is deepening by the second.

“Why don’t you get to it?” My father suggests to Drake, his tone hard. “Alexis has to study. She is going places.”

I down my gaze to the ground, humiliation burning up my throat. My father is an expert at belittling people, and he’s just done it to Drake. I want to say something to make it better, to defend Drake, but I know I’ll only be making it worse. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to offer Drake an apology. At school. I’ll talk to him then.

“Yes, sir,” Drake responds stiffly, turning on his boots and stalking toward the house. Behind his back, my father reaches over and digs his thumb into my bicep until I double over, releasing a silent scream. He lets go a moment before Drake glances back over his shoulder, eyes hooded, and my expression is serene. Because I know better than to let anyone see the pain. My father has never been physically abusive, but his temper is getting worse. He hated mom and he’s taking it out on me. As soon as we’re in the house, I run up the stairs to my room and lock the door, leaning back against it. Listening to Drake’s boots walk back and forth in the attic. More than anything, I want to go up there. Feel his hands on me again. Cherishing hands, instead of hateful ones. I ache for that. For him. But an hour later, Drake leaves, and that’s when I face the consequences. My father knocks on my door. When I open it, the look on his eyes let me know it’s going to be worse than usual.

“If I ever see you talking to that boy again, so help me God, I’ll kick you out of this house.” His face is contorted with rage. “Then, I’ll ruin him, too. I’ll make his life even harder in this town. You know I can do it. I can have him cast off that filthy land and no one will ever hire him again. Is that what you want?”

“No,” I whisper.

“No,” he sneers, mocking me. “Never look at him again. Do you hear me? My daughter does not associate with penniless dirt. The only boy you’re allow to date is Liam Rys. No one else.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“See that you keep that promise. Or you’ll both pay the price.” And I pay a good deal of it that night when dad slaps me for the first time. The next day at school, I don’t look at Drake in the hallway. I don’t pause in the doorway of our classes, absorbing the sight of him waiting at the desk behind me. I simply keep my head down and try not to show the bruise on my cheek. On my body and my heart. I could never have predicted he would hate me for it.

Drake

Two years later

I walk past O’Brien in the hallway and slam my fist against the locker to her left, making her jump. Shame, frustration, and resentment have been like a poison inside me, rotting my bones every second of the last two years, ever since that night in her garden when she tricked me into thinking she felt the same. Maybe she did. Until her father reminded her that I’m nothing but a poor handyman. Yeah, she remembered pretty quickly that she’s better than me. Good enough to date a rich quarterback like Rys but definitely not a low life like me. Rich, stuck-up brat. What’s worse is that she fucking ruined me with those lips. She brought me to my knees. Made me reveal myself in ways I’ve never done with anyone. And now? Now she’s left me lonely and fuck-starved for two years. Obsessed with her, unable to let her go and hating her guts for it. Because she won’t even look at me anymore. I’m nothing but the dirt beneath her spotless sneakers. Two years ago, I decided that if she was going to make my life hell by ignoring me after what we shared, then I could return the favor. So I do. By tormenting her. That’s the only term for it. I torture her, and I hate that—I fucking hate it—but so be it. My jaw is close to shattering as I watch O’Brien calmly collect the books from her locker and hurry toward our next class. On top of being a bully, I’m also a masochist because I still trick the school into having the same five classes every year. My aunt Leona works in the front office, and she feels bad for me because of my dad dying and my mom abandoning me when I was still in middle school, leaving me in the trailer alone. Not bad enough to invite me to live with her family, but bad enough that she slips me O’Brien’s schedule every semester so I can match it to mine. Before I follow her, I stop at her locker, sliding something in it, and continue on my way. When I walk into class behind her a moment later, I slow to a stop in the doorway at the sight of Rys kneeling to speak with O’Brien where she sits at her desk—cajoling a smile out of her. She refused to date him two years ago, but fucking Liam didn’t get the memo. No one has as much money as his father in this town. If Rys is asking her out again, she’d probably say yes. If I let it get that far, which I won’t. I never do. She’s mine. Only mine.

#drake walker #drake walker x mc #drake x lexie #tw abuse #tw parental trauma

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angeli-marco-writes · 3 years

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Elizabeth Debicki - Gorgeous

A/N & WC - Back again with Elizabeth and Taylor Swift. Reputation is my favourite album currently, with evermore as a close second. Two incredible women in one yes please. Listen to 'Gorgeous' while reading for the feel of it. 2.8k exactly.

Warnings - Legal alcohol consumption, mild cursing once.

Summary - Elizabeth is gorgeous, just look at her, the world can see it. A drunken night leads to some tipsy confessions, but does Elizabeth feel the same?

“YOU'RE SO GORGEOUS…”

“What was that?” Elizabeth swiftly cuts in.

Your eyes grow wide in an instant, looking down intensely at the black table, sticky with spilt drinks, and turn your attention away.

“Nothing…” you trail off. Frankly, you hadn’t realised you were thinking aloud, but if you said what you were thinking, then tonight's girls night out with your best friend is gonna be a whole lot harder.

“So as I was saying, this guy from Bumble, he comes and he looks nothing like his profile picture, right?” Her eyes are so animated when she speaks, her jaw agog in a remembering shock, she taps at her glass with ebony painted fingernails. “Like his picture was a solid eight outta ten, but in person, not even a four. But there was something about him, you know? That little twinkle in his eye, so I gave him more of a fair shot than I do other catfishes.” You hum noncommittally, not necessarily listening to the words, but the soft undulating animation in her beautiful accent is worth listening to any day, even if just hearing about her going on a date with someone riles you up intensely. “No personality,” she gapes, smacking her lissom hands down on the table with a slight thump, causing some of her wine to spill. “Absolutely none! It was like talking to a brick wall for half an hour. Can you believe it? And he asked what part of Australia I was from, and when I said Melbourne, you know what he said? ‘Is that in New Zealand.’”

She scoffs, and downs the last of her wine. Her magnetic field is so strong, so alluring, you can’t help but feel drawn to her even more. She really should think about the consequences of her charisma or else you might snog her and ruin everything before the nights even over.

“What a dick,” you play along.

“Ugh, I know. Refill?”

“Please. Whiskey—”

“On ice. I know, hon.”

She smirks, shooting you a wink before standing up and practically gliding across the room to the bar. Your eyes twinkle with hope, with sinful want, as you watch her, and you’re sure that with your wistful expression and flushed cheeks and the way your mouth suddenly goes dry the second she says or does anything that could be construed in the least bit flirtatious that she knows how much you like her. Your whole body tingles, your words and sense swallowed up by an intense fire the second she touches you, it’s beginning to make you furious that she’s able to make you feel this way and still acts so coy about it if she even does have the first clue how utterly besotted you are with everything she does.

Over at the bar, Liz has to hunch to lean her forearms on the countertop, kicking her feet back a little, her short dress showing off her long, shapely legs with grace. She looks so sultry, with her leather jacket shrugged so casually over her pale shoulders. But your mind and illicit thoughts plummet and die the second you peer around her and capture a look at the bartender she’s talking to. Tall and that muscular build of slim that only comes from years of sport, a pinched waist and full chest, tanned skin—perhaps of Filipina descent, dark inky hair falling in tendrils from her work ponytail, no makeup and she still looks stunning. And exactly like Shay Mitchell. And she's flirting with your Elizabeth. Not that she’s yours or anything, that would be absurd, unless…

This woman is gorgeous, and you’re already jealous of her, of the attention she’s receiving from Elizabeth; the suggestive touches, the coy laughs, the revealing tug of her dress, the tentative tilt of her head, the run of her slender hand through her choppy blonde locks. But because Liz is single, it’s actually worse, because she’s been a lot more open and experimental with her sexuality recently, not labelling it but trying more out, trying more partners out. And you don’t fault her for that for even a moment, but why she can’t experiment with you, a raging queer, is beyond your grasp. It’s almost undoubted that she’s going to be taking this incredibly scorching hot bartender home at the end of the night, and if you weren’t out with Elizabeth, you’d be making the same move. But Liz… she desperately needs to think of the consequences of her touching this romans hand in a darkened room. That should be you.

You can’t get too possessive, though, as Liz has done her fair amount of touching you all night on this signature girls pub crawl, but it’s not the same, it’s not… enough. She’s been holding your hand, hooking her arm through yours to do shots, hugging you with her lithe arm around your waist as you totter down the high street in heels too high. It’s all been too friendly, though. And now it’s getting late, your final destination of the night. You’re practically the only patrons with a conscience at this point. You’ll be turning in soon, the bar will be closing soon, it’s inevitable. Liz will have a warm bed, and you’ll be left to go home alone to your cats. She’s so gorgeous, you can't blame the bartender, but she can’t blame you wither; love made you crazy.

You’re busy brooding over the ice slowly melting at the bottom of your glass, condensation forming in droplets on the rim when Liz casts a glance over her shoulder, a bright beaming smile etched upon her face, every line drawn up to match her glee. She points a long raven-painted digit at you, and prompts you to smile back, which you do—without even half as much fervour—and ensure you incline your head towards the bartender, whose dark hazel eyes are now fixed on you, before turning back, pretending to have found something of interest on the table.

“That’s y/n,” she says in a happy, furtive whisper, “my best friend.”

With her ocean blue eyes looking in yours, your mind is all scrambled, and with the intense feeling you might sink and drown and die, you know you need to get it in order before she returns, so you push your own stool out and head to stand in the doorway, fresh air hitting you like a brick wall.

The smell of the city instantly prevents it being worthwhile.

The sun set long ago, and you can see vines crawling up the building across the road from you, even in the dim street light and shadows. Even in a tucked away corner of the city, down back streets in a quiet quarter, the incessant incense of exhaust fumes and chippy food and pigeon shit never quite leaves one alone.

Everything’s winding down, quietening, muffled by an indelible blanket of night. A soft mist fills the air, an impending storm infiltrating your senses, roiling you a little. The walk home will be made worse by the rain soon to fall, ire digging at you for more reasons than one.

Elizabeth… She can make you so happy with one simple look that it turns back to sadness the moment you see the flicker of friendliness in her eyes, never anything more, never anything deeper, not once. What can you say? She’s gorgeous, she’s everyone else's for the taking, whoever she deems rakish enough to take home for the night.

The silence of the night, of your thoughts, is hewn by a sharp siren whizzing past you, so you push your pain away, and sidle back through the doors, shutting the slow drizzle of rain out as you close the door behind you.

Once you return inside, your thoughts slightly more reordered, you see her back at the table, fiddling idly with the hem of her dress, her cheeks tinted a soft red.

“So?”

“I got her number,” she confesses, barely able to bite back a smile, even as her perfect white teeth graze her lower lip. “She gets off shift in an hour.”

You were right, then.

“That’s nice. She’s hot.”

“I know,” she replies dreamily, “and looks exactly like Shay Mitchell, can you believe it? I fancied her so much when Pretty Little Liars first came out.”

“Yeah, I did too.” you admit quietly, clasping your hands around your fresh whiskey.

“You okay? It’s getting late, we can head off now.”

“Nope, absolutely fine. In fact, I think I’ll have another. Tell me something.”

“But we haven’t talked about you all night, I wanna know how your life is going. Love life too.” she protests.

What, your life with the monotonous job and the zero romantic prospects so you spend all your free time sitting at home reading and the nights with your vibrator and Liz in your head? How the hell are you supposed to tell her that.

You simply shrug, and keep a mask of cold, hard resolve in place. “You know my life. I’m interested in yours. Go on.”

So she does. And you do order another whiskey after your first, to the point where you’re verging on the highest restraints of merely tipsy and if you have another you’re heading fast for straight out drunk, which you shan’t do. But you’re merry, and Liz’s words all sound weird, slurred a little from the alcohol, her Australian accent bending to accommodate the vowel sounds she’s making with the occasional slip of a Polish or French word in there. She gets like this when she’s drinking, and it’s one of her most endearing qualities very few are able to see.

“Your voice sounds really weird,” you chuckle, leaning back in your chair, “you’re talkin’ all funny.”

“No I’m not!”

“You are.”

“Am so not!” She’s persistent, she never did back down easy.

You half heartedly shrug, knocking your glasses into one another on the table. You tug your jacket further around you, and purse your lips readying for battle.

“You know, you really should take it as a compliment that I’ve got drunk and I’m making fun of the way you talk.”

She allows her precisely plucked brows to dance over her face in surprise, though quickly schools her features into a plain mask.

“Alright, what’s up?”

“Nothing, Liz. I’m fine.” you say adamantly, and take another swig from your drink, savouring the tang on your tongue. Your glass makes another thud when you slam it down with unplanned and unnecessary force.

“You see, your mouth says that, but your… mouth is telling me something else?”

Before you can help it, your fingers are clutching the edge of the table, your cheeks heating softly, “I haven’t kissed you yet, how can that be?”

A chill slithers down your skin as her eyes grow wide, her pale skin blanching a shade further. “I didn’t mean, um, what? I—” she breaks off with a cough. “I ju— just meant that, um, you’re… sulking.”

“Oh.”

You can’t ignore the way your stomach plummets into the core of the earth, embarrassment taking over every other rational thought within your mind and body. Your soul is already brittle, but this? Your pride has certainly taken a knock enough for you to down the rest of your whiskey in one gulp.

“I’m gonna take off,” you say at last, across the curious blanket of silence, ignoring the way her angular face—limned with hope—falls a fraction.

“Please stay.”

You don’t think you hear her correctly, if at all. For all you know, her words could just be a whisper in the blustering breeze beating outside, the storm you predicted arriving early. In the dim bar, you’re away from it all, sage, until the bartender gets off shift and snatches Liz away for yet another night.

“Beg pardon?”

“Please stay,” she repeats, louder this time, but her blue eyes don’t meet yours across the table. “Tell me what’s up.”

She’s not backing down, so you brace yourself, allowing brazenness to fill you with courage, allowing your alcohol to eddie around you, summoning the words at long last.

“Nothing…” you say at first, because really, it is nothing, but she cocks her head at you that authoritative way. God, she should be a teacher with her assertive glances. “Just that you‘re so gorgeous I can’t say anything to your face…” you snatch her cup across the table, and take a deep swallow before shrugging and casting your gaze outside to spare yourself the mortification of being rejected. “Sober at least.”

You’re met with a beat of silence, “Why?”

“Look at your face!” you shout, utterly exasperated. You’ve got a good mind to pull a compact mirror to remind her how drop-dead stunning she is. “I’m so furious at you for making me feel this way.”

“Why, baby? What way?” she croons.

Too caught up in your momentary lapse of judgement and rant, you fail to notice her edging closer to you, moving your glasses out the way, letting her forearms rest on the sticky table just so she can watch the way you lick your lips with nerves.

“Crazy, because you’re so gorgeous it actually hurts.”

“R—really?” she stammers.

You turn back to her, all thoughts evaporating with her ocean blue eyes looking in yours, driving you insane. Her pretty lips are all parted and awaiting, how much you want to kiss her… So instead, you pout, and begin to throw a strop in your tipsy state.

“Tell me more.”

“No.”

“C’mon,” she teases, a smirk toying at her mouth, giving her cheeks subtle dimples. “Don’t leave me hanging. “Tell me what you really think. How I make you feel. I wanna hear,” her voice drops to a purr, leaning over the table to husk in your ear, “every little thing.”

“Ok then,” you concede. “You're so cool, it makes me hate you so much.”

“I don’t see how,” she snorts, “but continue.”

Her attention never once fails you or turns away, enamoured with your every mere breath.

“You’re gorgeous. Your magnetic field is too strong for me to cope. Your energy draws me in. You’re all I want.”

“More.” she coaxes, a single word, but a whisper, and yet it stokes the embers of desire in the pit of your stomach, your forehead creasing to attempt to draw some concentration back from the depths of your mind where your fantasies about her saying that exact word in that exact breathy way linger.

Perhaps your adulation is excessive, but you don't miss the sparkle in her eyes at each compliment you dole. This is your final card, though, and you’re going to play it right, so you forget about the consequences of touching her hand in a darkness room, and simply intertwine your fingers, drawing your noses to meet over the table.

“You've ruined my life, by not being mine,” you profess, ensuring that your hot breath fans over her lips. You can feel her shudder. “And you know there’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have.”

“I’m all yours if you’ll have me.”

And just like that, the world stops turning around you. Your heart lilts, your mind prattles on about all you want to say, all you want to do. But then it stops. And all of a sudden, you’re intrepid, desperate to ravish her and ruin her for all other women, eager to kiss her voraciously until you can scarcely breathe, yearning to feel her words of reassurance wrap around you, if only she agrees to your proposal over that of the hot bartender.

“Well, I’ve told you what's up, so I guess I'll just stumble on home to my cats. Alone... unless you wanna come along.”

You push away from the table and stand with a slight shrug, turning your back on her, making strides for the door and the storm bristling outside. Only, you barely make it to the door before Liz’s slender hand is wrapped around your arm, and is turning you back to her, tugging you closer, chest to chest, nose to nose.

“Fuck yes, księżniczka. After that, of course I’m coming.”

Your lips meet in a fiery kiss, a desperate battle of will, and her tongue slides over the seam of your lips. You grant her entry with an open mouth, heat skittering over your skin as she holds you tighter, closer, with a deeper urgency you don’t hesitate to match.

Her crystal eyes simmer as she withdraws, her forehead on yours. Her lips brush yours as she breathes, and she grabs your hand, heading out into the night with Liz, at long last.

“For the record, you’re gorgeous and perfect and drive me crazy too. Everything you said tonight, I echo. What can I say?”

You’re gorgeous.

#elizabeth debicki #elizabeth debicki x reader #elizabeth debicki imagine #jed roper #jed night manager #elizabeth debicki tom hiddleston #liz debicki #elizabeth debicki fic #elizabeth debicki smut #elizabeth debicki fluff #elizabeth debicki angst #wlw fluff #Spotify

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twinkleallnight · 4 years

Text

Without a trace.

This was an ask by @anjanettexcordonia. She gave me this mysterious title to write a fic upon.

Book: The Royal Romance AU

Word count: 1820.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to pixelberry.

Rating: Teen/ PG

Warning : None.

It’s the annual Beaumont Bash. I see so many guests circling in the hall. And then I see her. My heart skips a beat when our eyes connect.

She is walking in, her hand curled around her brother’s arm. She has pulled back her lustrous brown hair in a bun today but those side bangs touching her temples are alluring me. I want to push them back with my palm and gently place a kiss there.

When her eyes meet mine, I feel a surge of heat building up my body and I try hard to hide the blush I feel on my cheeks. She beams at the effect she has on me.

I love drowning myself into those dark grey eyes. They feel like a shadow of my light grey eyes. I enjoy watching my reflection dancing in her greys.

I want to cup my hands around those dusky cheeks. I adore the way they rise up with her smile. I wish I can move my thumb over her lips that she has done up in wine shade. I am going to tell her how much I love that colour on those lips and then I want to taste them as if I am drinking my favourite wine.

I will let my fingers linger for a moment on her slender neck, long enough till I feel her shiver under my touch. I will let my hands roam over her shoulders and travel down her bare arms feeling the goose bumps my touch causes.

I will hold her at her waist and pull her into me, till there is no scope for even the air to be between us. I will embrace her and let my worries wash away in all the love she showers on me.

I promise myself, I will tell her how much she means to me. Yes I promise, I will tell her how much I love her. Today. It doesn’t need to wait anymore.

“Bertrand” I hear someone calling me, shaking my shoulder. I come out of my reverie to meet Leo’s gaze.

He is my friend, may be the only friend I have.

“Yes?” he is giving me a questioning look. “ Sorry I got carried away in some thoughts.”

“ Always told you, you think too much. Take actions instead of just playing things in your heavy brains.” Leo smiles. “Come we need to talk.”

He pulls me out of the main hall. Before leaving I glance back at her. She is glowing today more than ever. I pacify my mind with the plan to sneak out with her later.

I shake my head to get rid of her thoughts and walk to the study. Leo closes the doors behind us. He takes a chair and sprawls on it carelessly. I never liked this but who can question the crown prince.

“I am abdicating.” He blurts out.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, I have decided. It’s too much to handle. I am not cut out for it.”

Leo kept on saying things like that earlier too but he seems to be speaking with conviction today. “But what about Cordonia? What about Madeleine?”

“That is for the king to decide. Besides, he has Liam- the perfectionist” he air quotes. “Madeleine and I, we sorted it out.”

“What do you mean you sorted out? You are engaged to her.” I am irritated with his irrational behaviour.

“She also blabbers something like you about obligations and responsibilities. She seems to be least interested in our relationship. She chose Cordonia over me. So, she stays back.”

“Did you speak to your father?”

“Yes, I had a discussion with Liam and then I told the king.”

“Your father, you mean...” I try correcting him.

“The. King.” Leo scowls. “He is all professional and so am I. I will call him father when and if he ever treats me like a son.”

“You are making a hasty decision. You can take a holiday, rejuvenate yourself and then come back for your duties.” I try to reason with him.

“To hell with the duties Bert. I cannot ruin my life. I get to live only once. I don’t want to live under the constant pressure.”

“There are people dependent on you. You can’t just abandon them.”

“No one is indispensable Bert.”

“Hmm” I respond thinking about where this is going and the repercussions.

There is a knock on the door. I turn and open the door to just a slit to see who is it. “Maxwell?” I question him for his purpose of intervention.

“The king and queen will be here any moment.” Max bounces up and down in excitement. I wonder when will he stabilise and understand the importance of a decent behaviour.

“I am right behind you. Give me a minute.”

I close the door again to address Leo. “Can we talk about this after some time? I am required to be out there right now.” Leo nods and we both walk out to reach the entrance just in time.

King Constantine struts in as I bow down in curtsy. “Your majesty, it’s my honour to welcome you to the Beaumont’s humble abode.”

The king surveys the hall and the enjoying crowd. He gives me a pleased smile. “You have always impressed me with your passion and sincerity towards your work.” He gives a glance behind my shoulder where Leo stands and then he continues with a sneer. “Unlike few thankless people who shun their responsibilities at the first given opportunity.”

I maintain the smile on my face while I try to ignore the snarky comments that he utters against his son. Finally, he gives me a nod and I usher him in.

The evening continues, keeping me on my toes. I greet and meet all the guests one after another. I keep glancing at her in between the conversations. I suddenly have so many doubts creating a wall of thoughts around me.

I lost my mother when I was young. Father has been in coma since past few years. I had to shoulder all the responsibilities of the duchy alone as my younger brother refuses to grow up to act like an adult. Leo, the only friend I have, is leaving. Who else do I have in my glum life? May be her? Can I walk that line? I love her. Maybe I love her. But am I doing the right thing? Do I want to burden her with all that I have? I wish I could leave everything like Leo and runaway with her to a far distant place from here.

I scan the room again and find her standing there, looking up at her brother with a grin. He pats her cheek playfully. She side-hugs him resting her head on his shoulder. He is gazing affectionately at his only family, his little sister.

No, this is a mistake. She deserves better. I can’t be selfish pulling her into my grinding life. She needs a better chance. She needs someone who can give the world to her.

After the official dinner and formalities, it’s time to bid farewell to the king. I glance at her one last time before turning to the king. He says with enthusiasm, “I have enjoyed a delicious meal in an exquisite ambience. Your house always puts the best foot forward Duke Ramsford.”

“It’s kind of you to say that Sir.”

“We will take your leave now. Keep up the good work. You need more finances? The crown is there to help you to restore the previous years glory to your house. Just try staying away from distractions.” He clasps my shoulder while giving a side glance to her. I lower my eyes to the floor. “ Your father will be so proud of you.”

The royal couple gone, the after party starts in full swing. Maxwell is better at handling this wild part. I excuse myself and settle down in the study, brooding over the events. My promises melting away, I make new resolutions. A knock on the door brings me to ground.

“Come in.” I straighten up.

The door opens to reveal her full form. I start feeling the rush through my veins. This is it.

Her face brightens up. She rushes in towards me with eager steps and hugs me. “I have been waiting for a moment alone with you. I wanted to tell you something.”

I know my face bears a serious look that must have stopped her. She suddenly takes a step back. “What’s the matter? You have been distant all evening.”

“We… we… I am afraid we cannot continue.”

She gives me a puzzled look. “Cannot continue? What do you mean?”

“I have more pressing issues at hand and I cannot waste time in some flirtatious affair right now.”

“Was is it just a passing affair for you all this time?” she says in a hurtful voice.

“ You can have a better life outside these walls. I think I have made myself clear enough. You may leave unless you have anything else to discuss.”

“I never expected this from you Bertrand.” She says retrieving away.

Her eyes sadly look at the walls and the furniture around as if absorbing the warmth of the room for one last time. We have shared precious moments here. My heart feels her pain and I want to hold her tight, one last time. But I keep standing stiffly, till she walks out and shuts the door.

“ Your father will be so proud of you.” The kings voice echoes in my ears.

I plop down into my chair with a thud. I feel the energy in my body draining out. I hold my head in my hands. This was the only way, I try to console myself.

*************

Leo leaves for a stupid cruise after few days. The king is hoping that he will come back and the plan of his abdication has been put under the rugs for now. I return to the manor after saying my good byes to him.

I see Maxwell rushing out somewhere.

“Where are you going?” I ask him.

“Uh...” he fumbles giving me an inkling that he is again trying to hide something crazy he has done.

“What have you done now?” I raise my voice.

“Nothing. I didn’t do anything. It’s Drake.” He still tries to cover up.

“What did he do?”

“Actually it’s not about him. It’s Savannah.”

“What about her?” I start getting anxious.

“She went missing two days ago with only a handwritten note for Drake, saying not to search for her. She is leaving for a better life. We have been searching everywhere but no luck.” Max fills in quickly. “Can I leave now?”

“Uh… yes… yes. Go help him.” I wave my hand.

Better life. I said that to her. But I never thought she will leave everyone. What have I done?

Tags: @ao719 @annekebbphotography @anjanettexcordonia @bebepac @charlotteg234 @choicesficwriterscreations @choiceskatie @cordonia-gothqueen @cordonianroyalty @drakewalker04 @eadanga @gkittylove99 @glaimtruelovealways @kat-tia801 @hopefulmoonobject @hopelessromanticmonie @iam-the-kind-and-thoughtful @idontknowwhysblog @jessiembruno @jovialyouthmusic @jaxsmutsuo @kingliam2019 @khoicesbyk @lifeaskim @lisha1valecha @lovablegranny @mrswalkers-blog @mom2000aggie @no-one-u-know @ntoraplayschoices @princessleac1 @ritachacha @secretaryunpaid @sirbeepsalot @speedyoperarascalparty @shanzay44 @texaskitten30 @queenrileyrose @sanchita012 @sfb123 @theroyalheirshadowhunter @aestheticartsx @yourmajesty09

#pixelberry #playchoices #the royal romance #trr #trr fandom #twinkleallnight #bertrand beaumont #savannah walker

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lets-just-daydream · 4 years

Note

HI, love! NIce to know you are still around UwU Can i ask for "Are you hitting on me?” with Hanzo, please?

tyvm for requesting. Here's me after 57 years

Hanzo Shimada was anything but smooth. You had come to know him after he joined Overwatch. He totally wasn't forced by Genji to join. At first he was awkward and he scared you a little, being a brooding, private and silent person.

You were placed on a recon mission with him once during which he opened up to you and after that you got to know more about him. He didn't go into the deep, dark details about himself, but you knew enough to gather that he was a good person.

You had come to be one of his only friends and he genuinely enjoyed your company. He'd walk with you wherever you needed to go and it was effortless. Until one day where he was acting a little strange.

"Hanzo, how are you doing today?" you asked as you walked together to the training room.

"Fine," Hanzo replied shortly.

"What's on your agenda for today?" you prodded, wanting more out of him.

"Work and training," came another short response.

You stopped in your tracks and turned to face him.

"What's going on?" you asked, concerned that he wouldn't make eye contact with you.

"Nothing. I have to go," Hanzo said, turning and walking away without another word.

"What in the world..." you mumbled to yourself as you continued to the training room alone.

"I've just come to realise my feelings. What if the answer is no?" Hanzo asks once again, pacing around Genji's room. His dragons manifested and circled around the room, as unsettled as their master.

"Then that's the worst thing that happens," Genji said, trying to calm his brother down.

"But I don't want to lose the friendship we have," Hanzo lamented. "Then I'll have nothing."

"I think even if the answer is no, you will still be friends," Genji said, "just... try and subtly flirt and see where it gets you."

"But-"

"No more 'buts' Hanzo," Genji said, grabbing Hanzo by the shoulders and forcing him to look at him. "It hurts me to see you pine after someone like this and not make a move. I don't want you to spend forever wondering 'what if.'"

Hanzo stood for a moment, resolving to take his brother's advice.

"Alright," Hanzo said with a sigh. "I'll do it."

"That's the spirit!" Genji said, pleased. "Perhaps the next time I see you, you won't be a single man anymore."

The next morning, you left your room to head to a meeting and were surprised to see Hanzo waiting outside your door.

"Hanzo!" you exclaimed, "are you alright? What happened yesterday?"

"I apologise for leaving so suddenly, I wasn't feeling well," Hanzo explained.

"Are you feeling better at least?" you asked, concerned, rubbing his arm. You didn't notice the redness that swept across Hanzo's face at the welcome contact.

"Yes, thank you. Shall we head to the meeting?"

The two of you began the walk to the meeting room and an usually awkward silence permeated the air between you.

"It's a lovely morning," Hanzo said, looking out of a window. "Almostaslovelyasyou."

"Sorry?" you asked, "I didn't catch that."

"Nothing," Hanzo said with an awkward cough.

You frowned, displeased and worried about Hanzo's attitude towards you.

"Did I do something to upset you?" you asked suddenly.

"What?" Hanzo asked surprised, "no, not at all. Why would ask?"

"Because you're being weird and it's freaking me out," you explained.

"I'm sorry," Hanzo sighed, realising he wasn't being fair to you. "I'm not very good at expressing myself so I am just going to come out and say it."

You stood for a moment, worried about what Hanzo was going to say.

"Would you... like to join me for dinner on Friday?" Hanzo asked, deciding that would be easier than outright telling you his feelings.

His face was red, his breathing was laboured and his body was tense.

"Wait," you said, eyeing Hanzo suspiciously. "Are you hitting on me? Is that what this whole thing was?"

Hanzo said nothing, only nodding. When you didn't respond straight away, Hanzo muttered an apology and turned to walk away to hide himself in embarrassment. Before he could get very far, you gently grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"If you don't-"

"Hanzo," you interrupted, sliding your hand down from his arm to meet his hand. "I'd love to go out with you. I'm just surprised it took you so long to ask me. I feel the same way."

Hanzo breathed a sigh of relief as his intertwined your fingers in his. You looked at your hands and then back at Hanzo, glad to see he had calmed down. You stepped forward to give him a hug when you were interrupted.

"I'm pretty sure we have a meeting to get to, you lovebirds," Genji said, walking past casually.

You and Hanzo let go of each other, holding hands instead and laughed as you walked together, planning out your date.

#overwatch imagines #overwatch x reader #reader insert #hanzo x reader #hanzo shimada x reader #red writes

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pop-punklouis · 4 years

Note

what are you top like 5-10 larry fics?

oh god uhhh imma do all my fave not just 5-10 soz. lemme see. most of them are older as i’ve had a bad habit of not reading fic recently. also i’m only gonna link and provide a bio of those i don’t talk about often.

• Here in the Afterglow (obviously)

• Finding Lou (One Shot)

• Coax the Cold

• Wild and Unruly

• This Wicked Game

• Through Eerie Chaos

• Escapade

• Love is a Rebellious Bird

• Tired, Tired Sea

• Wings to Break Your Fall (102K)

strip club AU. Harry’s work and family are keeping him busy. He really isn’t looking for a relationship, doesn’t want one. He just wants Louis. Problem is, Louis has other plans.

• California Sold (123k)

Notoriously closeted boyband member Harry Styles is famous on a global scale, meanwhile Louis, as his best friend, is back home in Manchester, living the typical life of a 24 year old. When Harry needs Louis with him in LA, a publicity stunt gone wrong changes their friendship forever.

A fake-relationship AU between two lifelong best friends.

• Rapture in the Dark (13k)

Harry Styles is a breakout musician who has shed his boyband label in favor of embracing his inner brooding rockstar. His PR team think that his rebrand is the perfect time for Harry to come out of the closet and have devised the perfect plan for doing so. Enter Louis Tomlinson, up and coming (and very openly homosexual) model whose public image as America's Sweetheart is the perfect foil for Harry's new edge. From a PR standpoint, it's a dream come true - a power couple that can slowly coax the public into accepting Harry's altered image. The only problem? They hate each other.

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bubonickitten · 4 years

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Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Chapter 13 full text & content warnings below the cut.

CWs for Chapter 13: all the usual Buried-related warnings apply (claustrophobia, inability to breathe, etc.); panic/anxiety symptoms; just a smidgen of internalized aphobia; brief mention of past passive suicidal ideation; internalized victim blaming; canon-typical trauma (including discussion of victims targeted by the Fears as children).SPOILERS through S5.

Chapter 13: Center

The darkness and overwhelming pressure of the Buried make it nigh impossible to orient oneself. The only conceivable directions are forward, down, into, deeper. Jon’s only choice, when he has one at all, is to keep moving – and so he does, digging and clawing his way through the muck, making a transient pathway for himself as best he can.

“Daisy?” It comes out as a rasp. He tries to swallow, but succeeds only in upsetting his already-sore throat. It feels as though the dirt and debris have taken up permanent residence there, clogging his airway just enough to leave him chronically short of breath without cutting off his oxygen supply entirely. “Daisy, can you reach me?”

“Jon,” comes the weak reply, “I’m – I don’t know where – I c-can’t – can’t see –”

“I hear you,” Jon says. “I’m here, I’m coming to you. Just – keep talking, and –”

As he talks, he inhales a cloud of dust, dissolving into wracking coughs.

“Jon? Jon, are you still there?” For a long moment, Jon cannot speak. Daisy’s next words are steeped in panic. “Where are you? I can’t… p-please be there, please –”

“I’m still here,” Jon forces out hoarsely, stretching his arm forward as far as it will go. “I’m not going anywhere. Follow my voice, I – I think I’m almost –”

Chill fingertips brush against his, and he throws his weight forward as much as possible. He hooks her fingers in his and pulls, and with a burst of energy he manages to clasp her clammy hand in his.

“There you are,” he says, smiling weakly.

“You’re real,” Daisy says in disbelief, crushing his hand in a bruising grip. “You’re real.”

“I am.” He intertwines their fingers, as grateful as she is for a hand to hold. “I’m here, Daisy.”

“Daisy,” she says dreamily. “Yeah. Daisy. That’s me.” A pause. “Just – just me.”

Jon closes his eyes with a relieved sigh. There are no signs that the Hunt still has its claws in her. He had no reason to think that reaching her a couple weeks earlier than before would change anything, but there was still that nagging doubt.

“J-just me,” she says again, but this time there’s a waver in her voice. “Just – alone –”

“No,” Jon says hurriedly, squeezing her hand several times in quick succession, “not – not alone. Not anymore.”

“Yeah.” She grasps his hand even more tightly, as if to reassure herself.

“I’m here.”

“Yeah,” she says again, and this time it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

“How – how are you?” Jon cringes. It’s as stupid a question now as it was the last time. Moreso, seeing as he’s already heard the answer. “S-sorry. That’s – probably obvious.”

Daisy answers anyway, likely glad of the chance to talk to someone else after so long in isolation.

“I – I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t…” She trails off, hesitating. “But it’s… it’s quiet here? I can’t…”

She seems to be struggling to find the words.

“You can’t feel the blood,” he supplies.

“Y-yeah. How did you…”

“I can’t feel the Eye, either. It’s… it’s just me. All me.”

“Where are we?”

“In the Coffin. The Buried. It’s… the powers don’t have much sway within one another’s domains. The Hunt, the Eye – they can’t reach us here.”

“The Hunt,” she echoes.

“Yes. You’re a Hunter.”

“I… I guess I was. But – not here.”

No, not here. But once they leave here…

Stop, he tells himself. One thing at a time. Escape the Buried, then worry about the Hunt.

“Come on.” He tugs on her hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“Can’t – can’t move, and – and even if I could, there’s no way out –”

“No, I – I can get us out. I have a plan.”

“Is this like all your other plans?”

Jon chuckles, but it comes out as a wheeze.

“Yes and no. But – but don’t worry, it’s – I can do this. I just – need to – to find it.”

But when he closes his eyes and concentrates, there’s… nothing there.

“Come on,” he says under his breath, keeping his voice deliberately calm. “Come on, where are you?”

There’s nothing there. Why is there nothing there?

“Just need to… need to focus. Just – focus, think of…”

Think of Martin. Martin is your anchor. Clever, brave, loyal, compassionate Martin.

He was kind to you even when you didn’t deserve it; he cared for you even though you did everything you could to push him away. He reached out to you through the Lonely when you were at your most monstrous to remind you of the humanity you’d thought you lost. He made you want to do better, to be the person that he saw when he looked at you.

You followed him into the Lonely because you love him and because he deserved to know it. You need to return to him now, because this version of him doesn’t yet know that he is loved. If you don’t get back to him, if you don’t reach out to him – he’ll get lost, and he –

Jon’s breath hitches. The fear is starting to move in as inexorably as the earth surrounding them, settling cold and heavy in his gut.

Stop that, he tells himself. Just think about Martin, not the worst case scenario.

Everyone underestimates him, because he spent his entire life striving for the perfect balance between useful and unobtrusive. But he’s not helpless; he’s not a pushover. He took master manipulator Jonah Magnus by surprise; he fooled Peter Lukas for months. Sometimes, you think that Martin Blackwood could outmaneuver the Web if he cared to. If anyone could, it would be him. You don’t think you’ll ever fully forgive yourself for taking so long to notice.

No, Jon tells himself once more, recognizing the warning signs of a guilt spiral. That won’t help. Redirect.

In those early days after the ritual, you briefly defaulted to your old habits, withdrawing and shutting him out. He stood up to your brooding, gave your self-loathing no refuge in which to thrive, because he saw right through your sharp tongue to the vulnerable parts of you that it was meant to hide.

He is intuitive, stubborn, and patient in the best of ways.

You have a tendency to stare. You always have; you typically don’t notice you’re doing it. After you became the Archivist, it went from being an awkward habit to evidence of your inhumanity: all eyes, always watching, always demanding more, more, more until every secret is exposed and any semblance of privacy has been demolished.

But it was never just the Eye urging you to record things. You know from experience that nothing lasts forever, that anyone and anything can disappear without a moment’s notice – sometimes leaving no trace, no memory that they ever existed. It only makes sense that you would develop a compulsion to document everything for posterity. The tape recorders were only the most recent manifestation of that preexisting obsession. Before that, you made lists, you took pictures, you wrote on your hands – and, of course, you stared.

During your first few days together at the safehouse, Martin called attention to the staring. You were mortified, launched into a rambling apology – but he shut it down, reassured you that he was only teasing, that he didn’t mind it, that it was… endearing, in a way. And once you were given permission, you began to consciously catalog every little detail.

He has thirty-six freckles on his face, seventeen on his hands, and constellations of them besides: on his back, on his shoulders, on his arms, on his belly. He blushes easily, and you love it, because you’ve never been good at reading body language, and you can always use a hint. His hair is soft, and the way he leans into it when you run your fingers through it – you think he would purr if he could. You were hesitant, at first, to spend too long looking at his eyes – but unlike most people, he showed no signs that he found eye contact with you unsettling.

You gave him permission to stare, too. And he did. He never shied away from your scars. He liked looking at you – and you knew he was genuine when he said so, even though you didn’t understand it.

Martin is self-conscious about his size, painfully aware of how others see him. He rarely stands to his full height, tending to curl his shoulders in, maintain a curve to his spine, keep his arms pulled tight to his body: anything to avoid towering over others, anything to take up as little space as possible. He saw his stretch marks as flaws to be tolerated; spent most of his life assuming that his weight and soft edges made him unattractive.

There are so many things he hates about himself. It broke your heart a little, to see how difficult it was for him to believe that you like looking at him, that your boundaries regarding physical intimacy weren’t a comment on his desirability. (Though he never voiced that last concern, never wanted his own insecurities to make you feel self-conscious about that part of you. Never made you feel guilty or lacking or… or broken.)

You regularly stole his jumpers; the first time you did it, he went speechless and flustered at the casual domesticity of it all. You took turns ambushing one another with affirmations and small acts of affection like that. It became something of a challenge, a game: springing a pet name on one another here, placing a soft kiss on a hand there, delighting in the reactions it got. It’s strange how easily you settled into that routine, how natural it felt to let down your guard.

At night, he would curl around you like he belonged there, like there was no place he’d rather be – and it made you feel like you belong, too. The first time he held you in his arms, you realized that you’d never truly known what it was to feel safe until that moment – and isn’t that its own special kind of vulnerability, isn’t it such a cliché? You still had nightmares, still jolted awake several times throughout the night frantic and disoriented – as did he – but it felt so much more endurable with someone to coax you back to reality.

When you first led him out of the Lonely, it was still clinging to him. He couldn’t understand what you saw in him, any more than you could understand what he saw in you. You made it your mission to make him understand. And eventually, he did. It wasn’t the first time you told him you loved him, but one morning when you said it, he looked at you and his lips parted ever so slightly, and you could practically see the epiphany dawn in his eyes, and he whispered that he believed you.

You still haven’t found a word that accurately describes what you felt then. You kissed him, and hoped that it would say what words could not.

You never gave up on each other, even when you’d given up on your own selves. He never stopped caring for you, even when you were at your most fearsome and fearful. Despite everything, you communicated, you compromised, you comforted one another. You never stopped loving one another.

You lost him once before. You cannot lose him again. You need to find him. Why – why can’t you find him? Why can’t you feel him?

Jon feels his breath quickening, terror needling at the edges of his mind. He jumps slightly when Daisy speaks.

“Jon?”

“It’s – it’s okay,” he says, his voice shaky. “I’ve – I’ve done this once before. I can do this.”

There’s no rule saying he can only have one anchor, right?

He thinks of Georgie.

She took you in when you had nowhere else to go, even though you hadn’t spoken in years, even though you hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Staying with her felt more like home than you’d experienced in… you don’t know how long. It made you realize how much you missed her – her humor, her ingenuity, her confidence, her tenacity, her generosity, and, yes, even her perceptiveness, daunting though it may be at times. She speaks her mind and you can take her at her word. You can appreciate that, as someone who has always had trouble parsing the implicit and unspoken aspects of social life.

You trust her judgment, and she believes in you, and it makes you want to believe in yourself. You want to be there for her in the same way that she’s chosen to be there for you.

He thinks of Melanie.

You disliked one another at first meeting, even though – or perhaps because – you have so much in common. Over the years, you saw more sides to her. She’s brave and resolute, not just when it comes to fighting back, but when it comes to making the conscious decision to heal. She’s capable of kindness to those who are receptive to it. You’ve seen how she is with Georgie, how her hard edges relax, how her devotion is as fierce as her anger can be – perhaps moreso.

You know that she never deserved to suffer like she has. You know she deserves a happy ending. You want to try to reconcile with her. In your future, she went so far as to suggest that you could be friends. You think you would like that.

He thinks of Basira.

She’s had no one but herself to rely on for months. She feels trapped and alone; she hasn’t had a moment to grieve; she’s forced herself to compartmentalize and detach because if she breaks down, she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to put herself back together again. She’s told herself that her own comfort and wellbeing don’t matter. She has a job to do and she’s the only one left who is willing and able to do it. The only solid thing left in her life, the only thing giving her purpose is the mission. The mission is her anchor, because she’s lost everything else.

When she found out that Daisy was alive, she was almost angry with you for making her dare to hope. You promised that you would bring Daisy home to her, and you mean to keep that promise.

And Jon has a job to do, too, doesn’t he?

You need to stop Jonah Magnus, you need to –

His stomach clenches as the dread grips him.

Okay, no. Don’t – don’t think of Jonah. Not helpful, not helpful, not –

He reaches further. He tries to think of Naomi, of the Admiral, of –

The faraway rumbling starts up again.

“Jon,” Daisy says again, urgently, perched on the edge of panic right along with him.

This is forever deep below creation, some self-sabotaging part of his brain reminds him. Where the weight of existence bears down. This is the Buried, and we are alive. There isn’t even an up –

“I just – I just – I just need to calm down,” he stammers. He can feel his pulse beating in his throat; would be hyperventilating if he could breathe at all. “I – I can’t think straight, and I just need to…”

He thinks back to the physical details of the world just outside the Coffin.

The arrangement of the tapes –

…CASE #0160919 sits 34.2 centimeters west of the Coffin, turned at a 45-degree angle. Approximately 20.6 centimeters south-southwest is CASE #0172904; the casing of its recorder is slightly cracked at the lower left corner. 2.4 centimeters to its right is CASE #0171302; the rewind button on the recorder housing it tends to stick…

– on the floor of his office –

…where fingernail scratches are still visible in the northwest corner of the room, left there by Enrique MacMillan on 4 November, 2003, after he gave his statement regarding his encounter with a Buried-touched Leitner…

– and the tape he left on his desk –

…on top of a softcover Moleskine notebook – black, 12.7 by 21 centimeters, ruled – belonging to Martin Blackwood; the Archivist knows every word written thus far on the 68 used out of 192 total pages within…

– and on that tape are pleas that went unanswered for far too long, laced with desperation and grief and rapidly dwindling hope –

…We really need you, Jon. We – I need you …

– but Jon cannot hear it anymore.

His mind wanders to the single folded sheet of paper tucked away in the top drawer of his desk. A second message for Martin, to be read only in the event that Jon doesn’t return. A transcript, to be precise.

On their way to the Panopticon, they had been separated when they traversed the Lonely’s domain. Jon had searched frantically, resisting the urge to simply Know because he had promised. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t feel right forcing Martin to See him the way he did before. It was Martin’s domain, and he had the right to decide for himself whether to leave it behind. Even if Jon had wanted to, though, he suspected that he wouldn’t have been able to actually find Martin this time unless he wanted to be found. And in the end, he did.

Just before Jon found him, he managed to catch the tail end of Martin’s statement. Naturally, the Archive memorized every word and dutifully filed it away without any conscious effort or consent on Jon’s part.

…I am Martin Blackwood, and I am not Lonely anymore; I am not Lonely anymore. I want to have friends. I – no, I have friends. I’m in love. I am in love, and I will not forget that; I will not forget…

Before he entered the Coffin, Jon copied it down and left it behind. Just in case. Just in case something goes wrong. If he goes missing in action for too long, he trusts that eventually someone will clear out his desk, find it, and hopefully pass it along to its intended recipient.

It was a last-ditch effort to impart the truth: that a future exists wherein Martin isn’t Lonely; that he can be and is and deserves to be cared for; that it isn’t just an unattainable fantasy. And, most importantly, Jon is not the only one who can provide that, nor is Jon alone enough to fulfill that need. In the end, Martin chose to turn his back on the Lonely. He can do it again.

There’s every chance that it was a meaningless gesture, but Jon doesn’t think he could live with himself if he didn’t at least try – and if he does get lost down here, he’ll be forced to live with himself for as long as the Buried itself exists.

But Jon doesn’t want to leave Martin alone with that inexplicable scrap of statement, hoping that it’s enough to get the point across. Jon has to get home. He has to; there’s no other choice –

“Jon?” Daisy says again. “You sound like you’re… what – what’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I’m – I’m just… I can’t – I can’t feel my anchor.”

“Anchor?”

“Y-yeah. Something to ground me, help me feel the way out. It’s – there’s a void where it should be, and…” His short exhale shudders on the way out. “I think – I think we might be here for awhile longer.”

“N-not alone, though,” Daisy says, almost questioningly.

“No. No, not alone. And – and I can still get us out, I think,” he adds hurriedly. “I just – I need to… I need to come down from the panic, and it’s hard to do that when I can’t – I can’t breathe –“

His breath catches and he closes his eyes. Stop, he tells himself, you’re – you’re spiraling, talking yourself into a panic. Just… listen – listen to the quiet.

“Jon?”

“Still – still here,” he says, squeezing her hand again. “I’m not going anywhere without you, I promise.”

“Do you – if you need a break from – from whatever you’re doing…” She falters for a moment before blurting out: “C-can we… can we talk? I haven’t – I just want someone to hear me.”

“Of course. I’m listening.” When Daisy doesn’t reply, he offers a gentle prompting. “Daisy?”

“I’m – it’s difficult. I can’t find the words.”

“Would it help if I… ask?” The last time, it did help her get her thoughts out.

“Y-yeah,” she says with only a slight delay. “Do your… thing.”

“Right,” he says. For a moment, he worries that he’ll have difficulty concentrating long enough to compel an answer, but his mind clears almost as soon as he opens his mouth. Of course. “How are you feeling?”

The question buzzes like static on his tongue on its way out.

“S-scared. I – I’m – I’m s-scared…”

Daisy’s words do not deviate from the last time he was here, but he does not interrupt her as she speaks. He latches onto her voice, focuses all of his attention on her story, and tries to ground himself in the present.

“Y-you know what I thought, when I woke up here? I thought this was hell. I – I was dead, and I was in hell. And I - I knew I deserved it.” Daisy stifles a sob as she nears the end of her statement. “I don’t want t-to b-be a s-sadistic predator again. I – I don’t want to hobble around like some – pathetic wounded prey here. I don’t know which would be worse. But I’m scared now – that I won’t ever get the choice.”

One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice, he told her last time. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

Now, though, he’s not so sure. Or, rather, now he thinks it isn’t quite that simple.

“It’s… complicated,” Jon starts slowly. “Choice, I mean. We all have choices, but – but when all the alternatives are unendurable, or impossible to achieve, or – or even conceptualize, then… well, it’s not a fair choice, is it? Sometimes because that’s just – how it is, and sometimes by design. There – there are people, and – and things out there that will abuse their power to deceive you, keep you ignorant about things that would affect your decisions. Or – or convince you that you have no options, no autonomy – or even that you can’t trust your own judgment, your own senses. Some choices can hardly be called choices at all.”

He begins to grind his teeth as he considers his next words, but stops as soon as he feels the grit between his molars when he bites down. There are a lot of things to hate about the Buried, but its refusal to allow him to engage in any of his usual nervous habits definitely adds insult to injury.

“You say you deserve to be here, but – do you think you deserved to be marked by the Hunt in the first place? Because one thing I’ve learned is… most people who become Avatars – we don't necessarily do anything to deserve the attention of the things that take notice of us. To be put in these positions, to be given impossible choices about – about things we have no right to decide in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems that a common thread is… well, um, I think Tim hit the nail on the head, actually? In his testament before the Unknowing, he – he said, ‘The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck. Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it.’”

“You remember that verbatim?”

“It’s – it’s an Archivist thing.” Well, technically. Jon can’t access the Archive right now, but some statements have looped so many times in his head that he has every word memorized by now. “But the point is that our transgressions, they… the punishment often doesn’t seem to fit the crime.”

Daisy is quiet, so Jon continues.

“Uh, Jane Prentiss, for instance – stumbled upon a wasps’ nest in her attic, and then the Corruption infested her. In her original statement, she was afraid of what was happening to her, she was asking for help, but it… it was slowly hollowing her out. Appealed to her insecurities, whispered to her that it was the only thing that could love her, that wouldn’t abandon her. Maybe eventually she embraced it on her own, but at that point, how much of her was left to make that choice?

“And – and Michael Crew. He was struck by lightning when he was eight. The Spiral never stopped stalking him after that. He spent his childhood in fear, obsessively sought out information about – lightning, and fractals, because understanding it felt like the only way to resist a thing that feeds on uncertainty.”

Jon can relate to that, can’t he? He was always curious, but his desire to know and understand things became more obsessive after he encountered his first monster – as if he could solve any problem if only he learned enough about it. But it was never enough, and that impulse never actually kept him safe. It only offered him a flimsy illusion of control, which was something he desperately needed after the Web showed him what it was like to have none. Still, an ineffective coping mechanism was better than not coping at all – or so he told himself then.

“When Mike realized that there was no escape from the supernatural once he’d been marked by it,” Jon continues, “he decided that the next best thing was choosing which Fear to submit to – to serve. Obsessively sought out Leitners until he found the Vast, and… it offered him safety. The most basic of human needs, something he hadn’t known since he was a child. The things he did to feed his patron were – indefensible, but I can’t help thinking about the person he might have been, if the Spiral hadn’t come into his life. He… he was only eight. How is a child supposed to process something that even an adult would have trouble coping with? I’m sure many children don’t even physically survive an encounter with one of the Fears, but even those that do… they never actually escape, do they?”

Daisy makes an indistinct little noise in her throat. Jon can’t Know for certain, but he imagines she’s thinking of her own first encounter with the Hunt. When enough time has passed that she doesn’t seem ready to say as much, Jon continues.

“And there’s – there’s Oliver Banks, he’s an Avatar of the End. He just started having dreams one day, became a death prophet. As far as I can tell, nothing provoked it. It just… happened. And early on, he tried to use that ability to help people, but… the powers granted us as Avatars, they aren’t for helping or saving anyone. When you realize that, after a long string of failures, you start to become… despondent – numb, even. Maybe some misstep along the way piqued the End’s interest in him, or maybe it was completely arbitrary. I don’t know. I don’t know that Oliver does, either.”

It’s difficult to speak at length here, and Jon’s speech is punctuated by frequent gasps and stops and starts, but he plows ahead. Granted, he’s always had a tendency toward intense, rapidfire speech whenever he gets invested in a topic of interest, but it’s also that he needs to cover as much ground as he can as quickly as possible. There’s no telling when the Buried will constrict again. Sometimes there are long intervals of relative peace; other times, the bouts of crushing pressure come one after the other in a barrage. The inconsistency makes the dread all the more potent: you can never predict when the walls will close in.

“And Helen,” he says, moving right along, “before she became the Distortion, she opened a door. That’s all. Most people would have probably done the same. A door that wasn’t there before, that can’t be there – of course the human mind wants to test its perceptions, make sense of the discrepancy. Which is exactly what the Distortion preys on. It let her escape its corridors, because it would make the fear that much more potent when it came for her again, when she realized that it had never actually let her go, that there was never any way to escape. It was… it was just playing with its food.”

Like with Benjamin Hatendi, Jon thinks. ‘The blanket never did anything.’

The Fears are never merciful. For an earthly predatory animal, the pain and fear of the prey are only relevant insofar as their utility in capturing it. Granted, the majority of animals may have no qualms about eating their prey alive so long as it’s incapacitated, no concept of putting their food out of its misery – but still, sustenance isn’t derived from the experience of the prey, only from its organic matter.

For the Powers, though… terror is the food source. If anything, the misery is deliberately drawn out. The suffering is primary to the meal.

“I still don’t know how much of Helen Richardson was left by the time she embraced her new existence and began feeding” – by the time she chose to stop feeling guilty, Jon notes privately – “but she never asked to be in that position to begin with. She just… opened a door.

“And you… all you did was trespass on a childhood dare, right? You and Calvin Benchley. I did hear the tape – of your interrogation with Elias. Maybe the Hunt chose the both of you, was deliberately waiting for you there. Or maybe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, you… you did something that most children do at one point or another, exploring out bounds – I did plenty of that myself. And – and you’d done the same thing many times in the past, there was no reason to think that things would go any differently. But that time, that time you stumbled into something that most children – most people never do.”

Jon debates whether or not to share his own initiation into this world. He never told Daisy about it last time, but he knows – and Knows – about her childhood encounter. It seems only fair to include his own.

“Actually, I… I had a similar experience, when I was eight,” he admits, pushing through his habitual reservations. “Unlike Michael Crew, though, I was an active participant in my own fate. There’s no dodging a lightning strike, but me – I… I opened a book I shouldn’t have, knocked on a door I shouldn’t have. I could’ve just… not.”

“That’s a funny double standard,” Daisy says flatly.

“P-pardon?”

“Couldn’t you just as easily say that Crew could have chosen to not stand outside during a lightning storm?”

“He – he actually wanted to go inside, but his friend pressured him to keep playing,” Jon says, almost defensively. “By the time they decided to go in, it was too late.”

“Like I pressured Calvin.”

“That’s –” Jon gives an agitated little exhale. “It’s still different.”

“How?”

“Did you have a bad feeling about the dare, or was it just like any other day? You had no reason to think that things would go wrong. I… I knew that book was wrong, and I opened it anyway.” Daisy scoffs. “What?”

“Has anyone ever pointed out to you that you’re capable of some truly infuriating mental gymnastics?”

Jon puffs out another exasperated breath before muttering, “Yes.”

In fact, she said almost the exact same thing to him the last time around. And Georgie – she used to say so all the time, especially when they were dating.

“You always do this,” she’d pointed out once during an argument, hands on her hips and a shrewd look in her eye. “Any time a conversation gets a little too uncomfortable for you, you just – throw your hands up, say it’s your fault and shut down, and nothing ever gets resolved. Why are you so eager to take the blame for things? Is it that it’s better than admitting there are some things you can’t control, or is it just easier than actually talking about your feelings?”

The answer was yes on both counts, and he had been angry with her for putting it into words. He’d already known on some level, but he studiously avoided that sort of introspection. Now that it had been verbalized, the knowledge would always be there, floating around in his mind – yet another thing to overanalyze, to obsess over, to ambush him in moments of doubt.

Since then he’s gotten better at communicating in healthy ways, but the self-blame thing… well, Martin still had to periodically call him out on it, right up until the end. It became a common refrain: “It’s still victim blaming even if you’re the victim, Jon.” The reminder did help – at least some of the time – but it wasn’t enough to undo a worldview that he’d spent his entire life internalizing.

“Y-yes,” he says again, less sullenly now, “I – I see your point.”

“Good. So – evil book?”

“A Leitner, yes. The Web.” Jon has no desire to go into all the gruesome details, not when he’s – when they’re both already being suffocated by fear. “And I only escaped through… I don’t know, some combination of mundane human cruelty and luck – or… or someone else’s misfortune, more like.” He gives a tired sigh. “Or it could have been deliberate interference by the Web, taking someone else in my place because it had other plans for me. I’ll never know the exact reason why. If there even is a reason.”

He pauses, expecting the Beholding’s characteristic objection to the idea that he should accept not knowing anything, before remembering with grim satisfaction that the Eye can’t reach him here. Nor can the Web, for that matter. A small mercy, but he’ll take it.

“But the experience led to an obsession with the supernatural. I suppose I thought that if – if I could just understand it, I could conquer the fear. It didn’t work, but an obsession like that – it persists regardless of whether it’s successful or productive or – or healthy. Eventually it led me to the Institute. Which led me… here, ultimately.” He bites his lower lip as he considers his next words. “I’m sure many of my choices along the way were mine alone, and – and I’m responsible for my actions regardless. But that first domino… it was just a restless child ignoring gut instinct, all because he needed to know.”

“Jon,” Daisy says, the hint of a warning growl underlying her tone.

“I – okay, yes, I know, I know. Double standards.” He takes a shallow breath before continuing. “My point is, most of us are just… unlucky isn’t the right word, but it’s as close as I can get. Sometimes the Fears seem to seek out victims who are already uniquely susceptible to them – people with phobias, or specific traumas. Other times it seems… arbitrary. And sometimes it seems like the difference between an average victim and those who eventually become Avatars is… compatibility, or – or in some cases, a sense of kinship, even.

“I’ve always been too curious for my own good, a natural fit for the Beholding. Jane talked about being seen as toxic, and it was the Corruption that found her. Annabelle Cane said she was well-versed in manipulation as a young child, the sort of gift that the Web favors. Jared Hopworth always had a sadistic streak, but the difference between him and any other bully is that he found The Boneturner's Tale. I… don’t really know what to make of Jude Perry. The way she told it, she always had the disposition for the Desolation. She would likely have been a nightmare with or without supernatural help, but there are plenty of people like that in the world. She just happened to be one of the few who caught the attention of the Lightless Flame.

“But – but I also don’t think preexisting compatibility is a requirement to be an Avatar. Some people really do just – stumble into it, probably. Grow into it, maybe, after enough exposure. Especially if the same Power keeps coming back.”

Jon can’t help thinking of the Distortion and its tendency to dog its victims for years. Helen said once that she couldn’t just force her victims into her corridors, that they had to open the door on their own. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? Marcus MacKenzie refused to open the door every single time it appeared throughout his childhood and young adulthood. It started to take increasingly drastic measures: disguising itself as other things, at one point even opening up in the ground in front of him, hoping he wouldn’t notice until he already stepped over the ledge and gravity did its work. When that didn’t work, it took his father. And then, even after evading it for decades, Helen eventually took Marcus anyway. Choice didn’t come into it. It didn't matter how many times he walked away – it followed him wherever he went.

“Either way,” Jon continues, “whether it’s part of some grand plan or just happenstance, the Avatars… we catch the attention of something predatory, and it sinks its hooks into the vulnerabilities it finds. There are plenty of other people in the world who may have the same… flaws, or inclinations, or experiences, but most are lucky enough not to be drawn into this world. I’m not sure exactly what determines who is, but I don’t think it comes down to fairness, or deservedness, or – or some sort of cosmic punishment. I – I don’t think the universe works that way.

“And – and after we’ve been marked, maybe we can make choices along the way. But as far as I can tell, none of those choices ever lead to complete freedom from the Powers that lay claim to us. We’re still accountable for our actions; we can fight back, we can resist – but we’ll always be struggling against our natures. Sometimes it seems like there’s… there’s really no choice we can make where things actually turn out okay. Doesn’t mean we stop trying, or give up hope, but…” He pauses to gnaw on the inside of his cheek for a few seconds. “It can be hard to ignore the fear when it’s become such an intrinsic part of you, is all. When it makes its hunger your own, and hollows you out if you don’t feed it. It can make the concept of choice seem… empty.”

When he trails off, Daisy blows out a forceful exhale.

“That was… a lot.”

“Surprised the Buried let me get it all out,” Jon says, a bit sheepishly. “Sorry, I’ve… had a lot of time alone to ruminate.”

“I think I can rela-”

Daisy’s words are cut short when all at once the earth crashes down around them with a vengeance, as if exacting payment for the courtesy of staying its hand for so long. An indeterminate amount of time passes, weight pressing down on them from all sides, leaving no room for breath or words or thought. Jon focuses on their hands, still linked tightly together, the only anchor to be found here in the dark.

Eventually, the walls begin to withdraw in tiny increments. The sinister, sibilant shifting of soil is a constant, unknown variable – it sounds the same whether the earth is compacting or moving away, and often there is no way to tell until it’s already too close and pressing down. Jon can feel his pulse hammering in his throat, can hear Daisy’s gasping breaths overlapping his own.

“I was gonna kill you,” she blurts out eventually, breathless and rushed. “You know that?”

“Yes.”

“I – I don’t just mean that day in the woods,” she clarifies. “Af-after the mission, I was planning on killing you.”

“I know. You – you realized I wasn’t human. That I needed to die.”

“H-how did you –”

“I’ve been here once before. And – and I should apologize for the dreams, I –”

“Jon –”

“I know it’s not an excuse, but I never meant to compel you that time – didn’t even realize at the time that that was something I could do, and –”

“Jon –”

“I didn’t realize then that the dreams were real, and – and when I finally did, I still didn’t have any control over them, but I –”

“Jon! Shut up a minute.”

His mouth snaps shut a little too quickly and he winces as he bites down on the tip of his tongue. The metallic taste of blood just barely registers on his tongue in the few seconds it takes for the cut to heal.

“Just – back up,” Daisy says, toning down the intensity this time. “That thing you said about… you’ve ‘been here once before’? What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s… a long story. And difficult to believe.”

“Well, it’s –” Daisy huffs. “It’s not like we don’t have the time?”

“I suppose,” Jon sighs. He’s already told this story to the tape recorder at length, but… the idea of telling it to another person, in his own words this time, feels both terrifying and cathartic at the same time. It’s just – difficult to talk about, no matter how many times he recaps it. “Where to begin… oh, I should probably preface this with ‘time travel is real.’”

Daisy sounds far too nonchalant when she says, “Okay.”

“O-okay? That’s… that’s it?”

“Sorry if it’s not the dramatic response you expected. Encounter enough – vampires, and people made of sawdust, and – and this, here, and… I don’t know that anything would surprise me anymore.”

“R-right,” Jon replies, still a bit incredulous. “Well, I’m – I’m from the future.” He pauses again, but she doesn’t interject. “And… and I came back to stop the apocalypse.”

His inflection pitches up into a near-question on the last word, certain that this will be the point at which Daisy calls bullshit. Instead, she just gives a dry chuckle.

“And how’s that going for you?”

“Well, uh, actually…” Jon’s laugh manages to sound slightly hysterical despite its brevity. “Being stuck here actually does – put it on hold indefinitely?”

“H-how’s that?”

“Because – because it can’t go forward without the Archivist.” He takes a shallow breath. “Just like the Stranger has the Unknowing, the Eye has its own Ritual. I was – I am a part of it. I – I didn’t want to, Elias – he orchestrated the whole thing, f-forced me to –” He nearly bites his tongue again when he cuts himself off. “But that – that doesn’t change anything,” he continues, almost viciously. “I’m the one who opened the door. It wouldn’t have happened if not for me, s-so it’s as good as my fault.”

“Don’t know about that,” Daisy says.

“What?”

“Don’t think I can see you making a choice to end the world, if you had any say. Doesn’t sound like you. You – Jon, you just went on about having choices taken away.” Jon is silent, teeth clenched; Daisy jostles his hand insistently. “So – so how’d it actually happen?”

“I, ah…” Why is this still so hard to talk about? “So you know how I – I… need the statements?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I – it – my appetite only got worse as time went on. Started craving live statements, and – and hunted for them. The others intervened eventually, and I stopped, but I still needed – need – statements, or else I’d… starve, for lack of a better word. So I made do with the old statements like before, but they were – less and less filling as time went on, and – and I needed more of them, and more frequently, even though I tried to – to spread them out, ration myself. And, uh, some things happened, and Martin and I went into hiding – used your safehouse, actually –”

“Which one?”

“Scotland.”

“Ah,” Daisy says softly. “I like that one.”

“So did we,” Jon says, smiling fondly. “I – we only had a couple weeks, before… b-but the time we did have, it was…”

He clears his throat.

“An-anyway, I went – hungry, for a bit, until a box of statements could be sent to us. And the first one I read, it was – a trap, by J- Elias.” He can explain about Jonah Magnus later. If he takes that detour now, he’ll never get through the rest of this. “The heading looked – just like any other statement. Statement giver’s name, date – but as soon as I started reading, it was Elias’ words. It was a, uh, statement about – about me. About what I am. I’m not just the Archivist, Daisy, I’m the Archive.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I – when I take or – or consume a statement, I, ah – experience it like I’m there, and it – it becomes a part of me. I’m like a – like a living record, a library of – of people’s worst fears, nightmares, moments that I have no right to witness, and – doesn’t matter. Elias needed a fully realized Archive for his ritual to work, so he – he created one, and he fed it a statement. And I – I tried to stop reading, but I couldn’t, even though I – I tried, I really did, I –” He laughs nervously. “Even tried to – to blind myself, but it just – healed. Then, at the end, there was an – an incantation. To open a door that could let all the Fears into the world. And when I read it… it did.”

“Wait – all of them?”

“Yes,” Jon says quietly. “Just before she died, Gertrude figured out that a ritual to bring one of the Fears into the world could never succeed on its own. The Powers can’t exist without minds to experience them, and our minds – they’re highly associative. The experience of fear is just… far more convoluted and subjective than any artificial taxonomy can capture. The Fears have overlap, and – and some of them are defined by their opposition to the others.

“A Vast ritual would collapse without the existence of the Buried, for instance. Or – the Stranger and the Spiral, they’re both tied to unreality, to not being able to trust your perceptions – which can feed into paranoia, which the Eye and the Web also thrive on. The Hunt and the Slaughter run together, and the Flesh can tag alongside. Both the Corruption and the Desolation are equally efficient and thorough in ravaging a home or a body or – or even the general concept of safety.

“Even here – we’re too far deep below creation for the Eye or the Hunt to reach us, but there’s still more than the Buried to fear. The Dark, for instance, or being Forsaken. Even the Vast can be found down here, if you start obsessing over your own insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe. The Powers are just – too interconnected, and their rituals never accounted for that.”

“So the Unknowing…”

“Would have failed even without our intervention,” Jon says bitterly. “Same goes for all of the rituals that Gertrude stopped, and all the others that have been sabotaged throughout the centuries. All of that sacrifice, and for nothing. Michael Shelley, and Jan Kilbride, and – and Tim, and you ending up here –”

“Tim?”

“He… he died during the mission,” Jon says quietly. He hears a sharp intake of breath from Daisy.

“And Basira?”

“Alive. She got out before the explosion.” He can just barely make out Daisy’s sigh of relief. “She… she told me to tell you that she’s waiting for you.”

“Oh,” Daisy says softly. “I’m s-”

Before she can say more, the Buried begins to writhe around them again, this time closing in molasses-slow. They both instinctively tighten their handhold on one another. As horrid as the crushing force is, this time it at least has the decency to press them closer together. Daisy’s free hand tentatively brushes against Jon’s free wrist. Understanding the unspoken request, Jon interlocks their fingers, and they wait.

“S-so,” Daisy wheezes when the earth finally relaxes and settles again, “about – about the rituals?”

“R-right.” Jon coughs lightly, still catching his breath. “Well, ah, Elias found out about Gertrude’s theory. Came up with a – ritual that would bring all the Powers through at once, but with the Eye ruling over the rest. It required an Archivist – Archive – directly marked by all the Powers. Elias – chose me. Made sure I’d encounter each of them, and… when I was ready, he laid one last trap and waited for me to wander in, because he knew from experience that I would.”

And it could happen again, Jon’s brain helpfully supplies.

“Huh.”

“Yeah. S-so it probably goes without saying, but if you thought I wasn’t human before, I, ah…” He gives an exhausted, humorless chuckle. “I’m definitely not now.”

Daisy is silent for a long moment before saying: “I take it you – you didn’t come here the first time.”

That wasn’t the comment that Jon had been expecting.

“No, I did.”

“Then… how –”

“I told you, there’s a way out. I just – I just have to find it. Last time I found you, and we escaped together. We can do it again.” She doesn’t respond to that, and he kneads the tops of her hands with his thumbs. “Daisy?”

“You’ve been here once before, and you escaped, and… and you came back?” She says it in such a small voice, it almost doesn’t even sound like her. “After – after seeing what it’s like, you still came back for me?”

“Yes…?”

“Why?” she whispers. “Why do that for me? I – I had a knife to your throat, I would’ve killed you if Basira hadn’t found us first, I saw the fear in your eyes and I enjoyed it – and you knew that I’d still planned on killing you the moment I got a chance, so – so why?”

“We’re –” Jon stops himself, rephrases. “In my future, we became friends.”

“What?”

“W-well, we – we were both Avatars trying to resist our darker natures. We went through this together. We just – we had a lot in common.”

Daisy offers no comment.

“I… don’t know what I would have done without you, honestly,” Jon continues, jiggling one foot nervously as best he can in the confined space. “You were… you were the only one I had, most days. The only one who knew what it was like, having the hunger consume you because you refuse to feed it. And – and you had Basira, but she… there were things she didn’t fully understand, couldn’t relate to. So you would come to me. We, uh… we helped each other. Trusted each other.” He adds, a bit timidly: “I… I’ve missed you.”

Still, Daisy says nothing. Jon is about to start rambling again – about what, he doesn’t know; he just needs to fill the awkward silence somehow – but Daisy speaks first.

“But – but what about before all that? Why did you come down here the first time around?”

“I was… in a bad place,” Jon admits. “Tim was dead, Sasha was dead, Melanie hated me, Basira saw me as a monster, Georgie wanted nothing to do with me, and Martin was… gone. I had no one, I wasn’t human anymore, I was afraid and ashamed and guilty and tired, and I… I was starting to doubt my decision to live. Not wanting to die had started to feel selfish, and I – I needed some way to justify living, some way to make myself useful.

“When we found out that you were alive, I – I just didn’t want to lose anyone else. If there was a chance of bringing you home, I had to try. And… there was nothing to lose. If I got stuck down here, it – it would be no great loss. The world would have even been safer for it – moreso than I even imagined at the time. I… honestly didn’t think that anyone would care if I didn’t come back.”

“That’s messed up,” Daisy says, a hint of wry amusement in her voice.

“Yeah,” Jon says with a self-deprecating laugh. “That’s what you said last time. Like I said, I was in a bad place. But – but in the end, we got out. I know I can get us out of here again. I promised Basira I would bring you home, and I – I – I will. I just… I need some time to find the way.”

“No pressure,” she deadpans.

Jon makes a strangled, exasperated noise in his throat.

“Seriously?”

If he could gesture at the tons of dirt pressing down on them, he would – but he can’t, because of the tons of dirt pressing down on them.

“Just trying to lighten the mood,” Daisy says, just the slightest hint of a self-satisfied smirk in her voice. Jon feels one corner of his mouth quirk in spite of himself.

God, he really had missed her.

The concept of time has no meaning within the Buried. Without any real way to observe or calculate its passing, things tend to feel stagnant. One long note of boredom and desperation and restriction. If not for the unpredictable tides of the soil around them, it might even feel as if time is at a standstill. In a way, it is: there is only one time here, and it is forever – or until the End of everything, at least. To make things worse, true sleep is impossible in the Buried. Sometimes, though, there is a lull in the movements of the earth, and within that liminal space, the mind may be allowed to drift.

Jon isn’t sure how long he’s been drifting when Daisy tugs on his hand.

“Jon.”

“Hm?”

“You’re muttering again.”

“Oh.” Jon clears his throat when he realizes how groggy he sounds. “Was I?”

“Care to share?”

“I’m just – I keep thinking about how Basira escaped the Unknowing,” he says, rousing himself. Out of habit, he tries to stretch, only to remember that he can barely move at all – which, of course, only intensifies the urge to fidget.

“Oh?” Daisy shakes both his hands in hers, prompting him to continue. Judging by the waver in her voice, the silence must be getting to her again. “How – how’s that?”

“She… thought her way out. Like a – an ‘I think therefore I am’ thought experiment.” Jon smiles to himself and shakes his head slightly. “She put Descartes to shame.”

“Not even a fair comparison,” Daisy scoffs.

“Agreed.”

“Were you thinking of trying that here?”

“I… don’t think it would work.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re not that level-headed.”

“That’s –” Jon’s indignation fizzles out just as quickly as it emerged. “That’s… okay, yes, that’s fair.”

Daisy snickers; Jon can’t help a small grin in return.

“But what I was actually trying to say is that it was a strategy uniquely tailored to the Stranger. The Unknowing was all about – unreality, about not being able to trust your senses, even your own identity. Basira figured out that the best way to anchor herself in that situation was to boil her entire reality down to simple logical premises: She existed. She existed in a place and time. The place was dangerous at that time, so she had to not exist in that place at that time. Places have ends, and if she kept moving, she could reach a different place.”

“Huh.”

“Straightforward. Elegant, even.”

“It’s Basira,” Daisy says, unmistakable fondness creeping into her tone. Jon snorts. “Shut up, Sims. You were saying?”

“The Buried doesn’t operate in the same way. Basira reasoned her way out of the Stranger’s domain by denying unreality. If we tried to do the same thing, we’d just be denying… well, reality. The earth, the pressure, the – the ‘too close I cannot breathe,’ it’s all real.”

“Good pep talk.”

“Sorry, that’s not what I –” Jon sighs. “I didn’t mean to sound… morose. I was just thinking about different kinds of anchors. Basira managed to center herself and use her own mind as an anchor, and I – I find that impressive, is all.”

“That’s one way to describe her,” Daisy says. “She’s… always been like that. Practical, reliable… centered.”

Wait, Jon thinks to himself, brow furrowed. What if…

“Daisy, tell me about Basira.”

“What?”

“I – she’s your anchor, right? And – and you’re hers.”

“I don’t know about –”

“She called you solid, a – a – a fixed point,” Jon says excitedly. “When you’re there, things make sense to her. You ground her. And now, without you, she’s… she has trouble knowing where she stands. She has no backup, no one to orient her. What she did during the Unknowing – it was impressive, but it isn’t sustainable over a long period of time. You can only go it alone for so long before you lose your bearings. She – she needs you. And you need her. Right?”

“She’s the fixed point,” Daisy murmurs, as if that explains everything – and maybe it does.

“Exactly, s-so – tell me about Basira. From your perspective.”

“Why?”

“Because this is the Buried, where we’re at the center and everything is weighing down on us,” Jon says, mind racing five steps ahead of him. “The dirt, the pressure, it’s all real, but – but the Fears are also about state of mind.”

Jon can feel his heart rate pick up, the way it does whenever he’s talking his way through a puzzle. If he could, he would be pacing right now, burning off that restless energy. Instead, he finds himself tapping his fingers rapidly against Daisy’s hands. She doesn’t stop him, though.

“I’m not saying that we can solve this with ‘mind over matter’ thinking, but it might – help, if we can both focus on an anchor – a different center point, that is, one outside of this place. Move from this center to that center. There’s a better chance of figuring out which way is up if we’re both feeling for the way out. We can orient each other. If we both feel a tug from the same direction, we know we’re going the right way.”

“I can’t feel anything, though,” Daisy says. “Or – I can, but it’s – it’s everywhere, pushing in one direction – pushing down –”

Jon grips her hands more tightly when he hears her breathing start to grow ragged.

“That’s why you need to tell me about Basira – until you do feel a pull. I could be way off, but it’s worth a try. And – and if nothing else, it might help clear my mind, so I can give finding the way out another shot.”

“A statement, then?” Daisy asks sardonically. “Recharge your battery?”

“I wish,” Jon says with a grim smile. “The Eye only likes horror stories. If any story would sate my appetite, I could just watch biopics any time I was feeling a bit peaky. Hell, imagine if a fictional story was enough. An episode of the Archers would be like an afternoon snack.”

“You like the Archers?” He doesn’t have to see her to know that her eyebrows are raised as high as they’ll go.

“You know, I said the exact same thing to you once. And no, I don’t, but you do, and you used to make me listen with you. We didn’t even make a dent in the back catalogue, but I’m an Avatar of terrible knowledge and the Beholding loves spoilers, so guess who Knows every episode now?” Daisy barks a laugh at that. “There are over nineteen thousand episodes, Daisy!”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“Anyway,” Jon says, squeezing both of her hands in lieu of nudging her shoulder, “a story just… helps take me out of my own head sometimes. Always has. You’re humoring me, not the Eye. Besides, do you have anything better to do?”

“S’pose not.”

“I mean – you don’t have to, of course, if you’re uncomfortable. I don’t want to pressure you –” Jon cringes. “Bad choice of words. I –”

“Stop babbling, Sims.” He knows that tone of voice, knows that she’s rolling her eyes right now. “We only have so long before the walls close in again –”

Daisy cuts herself off with a strangled noise, which she tries to cover by clearing her throat. She was likely trying to lighten the mood again, but the inevitability of the Buried’s ebb and flow is still too real, too close.

“Do you, uh… do you want to hear a story or not?”

“Please.”

“Back again?”

Martin jolts at the sound of Georgie’s voice. He tosses a brief glare over his shoulder at her where she stands just outside the doorway to the office, a safe distance from the Coffin. Martin discovered quickly that the Coffin’s compulsion has no impact on him, likely muffled by his allegiance to the Lonely. Georgie, though, has no such protection.

Coincidentally, it also means that as long as Martin keeps close to the Coffin, Georgie has to keep her distance from him as well.

“It’s been a week,” Martin says in a quiet monotone, tearing his gaze away from her.

“Yeah.”

“He should have been back by now.”

“Well, he didn’t really give a timeframe –”

“But you said he implied that it wouldn’t take more than a week,” Martin says impatiently. “And knowing Jon, he exaggerated how long it would take, just so no one would worry if he was late.”

“I… yeah, I know,” Georgie sighs. “I was expecting him to be back by now, too.”

Martin nods in a clear ‘I told you so’ gesture – then immediately feels childish. Why is he acting vindicated by her admission?

“Does Peter know you’ve been coming down here?”

“Don’t care.”

“Oh?” Georgie says, her voice suspiciously bland – and only then does Martin register the significance of what he just said.

“I just meant – it’s –” Martin huffs. “It’s none of your business.”

“Of course.” Martin can hear the smirk in her tone.

“Why are you here?” he snaps, swiveling to look at her again.

“Same reason you are, I expect.”

Martin says nothing to that, simply turns his back on her. For a few minutes, the only sound is the low, indistinct chatter of the tape recorders, still spooling out their horror stories on a loop.

“Have you tried calling to him?” Georgie asks. Martin continues to ignore her, teeth clenched until they ache. “It could be worth a shot. He left all those tapes running – don’t know if he can hear them exactly, but they’re meant to call to him.”

Go away, Martin thinks, his hands curling into fists on his knees.

“Your voice might be better than a recording.”

Why is she so persistent?

“Just – think about it, okay?”

When Martin doesn’t respond, Georgie sighs, knocks twice on the door frame, and takes her leave. He doesn’t look back around until the sound of her footsteps fade away.

“Sure, just leave the door wide open,” he grumbles irritably, rising to his feet to remedy the issue.

He pulls the office door shut with more force than intended, practically slamming it. The lone tape recorder on Jon’s desk, previously standing on end, topples over with a light clatter. Martin exhales heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to suppress the static buzz of nervous energy simmering inside him.

“But we need you, Jon,” the tape recorder grinds out. “Jon, please, just – please.”

“Fuck,” Martin says, voice thick and strained. He takes several deep breaths – in through his nose, out through his mouth – trying to clear his thoughts. Eventually, his shoulders slump and he sighs. “Fine. You win.”

He settles himself on the floor in front of the Coffin again, closer this time.

“Jon,” he says, then falters, unsure of what to say. “I –” He lets out an agitated breath, then follows it up with a bitter chuckle. “This is stupid. You probably can’t even hear this, can you?”

There is an uncomfortable, stinging pressure in his eyes and he reflexively tries to swallow back the tears, only to realize how dry his mouth has become. He rubs his eyes instead, digging the heels of his palms into the sockets and applying pressure.

“I – if you – if you can hear me, I… I already lost you once. I can’t do this all over again, I just – I can’t. I’m – everyone is waiting for you, and I still…” Martin sniffles and clears his throat. “Just – come home, Jon. Please.”

“I think I’d forgotten what it was like to just be… present in the moment? A – a quiet moment, anyway.” Daisy sighs. “On a hunt, you always have to think a few steps ahead, anticipate the prey’s movements so you can get out in front of it. Even when you’re present-thinking, like during a fight, it’s – it’s instinct and reflex, quick movements and jagged edges. You can never just… be.”

“I think I understand,” Jon says. “Not the Hunt aspect, but – but the intolerance of stillness.”

“But in that moment – laying back in the grass, Basira going on about the stars – I was… I was just me. I was focused on her – she gets so excited, so animated whenever she has a chance to talk about something new she’s learned, and I – I let her go on for” – Daisy laughs – “going on forty minutes, probably, about – about the Wow! signal before she looked over and saw me staring. Got all embarrassed that I let her talk so long.”

Jon can feel himself grinning.

“In her defense, the Wow! signal is a fascinating topic.”

“I thought so,” Daisy says warmly. “I mean, I must’ve, right? The whole time she was talking, I never felt the blood calling to me. Afterwards, it felt wrong, somehow – unnatural – that I’d been ignoring it. Not even resisting it, just – tuning it out altogether. I didn’t notice until then how loud it was – like for my whole life there had been teeth at my throat and I just never noticed until that moment.” She pauses. “It’s strange, but I – I think I liked it. The quiet.”

“I don’t think it’s strange at all,” Jon says softly. “I think –”

Suddenly, there’s a distinct wrenching sensation within him – like having a hook yank upwards, painless but abrupt enough to make his breath catch in his throat.

“Jon?” Daisy says warily. “What’s wrong?”

There’s something there.

“Do – do you feel that?”

“No? What – what is it?”

“It’s – wait, just let me…”

Jon concentrates, holding his breath as he waits, and –

There. Another pull, like a fish tugging at a line. And another, gentler but just as insistent.

“Daisy, I –” Jon lets out a breathless little laugh. “I think I know the way. C-come on, follow me.”

End Notes:

tbh I was tempted to split this into two chapters but it felt like it wanted to be all one thing, and also I didn't want to end on an angsty cliffhanger because:

I know I was managing a loose every-7-to-10-days-ish update schedule for awhile there, but it miiiight start looking more like an every-two-weeks schedule going forward. I've been on split shifts at work but we're supposedly going back full time soon, so that might effect how much writing time I have each day. Just wanted to give a heads up in case it takes longer than usual before the next chapter is ready.

There are several snippets of dialogue borrowed/reworked from Jon & Daisy's conversation in the Buried in MAG 132 - they're scattered throughout the chapter. (The "This is forever deep below creation..." and "One thing I've learned..." internal dialogue bits are from 132 also.) Probably goes without saying, but Martin's Lonely statement is from MAG 170 and there's also a previously cited usage of his dialogue from the S4 trailer. The Tim quote is from MAG 117. "The blanket never did anything" (still one of the creepiest lines in the podcast i s2g) is from MAG 086.

#tma #tma fic #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #long post

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the-omni-princess · 5 years

Text

Blood Bound [Chapter Seven]

Author: @the-omni-princess

Pairing: Vampire!Bucky x Witch!Reader

Summary: Vampires and witches have been known enemies since the dark ages. Backstabbing, secrets, and magic turned supernatural brethren again each other. As a natural-born witch, you grew up on these stories, your own monsters under your bed. What happens when one of those sworn enemies claims that you are his blood mate, the vampire equivalent of a true mate? Will you give in to this man out of time? Or destroy him for the sake of your Coven?

Word Count: 4K

Warnings: smut! (18+ only), blood kink (?kinda? lol he’s a vampire so), fluff, nightmares, cursing, flashbacks, Bucky being adorable, a hint of dom!Bucky and Praise kink, let me know if I missed anything

A/N:

For a <18 version/summary, please message me and I got you.

Finals are killing me so rip, I’ll be working on writing challenges/Secret Santas (lol I’m in multiple) first then the next chapter of this series (on the bright side, guess who’s writing a Stucky one shot :D )

[Series Masterlist] [My Masterlist] [Playlist Inspired by the Series]

----

Previously….

“Hey, Bucky?” You whispered softly.

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me again.” He obliged, closing the distance to kiss you again. He was the one to deepen the kiss first, gentle yet dominating, demanding your full attention. You got lost in his touch, pressed against him as his hand around your waist pulled you tighter against him. “James,” you practically purred against his lips.

He groaned softly, smirking. “I love it when you say my name.” His lips brushed against yours, easily pulling your mouth back on his.

“Then I’ll keep saying it, Angel Eyes,” you murmured, pulling far enough off of him to run a hand through his fluffed up and mused hair. He groaned softly, making you grin as you lightly traced your fingertips against his scalp. “I want to remember, Bucky. Help me remember and I help you remember? All of it? From the beginning? I know a witch from another Coven who can help us.”

He leaned his forehead against yours, lips brushing past yours as he nodded. “All of it, Sweetling. From the beginning. And Theo?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.”

----

“Hey, Bucky?”

“Yeah, Little Witch?”

“Why’d you jump in front of that silver dagger? It would have like, ya know, hurt Nat, but it would like kill you. Dumb bitch juice much?” You turned to face Bucky, still wrapped in his arms, completely content with just teasing him.

“Don’t come after me with facts, y/n/n, it's not fair.” He groaned, “I just acted, didn’t really stop and think.”

“Also, did my entire coven fuck off because they thought we were gonna bone?”

“Honestly, I was kinda crying because I took too much blood from you, Nat called me a pussy and said your anemic ass passes out easily, paraphrasing here-“

“Obviously.”

“And Nat and Steve, totally have a thing going on btw,” he continued, ignoring your interruption, “Kinda like shared a look and Nat went, ‘Alright, well, coven’s gonna just move this party outta here, give these kiddos some space,’ and that’s when I noticed you killed that Council Member, which is incredibly hot honestly, and like woah you’re hot, sorry sidetracked.”

“Keep boosting my ego and you might get more kisses out of it,” you bopped his nose, grinning playfully as he snapped his fangs towards it, making you yelp and burst into a fit of giggles.

He happily buried his face in your neck, holding you close, “My powerful and adorable witch,” he murmured.

“My brooding and dark and mysterious but actually a big goofball vampire,” you retorted, grinning when he pulled back to give you a look. “What? It’s completely true.”

You shrugged, grabbing your phone off the nightstand to shoot Nat a text. The Coven group chat was already lit up with messages, mostly them talking behind Sam and Steve’s back about the vampires, and planning their next move, and of course, the obligatory ‘making fun of the couple for their sex-scapades’ messages.

Bucky read most of the messages over your shoulder, not wanting to let you go so easily. “How many eggplant emojis can Wanda text before her fingers hurt?”

“Don’t let her hear that, or you’ll find eggplants everywhere. I made that mistake with the donut emoji,” you leaned your head against his shoulder, shooting a gif of a girl rolling her eyes.

“Did that picture just move?” Bucky whispered behind you.

“Do you not know what gifs are?”

“Phones are too easy to track; we usually use burner phones. Call and simple texts only.” He explained, much to your amusement.

“Allow me to teach you, oldie,” you teased, spending the next hour showing him the world of social media. His little grin and wide eyes sent your heart fluttering, and you silently prayed he didn’t hear it.

Soon, you yawned, your eyes threatening to close as sleep started to pull you in. Bucky simply tightened his arms around you, tucking you both underneath the covers of the bed. “Sleep, Sweetling. I’ll be here when you wake up,” he kissed your head tenderly, causing you to smile tiredly.

“Promise?” You spoke mid-yawn, letting Bucky place your phone back on the nightstand.

“Promise. And then we’ll talk about everything that happened. You deserve to rest.” You didn’t reply, only burying your face into his chest, elated to drink in his scent, the warm vanilla, and mint overtaking your senses. Spending so much time around him lately, you no longer minded the faint scent of copper blood mixed into his scent, but now you noticed something else. Tones of earthy traces, sparks of flame, and salt from the sea. He was starting to smell like a witch too. That last thought had you smiling goofily as sleep overtook you and your mind plunged into darkness.

Warm hands. Big, dragging, gentle, soft. Light kisses below your ear. Whispers of love. A murmur of “Sweetling.” Contentment. Sated. But this time the memory didn’t flee, it continued. Light kisses became heated, hands pressed against each other, fingers brushing alongside a soft fur blanket. Gasping breaths, nerves lit up on fire. Bits and pieces like a puzzle pulling together to make the final picture.

“Come on, James! It’s the summer solstice and a full moon, and you are taking positively forever!” Your voice cried out, tugging a warm hand with you, your other arm carrying a woven basket filled with candles and blankets.

Pale moonlight illuminating the grassy meadow as you let go of his hand, placing the fur blankets down before lining the stones, crystals, and candles in a circle. “I do not think the moon will climb any faster than it does every year, Theodosia,” Bucky stood there, his hair an inch longer than you remembered, grinning as he helped make the circle comfortable.

“Still! I want this to be perfect,” you whispered, sighing softly as you stood in the middle of the circle. Alone with only your lover in the wilderness, unafraid to be who you really were. At peace. Excited.

You pulled on the string of your cloak, tugging it off until you tossed it out of the circle entirely, bare as you sat on the furs. Looking up at Bucky, you smiled, “Will you be joining me, or staring the entire time?”

He simply smirked, “I would not mind watching, I must admit.”

“Oh nonsense, hurry yourself or I will send you back home,” you teased, ignoring the blush threatening to creep onto your face.

“I am moving, do not worry, Little Witch,” he chuckled, pulling off his own cloak and tossing it out of the circle before lying beside you.

Without a word you threw your leg on the other side of his hips, easily finding your way above him, straddling his hips. “Why hello there, My Love,” you smiled warmly, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Hello there, Sweetling,” his hands gripped your hips, the electricity pulsing from your body didn’t affect him, simply surrounding you both as the winds started to pick up. Light kisses became needier, heated. “I’m yours,” he pledged in a soft voice.

“And I’m yours. Forever, mo chridhe,” You smiled warmly, his eyebrows furrowing as he pulled you close to kiss again. Your hands ran through his hair, moaning softly as he nipped at your bottom lip. Electric pulsing came from a source that was not your powers, euphoria as flashes of other memories swept along like a coursing river.

Picking flowers in a meadow, laying amongst the lavender.

Lying beside a fire, warm hands around your body, pulling you closer by your hips.

Handmaking candles in preparation for the winters, lining your coats with furs, placing new fur blankets on the bed.

Your back arching, fingers gripping those same furs as you cried out.

Murmurs of spells and enchantments, healings.

Whispers with sour tones behind your back. Witch. Devil’s Spawn.

As quickly as the wave of memories turned changed, they quickly turned back to icy blue eyes. Eyes and arms that pulled you in, kissed your head and lips that said they loved you. James. Bucky.

“This isn’t real, Little Witch,” He gently cupped your face in his hands. “This isn’t real, it’s time to go,” He whispered.

“I don’t want to go again, James. I don’t want to lose you again,” you murmured, closing your eyes as you leaned against his hands.

“Don’t you remember, Theo? You found me again, I won’t let you get away that easy.” Your eyes fluttered open, deep blue ice pulling you back into the bright room. You noticed it was an older room, seemingly of a log cabin. You’ve been here before, but you couldn’t quite remember when. “I’m never letting you go again.”

“I thought you said it was time to go?” You looked back at him, nuzzling deeper into his warm arms. Something about that seemed wrong.

He smiled warmly, tilting your chin up to look at him, affection burning in his eyes, “It is, but I’ll be right there when you open your eyes. I’ll be your anchor in the light, you’ve always been the Good Witch, now it’s my turn to guide you to light magic. We’ll go together.”

“Promise?” Your voice showed exactly how terrified you were.

“Promise, Sweetling.” He smiled, kissing your temple affectionately, “You won’t be alone. Now, wake up.”

You gasped awake, eyes wide, shaking. Bucky was sitting up above you, wide eyes and trying to calm you. His mouth was moving, and you absentmindedly felt his hands gently holding your face. Your senses seemed to flood you at once, the bile rising in your throat, terror filling your body as Bucky’s words finally registered in your brain.

“There you go, baby girl, breathe with me. In, out, just like that,” following his words your trembling soon stopped, and you let your eyes close, trusting in the man in front of you. Sighing softly, he pressed his thumbs against your cheeks, and you were surprised to find that it came back wet. You were crying. God, you felt kinda pathetic but being in his arms made you feel safe. “You alright now?” He asked softly, your only response being a small nod. You couldn’t even remember why you were crying.

You moved closer, leaning against him on the bed again. “The memories… They’re coming faster than I can stop them.”

“What did you see?” His voice was soft, still cradling you close, not willing to let you go so easily.

“Doesn’t matter too much,” you mumbled, hoping he didn’t notice you blushing as you recalled the moonlit ritual with him.

“Does it? Or are you too embarrassed to say it?” He teased, tilting your head up to look at him, you were curled up in his arms, both of your arms secure against your chest.

“Rituals in the light of the full moon,” you swallowed thickly, steeling your courage. “Using sex magic for bigger spells,” you murmured.

His cheeks flushed pink but kept on grinning, clearly enjoying your shyness. “Is that it, Little Witch?”

“Mostly flashes of random moments,” You paused, becoming more serious, “I hate how none of them connect, it’s all a bunch of random pieces of string in a cobweb…”

“Or a really fucked up jigsaw.” He gently laid you back down across the soft blankets, laying beside you. “I understand that more than you think.”

You moved closer, gently rubbing your nose against his, allowing your eyes to close as you pressed a kiss to his head, letting his head rest at the top of your sternum. “I want to remember you, all of you. You’ve always been there, in the back of my head for years and I haven’t even noticed. You’ve always been a part of me,” you gulped faintly as his nose pressed lightly against your collarbone, grazing past the skin there, lips dotting small kisses along the exposed flesh above your mint charm necklace.

“I used to wonder why I was obsessed with honey. Sam used to tease me that there was no pleasing me,” he continued pressing kisses up your skin, “No matter what honey I tried, I never liked it, it was never right. Now I know it’s because,” he paused at your pulse point, teasingly licking up the thin cords of your neck that shielded your arteries from exposure. The attention made you keen, a faint whimper escaping your lips; one you instantly regretted as you felt his responding smirk against your skin. “Your scent is the honey I was missing. My mate’s scent,” he murmured, placing a possessive kiss just below your ear.

“Mate?” you whispered, the question at the forefront of your mind promptly evaporating the second he started to suck gently on your pulse point, fangs brushing against the skin without breaking it.

“Mine,” his voice was at a near growl, which sent a warm spark directly to your core.

“Make me remember, mo chridhe,” you weren’t quite sure where that phrase kept coming from, an underlining need to say it, but you decided not to question it. “Please-“ your pleas died off with a small breathy moan as his kisses moved up just far enough to suck a line of hickeys right under your jaw.

“Gladly, Sweetlin’ I’d do anything for ya,” as his voice got huskier, his accent started to slip in. He rolled a bit of his weight onto you, moving his lips higher again to claim yours. He was dominating, just a level below overwhelming; too much without being too much.

As your lips are being kissed, very thoroughly mind you, his hands start to push up your shirt, a random button down you happened to have on a chair earlier and Nat must have put on you while you were passed out. Must have had blood on the other shirt.

Your skin was heating up, your hands finding their way onto his body. One hand pressed against his abdomen, nails scratching faintly, enjoying the little groan he would give you in response. The other hand in his thick curls, finding purchase in them as you arched faintly against his touch.

“Bucky?” you murmured, biting your lip as you pressed your forehead against his. “Bite me,” you paused before adding in a soft voice, “Claim me.”

He pulled away, icy blue eyes wide, voice hoarse, “How do you know about vampire claims?” It was a little archaic, but a vampire could claim another nocturnal, and sometimes even humans. It wasn’t painful per se, but it would be for life.

“When I was doing research into vampires, I read it in one of the older texts.” You whispered, suddenly nervous. “Y-you don’t have-“

“No, no, Sweetling,” his hands pulled away from your hips, tenderly holding your face in his palms. “I just want you to be sure. Being Bound to each other is one thing, we cannot control that, but Claiming? It’d be forever, no one would come near you,” his thumbs gently rubbed circles into your cheeks, eyes watching your response carefully.

“I know… I’m yours, remember? Forever,” you placed your hands on top of his, pressing a soft kiss against his fingertips.

His face softened, his thumb running along the seam of your lips, his eyes glancing down before focusing on your eyes again. “And I am yours,” he agreed, smiling faintly. “I remember…. Are you sure you want this, Little Witch? You don’t have to let the past define you - define us.”

“I’m sure. The past isn’t making this decision for me, Bucky. Our past brought me to you, but I fell in love with this version of you. I love every form and every part of James Buchanan Barnes.”

“God, I love you,” he confessed before pushing forward and kissing you. Desperate as he kissed you deeper, demanding in his ministrations. You pushed his hands back onto your hips, your own hands quickly finding their way back to his hair, tugging him closer as you moaned softly against his lips. He groaned softly, his hand gripping your thigh and pulling it over his waist.

Lips breaking apart for breath, voice hoarse and gasping pleas. He simply smirked in response, your hands moving past his shoulders to tug his shirt up. He pulled away, sitting up, chuckling as you whimpered softly from the loss. “Patience, baby,” he teased, pulling his shirt off and tossing it aside. You blinked a few times, your brain connecting to your body again before pulling your own shirt off, looking up at him shyly. He ran his hands down your sides, before tugging your hips closer to where he was kneeling on the bed. “If you want to stop, just say the word,” he leaned over you, foreheads pressed together as he kissed you again, this time softer, with more reverence.

“I want this, I want you. Don’t stop, Angel Eyes,” you murmured against his lips, eyes fluttering closed with a small moan as his hands ran up against your inner thighs, pushing them apart.

“Gladly, Sweetlin’” his touch was teasing, but his hand soon moved right over your throbbing core, making you gasp softly. He dragged your shorts and panties off with one tug, throwing them aside hastily before his fingers returned to your folds, teasing as he spread your slick around. “Fuck, you’re so wet. Is this all for me?”

He pressed harder against your clit, rubbing small circles there making you cry out. “Ye-yes! All… all for you,” your hips jerked against his hand, choking out a moan as the pleasure started to electrify every nerve in your body.

“Is that right? How bad do you want me, Little Witch?” You whimpered softly, your mind swirling, unable to fully formulate a response. Your hand gripped his wrist, writhing under his touch as his hands started to tease your entrance. “Answer me, baby,” he warned against your ear, thoroughly enjoying your squirming. He kissed down your neck, taking his time teasing your skin with his teeth. Your hands quickly gripped onto your comforter, toes curling as he kitten licked your nipple, lips attaching to it before sucking harshly.

“So- ah! So bad!” You cried out, breathy moans escaping your lips as he slid two fingers into you.

He pumped them in and out slowly before curling them against your walls, smirking against the skin of your collarbone as you practically wept. “There it is,” he marveled, soon pumping his fingers faster against that spot, his thumb rubbing circles into your bundle of nerves as he sped up.

The knot in your stomach tightened, your heart fluttering as you neared your edge. “Please, James. Please,” you practically begged, not noticing his smirk as he watched you squirm for him, his free hand pressed against your stomach to keep your hips from moving.

“That’s it, Sweetlin’, let go, I’ve got you,” his hand pushed your hips down as you arched against him, the show of strength adding to the building ecstasy. The knot snapped, sending you into euphoria as you moaned his name. Electricity ran up your spine and down your arms, gripping onto him as little sparks surrounded you.

He watched you in awe, slowing his hand once you squirmed away from his hand from the overstimulation. He chuckled, pulling away from you as your eyes opened. You groaned, the first sight you saw being him sucking his fingers clean. You tried catching your breath, pushing off of your elbows to sit up, grabbing onto his jeans and pulling him close with it, attacking him in a heated kiss.

Your hands immediately went to the button of the jeans, practically ripping it off as you unzipped them. “Off. Now,” you gasped against his lips. He nodded, obliging as he pushed his knees up off the bed to stand, scrambling out his jeans and boxers. You bit your lip, smirking as you watched him trip over himself. He froze, unsure if he should continue, giving you the ‘deer in headlights’ look. You sat up on your knees, pulling him closer and using his surprise to push him down onto the bed, putting yourself on top of him. “Need you now, babe,” you murmured. Straddling his hips, you kissed him deeply as he lined himself up.

Slowly lowing yourself down onto him, you moaned, feeling the stretch of his length. He wasn’t small by any means, so you slowed down, whimpering softly as your hips met his, his length fully seated in you. “F-fuck, you feel so good,” he mumbled, his hands gripping onto your hips. You preened at the praise, taking a moment with him bottomed out, adjusting to his thick length.

“So do you,” you lean your forehead against his, pressing kisses across his face as you softly rock your hips. You moved slowly, lacing your hand in the hair at the nape of his neck, your other hand gripping onto his shoulder as you raised your hips a little faster. You dug your nails into the thick cords of his muscles, moaning as you moved. His hips bucked up against yours, making you basically mewl out, “Fuck.” You whimpered, your eyes closing as he fixed his stance, continuing to meet your hips thrust for thrust as you rode him. “Couldn’t just let me be in control, huh?” you teased, circling your hips against his.

He chuckled, gripping your hips to still you. “Bold of you to assume you’re in charge here,” your eyes opened in slight surprise, a chill going up your spine as you realized his eyes were a mix of his witch and vampire sides, red with a golden ring around them. He took charge, slamming his hips up, making you yelp as the pleasure spread at the rough display, both arms around his neck holding on for dear life. You most definitely didn’t mind this side of him. “You take me so well, such a good girl,” the praise sends your head spinning, a fact he locked away in his head for later. “Fuck, Sweetling,” He groans loudly as he grips you tighter, using the angle to pound up into you.

“Fuck, ple-please,” your voice died off as he continued, in total control of your pleasure. One hand was wrapped around your waist, keeping you steady as he moved harder, his length pressing against sensitive nerve endings you didn’t even know existed. His other hand slid between your bodies, roughly circling your clit, making your body seize up, clenching around him.

“Cum for me, Sweetling,” his voice was husky, lips pressed below your ear, “Then I’ll Claim you,” he promised, his own moan cutting his voice off.

You could only reply in breathless whimpers and mewls, brutal yet beautiful bliss overwhelming your body as the familiar knot in your stomach snapped again. He licked right over your pulse point, his hips stuttering a bit as he praised you, “That’s it,” he practically snarled against your skin.

Just as the pleasure started to die down, you felt his fangs brush against your skin. You relaxed in his arms, perfectly boneless. “Come on, Bucky. Cum for me,” you nuzzled your nose under his ear, “Please,” you groaned quietly, one hand tugging lightly on his hair.

His growled softly, fangs bared before they sunk into your lifeline just as he came hard. You cried out, the bite sent euphoric sparks down your neck and spine, pooling at your core and lighting up your brain which sent you gasping and crying out into another orgasm. It was completely different from the last time Bucky fed on you.

Just like that, you felt something snap inside of you, the hole you felt in your chest all your life shifted, filling. The yearning gone, filled instead with contentment and consuming bliss. You could feel and hear Bucky whimper against your neck as he pulled away, hips slowing until they stilled. He still held you close, gently licking the mark on your neck, cleaning off your blood as the wound closed while you mewled softly.

You both just held onto each other, catching your breath, gladly pressed into each other. “Did you feel that too?” You whispered once your breathing became normal again.

He pulled away slowly, a small sheen of sweat on his skin but he was grinning at you. “I did… I think my vampire side is a little happy I claimed you,” he teased.

You blushed but couldn’t help your little smile. “I concur,” you joked, kissing him softly. The heat and passion from earlier dwindling down, both of you sated. He held onto your hips, turning and laying you both down on the bed again, holding you close, unwilling to let you go just yet. “Ya know, we didn’t get much talking done.”

His eyes lit up as he laughed, grinning as he kissed your temple. “I don’t think your Coven will mind much. Now rest, Sweetling,” he pushed a curl of hair behind your ear, tenderly holding you. Your legs curled between his, your body tucked into his broad chest, letting his scent mixed with the smell of sex surround you.

“You too, mo chridhe,” you smiled warmly, holding yourself close together as you let sleep take both of you into the depths of darkness.

---

mo chridhe means My Heart in Scots Gaelic

---

Tags:

Permanent Tags:

@minetticatinwonderland / @lumar014 / @maniacproffesor / @gollyderek / @nerdy-bookworm-1998 / @avengerstones / @momc95 / @loving-life-my-way / @agentpeggybarnes / @marvelmaree / @thefridgeismybestie / @miraclesoflove / @hello-fanfiction-goodbye-grades

Bucky Tags:

@cassandras-musings / @darkness-doughter / @novaddictx / @thedancingnerdmermaid / @mood-pancakes / @gracethegeek9902 / @ravennightingaleandavatempus / @sunkissedbarnes / @annavega333 / @im-not-an-armrest-im-short

Blood Bound Tags:

@itz-kira / @rinthehufflepuff / @evilzinblr / @starkrobb / @paranoiadestroyah / @misplacedorphan / @ladysergeantbarnes / @gobemywonderwall / @yallneedtrek / @momobaby227 / @what-is-your-plan-today

For a tag, just reply/comment, if I don’t see it, just message me. Tell me what you think! Literally, any comment makes me happy! Like, comment, reblog, interact <3

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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years

Text

Down By The Lake - Part 3

Summary: It was only meant to be a stolen moment between you and your lover Daehyun and ended with him framed for murdering your best friend. With the assistance of your aloof friend Inspector Bang, could you find the real culprit called The Pauper, in time to clear Daehyun’s name?

Pairing: Jung Daehyun x reader ft. Bang Yongguk

Genre: murder mystery / periodic au / horror-ish

Warnings: murder / death / dark content given the nature of the storyline

Down By The Lake will be shared daily at 10am NZST.

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It was harder to find evidence than you expected. Yongguk had taken you to the scene three times already, making you retrace the same steps over and over until you cried out in frustration. “Yongguk! Must we do this again?!”

“It is important, Y/N,” he urged and you groaned for the umpteenth time, dragging your feet back to the first spot you met Daehyun in that night. Yongguk joined your side and held his hands out loosely towards you. “Did he grab you like this?”

Reaching for your waist, Yongguk lifted his head up politely at the close proximity. You giggled, and he glanced down at you apprehensively.

“Had we not grown up together, perhaps I would see more of a man in you. Women say you’re handsome, if not for the aloof approach you maintain.”

“Focus, Y/N.”

“But you are rather sensitive and shy, are you not?” you continued, squeaking when he tightened his grip around you.

“My Lady, please focus,” he reiterated pointedly. “This tight?”

“He grabbed my arm,” you stated, shifting away from Yongguk so he could take it and then pushed into him as if you had been moving quickly and relied on his balance to hold you upright. Yongguk nodded once whilst you attempted to reign in your enjoyment at his evident displeasure of being this close to you. “And then we had our first conversation. He ridiculed my dress, which was warranted. So I asked for help out of it.”

“You are far too improper for a lady of your status, Y/N,” Yongguk groaned and you gave the inspector a look. Yongguk glanced down at you and then stepped away. “And then?”

“He helped me remove the dress so we could go swim. I was overheated from the ball.” Yongguk strained a smile and gestured down the path. You followed him to the point where you stepped out to the lakefront, merely a metre from the water’s edge. “I got to here before Daehyun pulled me back into the bushes.”

Replaying the steps, except this time, you pushed Yongguk into the space Daehyun had held you within. You grinned. “Struggling, Inspector?”

“No, your instruction is incredibly insightful,” he murmured, growing quiet as he looked around you both. Your humour eased as you watched him work, glancing around yourself as if you could see what he did.

“There is no way to see a thing from here,” he admitted softly and you nodded. “And with it being dark out, it would lower visibility further.”

“I could not see a thing, but I did hear it all,” you replied sadly, closing your eyes as a tear fell down your face. “I was right here as my best friend was killed.”

“And you went to go out?” he reminded, helping you along so you did not focus on the parts that could not be changed now. Nodding, you re-enacted the tussle, Yongguk holding you back. The tears continued to fall and your friend began to brood over the situation. “There is a chance the killer heard you both moving. He normally strikes five times with the hay hook. On Lucy-”

“Please,” you begged tearfully and Yongguk omitted the rest of his findings.

“He finished his kill short and decided to flee.”

“Daehyun pulled us in closer to the bushes and all I heard were footsteps in that direction,” you continued and Yongguk stepped around you, heading off as you sobbed into the bushes, crouching down when you could no longer stand.

You missed Lucy terribly and the guilt ate at you the further you helped Yongguk with the play-by-play. It was a misfortune you had not wished upon anyone, and had you the ability to return to the night for real, you would have done more.

Perhaps it would be you found afloat within the lake. After all, this was your house and the killer being on the property when so many guards were on post would have only meant he was looking for someone in particular.

You jumped when you felt a hand reach for your shoulder. “The track has been used recently.”

“The investigation that was led by Moore had more than seven men tramp up and down it. I do not feel any clues would remain.”

“Still, is it not a path you and I know better than others?” Yongguk offered and with a smile, you took his hand he held out for you.

“We have not played up there since we were young.”

“Not much has changed, I am certain of it,” Yongguk assured as he helped you over the fence style, swinging your linked hands loosely as you had always done as children. You continued to feel lighter as you travelled across the track that led to the old hunting den. Conversation was slow; much as it always was between you. Yongguk had always been the quiet type and you the brazen, your laughter bouncing off the hillside as it once had in the past.

Just as you were mentioning your Great Aunt’s upcoming birthday, Yongguk came to a stop, his gaze stopping on the tree line nearby. “What is it that you see?”

“Remember how we would climb that tree there?”

“Was it that one?” you asked, smiling fondly at the memory. However, Yongguk did not share the same sentiment. “Why? Is there something wrong with it?”

“I remember, we would watch our parents in the garden from here.”

Your blood ran cold, marching over to the tree in question, gesturing for Yongguk to boost you up into it. On a sturdy branch-way, you looked out towards your home. It was closer than you expected from walking thus far and you gasped. You could see into the garden well from here.

“It was a full moon that night, was it not?”

You nodded. “I remember seeing it brightly in the sky when Daehyun was undoing my dress. How long did we walk for?”

“Ten minutes I believe.”

You glanced down at Yongguk, your eyes searching his for consolation as you became distressed. “It... it would have been that long as the fastens on my dress stumped Daehyun for some time.”

“And had the killer ran,” Yongguk offered, raising an index finger. “He would have been in the right place to capture you both.”

“Lucy was not his target? We did not see or hear her approach at all.”

“Hop down,” Yongguk offered, leaping up into the tree once you were grounded. You hugged yourself, searching for comfort as your body continued to chill.

Yongguk then cursed. “Had she taken the main path towards the lake, she could have very well been the target. In fact, I believe she may have been on the move before you and Daehyun even met.”

“You mean he lured her there?”

Yongguk nodded grimly. “There was a note found upon her body. She was meant to be meeting Lord Wilsford.”

“Why I was with him just before I went to see Daehyun,” you breathed in confusion and blinked slowly.

It all began to click. Snapping your focus up to Yongguk’s face, you fell into his embrace once he was down beside you again. “Could he be the killer?!”

“Well, there is only one way to find out.”

Smoothing down your dress as you waited in the doorway of your home, you curtsied in greeting to those entering for your Aunt’s birthday party two days following your grave discovery. You attempted to keep yourself present in the moment, and since you had acted a great deal over the years in attending such trifle celebrations, it came easier than you expected.

On the outside, you looked demurely relaxed whilst on the inside, you were a jittery mess. Especially since Yongguk had yet to arrive at the party.

However, the guest you were waiting most for entered a moment later. He smiled warmly. “My Lady! Beautiful as ever.”

“You flatter me too easily, Lord Wilsford,” you answered, hoping he did not feel the way in which your skin began to crawl upon his contact with it. Smiling brightly, you then curtsied. “May you have a splendid evening.”

“One in which we can spend time together, I do hope,” he suggested and you nodded in answer. “I look forward to it.”

“As do I.”

Turning as he moved through into the ballroom, you exhaled a breath you hadn’t been aware you were holding shakily. Your Father at your side turned to look at you. “Are you feeling well?”

“Yes, I am fine.”

“If you do not wish to-”

“It is expected that all eligible women appear to all and every gathering where she may be matched with a husband, is it not?”

“Yes, darling. However, if you are not yet ready, you mustn’t push yourself.”

You smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “On the contrary, tonight this is where I must be.”

“Then it’s settled. Tonight we shall find you a husband,” he announced as Yongguk came through the door, bowing silently in greeting. You merely responded with a curtsy, sharing a long look before he moved on into the party itself.

You relaxed some knowing he was finally here, and soon entered after him, keeping an eye out for Lord Wilsford’s activity. He spent some time charming the elders and then the mothers before finding you, taking your hand and kissing it fondly.

“I fear I left you alone for far too long tonight.”

“I was feeling rather deprived of good company,” you answered much to his delight.

“I knew I would win your heart after all,” he drawled as he took you out onto the dance floor, slipping easily into the well-known steps to this song. You mindlessly followed, trying to think of a way to entice him further.

The matter was, you had never once wanted this man’s attention and now that you sought it, you were drawing quite the blank.

Thankfully, he was none the wiser. “Y/N.”

“Yes, my Lord?”

“Do you feel it rather crowded in here?” Lord Wilsford asked and looking up at him suddenly, he chuckled at your widened expression. “My, I took you by surprise!”

“No, I just… wondered how you could read my thoughts so easily.”

“Should we head outside?”

“Oh, I do not know if that is safe. Did you not hear of what happened out there last time?”

“Do not worry, I will be with you.”

Smiling graciously at his reassurance, you stepped in closer to the man. “We will have to go separately as not to draw attention.”

“I have much to say to you tonight. Meet me by the lakefront shortly,” he instructed and acting coy, you nodded and bit at your bottom lip. Lord Wilsford chuckled and reached to kiss the top of your hand, this time more ardently than before.

You swallowed visibly. “I look forward to hearing it all.”

“My Lady,” he breathed, looking up into your eyes. “This night will be one you will never forget.”

“Is that so? Well then, I anticipate being enlightened by your memorable gift. I will wait long enough for my Father not to notice my departure.”

Lord Wilsford left and after a moment, Yongguk came up to your side, leading you over to the refreshments. “Well?”

“He told me to meet him at the lakefront and that it would be a night to remember.”

“Are you feeling up to it?”

Glancing up at the man, you nodded hesitantly. “It is the only plan we have to save Daehyun, right?”

“It could be-”

“You will be right there, as we discussed?” you intervened and Yongguk smiled.

“I will catch the killer and protect you.”

“Then what are we waiting for? I have no doubt, a rather deadly proposal waiting for me.”

You only hoped that hearing it would still end up with you alive afterwards.

_________________

Part 4

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a-pretty-nerd · 5 years

Text

Happy Halloween (Patrick Hockstetter x reader smut)

Request: "Could you do a Patrick x reader smut where they're at a Halloween party and reader wears a revealing costume and he takes her to a room and punishes her?" ~ Anonymous

Ooooh it feels good to be back! ❤

A/N: Requests are now officially OPEN! Please be patient with me and the rate at which I answer and finish these. I just got this one this mornings and I'm doing it because I have the time to. This will vary! ALSO! If you are interested in some original work, I will be posting it on my wattpad account! So please follow me on wattpad considering that Tumblr is slowly becoming more and more of an inhospitable place for writers like myself.

Warnings: sex! Dom/Sub! Etc! Etc...

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Oh Halloween! What a sweet, sweet holiday! A teenager's paradise filled with house parties, candy, drugs, alcohol and best of all...each other.

You and Patrick had been going steady for quiet some time now. You were his little pet, his prized toy, nobody fucked with you. It was nice to have a gaurd dog on your arm every once in a while.

This Halloween the boys decided to rade a house party, rather than torment little boys like last year. They picked you up at 8, and the boys whistled as you stepped out of your house. Patrick, was lost for words for a moment as his eyes washed over your form. You had managed to rope him into a couples costume, all you requested of him was to comb his hair back and wear white. He did one of those things. He watched as you came out in a bright red bikin, heels, a fake tail, and horned clips in your hair.

"What the fuck is this?" Patrick grunted as he closes the door behind you.

"We're an angel and devil!" You smiled. He watched you pull out a pair of cheap white feathered wings. You tossed it at him before walking past and to the car.

"You sure we can't trade?" Patrick sneered as you took your seats in the car.

"Aw c'mon, thats the fun part! Can't you let me be the naughty one for once? Just one night?" Patrick climbed in the back seat next to you and curled his arm over you to keep you close. No one was coming near you.

"One, night." He repeated as you drove off. When you got to the party the rest of the guys headed straight for the keg. Drunk teenagers were a plenty at this party and there was dancing and halloween themed games, mostly drinking games, but still. There were plenty of other girls dressed like you there but Patrick didn't seem to care. He didn't care that you fot right in because he didn't want you to. You were different, thats why he liked you in the first place.

He followed closley behind you as you greeted friends and acquaintances. He watched as other boys took notice of you. He watched them watch you, and it made him seath with hate and rage. At one point he came from behind and wrapped his arms around your shoulders to keep you close. Something he didn't often do. Patrick had no respect for personal space, but he was either on top of you entirely with aggressive pda, or he wasn't touching you at all. He'd let you touch or hold him but with Patrick it was either all or nothing. So this clear act of "mine" was strange.

He starred others down with his dark brooding gaze, his glassy grey eyes shot men down for miles. He made everyone, including your girlfriends as they watched him gaurd you.

"Hey," Patrick looked down at you, "you alright? You haven't spoken all night." You noted as you starred up into his dark gaze.

"I'm fine." He muttered.

"You don't look fine." Patrick leaned his head forward to hide in the crook of your neck.

"I'm going to tear you to shreds." He growled. It sent a shiver down your spine.

"Did I do something wrong?" You knew what you did, and he knew it too. You loved to make Patrick jealous. You loved his protective reaction, you loved to play with him, tease him, toy with him. You brat.

"Don't you fucking-" he was cut off by the slow swaying of your hips. Your pressed your ass against him and swayed back and forth to the music that played. Patrick went silent. You took your shoulders in his hands and began gauding you through the unfamiliar house. One of them had to be an empty bedroom, or at the very least, a newly open one. At parties like this, these houses turned into miniature brothels.

But no rooms were available, fuck it, bathroom then. Patrick shoved you inside before slamming the door behind him and locking his. His chest already heaving, his heart racing. He pulled you close and planted a heated kiss to your lips.

"I'm going to fucking ruin you for this." He growled.

"For what?" You cooed. Patrick reached down and grabbed your ass.

"You little tease. You know exactly what you did, what you were doing to me out there." His fingernails dug into your flesh and dragged until he let go to feel you jiggle. "You are miiine." He hummed as he pulled down your bikini top to reveal your breasts. He gropped them harshly, it made you whimper. "You are mine and mine alone." He growled into your neck he began leaving hickies. "They don't deserve you. They don't GET to have you like I do." He smacked your ass before grabbing and playing with you as he spoke. "You crossed a boundry tonight baby girl," he cooed, "and now I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson." You melted in his arms.

He pressed you down and you kelt for him. He pulled down his pants as you waited patiently for him. His cock sprung free from his boxers as he threw them off. He held your head as he pressed his head go your lips and you took him in with ease. He did with you as he pleased, he slowly rocked his hips as he slid in and out of your mouth. He let drool fall from your mouth and his cock before he pushed himself all the way down your throat. You looked up at him, water streaming down your eyes. He looked down with a cruel grin.

He pulled you away before he picked you up and bent you over the counter table. There you saw yourself in the mirror, devil horns still in, makeup runny, your hair messy. Your breasts fell from your top and were planted firmly on the marble counter.

"Look at you. I'm the only one who can make you feel like that." He purred as his fingers reached into your bikini and pulled the fabric. It pressed against your clit and aching entrance. "You wanted this, didn't you?" Smack, "you knew what I'd do to do." Smack. "And you had me dress up like an angel for it too." Smack! You gave a soft cry. "You really are a little devil aren't you?" He stood directly behind you as he pulled at your bikini one more time. "Naughty, naughty girl." He took his other hand and gently tapped at your clit.

"Patrick, pleease." You begged him as you leaned back into him.

"Don't tell me what to do, little devil. The angels always win, don't they?" He chuckled before fiercely pulling your bottoms off and letting them drop to the floor. He played with you for a moment. He sunk a finger into you and it made you moan. He loved watching you as you arched your back and started to push back to get any sort of friction.

"Fuck..." you gasped as a second finger entered you and he began to move them. Back and forth, in and out. That could work. You tried to push back as he fingered you, trying to get a much needed release. But as you were getting close he pulled away. You whinned and moaned helplessly for him.

"Goddamn you're so fucking wet. It'd be a shame if I didn't use this tight pussy of yours." He placed his head at your entrance and you watched yourself in the mirror as he sunk into you. Fuck he felt so good, you almost came as soon as he entered you were so tense. Soon you started to shake as his hips smacked against your ass.

"Ooohh shit...oh fuck.." you muttered as he fucked you. You watched him in the mirror, his gaze was switching between your ass and your face in the mirror. An insane smile plastered on his face as he fucked you.

"Thats it, thats it, ohh fuck yeah." He was triumphant. His hands clung to your hips as he started to pick up the pace, soon you were cumming all over him. It was made him lean forward and nibble on your earlobe as he whispered in your ear. "You cum so fast for me, Y/N. Naughty girl. I'm gonna show you who you belong to. Look at you, you can't help yourself. I'm all you need, baby." He grunted before standing back up straight and continuing to fuck you. You bouncing underneath him, your eyes rolling in the back of your head as you came once again.

Your last orgasm drove Patrick to the edge. He started to huff and puff as he got closer and closer. You could feel him shaking, losing his cool as his climax came. He leaned over and rested hid head on your shoulder as you watched him crumble. Patrick loved to press himself as far in as he could, and cum deep inside of you. You shuddered as you felt him pull out and felt everything seep out with him.

#Bowers Gang #Patrick Hockstetter lemon #Patrick Hockstetter x reader #Bowers gang x reader #bowers gang lemon

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lovemychoices · 5 years

Text

Always Be My Driver - A RoD Rom-Com [Colt x MC/Logan x MC]. CH 6

Book : RIDE OR DIE

PAIRING : Colt x MC/ Logan x MC

SUMMARY: Emma and Colt have been childhood best friends since forever, they were both inseparable. In middle school they became something more but when Colt had to move with his mom away from LA all the way to Miami, things started to change between them. A small misunderstanding leads to the end of their relationship. 6 years later they meet again at the most unlikely place. Will Emma and Colt be able to mend what has been broken between them? Or will it continue to crash and burn?

Characters except my OCs belong to Pixelberry, I am just borrowing them

Word count : 2207

Chapter Summary: Colt and Emma spend the day together.

A/N : short chapter & Excuse my grammatical mistakes. Does the more function on mobile even work?

Warning : I’m rating this PG18 cause there will probably be PG18 stuff that’s going to happen in future chapters. So if you read this series you acknowledge that you are above 18.

Catch up with the series HERE

[[MORE]]

“Get up it’s almost noon!” Mona belts, opening the curtains of the loft letting the bright sunlight hit Emma’s face.

“No! Leave me alone.. I want to wallow in sorrow from the comforts of my bed.” Emma whined, covering her face with a pillow. It was the day after Logan told her they should go on a break. Code for we should break up.

“God, this is the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen.. And I’ve been to prison.” Mona mumbles and plops herself on the bed next to Emma. “Look, technically you’re on a break which could be good thing.”

Emma turns on her side to face Mona. “How can this be a good thing?”

“Because now you actually have some space and time to think about what you actually want.” She grinned, Emma just stares at her with a blank expression, making Mona roll her eyes. “Look ever since Colt showed up you’ve been caught between your feelings for him and Logan.” Emma is about to say something but Mona raises her hand and shushes her. “Before you deny anything please remember who you’re talking to.”

“Does it even matter now? Colt’s spending the whole week with some pretty girl who is so into him and he’s probably into her too. He even took her to our favorite ice cream parlor!”

Mona snorts. "Didn't take you for a quitter?"

“I’m not a quitter.” She protests then gets out of bed, pacing back and forth on the hardwood floors making a creek sound. “It’s just.. I don’t know where Colt stands in regards to what his feelings are for me. I mean one night he tells me how bad he wants to kiss and the next night he acts like he couldn’t care less.”

An alarm on Emma’s phone goes off and she heads to the nightstand to check the notifications. Shit I totally forgot about this. A few months ago Emma’s favorite cousin called her up and told her she was getting married during the summer in San Francisco, when she asked about the RSVP Emma told her that she would be going with a plus one. The plan was that Logan and her were going to drive together Friday morning in time for the rehearsal dinner but that was before they broke up.

“Em? Is everything alright?” Mona quirks an eyebrow.

Emma snaps out of her thoughts. “Yea, Totally. So, Mona any chance you want to attend a wedding in San Francisco this weekend with me?”

Mona snorts out a laugh. “No thanks I have other plans, you’re not the only one with a love life you know.”

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend?”

“I don’t but that doesn’t mean I don’t go on dates. Also if you’re thinking about dragging Ximena or Toby along you won’t have any luck there either.”

Emma heaves out a frustrated sigh and plops herself back on the bed. “So now I need to drive 5 hours alone and attend a wedding alone like some loser.”

“You know there is someone else you could ask who would go with you.” Mona gives Emma a knowing look. “You know someone handsome with dark hair, likes to brood by himself, drives a really cool white sport bike.”

Emma scoffs. “Yeah.. Except you forgot that someone happens to be occupied the whole week with some petite brunette named Jean.”

“Haha… You know you’re cute when your jealous? But I think that Colt would turn down a date with 100 pretty brunette’s named Jean just so he could be with you.” Mona gives a sincere smile which rarely happens. “I need to head out for a job. Just do me a favour, take a shower before you start to reek."

"Fine!" She answers, throwing her hand up in the air before heanding for the bathroom.

Half an hour later…

After a long cold shower, Emma walks out from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body and her damp hair when she hears a soft knock on the door. I thought Mona left already? She opens the door and to her surprise, sees Colt standing on the other side. "Can I come in?" He asked with a serious expression on his face.

She gives him a skeptical look before eventually nodding and motions for him to enter the room.

"What do you want?" She said in a flat tone with her arms crossed.

His eyes wandered from her face down her chest then back to her face again. "I uh.. Your car’s park in the garage but didn't see you all day, thought maybe I’d check up on you. I wanted to see if you were okay?”

Emma scoffs. "Suddenly you care so much?"

"Why wouldn't I? I'll always care about you Emma, you know that right? If something is bothering you, you can always talk to me." He replies and she could see how sincere he was. Great now I feel bad for being a jerk. "I had some stuff going on, I wasn't really in the mood to do anything this morning."

"Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?" A sudden loud growling sound comes out Emma’s direction. Her face turns pink, she wraps her arms around her stomach. “Have you eaten anything since this morning?”

“Obviously not.”

“Get dressed, we’re going out to grab something to eat. I’m driving.” He smiles and whirls on his heels towards the door, stopping at the threshold, looking over his shoulder. “Wear something appropriate, no dresses or skirts.”

A little while later…

Emma heads down to the garage to meet Colt, she sees him leaning against his motorcycle arms folded. A grin appears on his face as he watches her saunter over. “Took you long enough.”

“Yeah well, you don’t get to look like this without putting in any effort.”

Colt rolls his eyes. “Here, this is for you.” He says and hands her a black coloured helmet, she raises her eyebrow at him. “What’s this for? Aren’t we taking a car?”

Colt scoff. “At this hour? You know how bad the traffic is in LA right?” Emma bites her lower lip, she’d hate to admit it but she’s never ridden on a motorcycle before. “You haven’t ridden one of these before have you?” Emma shakes her head as a reply that she’s never rode a motorcycle.

Colt snorts out a laugh. “Emma.. Emma… Emma.. you’re really missing out. So what do you say?” He gestures at the helmet on his hand giving her a challenging look. “Or are you too chicken?”

Did he just call me a chicken? “Alright fine!” She forcefully grabs the helmet out from Colts hand. “And don’t think for one second that you’re slowling down on this thing. I want full speed or no speed at all.”

“Yes ma’am” he gives an exaggerated salute before hopping on to his bike, Emma sitting behind him. Colt starts revving the throttle of his bike while waiting for the garage door to open. “Hold on tight sweetheart, we’re going on one hell of a ride.”

****************************************

A little while later after maneuvering through the bustling city traffic of LA, the two finally reach a familiar spot.

Emma hopped off the bike and opens up her helmet, slowly taking in the sight. A low shrug escaped her and Colt notices. “What not fancy enough for you?”

“No it’s not that, it’s just that I haven’t been here in like almost forever.”

“Well same here, I hope their hotdogs are still as good though. Common all that riding around worked up an appetite.” The two stopped at a nearby food cart and Colt orders a couple of hotdogs after that they continue walking towards the pier. They lean against the wooden rail and enjoy every bite of their food while silently taking in the view of the ocean.

“So.. where’s Jean?” She tries not to grimace as she said the name. “Aren’t you like supposed to be her personal tour guide around LA or something?”

Colt thought back to the night before after the movies and during his time with Jean at the ice cream shop.

“Omg.. This is literally the best handmade ice cream I’ve tasted so far!” Jean beams as she takes another scoop and stuffed it in her mouth. Colt chuckled. “What did I tell ya, Barry beats any big ice cream franchise by a 100 miles. I used to come here a lot with Emma when we were kids.”

Jean gave Colt knowing look when he mentions her name and clears her throat “So how long have you been in love with her?”

Colt slightly chokes on his ice cream. “What do you mean how long have I been in love with her? I’m not in love with..” “Colt it’s fine, I saw the way you looked at her when we were at the movies and the way your face lights up everytime you say her name. Which by the way is a very rare thing to happen for Colt Kaneko.” She grinned and it made Colt slightly blush. “So what’s the scoop? Pun intended.”

Colt snort then heaves a sigh, running his hand through his hair. “You want the whole story?” She nodded excitedly. “Alright where do I begin.” Colt told Jean everything from how they were when they were kids to their first kiss and when they broke up. “Did the two of you ever talk about it? The whole time you were here?”

“Why should we it’s in the past we’ve both moved on, she dating Logan.” He grimaced as he mentioned the name. “Does she know you still have feelings for her?.”

“Like I said she has a boyfriend. I go back to MIT in Boston after the summer ends, what’s the point?”

“So you should still tell her how you feel. What she decides after that is up to her but she at least deserves to know the truth. It’s okay to make yourself feel vulnerable sometimes Colt, when it’s with the right person.”

Colt let her words sink in for a moment. “I’ll think about it but no promises.”

“That’s good enough for me.” She chuckled. “Hey so about this week you don’t have to like be my tour guide or anything. I actually made plans with someone else.”

“Ouch!” He exaggeratedly pressed his hands to his chest. “Did I just get ditched? You hurt me Jean, you know that?”

Jean chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“She had other plans. We’re cool.” He answers and take one last bite of his hotdog. “I’d better get you back to the garage before pretty boy finds you missing and gets all worried.”

Emma shrugs. “I don’t think there is anything to worry about.” Colt gives her a questioning look. “Is everything okay?”

“We sort of broke up, last night. It was sort of my fault. I don’t really want to talk about it.” Only because it involved you.

Colt rubbed the back of his head. “Well good riddance.”

“Colt!”

“What? I’m just saying Em, you’re too good for him. You deserve better. I know I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it again.” He said with a sincere look on his face. “You deserve to be with someone who can give you a family and that house in the suburbs with the white picket fence. Just like you always wanted when we were kids.”

He remembered? “Colt, that’s not who I am anymore.” She replies but her expression was unconvincing. Of course that was what she still wanted, the garage was only a temporary arrangement for her to pay for her college expenses. But she never really talked to Logan about what comes after she’s done with college, does he plan on being a car thief for the rest of his life? “How do you even remember all of that? It’s been years.”

“I remember everything about you Emma Park. You’re not really an easy person to forget.” He smiled at her and it felt warm and genuine. “Okay Mr. Flatterer, what's going on with you today?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s.. It’s nothing just forget about it.” She waves him off and takes one last bite of her hotdog. Maybe since he is in such a good mood, this might be the right time to ask him. “So uh.. I need a small favor from you.” He raised an eyebrow at her giving a curious look. “There’s this thing coming up this weekend. You know my cousin Amanda?”

“The one who used to babysit us when we were kids?”

“Yup the very same, well she’s getting married this weekend and I RSVP six months ago that I would be going with a plus one but then the whole thing with Logan happened so now I don’t have a plus one and that sucks because…”

“Sure I’ll go as your plus one.” He answers before she could finish her whole speech. “But I didn’t even finish talking yet.”

“Well wasn’t that what you’re going to ask me?” He raised his eyebrows and she nodded. “So you’ll do it? Just like that?”

“Sure, as long as you promise to introduce me to all the pretty hot bridesmaid that will be attending.” He grinned and Emma rolled her eyes. “Do we have a deal?”

Emma thought for a moment does she really want to see other girls fond over Colt during their time there? “It’s a deal.”

********************************************

Rod - @liamzigmichael4ever @client-327 @brightpinkpeppercorn @lovehugsandcandy @lilyofchoices @rideorparadise @zaffrenotes @queenkaneko @mskaneko @pintsizedelle @flowerpowell @desiree-0816 @emceesynonymroll @kinkykingliam @jlpplays1 @annekebbphotography @thecordoniandiaries @cora-nova @rainbowsinthestorm @princess-geek @choicesbyjade @leelee10898 @herladyshipxx @emichelle @kimmiedoo5 @dawn-1994 @choicesarehard

#colt x mc #colt kaneko #rod colt #choices ride or die au #rod mona #rod logan

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a-strange-inkling · 5 years

Text

SASUSAKU MONTH DAY 2: Patterns

Rated T (for suggestive content and language)

Summary: Only in another life would Sakura ever hate Sasuke, and even then it’s debatable. Though in a different sky, the stars always follow the same pattern (RTN AU, First Chapter of Story that I’ve been working on)

Annoying

"You aren't mad at me, are you Sakura?"

Ah. There they were.

Uchiha Sasuke's infamous Puppy-Dog Eyes.

Haruno Sakura held back a sneer as she turned her attention back to the romance novel she was currently indulging, not in the mood for any of her overly hormonal team mate's antics. The sweet, childlike innocence in those round, onyx orbs of his was as sincere as a tray of fucking cheese. Sasuke knew better than anyone that she was mad at him.

She was always mad at him.

"Sa-ku-ra..." he cooed, trying again for her attention, speaking her name at a low and chilling octave, knowing she hated when he did that.

The Fourth Hokage's daughter only snorted at the sound of her name rolling seductively off his lips, before pivoting her entire body away from him, crossing her legs with a steely grace.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, unable to repress the smirk that had been playing at the corner of his mouth. "Well, I must have really hit close to the mark this time, you're even pulling out your age-old Ice Queen persona."

Sakura simply glared at the written text in front of her, refusing to get in yet another spat with the arrogant boy. However, the young Uchiha had not quite given up yet, he knew one particular trick that would get to the cold young woman.

"You know, no one has mastered the silent treatment quite like you, Sakura-chan."

"Don't call me that." Sakura hissed quickly, shooting him one of her nastiest looks. She never let him call her that.

Sasuke's smirk deepened. "Seems there is still some room for improvement though."

"Look, there is a pair of breasts right over there, Sasuke!" she exclaimed with feigned excitement, pointing to a fairly pretty brunette who was making her way down the street. "Why don't you go bother them for a while?"

Sasuke eyed the passing young woman thoughtfully, mildly interested, before shaking his head and turning his attention back to the spunky rosette. "Shouldn't do that, you might get jealous, then you'd be even madder at me."

Sakura stood then, abruptly, closing her book with a resounding snap, as she put distance between herself and the young Uchiha.

"Come on, Sakura!" he called after her, growing annoyed as the kunochi went to find another place to wait for the rest of their squad. She was secretly pleased that his voice had an agitated edge to it instead of the usual carefree ring that usually resounded from his mouth. "Are you going to be like this the whole mission?"

Silently, with her unparalleled grace, the kunochi leapt up several branches of a nearby oaktree, before settling back down with her book. It was all of nine seconds before Sasuke was perched behind her, peering over her shoulder.

"...how's your latest 'Kiss Handsome Boy' book?" he asked coyly.

"The hero is not handsome, he's deformed," Sakura replied with a roll of her eyes. "What's compelling about him is how deeply he loves and how loyal he is... Something you wouldn't know anything about."

"Deformed as in one side of his otherwise attractive face," Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Oh, is there a scar over one of his eyes? Or is he missing a limb?"

Sakura looked skyward in agitation.

"Heh." Sasuke smirked. "He's just missing a limb isn't he?"

"Would you just leave me alone, please?" Sakura asked him with a sigh, shifting down the branch.

"Oh, come on, aren't you going to tell me more about your hero?" the Uchiha asked smugly. "I bet he's all brooding and tortured with a tragic past, and I'm sure only you can save him."

Sakura growled in agitation before closing the book once more and placing it in her back pouch before turning her jade orbs on the Uchiha playboy.

"Okay, Sasuke, you win," she said, crossing her arms. "You have my attention, now what the hell do you want?"

"Hey," Sasuke put his hands up in surrender. "I'm just trying to find out why you're mad at me, Sakura-chan, it's not good for a team to go on a mission with unresolved issues."

"I'm not mad at you, Sasuke." she said evenly. "I just genuinely can't stand you."

"Aw." Sasuke chided, swinging his legs over the branch to let them swing. "We both know that's not true, we used to be friends once, you even used to call me Sasuke-kun, remember?"

"I was just a stupid kid back then," she replied. "Now, would you leave me alone, it's bad enough I have to spend a whole week with you."

The infamous playboy placed a hand over his heart. "Ah, you wound me, Sakura-chan... Don't you care at all about the importance of teamwork?"

"Oh, are you going to lecture me about teamwork?" she asked him. "You, the one who abandoned the team to flirt with that busty nimrod last time?"

"You're so high and mighty, you know that?" He scoffed. "Sorry that I like to enjoy myself once in a while and talk to people, unlike Menma who can barely form coherent words around women, and you, because you're too busy trying to keep up you're frigid bitch facade."

"Wow, Sasuke." Sakura gave him a mocking grin. "And you wonder why I don't like you."

"That's your problem, you don't like anyone," Sasuke explained matter-o-factly. "That's why you're so lonely all the time."

She felt her breathing hitch and her whole body stiffen at the word.

What did he just say?

Lonely...

"How would you know?" she asked lowly. "You don't know a damn thing about being alone."

"Sakura..." he began, realizing he had gone a little overboard. She was just so harsh sometimes, he couldn't help it. "I didn't mean it like that, I just..."

"You're so damn annoying! Acting like you actually know me!" she exclaimed, so angry she didn't know what to do with herself. "Why don't you just keep your mouth shut about things you don't understand!?" She stood up and leapt down from the tree, unwilling to wait around with him a moment more.

Luckily, Menma appeared, walking up the cobbled path, giving her a shy smile. "M-morning, Sakura-chan."

"Hello, Menma." she replied with a sigh of relief. "It's so good to see you."

"It really is," Sasuke replied, jumping down from his perch. "I'll have a witness in case Sakura-chan tries to do me in."

Menma sighed to himself. It seemed this would be another mission of tension between his two teammates. "Hey, Sasuke... M-my mom made cookies for the journey if you guys want some," he told them, holding out a brown paper bag where his mother had drawn a lopsided smiley face. It was an immature tactic to make peace, but it was effective more times than not.

"Ah!" Sasuke exclaimed, helping himself. "Let me at 'em! Kushina-san's cookies are always the best!"

"Sakura-chan?" Menma encouraged her to take one, trying not to blush.

"No thanks, Menma." Sakura replied, putting up a hand. "I'm on a cleanse, but they smell delicious."

"A cleanse?" Menma asked.

"Probably for the best." Sasuke nodded. "They’re too sweet to share with someone so bitter. Not to mention you've been growing a little thicker around the middle."

Menma cringed in fear. Did Sasuke just call her fat? Did he dare? So much for his peace cookies. Maybe he should try dumplings next time.

A sort of dark shadow fell over Sakura's eyes as she shot a deadly glare up at her raven-haired teammate.

Sasuke smirked in response. "Sorry, koishii, that doesn't work on me."

Sakura had a talent for scaring off her many admirers with that dark look alone, however, that frightening attitude of hers had an opposite effect on Sasuke.

He wasn't afraid, only amused.

"Heh," she replied, startling him a bit and switching gears as an easy smile spread across her face, mirroring his own. That may not work on him, but she knew something that would. "On second thought, I would love a cookie."

She strode past him then, with a little extra swing of her hips, purposefully knocking her shoulder with his own as she did so, and took a large round cookie from the offered bag."Thanks, Menma-kun, you're so sweet!"

Surprising both her male teammates, the kunoichi leaned up and brushed her lips against Menma's cheek as a token of her appreciation, making the blonde turn seven different shades of red and Sasuke's smirk diminish a little.

"Da...uh... N-no problem, Sakura-chan." the poor boy stuttered, his hands clenching around the cookie bag, lost somewhere between pure joy and mortification. His mom was right. Sweets were the way to a girl's heart!

Sakura turned and smirked triumphantly at Sasuke, glad to see his own had melted into a displeased frown, as she took a slow enticing bite of the cookie. "Mmm... you're right, Sasuke, these really are the best."

"Hn." he hummed. "Careful you don't choke, Sakura."

"Good morning, students!" Kakashi greeted, interrupting the spat.

"Ah, right on time as always, Sensei." Sasuke waved before shoving his hands in his pockets. "Where are we off to today?"

...

"Tell me."

"No, go away."

"C'mon, just tell me what's bothering you."

"No! Stop that! Get the hell away from me!"

"Sakuraaaaa."

"Sasuke."

"Look, I'll stop bugging you for the rest of the journey if you just tell me."

"No!"

"Please, Sakura," Kakashi begged from where he was leading the three teenagers. "For all our sakes, take him up on that offer."

Menma nodded in agreement. It was hard to focus on reading the map with those two bickering behind him.

"I'm not giving in to his whining." the rosette replied angrily. "...I'm going on ahead to scout."

With that, she leapt away into the trees and disappeared from sight. Sasuke moved to jump after her.

"Sasuke, give her some space," Kakashi commanded.

"Heh, she's not getting away that easily." was the ninja's careless and insubordinate reply.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Sasuke knew Sakura. He had known her his whole life and she really wasn't the icy, badass bitch she made herself out to be. She had been putting up with his normal bullshit for years with the usual scoff or roll of the eyes, whatever he had done most recently must have really upset her.

And, truth be told, he wasn't all too happy with her either.

"I can't really be sorry for something if I didn't even know what I did, you know?" he told her once he caught up with the angry kunoichi. "Come on, I genuinely want to know what's wrong."

"You, genuine?" she scoffed.

"Okay, I don't deserve that," he told her. "We're not thirteen anymore, your lousy attitude is not going to send me into the corner feeling bad about what I did. I'm human, I make mistakes. Not all of us can be perfect like you..."

"You see, that's exactly what gets on my nerves." she turned on him then, her finger pointed right into his face. "You think everything is about you."

"Well, isn't this about me?" he asked. "Isn't that why you haven't spoken to me for days, this morning, and that stunt with Menma you did to try and get me jealous."

"Ha! Don't flatter yourself."

"Well, you were." he laughed. "Unfortunately, I'm not the jealous type like you."

That earned him a glare. "Whatever makes you feel better, Sasuke."

"Look," he sighed. "Is this really going to be the whole mission? Can we just..."

"Ino is not one of those girls!" she exclaimed.

"What?" Sasuke asked, dumbfounded.

"Ino," she remarked. "You know, my best friend? She's not like those girls you hang out with, the ones who enjoy flirting with you as much as you enjoy flirting with them. She's shy, even more so than Menma, anytime a guy gives her any attention she takes it to heart. She took you flirting with her seriously."

"Who are we even talking about?" he asked, confused.

"INO!" Sakura exclaimed. "She's been in every class with both of us since the Academy. Blonde haired, blue-green eyes, wears five layers of clothing."

"Ohhhhh." Sasuke realized. "The stuttering girl... she's your friend still, huh?"

"Kami." Sakura hissed, turning and jumping to another branch.

"Look, Sakura, wait," Sasuke called after her. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean anything by it, it was Shikamaru's idea, it was all just a joke."

"Just a joke?" Sakura asked him. "Hurting a girl's feelings and making her feel foolish for believing you were actually genuine is not a joke... do you know how hard it was for me to tell her what you're really like, that you didn't actually like her, you were just messing with her?"

"Look, it was stupid," he sighed, jumping and landing beside her once more. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, you tell her that next time you see her," she quipped. "Maybe she'll forgive you."

"Fine, mama bear, I will." he sighed, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. "As usual, you're blowing this way out of proportion."

She shoved his hand away and crossed her arms. "I told you what was bothering me, wasn't that the deal? Now stop bugging me for the rest of the trip."

With that she jumped away again, not slowing down, leaving Sasuke to stare after her.

Kami, that girl. She drove him absolutely crazy.

...

They set up camp and Team 7 had fallen into a not so easy silence. Sasuke had been true to his word and let Sakura alone, but the tension from before was still sizzling in the air as they went about their tasks. It was all standard teenage shit for Kakashi, but Menma was always uncomfortable with any sort of discourse, especially between his only two friends, and found himself actually missing their bickering. This competitive silence was somehow worse.

Once they all settled around the fire, Menma had calculated that no one had spoken for an hour and twenty-three minutes. While he was a quiet fellow, himself, this was just ridiculous. He turned to Kakashi with a pleading look.

Do something, Sensei!

But the silver-haired jonin was looking over their map, planning for the next morning, quite content with the silence, no matter how awkward it was. Menma turned to his right to see Sakura at the farthest end of the fire, her nose in her book, legs crossed and body pivoted away from them all. To his left sat Sasuke, sharpening his kunai, a full pout on his face as he watched Sakura's back. Menma had never seen him so grumpy. Though bothering Sakura was his lifeblood, being cut off for even an hour seemed to have negative effects.

Menma, knowing it was up to him to break the ice, squeezed his cookie bag in dread. He hated bringing attention to himself, but if it was for the good of his team, he would do it. He glanced around before choosing the member of his squad he currently liked best to try to engage with. While it was a wide known fact that Sasuke was his best friend, Sakura-chan was very pretty.

Plus she had kissed him that morning, he still felt it burning beneath his skin.

"How is your book, Sakura-chan?" he chirped, feeling blood rush to his cheeks. The sound of his soft, raspy voice was like a piano crashing from the sky on top of them all. He felt Sasuke's glare burning a hole in the back of his head and realized that he may have betrayed a rule of comradery between them that he had been unaware of. Apparently, if the Uchiha wasn't talking to Sakura, he wasn't allowed to talk to her either.

Forgive me, brother!

Sakura lowered her book and gave him a rare sweet smile over her shoulder. "It's a work of genius." she sighed dreamily. "The hero just proposed to his dying lover."

"Oh, that's um... nice," Menma replied, though he wasn't sure if it was. He wasn't one for reading, and certainly couldn't manage a thick romance novel without dying from secondhand embarrassment, but Sakura never went on a mission without one. It was the funny riddle of her being for her teacher and teammates, that someone as cold and crass as the village Ice Queen read sappy paperbacks.

Sasuke scoffed from behind, but Menma didn't even dare to face him. "There's one more cookie, if you want it, Sakura-chan." he offered, holding out the crumpled bag once more. If he was going to have to speak, he might as well try and get another kiss for his efforts. Sakura beamed and not only accepted his offer, but set aside her book before rising and coming to sit beside him. "Thanks, Menma." she beamed, making him turn a full shade of scarlet. "You are so thoughtful."

That set the Uchiha off, he tossed his kunai aside and rose to his full height. "Why does she get the last cookie?"

"I-I uh..."

"You don't have to explain yourself to him, Menma." Sakura told him firmly, placing a hand on his shoulder, making his soul leave his body a little. "Despite what he thinks, he's not the boss of you."

"Oh, wow," Sasuke started to laugh, thoroughly pissed off now, but refusing to acknowledge her before she acknowledged him. "Real nice, Uzumaki, leaving me high and dry for a pretty face."

"Sorry..." the blond began, feeling awful.

"Don't apologize to him!" Sakura exclaimed. “Like he’s one to talk.”

“Look, here’s a little free advice, Menma.” Sasuke went on regardless. “Cute as she is, she’s just going to chew you up and spit you out, there are a lot of way nicer girls around.”

Menma felt Sakura’s hand squeeze his shoulder unintentionally and knew that comment had more than stung the kunoichi. He felt something foreign in his chest flare up all of sudden.

“Sakura-chan is nice!” he told him, taking a tone with his friend he never had before. “She’s always nice to me!”

“Only cause it serves a purpose.” Sasuke rolled his eyes, unsure how the kid could be so clueless.

“Kami, you really are the most arrogant, hypocritical, egotistical, delusional fuck boy to ever grace the planet!” Sakura all but screamed at such an accusation. It was all she could do to not send a fist into his nose.

“Ah, there she is!” Sasuke grinned triumphantly.

Kakashi sighed, looking toward the heavens. It had been such a glorious hour and a half. Perhaps he had summoned some sort of karma for foolishly hoping to finish his work before they both started back up again.

“You’re such a horrid friend to him, do you know that?” she stood up and strode right up to the boy that loomed over her about a good seven inches. “You’re always telling him what to do and making him feel like he’s second best to you.”

“Yeah, well it’s better than you not even letting him speak up for himself.” he pointed out. “Stop trying to be everyone’s mother.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips.

“Look, if you’re so concerned about Menma and his feelings, then why don’t stop using him as fuel to get to me?”

“Oh, get over yourself, Sasuke!”

“That’s enough!” Kakashi intervened. He considered himself an even-tempered man, but he could only take so much of the ongoing saga of Sasuke and Sakura. Honestly, he’d come to wish they’d get it over with and just fuck or do each other in. The older they got the more their bickering and sexual tension was getting out of hand. “Both of you, go blow off some steam, Sakura go North, Sasuke go South, I don’t want to see either of you back here until you can both be amiable comrades to one another and stop pulling Menma into the middle of your immature spats.”

“But, Sensei…”

“Now, Sakura!” He commanded, pointing his finger, making her huff as she grabbed her bag and leaped off.

“Whatever.” Sasuke shrugged, turning and taking her leave as well, leaving the silver hair ninja with his remaining student. He ruffled his blond hair tiredly. “What are we going to do with them, huh, Menma?”

“Don’t know, Sensei.” he shrugged. “They really hate each other, don’t they?”

Kakashi’s mouth formed a line. “If only it were that simple.”

…

Sakura knew it was stupid to think that Sasuke would, for once, listen to Kakashi and actually put some distance between them, but she would have liked at least a second to herself.

“You’re really something else, you know that?” he asked coming up behind her.

“Didn’t you hear Sensei? You’re supposed to go South.” she shot back heatedly, storming off faster, knowing it was pointless. If there was one thing she’d admit that Sasuke had on her it was speed. He was soon walking alongside her.

“Who cares what he says?” he huffed. “I’m not done with you yet.”

“Yeah, well I’m done with you.” she retorted.

“No, you don’t get to call me out on leading your friend on, when you’re doing the same thing to Menma, and then call me a hypocrite,” he told her. “That’s not how it works.”

She stopped abruptly and turned to face him. “I’m not leading him on.”

His face went deadpan at that, before taking on a persona that she assumed was herself.

“Oh, Menma-kun, I’d love a cookie!” he gushed as high as his deep voice would let him go. “You’re so sweet! You’re so thoughtful! I’m not just using you to get under Sasuke’s skin at all!”

She turned and kept walking at that, enraged that he would make such an accusation, and even more so because he was not completely wrong either.

“Ever thought about how that will make Menma feel?” he asked. “You know how he feels about you.”

“What are you talking about?” she stopped and turned around.

“He’s in love with you!” Sasuke exclaimed as if she were an idiot.

Sakura felt something snap like a twig somewhere inside her. “No, he’s not.”

“Yes, he is.” Sasuke nodded reassuringly.

“No, he’s not.”

“Yes he is!” he nearly yelled in exasperation “Most men are! Have you seen yourself?”

“...Kami” she whispered slowly, wishing the earth would just swallow her up right then and there. She hadn’t realized that Menma had a crush on her, let alone loved her. How could someone who spent so much time with her be in love with her? That was insane.

She thought of all the times she had sent him attention just to spur Sasuke and never felt so low. While it was not often and never harmless, it was flirty and could have easily made him feel that she was interested in something more than friendship. She was no better than the Uchiha,

“Yeah, it’s true, so stop playing with his feelings.”

As guilty as she felt, she couldn’t bring herself to admit defeat to him, not three times in one day. She’d make things right with Menma, but Sasuke didn’t have to know that. “Maybe I’m not playing.” she shrugged coyly, turning and continuing on her way.

“...what?” Sasuke muttered in confusion.

“Maybe I’m in love with him too,” she suggested with raised palms. “I mean…”

Sasuke was suddenly in front of her, making her almost walk head first into his broad chest. “You’re not in love with Menma,” he stated as if it were the most basic fact of life, like the rising and the setting of the sun.

“Why not?” she asked with a raised brow, genuinely asking herself as much as she was asking him. Why hadn’t she ever thought of Menma as something more? “He’s handsome, considerate, sensitive and always good to me, why wouldn’t I be in love with him?”

“Because you’re in love with me,” Sasuke told her just as simply. “That’s why.”

She stared up at him, lips parting wordlessly at such a claim. Where there was a snap before now felt like she had been struck by a bolt of lightning. To her surprise, as well as his, she began to laugh. She laughed so hard she bent over, hugging herself around her middle. Sasuke remained stoic, emitting only a small smile when anyone else would have been more than wounded.

“I’m not in love with you, Sasuke.” she told him when she straightened up and caught her breath. Where had the clueless bastard got that idea? He was just watching her with a knowing, adoring look in his eye, his hands tucked snuggly in his pockets. She tilted her head up so that she was looking directly into his eyes. “I hate you.”

Honestly, what planet had he been living on?

Suddenly he took her face gently into his hands and made her still, all mirth and smugness abandoning her. She stared up at him in shock, eyes wide and sparkling in the darkness as he kept her there, not two inches from his face. Blood rushed to her face so fast that it felt as if she were burning alive from the inside. Why was everything so quiet all of a sudden?

“What was that, Sakura?” he asked with an easy smile, seeing everything he needed to see, rolling her name around the way he knew drove her crazy. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

“I-I said,” she breathed out shakily, wondering what the hell was wrong with her voice. It sounded so soft and unsure. Like it was someone else’s entirely.

He had caught her off guard with this play. Nothing in her body was working like it was supposed to. Damn it! Why did he have to be so fucking beautiful? And tall? And sexy?

It wasn’t fair.

But, it didn’t prove anything, she assured herself. He was Sasuke. Everyone was attracted to him one way or another. That’s the only effect he had. Attraction wasn’t love. She wasn’t in love with him. In fact, this only made her more angry at him. If she could feel her hands she would have sent a fist straight into his perfect jawline.

She swallowed thickly. “I said, I hate…”

Kami, was he going to kiss her?

She stiffened as she felt his thumb brush along her cheekbones as he loomed over her all the closer, his hot breath spilling over her face.

“What?” he hummed softly. “Go on, say it.”

She stared at his lips, contemplative for a moment of what it would be like to kiss someone, but quickly remembered just who she was dealing with and snapped her gaze back to his dark eyes, so close now she could count his lashes.

“I hate you.” she whispered, her eyes darkening, it was hard to breathe at this angle he held her. But, she did it. She got it out.

She won.

He smiled then, looking so pleased that for a moment she wondered if she had said the wrong thing. The opposite thing.

He leaned forward ever so slightly, hands slipping down to her neck, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, but his lips took an alternate route gently and brushed over the hollow of her cheek, the same place she had bestowed a kiss to Menma for his sweets.

He pulled back and she watched him, flushed and frustrated by his brash action and by the burning in her face centering around the focal point where he had touched her.

“You too, Sakura-chan.” he told her with a wink before turning and going on his way, leaving her alone like she wanted.

#ssmonth2019 #ssm19 #ssmd2 #sasusaku #rtn au #road to ninja au #sasuke and sakura

239 notes · View notes

ourloveisforthelovely · 4 years

Text

Second Time Around Part 3

A/n: Elon Musk RPF. Smut warning.

Words: 3,199

Link to Part 2

Pairings: Elon Musk x Reader

______

Sunlight streaming into the bedroom was the first thing to wake Elon up. He didn’t move for a moment as the memories of the previous day filled his mind. Elon was almost afraid to look over at you. What if the whole thing was a dream and when he turned he would be in bed alone? That would be a soul crushing way to start the day off!

Taking a breath, Elon finally turned and was instantly relieved the moment that he saw you lying next to him. He smiled looking at your sleeping form. Even though your hair was ravaged from the night before, you were still the most beautiful thing that had ever been in his bed!

He was pleased with the knowledge that you were his again. There was no more second guessing whatever dumb decision that he may have made in the months past.

As they always seemed to do, however, the dark thoughts began to set in. Would you tire of sharing his bed in the future? What if someone younger came along who wouldn’t worry you with silence or distant looks? Elon would be crushed if that happened. He had almost fallen apart when he was away from you for six months! If it ended up being forever, he didn’t know how he would handle it.

Elon quickly lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling. Things had to be perfect this time! His sanity depended on it!

Meanwhile, your eyes fluttered open. You smiled seeing Elon still in bed beside you. There really wasn’t any doubt that, given the situation, Elon would stay in bed with you. It only took one look at your lover to know that he was brooding over something. You frowned, worried that he was regretting his decision in wanting to get back with you. Surely, that wasn’t it. Elon would have never gone through all of the trouble to send you the room full of flowers (you silently hoped that Jeffree was watering them for you) and spending all of that time “winning” you back. That was common sense. If Elon saw it as a waste of his time then whatever it was wouldn’t happen.

You took a deep breath before pouncing on him. Elon was clearly stunned by your action before smiling.

“I surrender.”

He said softly before pulling you down for a kiss. You sighed against his mouth happily before sitting back up.

“Are you worrying about us again?”

You asked. Elon shook his head. He knew that it was probably a bad idea to lie to you but at the same time he didn’t want to admit it. His eyes were on you with that intensity that made others uneasy. You slowly leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips before sitting back up.

“You’re a bad liar.”

You said, putting enough pressure on his semi-hard erection. Elon groaned.

“I’m not lying.”

You rolled your eyes. He could deny all he wanted but you knew what was going through his mind. It was the same stuff that he worried about before. You slowly reached between your bodies and lifted enough to sink down onto his now fully formed erection. Elon muttered some curse words under his breath before looking back up at you.

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

You moved your hips enough for it to be more of a tease then relieving the pressure.

“I don’t hear you complaining. Seriously though Elon, I’m not Justine, Talulah or Amber. I am sure as hell not Claire! I am a totally different girl.”

Elon looked at you surprised by the comment. He hadn’t heard you say Claire’s name. From the time the two of you had become a couple until now, her name never left your lips.

“I know exactly who you are and who you are not.”

He managed to choke out as you leaned down. You stopped any movement that you were making. Elon’s eyes clenched closed as he fought the urge to flip you over and have his way with you. He wanted to feel your legs wrapped tightly around his waist. This early morning teasing was enough to drive any man insane.

“Then act like it.”

You cooed. Elon pressed his hips up into yours to slam into your cervix. He chuckled when you cried out.

“You’re mine. You naughty little vixen of a woman, you’re all mine.”

Elon moved quick enough where he was able to pull out and have you beside him on the bed. He turned your body so your back was against his chest.

“Now it's my turn to tease you.”

He lifted your leg and placed it over his leg so that you were open to whatever he wanted to do with you. You sighed as his right hand wrapped around your breast, cupping it greedily.

“I know that you are not any of those women. You’ve always been different. You see me for more than the dollar sign associated with my name. Y/n, you are perfect! I’ll always remember how beautiful that you looked the night we met. You were wearing that tight black dress. I could barely keep my hands off of you.”

You swallowed as Elon’s hand slid his hand down to your already wet core.

“Can you just have your way with me already?”

You said through clenched teeth. Elon laughed darkly and gave your pussy a little spank.

“Oh no, darling. You started this now I am going to take my time and finish it.”

His middle finger went between teasing your clit and opening.

“Tell me what you want.”

Elon said as he moved away from you enough to pull you into a teasing kiss. You panted against his mouth. Damn, the man knew how to be a shameless tease and was driving you nuts. You only thought that you were in charge a moment ago. This was the way that your relationship worked. There may have been a slight even exchange of power until Elon had enough and took over.

“I want you inside of me again.”

You said, trying to ignore the burning sensation in your stomach as his fingers continued to tease you to the point of a world shattering orgasm. He stopped when you were about to fall over the edge then would repeat the actions with a devil’s grin on his face.

Elon pulled away enough to take his place between your legs. You flung your head back into the pillow as he teased your entrance with the tip of his cock.

“Please.”

You said, almost chanting. The moment that Elon pushed in, your body tightened immediately around his.

“Damn it.”

He muttered, having to freeze his motions or would finish too quickly. When he finally began to rock his hips into yours, you sighed happily. Elon reached down and took both of your hands in his and moved them over your head.

“So beautiful.”

He said in a soft whisper before pressing his lips to yours. The kiss was hunger and borderline desperate. You were able to get your hands free enough to wrap your arms around his shoulders.

“Put your legs around me.”

Elon ordered. You quickly did as you were told and pulled him back into another kiss. If Elon had any kind of doubts about your feelings for him, you wanted to put that out of his mind. Maybe it was moving too fast but if he wanted you for the rest of forever then you were fine with that. Just maybe you could put the last six months out of your mind like a dark chapter that you kept locked in a storage locker (that only you had the key for).

“I love you.”

You moaned against his lips. Elon stopped and looked down at you before smiling.

“I love you, darling.”

The two of you spent the rest of the morning until Elon had to leave for a meeting cuddled together. You redressed after Elon left and went to meet Jeffree at the music studio. With the promise that Elon would come to you after he was done working, you felt a million times better about the romantic morning being cut short.

It definitely won’t be the last one.

Your mind supplied as you walked into the studio. Jeffree looked up from his place at the soundboard.

“Well, well, well look it lives.”

You giggled and rolled your eyes as you sat your bag down. Jeffree turned in his rolling chair with a snarky superior grin.

“So how did it go last night? Wait, let me guess...you spent most of your evening with your legs in the air.”

You rolled your eyes before sitting down beside your best friend.

“That’s a good observation. I also spent most of this morning in the same position.”

Jeffree grinned evilly.

“You dirty girl! I don’t see any love bites.”

You picked up the contract that Jeffree had been working on.

“You haven’t seen the rest of my body.”

Jeffree shook his head.

“Not my thing. So, now that we have gotten our giddy girl talk out of the way, you two are using something right?”

You snorted at that “mother like” expression on your best friend’s face.

“I am on the pill, Jeffree. I figured that you would want to play uncle to a baby one day.”

Jeffree nodded, taking a sip of his water. His mind went back to the expression on Elon’s face when he made the comment about not getting you pregnant. Something about that expression told Jeffree that rocket man was totally against the idea of even having a child with you. Jeffree sighed, hoping that this wasn’t going to be some big disaster one day.

In the 15+ years that he had been your best friend, Jeffree had never heard you talk about even remotely wanting a child. Any time that the subject of children came up, you always said a big “hell no.” Maybe Elon really was the one? If he had you even considering having a child for him there had to be something special.

“Yes! I do! One day...not nine months from now! Besides, we don’t want to give rocket man a heart attack. It would be kind of laughable though if you did get pregnant. The two of you get back together and he knocks you up during makeup sex.”

You sat looking at your friend with a scowl. If it had been anyone other than Jeffree, you would have thrown something at him.

“I don’t want to kill my boyfriend as soon as we get back together. Besides, I think he is fine in the child department. I’ll be fine playing step mom to his kids. I don’t have to have my own.”

Jeffree frowned and sat down. He knew immediately what was going through your mind.

“Y/n, you will be a great mother. Don’t let what your mother says or how she raised you think that you wouldn’t be. Lots of mother’s work. Yeah, we have a lot of shit going on and you are about to be a lot busier with the schedule that rocket man keeps but that’s what nannies are for. They can also come see uncle Jeffree and I’ll send them home full of sugar.”

You stood and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks Jeffree.”

He smiled. At the moment, he deserved a best friend trophy.

“So, this guy that is coming in...what’s his story?”

You asked sitting back down across the table. Jeffree grinned and pulled out his laptop.

“He isn’t half bad. I heard him sing at a bar in downtown LA. Y/n, he is gorgeous!”

You rolled your eyes.

“And you have a boyfriend.”

Jeffree put a finger to his lips and made a loud “shhh” sound.

“I just said he was gorgeous and has a killer smile! I never said I was going to go love on him! Back to business before I go down a rabbit hole, I told him that if you said no then I say no.”

You shook your head.

“As long as he doesn’t suck then he may have a chance. We really need a new act.”

Jeffree looked over your shoulder as the door opened.

“Well, here he comes.”

You quickly stood and straightened out your dress as a man around your age stepped in. Right away, you could see why Jeffree was going “gaga” over the dude. He was definitely good looking. The young man had “Jeffree’s type” written all over him. He stood about 5’8 with deep brown eyes, a headful of golden blonde hair, and a smile that could light up a room. By all appearances, he could be exactly what your company was looking for!

Jeffree smiled,

“Hello again, Nick!”

Ah, so that’s his name. You were so deep into listening to Jeffree drool over the poor guy, you didn’t even catch his name! Nick nodded with a bright smile.

“Thanks for coming by! So, this is my business partner, Y/n Clapton.”

Nick turned his attention to you. He smiled warmly.

“It's an honor, ma’am! I’m a huge fan of your father’s music.”

You nodded politely. If you had a dollar for everytime someone told you how much they loved your father’s music; you would be sitting on a small gold mind.

“Thank you. I assume that Jeffree went over how our contracts work?”

Nick nodded.

“He did. Thanks for giving me a chance to wow you with my skills.”

You had to fight the urge to roll your eyes. This was another one of those “here we go again” kind of moments. So far you were not impressed. Nick reminded you of one of the thousands of random people that would randomly start signing at you in the middle of nowhere hoping for a chance at a record contract.

Smirking, you remembered the first time it happened when you were on a date with Elon. He was totally baffled that people would randomly start singing to you in public. You chuckled remembering the expression on his face as you graciously thanked the person for their time and waited for them to walk away.

“Oh my god, is that normal?”

“Of course, you can sing any song. You have three minutes.”

You wanted to add a “may the odds be in your favor” but decided not to. It felt like you really needed some odds to be in your favor! You really needed some number one songs and a new act to promote.

Sitting down beside Jeffree, you glanced over at your friend and muttered

“Wow us with his skills? Really?”

Jeffree shrugged as Nick started his song. You sat only half listening until his talent really did catch your attention. Jeffree leaned closer to you.

“And there is that expression that I know so well. Winner?”

You nodded.

“Oh yeah!”

Jeffree held his hands up.

“That will do, Nick.”

You stood up and held a hand out.

“I would like to welcome you to our company.”

You spent the next hour going over contract information and how to improve Nick’s image. Once the conversation was over, you sat next to Nick as Jeffree stepped out of the room and finalized the conversation.

“So what was it like growing up as Eric Clapton’s daughter? That had to be awesome having a parent that was so talented. He is the reason that I started playing guitar.”

You smiled. The last thing that you really wanted to talk about was how your father was more of a friend than a parent. Sure, as you got older and he calmed him life down he decided to be the father that you needed. Letting you party with the Rolling Stones at 15 was probably not the best decision.

“He’s a wonderful father.”

Nick nodded, still looking mystified.

“Your mother was beautiful too! I can see where you get your looks.”

You wanted to roll your eyes hard at that one. Yes, you looked like your mother but that didn't mean that you had to like it. Pattie really played into her muse of Eric Clapton and George Harison role.

Before you could respond to Nick’s comment, you looked up to see Elon standing a few feet away and he did not look too happy. You had seen that look on his face way too many times! It was that jealous expression that bordered on fury.

Nick followed your gaze and his mouth dropped.

“Your Elon Musk!”

Elon’s eyes flickered to the other man. He had heard the whole conversation. Sure, the only thing that kid really did was say that you were beautiful and that was innocent enough. It was that way that he was drooling all over you and you not seeming the least bit concerned had him furious.

“I am. Y/n, are you ready, darling?”

Elon smirked at how Nick’s hopeful expression went to sold disappointment when he heard the word “darling.”

You meanwhile, stood. Jeffree quickly came in.

“Y/n, I can finish everything up. Why don’t you and Elon go have fun?”

Elon turned to Jeffree, looking a bit surprised.

“Thank you, Jeffree.”

You, meanwhile, stood and got your purse before turning to Nick.

“We’ll start recording next week.”

Nick only nodded as Elon slid his hand through yours. You turned your attention back to your boyfriend, who looked ready to snap the other man like at twig. He could actually do it too! There wouldn’t be anything left of Nick if Elon took one good punch.

“I’m ready.”

You said with a forced smile as Elon led you out.

A few minutes later, you were struggling to keep up with your obviously annoyed boyfriend.

“Can we slow down?”

You asked. Elon slowed down before turning to look at you with a less than happy expression.

“So do you always flirt with people that you are signing to your label now or is that a new thing?”

You frowned. Oh boy! The two of you had been together less than a day and were already having an argument!

“Are you serious, Elon? That guy was about to cream his pants over my father! I wasn’t flirting with him! He was doing all of the talking.”

Elon crossed his arms over his chest.

“You weren’t doing anything to stop him.”

You held your hands up defensively.

“People tell me that I am beautiful all the time! You’re one of them! I am not going to go hop into bed with someone because they tell me that I am beaituful! Considering that you are the only man that I have ever slept with, I don’t think ole Nick’s chances are too good...especially since he told me that I look like my mother. Let’s just go or something. This is silly.”

Elon shook his head.

“I have a meeting in an hour. I’ll take you to my house and drop you off.”

You rolled your eyes as he opened the passenger side door for you.

“Fine! Whatever you want.”

______

@elonscult and @xjjlex Lol, look I did do something today :)

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