#do I heavily kin Nine? yeah

[polybiusplayer]

Anxious habit.

[na-yiii]

KING || Min Yoongi x OC

Pairings: King! Min Yoongi x Queen! Named Female OC || King! Jung Hoseok X Queen! Named Female OC

Summary: Rin is nervous yet excited to spend her first night as  queen with her husband, King Jung Hoseok. Unfortunately an uninvited guest had to interrupt what was supposed to be a romantic night.

Rating: M

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Non Con. Oral (female receiving). Smut. Losing Virginity. Forced Pregnancy. Arranged Marriage. Murder. Blood.

A/N: Hey everyone it has been such a long time since I have posted a story. My apologies for that. Work and uni has been taking up so much time T_T I hope you enjoy this short story. Let me know what you think of it.

“Are you excited?” a maid named Eunah asked as she carefully removed a golden hair pin from the former princess’ head. “I am not sure if excited is the correct term to describe my current state,” Rin said as she stared at her reflection. Her tight bun slowly got looser as Eunah removed the bejeweled hairpins one by one. In matter of minutes her dark hair got untangled and touched her shoulders. The make-up started to show some cracks around her mouth and on her forehead while her lips become drier as time went by. “I have heard that king Jung Hoseok is a wonderful man, I am confident he will take a good care of you,” Eunah said in an attempt to calm the newlywed. “But I don’t even know him,” Rin said as her eyes lowered and stared at her wedding ring that connected her to the king. Eunah was not sure how to respond. She knew Rin was right. She indeed barely knew the man. It has been only 18 hours since the two have met and exchanged their vows in front of the nation.

“Does it hurt?” Rin suddenly asked and watched how Eunah removed the dried-up makeup with a wet cloth. “I heard from the senior staff that the first time always hurts,” Eunah replied as she dipped the filthy cloth in the cold water to rinse the dried makeup. “What if I don’t bleed?” Rin whispered as she become more anxious by the thought of not bleeding during the first time. Will Hoseok be disappointed? What if she fails to bear him a heir? Will that ruin her marriage with the king?

“Your majesty please do not cloud your mind with those kinds of thoughts. King Hoseok is an understanding man,” Eunah reassured the queen and smiled at her. “You are done, my queen. I will leave the room so that you can change,” Eunah announced as she grabbed a bowl and exited the room. Once the maid had left, Rin took a deep breath and stood up from the velvet chair. She made her way to the bed and stared at the long white lacy dress that was in front of her. The dress was beautiful. Not wanting to upset her husband, Rin quickly undressed herself and put on the night gown.

The halls of the castle were dark. The only source of light came from the candles that were lit. Ever since the sun disappeared the temperature dropped significantly. Rin wrapped her arms around her body in hopes not to freeze by the time she is with her husband. Suddenly Eunah halted her movements and looked over her shoulder. “Here’s the room, queen Rin,” Eunah announced and looked at the large white door. “Thank you, Eunah,” Rin replied as she stood there and stared at the door. Here it is, the moment Rin has been preparing from the moment she was born. Rin was excited, there was no denying in that. Getting married to a king and carrying his child had been Rin’s dream as long as she can remember. Since today she would not longer belong to her parents. She will no longer be known by her name. The only title she will carry will be the mother of Hoseok’s scion.

“Your majesty, are you alright?” Eunah asked worried as she watched how the queen slowly drowned in her thoughts. Rin blinked a few times before she looked at the maid and nodded. Just when Rin wanted to open the door, Eunah quickly grabbed her wrist and looked at the queen. “Your majesty keep in mind even if it hurts don’t tell him to stop,” the maid admonished Rin as she looked deep into the queen’s eyes. The woman dressed white was not sure how to react so she nodded yet again.

King Hoseok’s bedroom was warm toned. Different shades of red brought to room to life while accents of gold gave the room more definition. Gingerly the woman walked around the room as she studied every detail. The room felt quite alive despite the absence of the king. As Rin walked deeper into the room, her anxiety grew. “King Jung,” she called when she saw the silhouette of the king. He was standing on the balcony looking at the moon. It took Rin two more attempts to finally catch her husband’s attention. King Hoseok looked over his shoulder and looked at his first wife. She was breathtakingly beautiful. With her hair down and her face stripped off all the makeup she looked stunning. The white lacy dress made her look so innocent. Hoseok licked his lower lip as he looked through the lace and stared at her breasts.

“Please just call me Hoseok, we don’t have to use formal language as a married couple,” Hoseok said while he reached his hand out to her. Rin smiled and took his hand as she moved closer to him. Hoseok wrapped his arms around her waist and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek. “You smell wonderful,” he complimented her before sniffing her scent once again. A tint of pink appeared on Rin’s cheeks. “Thank you Kin- Hoseok,” she said and placed her hand on his chest. The married couple stood there what felt like forever to Rin.

“Do…Do you want to begin?” Hoseok asked as he looked at Rin, who nervously nodded. Hoseok grabbed her hand and brought her inside. Once the balcony door was closed behind him the atmosphere changed. The tension was undeniable. “How do-” Hoseok interrupted her by scurring to his wife and kissing her deeply. The kiss was rather sloppy. It revealed how much Hoseok was craving her. Without any warning or permission, he pushed his tongue into her mouth and explored it. His right hand wrapped around her neck while his other hand disappeared under her dress. His hand was so warm that she almost melted in his hand.

It did not take long before Hoseok began to mark her neck while his hands untied her night gown and started to remove every layer of clothing. “Do you want my baby?” Hoseok asked while panting. His excitement was something he could not hide, even if he tried. He waited all his life for this moment. The moment he saw her talking to his former friend, he knew he had to have her.

Gently Hoseok pushed his wife on the bed and stared at her naked body. It was just perfection. Everything about her was paradisiacal. The tightness of his pants became uncomfortable the longer he stared at her body. Hastily he got rid of his clothes and climbed on top of her. Feeling her naked skin on his made him almost cum. Carefully Rin lifted her hand and touched his naked body. Her skin was soft while her touch was indescribable. “Hoseok,” Rin whispered as her husband’s face disappeared in her neck to continue leaving marks. “Mmm?” Hoseok said. He was too concentrated to find her sensitive spot. A spot that would make her moan. “I have heard that the first time will be painful,” Rin shared her concern with her husband. Hoseok immediately halted his action and looked at her. He felt sympathetic for her. Unlike Hoseok, Rin was heavily shielded away from the world by her parents. She was not allowed to leave the castle. She was even prohibited from being around the opposite sex. Hoseok was very aware of this fact, so he naturally understood her concerns.

“How about I blindfold you? This way you don’t have to see it happen. Maybe that will calm you down,” Hoseok suggested as he gently caressed her lower back. His touch was light and tender, it was like a gentle breeze on a hot summer day. “Okay,” Rin agreed and watched how Hoseok grabbed a satin scarf, which was wrapped around his neck when the two were standing at the alter earlier today. Rin closed her eyes and let her husband blindfold her with the soft material. “Is it not too tight?” Hoseok asked once he tied a knot with the two ends. “No, it’s fine,” Rin answered. “I will be gentle,” her husband promised her before he began to plant kisses on her body.

Hoseok took his time. Making sure his wife was comfortable was his priority. He did not want to hurt or scare her. Slowly yet gently he studied her body. He took a mental note of her sensitive spots as he lowered himself. “Are you alright?” Hoseok asked right before he planted a kiss on her clit. A soft moan escaped from Rin’s mouth. She did not understand the feeling but oddly she liked it. “Don’t stop” she said hoping he would continue with his action. “Alright, my wife,” he chuckled and continued pleasuring his wife.

Rin’s body was relaxed while her mind was in cloud nine. The things Hoseok made her feel felt great. She was hooked to the feeling. She wanted more and more. “Are you ready?” Hoseok asked and looked at her. Seeing his wife blindfolded and vulnerable made him almost lose his mind. “Yeah,” Rin said timidly as she suppressed her nervousness. “Don’t worry, it will be an indelible evening,” he said before he leaned down and planted lovingly a kiss on her soft lips.

Suddenly Hoseok’s warm touch disappeared just as his breathing. The silence in the room terrified the queen. She was not sure if this was part of the love making. The only sound that could be heard by Rin was the beating of her own heart. “Hoseok?” she said softly. Patiently she waited for a reaction from her husband but was only met with silence.

Out of the blue she felt something warm landing on her naked body. It was wet and felt somewhat thick. The liquid had an odd smell to it. She was not sure how to describe it. The way how the liquid felt on her made her skin crawl. Something did not feel right. Just when Rin opened her mouth to say her husband’s name, she felt a sharp pain between her legs. The pain was so powerful that it made her uncomfortable. A pair of cold hands grabbed her hips and pulled her closer to them. The pair of cold hands gently pushed her legs wider before the they placed themselves comfortably between her legs and began to thrust.

The pace was slow yet powerful. With every thrust her body moved away from the person, only to get pulled back. “Hoseok…It hurts…” Rin whimpered as she placed her hands on his chest and tried to push him away. He did not listen he kept on going. His pace went from slow to fast while his grip on her hips became tighter to the point she could feel his nails bore into her skin. “Hoseok!” Rin yelled hoping it would make him halt but it did not bring any change in the situation. Hoseok’s thrusts became so powerful that the bed started to creak and the bed post began to hit the wall.

The silence in the room disappeared when Rin heard someone panting and groaning. Occasionally a curse word could be heard. Suddenly the queen felt something warm being shot inside of her. Hoseok’s thrusts slowed down as it became sloppier. Slowly the man stopped trusting and began to catch his breath. He yet had to pull himself out of her. Rin’s patience wore thin to the point she grabbed the satin scarf and removed it. The brightness in the room blinded her for a few seconds. Once she had her sight back, her eyes met with the eyes of a man who was not her husband.

The unknown man had long blond hair. The top half of hair was tied together while the bottom half was loose. A black headband partially covered his forehead. Golden earrings dangled from his ears while golden necklaces decorated his neck. A vertical scar was visible on his face. The smirk on his face was twisted while his eyes reflect the evil he had in him. There was something familiar about him. Has she met him before?

When Rin realized that the mysterious man was still inside of her, she tried to push him away. The blond man quickly grabbed her legs and pinned them down. “It is not kind to kick someone, your majesty,” the man said as he dug his nails into her skin, causing it to bleed. “Who are you? How did you get in?” Rin asked panickily. “You would think that the security of the new king and queen would be top-notch, but you will be surprised how many flaws it has,” the man revealed after he finally pulled himself out of her. Quickly Rin closed her legs and moved away from the mysterious man. “You can call me King Yoongi, honey,” the man said as a twisted smile appeared on his face.

“Wha-…?” Rin asked confused. Suddenly she felt something dripping on her side. The queen looked down and was shocked when she discovered that the liquid she felt earlier was blood. It was still fresh. From her peripheral vision, Rin saw a black shadow laying next to her. Slowly she turned her head to the right. The view of the bloodied body of her husband made her nauseous. Her eyes became watery while her breathing shortened. “You monster!” Rin yelled. Unexpectedly she lifted her right leg and kicked Yoongi in the face. Quickly she jumped out of the bed. Trying to get out of the room as fast as possible but just when she was about to grab the door handle, she felt the familiar cold hands grab her. Fear was written all over her face as she got trapped between the wooden door and Yoongi’s body.

“You and I will rule this nation so well,” Yoongi said as he lowered his hand to caress her belly. Rin’s body froze when she finally realized that her biggest dream turned into her worst nightmare. Tears escaped from her eyes and fell down her cheeks. Her knees could not support her anymore causing her to fall. Yoongi quickly caught her and wrapped his arms around her. “Did your family really think that getting you married to another king would make me give up?” Yoongi asked rhetorically.

Rin cried as she stared dolefully at the lifeless body of Hoseok.

[bloodfromthethorn]

Accident

Matty, usually, loves her job, but there are some days where she can't help but feel she just isn't being paid enough for it.

Part eleven of the July of Whump 2021 prompt challenge.

Also on AO3. 

..

For all its covert operations, thanks to the think tank cover, The Phoenix was still technically classified as a regular place of business. That meant a lot of things, like paying property taxes and having to report earnings to the state, but by far one of the most mundane outcomes was the need for an Accident Book. In theory, any time someone employed by The Phoenix was injured while at work they had to write a short report detailing the accident for the book, and every year or so, The Phoenix would have to submit their anonymised incident reports to the local council.

Of course, this posed something of a problem for a government agency trying to stay off the radar; even with identifying information taken out, someone was probably going to take note if a seemingly mundane think tank reported 18 gunshot wounds over the course of a single year.

The workaround, therefore, had been that any injuries acquired outside of the building – like, say, when agents were out on missions – didn’t go into the book, and instead it was filled with the much more minor things that occurred in the relative safety of the Phoenix. There were still a couple of things that had to be omitted, like Bozer getting stabbed, but mostly, the plan seemed to work out okay. With a whole block of science labs taking up a considerable chunk of the building, there were more than enough burned fingertips and electric shocks that weren’t suspicious to fill a passably convincing report.

That being said, Matty wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to play this one off as a standard workplace mishap.

“Okay, okay, stop. I’m going to need you to run this by me again. Start at the beginning.”

“Well, like I said, we had Sparky up on the table-”

“At the beginning, Bozer,” she cut in, shooting her two agents a firm look. Boze’s natural charisma was, as ever, unhindered by her glare, while Mac did his usual trick of falling back on his army training and acquired a blank expression to let any yelling wash right over him. Jack did the same whenever he was genuinely in trouble and it drove Matty crazy any time it happened.

“We were working on separate projects,” Mac explained in a much more level tone than Boze had managed. To be fair, that might have had something to do with the gauze wrapped tightly around his forehead. “I’m still trying to troubleshoot that luminogen work for the dev team – you know, the glowstick stuff?”

She nodded.

“Right. And Bozer-”

“I was trying to fix a glitch in Sparky’s programming.”

“You were trying to make him call you sir,” Mac put in with a snort. He sobered as soon as he caught Matty’s hard stare. “But, uh, yeah. We were both just in the lab doing our own thing. Then Boze called me over to take a look at something-”

“I needed a spare part of hands to rewire the circuit board while I updated the code, and you know how much Mac hates someone else messing up his wiring.”

“I wasn’t working on anything volatile, so I dropped what I was doing and went to help. All of my stuff should have been completely fine where it was.”

Matty eyed him critically. He didn’t look like he was lying, but then it was a little hard to tell how much of that was down to the concussion and the bruises swelling on the left side of his face. “But it wasn’t,” she concluded.

“One of the other lab techs came through when I was focused on Sparky,” he explained with a wince. “She didn’t know that I still had things running and she noticed that my nitrogen line was still live, so she shut it off.”

“Don’t we have standard practices in place so that doesn’t happen?”

“Yes, but she’s only been with us two weeks. She didn’t know any better.”

“Mhmm.”

“Honestly Matty, it’s not her fault. I shouldn’t have left an active reaction unattended without sticking a red form up. That’s the standard practice that’s supposed to stop this thing from happening.”

“But you didn’t fill in the form.”

“I didn’t think I’d be gone long and I was still in the same room. Besides, the team usually knows not to mess with anything I’m working on, whether I’ve put up a form or not.” He went to rub at his face, then aborted the attempt when his fingers brushed over the gauze, wincing. Bozer and Matty were both watching him carefully, but he didn’t start keeling over so it would have to be good enough.

Matty sighed heavily. Playing the blame game wasn’t going to get them anywhere; she just needed to know what happened. “Okay then. You and Boze were over with Sparky and a lab tech shut off a nitrogen valve. Then what?”

“Well, nothing, for a little while. I was using the nitrogen to keep the reaction system anoxic, so everything was already sealed. Even without the nitrogen feed, it should have been fine to just sit there until I came back to it. Only, it turns out that when you combine the fluorescent polymer our dev team synthesised with NMP – the solvent I was using – it drops a proton and turns acidic.” He rolled his eyes as he said it, as if judging his own mistake like either Matty or Bozer had any concept of how predictable the problem could have been, then regretted it as it sent him dizzy again.

“Let me guess,” Matty said to give him a moment to recover, “The acid burned through a seal?”

“A rubber bung I was using to act as an injection port,” he confirmed grimly. “The seal failed and oxygen got in.”

“And the polymer is pyrophoric,” she finished for him. When he shot her a startled look, she shrugged. “I do read the reports I get sent Blondie. The spontaneous fire problem was one of the things they wanted you to take a look at, right?”

“Yeah. I hadn’t got to that part though.”

“Evidently.”

Boze jumped in to spare Mac the effort of defending himself. Now that the actual chemistry stuff was out the way, he knew the rest of the story. “While all this was happening, we were having a few problems with Sparky. The code was disagreeing with his logic boards, and it was making him fritz out pretty badly. He nearly took Mac’s fingers off when he sat up without warning.”

“And scared the hell out of us both,” Mac agreed.

“Yeah. Thank god Jack wasn’t in the room. We’d still be trying to get him down from the rafters.”

Matty cleared her throat and the pair of them snapped back to attention. Well, as at attention as Mac could reasonably be sitting up on one of the examination tables in the med bay.

With a cowed look, Bozer continued. “We were trying to work out what had happened, so we got Sparky going through a few movements. Because we weren’t finished, we didn’t bother getting him down off the table, so when he stood up completely…”

“He was a nine foot tall, eight hundred pound accident waiting to happen,” Mac finished. He gave a single shoulder shrug when Matty raised an eyebrow at him. “What? Even I’m willing to admit this whole thing was stupid.”

She’d more or less pieced together the rest of the story by now, but she still felt she should hear it for herself. Proper protocol and all that. “Alright. Then what?”

“We were trying to get Sparky back down when the reaction system blew,” Mac said. “We were far enough away that we weren’t at risk of burns, but Boze got a facefull of dye and Sparky got knocked off the table.”

“And onto you.”

He grimaced faintly, casting an offended eye at the sling supporting what had recently been a very dislocated shoulder. The expression did nothing to soften the bruises scattered across his face. “Yeah.”

Beside him, a slightly discoloured Boze swayed to knock their uninjured shoulders together. “Sorry, man,” he said, not for the first time. “Can’t help but think this is my fault.”

“It wasn’t. My reaction, my boom. Besides, you’re the one who’s going to be glowing in the dark for the next two weeks.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure the ladies will love it. You’re the one with the busted up arm.”

“It’s nothing, really. My shoulder pops out all the time.”

“You say that like it’s comforting and I gotta tell you man, it really ain’t.”

Matty’s gaze flicked between them. As much of a mess as Mac was, and despite the fact that Bozer was a lot more green than he had been when he’d arrived at work that morning, they’d both been signed off by medical with minor injuries. In theory, it was exactly the sort of thing that should go in her accident report, and yet she had a sneaking suspicion this particular story was going to raise a lot more questions than she was really willing to answer. It was funny – Mac had a habit of bringing that feeling out in her.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I think I’ve got the picture. I’m not even going to pretend I understand how you managed to configure such a comedy of errors, but I trust that you’ve both learned how to avoid this problem in future?”

Like two boys caught doing something they shouldn’t, they both nodded quickly in unison. She couldn’t quite bite back her smile. “Alright then. Bozer, you’re cleared to work for the rest of the day should you wish to. Mac, you’re off rotation entirely until that concussion clears up, then it’s light duty to let your shoulder heal. I’ve called Jack to come pick you up.”

That certainly got his attention. “You called Jack? It’s his day off!”

“I’m well aware. But you can’t drive with that arm and as your nominated next of kin, he’s left standing orders to be informed every time you get injured. He should be here any minute.”

Bozer was snickering to himself, while Mac’s expression had folded into something between desolate and sheepish. Matty had had a hell of time getting Jack to calm down and listen when she’d first called to tell him Mac was in medical and evidently Mac had some idea of the helicopter parenting about to rain down on his head. Maybe that would be the thing to actually make him realise the seriousness of his own actions.

“Great,” he muttered sarcastically, just as Matty heard the door to medical swing open so forcefully it cracked against the wall. With a dry smile, she stood back and waited to see the fireworks.

[yespolkadotkitty]

The Apple of My Eye, pt 2/2

part I here

This chapter written mostly by the talented @hopelessromanticspoonie !

*****

“The results of your x-ray show that you didn’t break anything, but with your medical history, we’d like to do an MRI, just to check everything out.”

Propped up in the bed in the ER, dressed in a paper-thin gown that was flattering to no one, with only a blanket covering your legs, you felt less than equipped to disagree with the nurse. The ambulance had been effective at getting pain meds into you quickly through an IV inserted at your elbow, the medicine cold and heavy as it settled over you like a numbing blanket. “Sure, whatever. Has anybody come asking for me?”

The nurse, a short woman who looked as if she could take on the fiercest creature and come out unscathed, shook her head, punching your information into a rolling computer cart. “Not yet, sweetheart. Expecting someone?”

You heard a crash in the distance, followed by a barrage of incomprehensible shouting that you would recognize instantly. Wincing, you pointed in the direction the mayhem had come from. “I think that’s him, yeah.”

Loki, followed closely by a rather harassed looking Steve - what was that about? - sprinted into your room, nearly barreling over the nurse in the process. He came to a stop at your bedside, eyes sweeping over you, landing on the bruising and blood on your forehead and the line coming out of your arm. His eyes burned into yours as he addressed the nurse, in his best James-Bond-on-a-shoot-to-kill-mission voice, “Will it harm her if I touch her?”

“Don’t you go jostling her around too much there, lover boy,” the nurse replied, totally unfazed by all six foot two of Loki towering over her. “She took a nasty fall, and with her medical history, we don’t know what kind of damage there was. Your girl there is delicate.”

You couldn’t help but grumble out, “I am not delicate.”

Loki placed one knee on the bed, leaning over you so that he could wrap his arms behind your shoulders and neck, pressing his chest into you and his cheek to the top of your head. “Norns, what happened, kitten?”

The smell of his cologne was much preferred to the burning, sterile antiseptic of the hospital, washing over you from where your face had come to rest against his chest. You patted his back softly, careful not to lift your arms too much because even if the heavy duty pain killers had kicked in, you still didn’t know what the damage of your idiocy was. You pushed him away gently after a moment, gesturing for him to take a seat on the bed next to your thighs. He did as you non-verbally commanded, taking one of your hands in both of his.

“Oh, I grabbed for my phone when it rang, forgetting I had my hand on the bannister. I was on the stairs of my building - the elevator is out again. Fell down a bit-”

The nurse cut in, her eyes never leaving the screen. “She fell down two flights of stairs.”

If you could shake her for deepening the creases of worry between Loki’s brows, you would. Settling for a cutting glare, you continued. “Fell down. Called 911 when I realized I couldn’t walk, and Tony’s my next-of-kin on my medical records, to be alerted if anything happens to me. I didn’t want to worry you…”

“Will she be alright, ma’am?” Steve asked your nurse from where he was situated against the wall, calm and collected as always.

“I’m about to take her away for an MRI, and that should be the last test we need to run to see if she knocked anything out of place. Make no mistake, she’s going to be in a world of hurt for a while, and I’m assuming that tall, dark, and intimidating over there is her beau, so he’ll need to take extra special care of her.”

You pulled your pleading eyes away from Loki, plastering on a weak smile. “It isn’t my first fall, it won’t be my last.”

Cherie - you caught the moniker from the badge on her hip - came up and lifted the railing on the side of the bed that Loki wasn’t occupying. “Those drugs should be kicking in full force in a minute, and then you’re going to want to take a little nap.”

“Don’t need a nap,” you replied stubbornly. 

Cherie smiled patiently. “That’s okay, sweetheart. I’m gonna take you to get that scan done and then right back here to your boys. Sound good?”

Loki rose, holding tightly to your hand as Cherie lifted the other bed railing. “I’m going with her.”

Cherie leveled him with a look that would make even the strongest man shrink, but he was no man. Thankfully, Steve stepped in, clapping a heavy hand down on the Aesir’s shoulder. “She has to go in there alone, but they’ll bring her right back. They won’t hurt your girl, I promise.”

You were astonished to see Loki actually back down at Steve’s reassurances, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Cherie’s prediction had been correct, and you struggled against the weight of your eyelids to shoot Loki a reassuring smile. “I’ve had loads of these, Loki. It’ll be okay. See you soon,” you whispered, just before giving in gratefully to your medicated slumber.

When you woke later, you were much warmer than before, especially your hands. Licking your lips against the bitter, dry taste in your mouth, you cracked your eyes open.

Loki was perched in a chair by the side of your bed, and the tightness around his eyes lessened when your gazes met, and held. He quickly grabbed the cup of water left at your bedside table and held it to your lips, helping you take a few mouthfuls before setting it back down. The water calmed your scratchy throat.

“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly, the low rumble of his voice hoarse, but no less pleasant for it.

You made to reach up to push an errant lock of hair from his face, but found your hands firmly held in his - the cause for the lovely warmth you felt upon first waking. Taking a quick mental scan of your pain levels, you shook your head. The action pulled at your back, but the only faint twinge of pain spoke of the potency of the drugs coursing through your system. After falling down two flights of stairs, you knew your body was very upset about it. “I’m okay. Did they say what the MRI revealed?”

“No. Since neither I, nor Rogers - he left to locate coffee - are listed in your paperwork as family, they wouldn’t release that information to us.”

The idea seemed to really upset him, judging by his harsh tone and the vein that ticked in his temple. You lifted your hand out of his grasp to reach out to him. You couldn’t quite reach his face, and he shifted so that he perched on the edge of the bed, leaning his cheek into your palm. You stroked the smooth skin, the action calming for you both.

He captured your hand in his again, pressing a kiss to your palm before setting it on his thigh. “My heart stopped when I received that call from Stark. I was fortunate that Rogers was there to bring me to you so quickly. It was the worst agony I have felt in all my days, and believe me, I do not say that lightly.”

You rubbed your thumb over the warm denim of his jeans, your heart cracking almost clean in two at the fear and vulnerability coating his words. “I’m sorry, I am. I didn’t want to call you until I was home, safe, so that you wouldn’t worry more than you needed to.”

The ferocity of his expression was startling. “No. That would have wounded me more. To know that you were in pain and I was not there at your side? All I could think about on our journey here was how terribly fragile you are, how easily you are injured.” He shook his head, taking a deep, steadying breath. “I feared I might never see your smile again, know the joy of your touch and the breadth of your love. Never again hear your laugh.  It was agonizing.”

You had to say it. You couldn’t help it. The pain killers had settled over your brain and wiped away any filter that you’d once had. “But Loki, it will happen, one day.”

So many expressions warred on his face that you couldn’t place a single one, before only love, fear, and hope remained. “Oh, kitten. It doesn’t have to.”

You furrowed your brows, not understanding.

“I didn’t mean for it to be this way. I had grand plans of a wonderful dinner, of lavish gifts and the sweetest prose known anywhere in the Nine Realms. But now, when faced with the reality…” He paused, holding out his hand, palm flat,  in front of you. An apple, the skin glossy and unblemished red, a jaunty golden leaf growing from its stem, appeared. “I am stricken by the thought of spending even a single day without you. Of getting another blasted phone call from Stark that stops my heart cold. Of worrying for your health through the winter of your Midgardian life, and then facing nothing but the yawning chasm of my own years alone."

You reached out, taking the apple carefully in your hands, the shiny, tempting flesh cool beneath your touch. “What is it?”

“It is an apple I procured from my mother on our last visit, with her blessing. If you take but one bite - although it is delicious and you may eat it all should you wish - my fears of your brief lifespan will be silenced. You will be granted a long life, easily as long as mine or Thor’s. And I hope, that if you accepted this offering, you would spend the millenia by my side.”

You had never seen him look so unsure, so shaken, as he was in that moment. He searched your face, watching the gears turn over in your mind as you idly turned the apple over in your hands. Chewing on your bottom lip, you thought it over, thinking back to all the times you had felt so guilty for loving him, for capturing his heart when you could only hold it for so long. He deserved someone who could match him in years, if not in a body that wasn’t so ‘substandard’.

“What will happen to me? To my body - I mean specifically, to my back?” you asked quietly, needing to know what you were signing up for. It was one thing to know that your spine was going to deteriorate over the next few decades, but what would happen to you over thousands of years?

He sighed heavily. “It will slow the degeneration process drastically. As I still look quite young for living over two thousand years, my body matches my outward appearance. You would age similarly.”

That was… doable. You could handle that. But could you handle watching Tony, Steve, Nat, almost everyone you held dear die? It was the question that Loki had faced, and he had found a solution in the apple you let your eyes fall onto. You doubted there was an entire orchard on Asgard that you could plunder so that your newfound family could join you in near-immortality. And even if there were. You alone should not have the luxury of choosing who in the Universe would benefit.

But then you let your gaze drift up to the man who was watching you so intently. You had never known happiness and peace as great and all-encompassing as when you were with him. He was the love of your life, and you knew without a doubt that your abiding affection for each other would only grow over the many lifetimes that the unassuming fruit in your hand could bring. You could truly grow old together, and you’d be a fool to pass that up.

“I probably shouldn’t eat this right here in the hospital. Think you can keep me and this bad boy safe until we get back to my apartment?” you asked, unable to match the seriousness of his proposal, but the smile that stretched across your face as you offered him the apple for safe-keeping hurt your cheeks, it was so big. Your stomach felt full of nervous, happy fireworks.

He didn’t reply, leaning forward and carefully pulling you into his arms, burying his face into the crook of your neck. He trembled lightly in your embrace, and you held him tighter for it, joy bubbling out of you in quiet laughter.

And then he kissed you. It was warmth and happiness and relief and promise and every ounce of love that he contained. His forehead rested against yours and his eyes swam with unshed tears. You had rarely seen him so vulnerable, and your heart squeezed. “You’ll be mine?”

You let the apple fall soundlessly into your lap, cupping his jaw tenderly. “I’ve always been yours.” 

Permanent taglist: @just-the-hiddles @nonsensicalobsessions @lotus-eyedindiangoddess @wiczer @polireader @magnitude101999 @brokenthelovely @vodka-and-some-sass @amarisyousei @myoxisbroken @jessiejunebug @lovesmesomehiddles @arch-venus25

As You Are taglist: @darealbellabelleoftheball 

[tilltheendwilliwrite]

Once a Witch

Chapter Three

Previous Chapter

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Witch!Reader  |  Word Count: 1906 Warnings: None

You were puttering in the back of your small shop when the bell chiming above the door alerted you to a new patron. “I’ll be right there!” you called out, wiping your hands on a towel, removing the extra lotion from your fingers.

Creating creams, lotions, and soaps was a passion, one which went well with your calling. After nearly nine hundred years as a witch, walking the Earth and caring for flora and fauna alike, you were finally living in an age where being different, being… quirky - as most people put it - was considered normal.

Having a shop based around herbal remedies and tonics, lotions and creams, soaps and shampoos which did what you claimed they would was a blessing and of interest. No longer were you looked at with fear or disdain when you smiled and claimed you were a witch. Most people quietly chuckled or smiled and nodded. Some claimed kin who were the same.

You highly doubted any were like you. Not many could claim nearly a millennium of life. If they had lived yours, they likely wouldn’t have wanted to.

After the death of Henry three hundred and fifteen years ago, you had searched endlessly for him, waiting with bated breath for his soul to return to you. After three hundred years of living alone, of running, hiding, scraping by to stay alive, you had lost most of your hope he’d ever come back.

An ember of it still burned. You were unable to quell it completely, but you no longer looked at every face to grace your door with expectation. When the Goddess chose to return him to you, she would.

Five years ago you’d decided it was time to return to Salem. You’d loved it there, originally, until things had gone bad. Returning had felt like coming home, and being a witch in a town with Salem’s history had been a boon. Your business had flourished once word of mouth had spread, and now you lived comfortably in a house near the Forest River, on a big enough plot of land to allow you the space to grow gardens filled with much of what you needed for your business.

It was a good life, even if there was a never healed hole in your heart.

Shoving at your hair, you pushed through the curtain which separated workspace from retail, a smile on your lips. The sun hit you just as you looked up, momentarily blinding you, causing you to squint at the large shape silhouetted in the center of the shop.

“Hi! Can I help you?” you asked, raising your hand to shield your eyes from the blinding rays.

The man turned toward you, broad shoulders slightly hunched, blonde hair cropped close, a coat of blue upon his back and jeans clinging to heavily muscled thighs.

A part of you you’d long thought dead stirred to life, desire flaring where none had lived in three hundred years. Letting your eyes trail up over the plaid shirt and chiselled jaw, you felt your heart leap and begin to thunder in your chest when his blue eyes, so bright and vibrant, connected with yours.

“Henry…” whispered from your lips.

“Ma’am?” he stepped closer, effectively throwing his shadow over your so you could lower your hand.

When you did, his eyes widened in shock. “It’s you…”

“Oh, goddess… Henry!” Rushing out from behind the counter, you darted forward, only to stumble to a stop when his hands came up defensively.

“I’m not Henry.”

But he was. You could feel the ebb and flow of his magic all around him. Your soul cried out, ached to be closer. Your skin tingled with the desire to have his fingers upon it once more.

It was the look of wary confusion upon his face which finally broke through your amazed joy. He was back. He was here. He was alive! But he didn’t know you.

“No,” you moaned, bringing a hand to your mouth as tears burned the backs of your eyes. “No… I’ve waited… so long!” A sob broke through, and you turned away, wrapping your opposite arm around your body as you fought to hold yourself together.

“Hey, now. It can’t be that bad.”

“Three hundred years I wait… only to find you don’t know me.” A despair filled laugh fell from your lips.

“Look I…” he hesitated before stepping closer and taking you by the shoulders. “Please don’t cry, doll face. I never like seeing a swell dame cry.”

Dollface? Swell? Dame?

The slang were all things you were familiar with, but they certainly weren’t from this era. “Dame?”

“Uh… yeah.” He let go of your shoulders and stepped back as you turned to face him.

“Can I expect nifty to appear from your mouth next?” you asked, a tremulous smile quaking your lips.

“Would that cheer you up?” he asked, a crooked smile appearing on his face.

“Maybe… a little.”

“I think your shop’s pretty nifty, baby girl,” he drawled.

You couldn’t help but chuckle. Wiping at your face, you rubbed your palm off on your jeans. “Excuse me for getting… emotional, but you look like someone I lost, mister…?”

“Rogers. Steve Rogers.” He held out his hand, but you could only stare at him in awe.

“Captain Steve Rogers?”

“Uh… yes?” His face twisted into an adorable look of apprehension.

“I should have known. You never were one to sit out a fight.” Shaking your head, you pulled yourself together, walked past Captain America, locked the door to the shop and flipped the closed sign. Striding back past him, you headed for your workroom, stopping only to look back at him still standing in the middle of your shop. “Well? Are you coming?”

“Where?”

Smiling, you tilted your head. “To have tea. I assume you’re here for a reason… Captain. Come along.”

Once through to the back, you went to fill the kettle and motioned Steve to take a seat on the small sofa while you puttered.

“Why don’t you tell me why you’ve come, Captain?”

“Steve is fine.”

“Steve then.” You flicked the switch on the kettle and leaned against the counter.

He looked at you with those bright blue eyes. Confusion warred with wariness, with distrust. He’d seen much in his life to have him looking at you like that. Henry had once turned that look on other people, but never you.

“Whether you wish to believe it or not, Steve, I mean you no harm. It goes against everything I am to hurt you.”

Something in your words evidently resonated for him as he sighed and began to speak.

“I’ve been having… dreams.”

“What kind?” you asked, collecting teapot and cups.

“About running through the forest at night. About protecting a woman I… loved. And…”

You refused to let your hands shake as you measured out tea from a tin. “And?”

“And of dying.”

The spoon clattered against the pot before you caught it and set it carefully aside. “And these dreams… they led you to me?”

“They led me to Salem. The soap in my hotel led me to you.”

Clicking off the now hot kettle, you poured water into the pot and placed on the lid. Turning with the tray and taking it to the low table, you set it down carefully. It wasn’t uncommon for you to have consultations with people seeking remedies for that which ailed them, and it was always easier to do so in a setting of comfort. While you could have sat in the wingback chair next to him, you settled on the couch at his side, knees touching when you turned toward him.

“Why my soap?”

“The logo.”

“What about the logo?”

“I… know it.”

“Are you sure it isn’t this you know, Steve?” Reaching for the chain around your neck, you tugged out the pendant, letting it swing free.

He inhaled sharply, eyes wide. “That’s… how is that… what the hell is this?”

“Let me tell you a story, Steve. A story which starts nearly nine hundred years ago.”

“Is this a setup? Did Tony put you up to this?” he demanded, leaning closer.

You shook your head and smiled sadly. “No. Not a setup.” With a sigh at his suspicion, you began your tale. “Once, nearly a millennium ago, two witches met on a hillock outside what is now known as Salen on the Isle of Mull. They were brought together by their two clans, neighbouring ones who, for once, were not rivals but friends. Upon that start of summer when the bonfires were lit he, the son of the chieftain, giant of a man and warrior of renown, met her. Daughter of a healer and one of great power.

They fell instantly in love and were hand fasted within weeks. Blessed by the Goddess, they were granted many powers. She, able to control flora and fauna. He, to change the minds of men with his great capacity to speak the truth, or fell them with a mighty blow. He also had a special gift,” you paused, looking up to watch his eyes, “He could move things with a thought.”

Steve startled, stiffening even as he tried to control it. “Nice story, doll, but what’s that got to do with me?”

“The two were blessed to walk this world together. Live full lives and help others. To use their magic for good. Only,” you took a shuddering breath, “they chose to settle here… three hundred and sixteen years ago.”

Sweat had begun to form on his brow. “Don’t.”

“You died trying to protect me. You knew it wasn’t safe any longer, but there was a village woman ready to give birth. She and the babe would have died without me, so we stayed. That night, they came for me. Screaming my name, calling me witch. We cast a spell, a quick one, to cover us until we reached the woods, but one villager saw us. He took a shot at you. I didn’t know how bad it was… until you died in my arms.”

“No.” Shaking his head, Steve lurched to his feet. “NO!”

“We walked this Earth for five hundred and seventy two years together. I have walked the last three hundred and fifteen… alone.”

“No. Stuff like that… it’s made up!”

You laughed softly. “Says the leader of the Avengers. A man who’s fought aliens alongside a witch, a giant green hulk, and the God of Thunder.”

He gaped at you before slowly settling back to the sofa. “But… I… you don’t look a day over thirty!”

This time the laughter was not so soft when it burst from you. “Why thank you, Captain!”

He blushed, and oh dear goddess, he was Henry all over. “I didn’t mean…”

Pouring his tea, you slid the cup closer. “I know what you meant.”

He picked up the cup and sipped, his brow rising in evident surprise. “Wow. That’s good.”

“Hm. It is an old recipe.”

He drank silently for a while, the wheels turning, before finally looking up. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

Setting your cup down, you held out your hands. “I can show you, if you like.”

His cup joined yours. Reaching tentatively toward you his hands hovered an inch above. “This going to hurt?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On which memory we fall into.” Grasping his hands, you dragged him into the past with you.

Next Chapter

[naruto-ninja-imagines-blog]

Hello! First of all I want to say, that I really like yours blog - great work, keep it up! >w

Ah these prompts are always really sad and…fun to write honestly. I hope you enjoy a little angst because you certainly get it. 

And your english is just fine, darling! 

~Mod Whipski 

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Kiba, alone and bandaged to the nines, had only just been released from the confines of his hospital room. It had been a solid four months since that damn war had come to its conclusion, Konoha and he’s wager the rest of the continent still bearing heavy scars from the battle. He’d be one of the lucky ones. A few broken bones, some lost blood, a mild concussion. All thing considered he could have come out a lot worse. Or…not have come out at all.

The man, weary and sore, had taken umbrage at the fact that the medical nin stationed at the temporary hospital set up to ease overcrowding  refuse to tell him anything about the other ninja brought back from the carnage. He’d had friends and family to worry about. Cooped up in an overstuffed room full of PTSD patients and civilians alike for so long had done nothing to aid his concern. He’d decided his first visit would be to the Hokage’s office. Where they kept the death leger.

He’d had felt much better, as he hovered outside of the shattered glass doors, if he’d had Akamaru by his side when he confronted whatever news lay waiting for him. But his companion was with his clan under the care of their own veterinarians. They’d been separated for so long and Kiba was figuratively itching to get back to his dogs side. Or maybe he was literally itching, the rough bandages made it hard to tell. Either way, Kiba was alone in facing the dread growing in his gut.

With a hard swallow the man steeled himself and marched through the shattered threshold. The inside seemed to have faired far better then he would have imagined, though it would obviously take time to fully repair a number of quick fixes had been installed to keep the walls from crumbling. A young woman, obviously just promoted if her new poorly fitting uniform was anything to go by, smiled at him from behind what remained of the front desk.

“Good Afternoon, sir. Can I assist you with anything in particular?”

She kindly didn’t comment on his dishevelled appearance  

“Yeah, um, who do I see about, um, the casualties? I…I just want to know if my friends are alive.”

Her expression morphing into sympathy, the woman ducked down to check the large regulation list she had open next to her. “I-I’m not sure if a finalized list has been made yet, sir. B-But because you are obviously not a civilian I could…probably give you access to the most recent records. Though I believe they’re only identities of those who have been administered into our hospitals.”

“That would be great, if you could.” He shuffles, uncomfortable, as she nods and scurries off into the archives.

It gives him a moment to let the situation really sink in. His hands shaking in his pockets. He’d seen his sister before the end of the final charge. Seen a number of his team mates either being carried from the field or assisting others in escaping. But there was one person he had not seen hide or hair of. Y/n’s whereabouts had remained a mystery after the first charge. Her squad assigned to ambushing any incoming reinforcements.

The woman comes back into the foyer, a few bundle of papers in her arms which she places down into the front desk. She points to individual piles; “These ones are names of those administered to Konoha Hospital, while this one is for the temporary unit.” She then points to hallway he recognises as the old administration section. “There’ll be an empty room down there if you’d like some privacy. ”

He thanks her, scoops up the bundles and hurries off in the pointed direction. They feel light in his arms as if there were less pages then he was expecting. He’s not sure why. Casualties had been numerous, he’d seen so herself.

It was far easier now to find a vacant room then it was before. What looked to once be a break room had been converted into a storage space. Spare lumber, boxes and various tools strewn about in a haphazard fashion. Kiba pushed out a wooden crate from a small cluster and took a seat, his legs already protesting the strain he’d put on them so suddenly. The stacks of names fell into his lap as he took another deep breath, hands balling into nervous fists, before leafing through the first few pages.

Maybe names he didn’t recognise. But that was to be expected. He couldn’t possibly remember each and every name of the villagers. Sometimes he’d spot a last name he’d know but was unable to match it to a face. With each few pages he’d note a friend. Shino had been administered to the main hospital a day after him. Hinata a few days before that. With each page and name he recognised another weight was lifted from his chest. So many had survived. But the more names he filed through the more nervous he became. Y/n’s name was yet to pop up.

The late stages of dusk had begun to paint the sky red and purple by the time the man had filed through the last document. His hands quaking, a painful lump growing in his throat. He punches the wall in frustration. It moans in response and he cant help but sob.

His walk home is slow. Numb. He can feel his legs screaming for a rest but he ignores them.

Y/n. The most important person in the world to him, was officially MIA. Most likely dead. Her body left to the elements the light in her eyes gone. How was he supposed to feel anything after that.

His sister greats him at the door looking just as worse for wear as him but cheerier. He can’t even smile for her as she pressed the palm of her hand to his cheek, wet and clammy from tears he didn’t know he was shedding. She doesn’t ask questions. Not now. Just ushers him in and lets him know which room Akamaru is resting in.

The giant dog had lifted his head as his master stumbled in, his ears drooping. The man found solace in Akamaru, curling up next to the beast and burying his face in his fur. Only then did he allow himself to cry proper.

The life of a shinobi was laden with hardships. Injuries to overcome, secrets to keep, deaths to accept. All these things he’d understood the very first day he’d stepped foot in the academy but only now did it feel so real. Y/n had been an ever present entity in his life. He could not remember a time before her smile. And now she was just…gone.

Konoha was not blessed with a sound sleep that night, the heartbroken wails  and the sympathetic hounds not easily drowned out

They say time heals all wounds. Kiba was not so sure. Seven months had crawled by, each day seeming more difficult then the last. The village had still barely begun to recover but he’d been expected to return to duty. Patrolling the damaged boarders and assisting the townsfolk. His heart remained heavy.

On this particular day the memories were much worse. A smell would remind him of her, a landmark would conjure a thought, even his own friends faces seemed to morph into her own. It was unbearable. So he had ran. Ran as far as his legs would allow. As far away from his unconsciousness as he could. That’s how he finds himself now, curled up high in a tree overlooking the way in and out of town.

How easily he could leave everything behind. Just run off into the distance and never look back. Never have to relive those memories that filled him with both joy and sorrow. But his loyalty to his kin was too strong and he was stuck in limbo.

Below him, rooting around in the grass and chewing on roughage was Akamaru. Still refusing to leave his masters side.  He’d keep watch over the man, his own heart saddened by his masters mates disappearance. As if the thought awoke his own senses, the beast could have sworn he could smell her still. Earthy and sweet and distinctly like both herself and his master. It carried on the wind, falling across his nose in waves. This couldn’t be a simple memory.

The beast rose to his paws and sniffed before charging off into the horizon catching the man still up in the tree by surprise. He jumped to his feet on instinct and chased after him, determined not to loose anyone else. His apathy had made the recovery from his injuries slow, even now he couldn’t keep pace with the hound who seemed a white blur in the distance. A white blur which had stopped and started barking, tail thumping so haphazardly Kiba thought he might tear something.

He’d skidded to a stop besides Akamaru, arms latched around his neck and scolding him for his behaviour, but the house payed him little mind. Scrabbling to charge ahead beyond excited.

And then, as if a dream, an airy laugher floated through the air. Familiar and sweet, Kiba almost didn’t dare to look. But there, framed by the endless fields beyond Konoha’s walls stood y/n. Leaning heavily on a crutch and head still bandaged. And she was smiling, Tears slipping down her cheeks and falling as fat drops to the dirt below.

Kiba’s arms loosened from their hold and Akamaru was free, pouncing the woman with such uncontained exuberance it had knocked her to the ground. His big tongue lapping up any tears she spilled as she buried her own face in her fur. The man, on the other hand, barely found the strength to move. Dropping to his knees and shivering from head to toe. Y/n, struggling beneath the hounds overbearing love had managed to squirm out and look towards him. Her still bruised body crawling towards him until she was practically in his lap, arms curled around his stunned body, sobbing and quivering and happy.

“I’m home, Kiba. I’m home. I made you wait didn’t I? I’m so sorry.”

And he had taken her in his arms.

And he would never let go.

[a-dragons-journal]

Tried that tarot spread I made earlier this week; interesting results which I’m going to talk about below the cut. Feel free to ignore; this is just for my own personal records.

(If you missed the spread I’m talking about, it can be found here.)

Deck used: Crystal Visions deck

Kin Life: Five of Swords reversed - forgiveness, justice, name being cleared, wanting fighting to be over, open to change, negotiation (as opposed to conflict), reaching out to old enemies to make amends, conflict following you, resentment, cannot please everyone. | For me, this card indicates that an important factor in my life was dealing with forgiveness and forgiving those who wronged me. I may have struggled with the fact that I could not please everyone, and combined with the Family/Relationships card later on in the reading, I may have grown tired of the conflict in my family which drove us apart.

Personality: The Moon - secretive, shadow self, subconscious/unconscious, projecting fear on present/future due to past experiences, psychic abilities, intuition, instinct/wild nature (ahahaha very funny tarot), illusion/deception, unsure of destination | The Moon is a card I’ve always associated with dreams, magic, and intuition particularly. This indicates that I was a bit reclusive - which lines up with what I picked up about my life from my one experience with past life regression - and relied on instinct and intuition heavily to guide me. I may have struggled to trust others because of past experiences with fear, which led to my decision to remain alone much of the time in my younger life. The Moon is also a card of psychic ability, perhaps literally in this case? Unsure.

Physical Traits: Knight of Wands reversed - loss of personal power, abuse of power, impulsive, reckless, rushing in | I won’t lie, I really don’t know how to interpret a physical traits card, and I didn’t know how I was going to when I made this spread. I just included it for kicks and for other people. Maybe I felt like I was strong enough to throw my weight around and do what I liked, but I wasn’t actually as tough as I thought? I know the one other dragon I saw in my past life regression was bigger than I was, but not by a huge margin. Hmm.

Environment/Home: Nine of Swords reversed - relief from distress, self-forgiveness, unnecessary stress, very telling dreams | This card doesn’t really tell me much aside from the fact that my home was a place of safety for me.

Family/Relationships: The Sun reversed - overconfidence, depression, ill health, difficulty finding the positive, feeling left out | This card indicates problems with family, though whether this is with the family I was born to or the family I found myself with much later in life I don’t know. (See also: Kin Life)

Important Experience: Three of Cups - family, friends, harmony, helping and being helped by others, receiving the love and support you need, taking time out, end of problems, community | Considering how the Family/Relationships card went, I feel distinctly like this was a turning point in my life when I realized that family is supposed to be about loving, supporting, and helping one another. Maybe that’s where I learned that lesson in general, and part of why it’s always been a natural understanding for me.

Death: Ten of Wands - burden, overworked, taken more than your share of work, resistance, uphill battle, responsibility, commitment, need to delegate, oppressed by outside forces | Well, we knew it probably wasn’t going to be a happy card. This one kind of speaks for itself. I will laugh if it turns out I literally worked myself to death, because I’m far too lazy in this life to do that.

Influence on Present: Two of Wands - authority, power, persuasiveness, trailblazer, risk-taker, partnership, choose where to invest time and energy, planning, progressing, discovery, stepping out of comfort zone, considering long-term goals, decisions | Yeah, pretty much. I’m still in the discovery phase here.

Lesson(s): Four of Cups - apathy, boredom, self-centered, introspection/withdrawal in uncertainty, re-evaluate the situation, examine yourself to find meaning and understanding, be open to new experiences, defensiveness, don’t detach from world, don’t need to make an immediate choice, don’t take life for granted | Kind of speaks for itself again. I need to make sure I don’t separate myself from the world - that kind of calls back to the Moon way back in Personality, and the fact that I’m pretty sure I was basically a recluse for a large portion of my young adult years. “Don’t do that again, stupid.” Okay, point taken.

How to Remember More: Judgement reversed - don’t indulge in doubt or self-judgement, move forward with confidence, take a moment to stop and think about what you can learn from the life, you have control, embrace change | Okay, this is just yelling at me now. I’m stuck in a bit of a cycle of “hey I think [x]. Wait, what if that’s just my imagination? There’s literally no way to tell. Maybe it’s safer to assume it’s my imagination... even though it feels right and I know this is a tendency of mine to do that...” right now. Cue the tarot animating and slapping me across the face with a “hey stupid you know the thing you’re doing right now that’s stressing you out? Stop that you’re being dumb”

[bringitspielberg]

Knives and Kisses: Prologue

Alright! Finished the prologue. I wrote this one like it’s being told by the narrator, but the other chapters will be different. This is optional to read if you want, just wanted to set up some of the basics, so you can start with the first chapter if you prefer since this one’s a bit long. Some of the things in the prologue will come back into play in the series, but it will be explained in those chapters. So hope you guys enjoy!

-

Series Summary: Sometimes a kiss is nothing, sometimes a kiss is something, and sometimes a kiss is everything. And Diego Hargreeves may have finally found someone who can not only keep up with him but teach him exactly that.

Chapter summary: Optional Prologue of Reader

Pairing: Diego x (fem) Reader

Warnings: None

Author’s note: The reader and her sister have powers that I’m not specifying until later in the story, I’m sure you’ll be able to guess what some of their abilities are, though. But don’t worry, both their abilities will come into play in later chapters and their powers will be clearer then.

Word Count: 6,100

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On October 1, 1989, 42 women around the world went into labor, and 43 children were born. This was odd only in the fact that before this day, none of these women were pregnant. Reginald Hargreeves, an eccentric billionaire, sought out to find and adopt all of them. It is unknown how many he initially found; however, he successfully adopted seven of them. But it had almost been nine.

---

“Gabby, come on, you can do this!” her brother shouted from beside her hospital bed.

Gabby pushed through another contraction with her face drenched in sweat from the effort. She tried to catch her breath for a moment, trying to find the words, “Danny, I’m scared.”

He pet her head to comfort her and squeezed her hand tighter, “I know, I know. This is completely impossible, but you’ll get through this.”

Gabby pushed again and the sound of a baby crying entered the room.

“It’s a girl!” a nurse called while swaddling the baby.

Gabby cried and breathed heavily like she was about to pass out, not knowing what she should feel, “I-I always wanted a daughter.”

“Alright, sorry, but you won’t get a long rest,” The doctor said. “The second baby is on its way.”

“Second?!?!” Both Danny and Gabby yelled.

“Did you not know it was twins?” the doctor asked.

Gabby squeezed Danny’s hand as she felt another contraction. His eyes were wide with fear for his sister. “Doc, she wasn’t pregnant this morning, she didn’t even know there was one!”

“Well, this is a weird day for all of us!” the doctor answered. “Alright, now Gabby I need you to push!”

Gabby kept pushing until the sound of crying filled the room.

“It’s another girl!” the nurse called swaddling the baby.

“You did it. It’s okay, sis. You did it. However impossible it is, you did it.” Danny squeezed his sister’s shoulders in an effort to comfort her as her breathing hadn’t slowed down.

The nurse handed one of the babies to Danny and another nurse held the other baby near Gabby so she could see them both.

Gabby started crying again but this time she smiled, “I love them.”

Her eyelids grew heavy and her words came out between deep breaths, “Danny…look…after…them…” She fell unconscious and the machines around her started beeping.

 A nurse took the baby from Danny and ushered him out of the room as the doctor’s started tending to Gabby. The last sound he heard as he was shoved out the door was the sound of his sister’s heart monitor stop beeping.

 “I came as soon as I could,” Pete said, gaining Danny’s attention.

Danny blinked, trying to come back to reality. He kept reliving his sister’s death again and again and he couldn’t make any sense of it. She hadn’t been pregnant and then she suddenly was and the birth had killed her, this never should have happened. Every time he closed his eyes, he just saw his sister lying in a hospital bed and not waking up.

“I’m so sorry, Danny.” Pete said. “I honestly have no idea what you must be going through right now. This literally came out of nowhere.”

Danny nodded his head, tears threatening to fall once more. “Yeah, I know. I don’t know what to do. And I know how much you cared about her, she was your partner, you were as much a brother to her as I was.”

Pete sadly looked down at the police badge hanging around his neck, “Yeah, I was. And I will deal with my own feelings when it comes to that. But…right now, there’s something we need to discuss.”

Danny brought his face forward, his eyes gazing through the glass of the nursery in the hospital. “The twins.”

Pete nodded solemnly, “Yeah, the twins. What are you gonna do?”

“What do you mean what am I gonna do?”

They could both hear the sound of a man talking, asking where the nursery is down the hall, both of them ignored it.

Pete sighed and put a hand on Danny’s shoulder, “They just appeared out of nowhere, they don’t have a father, the only person they were tied to was their mom, and she…well, you know. Which means, that they go to her next of kin.”

“Me.” Danny said. “It’s up to me what happens to them.”

“Finally, this hospital is entirely incompetent,” a man standing behind them interrupted with a huff.

Danny and Pete both turned to look at him. The man adjusted his monocle and scrutinized them.

“Reginald Hargreeves, gentlemen,” the monocle said. “Did I hear correctly that you’re the man to speak to about the mysterious twins?”

Danny eyed him suspiciously, “What’s that matter to you?”

Reginald stepped forward to look into the nursery; the twins were being kept separate from the other kids because the doctors weren’t sure what to make of them, so they weren’t hard to find.

“Extraordinary,” Reginald said. “Twins, of all things.” He turned back to Danny and stood even taller. “How much do you want for them?”

“Excuse me?” Danny asked.

Pete stepped forward to block Danny from Reginald’s view. “Sir, I don’t know what kind of game you’re getting at, but they’re not for sa—”

“I’ll give you one million dollars.” Reginald interrupted.

Pete and Danny gaped at him.

“Each.” Reginald continued.

Danny shook himself out of it, “What the hell? You can’t go around trying to buy babies!”

Reginald grabbed the lapels of his jacket and stood with his shoulders back, “I can, actually, as it so happens. I am fully prepared to take these mysterious children under my jurisdiction and intend to do so. I have already acquired a fair number of them, but these two are of particular interest to me. So, I ask again, how much do you want for them?”

Pete grabbed a hold of Danny’s arm to get his attention, “Danny, I hate to say this, but maybe you should take the guys offer.”

“You’re a policeman!” Danny whisper-shouted. “Shouldn’t you be against this?”

“I’m not saying I feel right about it,” Pete answered. “Believe me, my skin is crawling at this. But there’s two kids in there that just appeared out of nowhere and led to the death of your sister. This isn’t exactly a normal situation, you’re in no way prepared to deal with this. This guy might be one of the people who can.”

“Two million dollars is a lot of money.”

“Yeah, and you could really use it. Danny, I promise I will help you in any way I can, no matter what you decide. But honestly, you need to consider the options.”

“Does that mean we have a deal, gentlemen?” Reginald impatiently called.

Danny closed his eyes and turned back to the nursery before he opened them. Both the twins were sleeping peacefully. If things had been different, he’d be overjoyed to be an uncle, but he never would have thought in a million years it would happen like this. He furrowed his brow and thought of Gabby; how quickly he had lost his baby sister, how they had nothing left of her, she hadn’t left anything behind to keep her memory alive, anything except—

Danny turned back to Reginald with a glare. “No. The answer is no. My sister asked for one thing on her deathbed, and that was for me to look after them. She always wanted kids, and they’re all I have left of her. And I’ll be damned if I let anyone take them. So, get the hell out of here and don’t ever come near my girls again or I swear I will end you. There isn’t a price high enough that you could pay.”

Reginald huffed and turned to walked away indignantly, not seeming like he was finished, but not pressing Danny further.

Pete watched him go then turned to Danny with a sigh. “So, looks like you’re a dad now. I’ll help you however I can, Danny. If you think that’s what your sister would want, then I support you.” They both fell into a short silence. “You’re gonna have to name them, you know.”

“Gabriella,” Danny said without hesitation. “The smaller one is Gabriella.”

 Pete smiled, “After your sister. And the other one?”

Danny pursed his lips then slowly smiled. “Y/N. She always wanted a daughter named Y/N.”

“Sounds perfect.”

---

Several years later…

“Gabby,” her dad said from the driver’s seat, “will you please put your seatbelt on? You’re almost sixteen, I shouldn’t have to ask twice.”

“She can’t hear you, dad.” Y/N said peeking her head up from the back seat to look at her sister. “Her powers are going crazy again.”

Gabby was sitting shot gun and her eyes were storm gray instead of their usual color. Every now and then she would mumble something incoherent, but besides that she didn’t move. A tear rolled down her cheek and Y/N made a move to wipe it away with her hand.

“Don’t!” her dad shouted. “Remember, we don’t touch her when her powers are going haywire! That makes it worse. Just like we don’t touch you either, you know the drill, Y/N.”

“I know, I know,” she answered. “I just hate to see Gabby like this. It’s hard not to comfort her.”

She leaned her head forward and brushed her hand against her dad’s arm.

I really wish you cared a lot less. You care too much about everyone and it’s only gonna get you into trouble.

She whipped her hand away and wrapped it around herself. Her dad noticed her do this in the rearview mirror.

“You did it again, didn’t you?” He said. “Look don’t be afraid of it, I promise you, we’ll find a way for you to control it.”

“You think I care too much.” she said matter-of-factly.

“I think a lot of things. And I worry, that’s my job as your dad.”

They fell into an awkward silence as she fiddled with her fingers.

“It’s getting stronger,” she said. “Sometimes I can hear thoughts without touching someone. And when I touch someone, I hear full sentences and sometimes I see clear images. Especially with Gabby.”

“I know,” he said. “Gabby’s getting stronger too. I wish I could help, but somehow you have to learn how to control it.”

“That’s why we came all the way here. You wanna see if The Umbrella Academy guy can help, right? I don’t think he’s gonna be much help.”

“I just want to talk to him, that’s all. The whole power thing with you and your sister is more than I could ever handle and he’s somehow managed to do that with six kids! Maybe more, as far as we know.”

“Five now, one of them disappeared, remember?”

“Whatever the case, if he can help, I wanna know how. And if he can’t, then we just focus on the party and you guys get to have your birthday in the city.”

“And I get to give The Umbrella Academy their gifts.” Y/N pat the wrapped packages beside her with a smile.

“Ugh, you and your weird Umbrella Academy obsession.” Gabby suddenly spoke up from the front seat, her eyes back to their usual color.

“Gabs, can you put your seatbelt on?” Her dad asked.

Gabby obliged and clicked her seatbelt then turned to look at Y/N. “Seriously though, spending all your allowance to buy gifts? Inviting them to our birthday party? I don’t get why you would go through all the trouble for people you’ve never met. Wait…oh, I get it. You totally have a thing for one of them!”

Gabby teasingly made a kissy face at Y/N who was blushing as red as a tomato from her words.

“I do not! I just…It’s their birthday too!” Y/N defended. “And they save the world! They deserve good things and I wanna tell them thank you.”

“And I want to not worry that the world rests on my shoulders because of my powers or that you’ll go insane with all the other voices in your head. There’s more to the world than some super-powered celebrities, Y/N. Just…please try not to get your hopes up too high, you might not even meet these kids and if you do, they might not be what you think.”

The rest of the car ride was silent. When they pulled up to the street of the academy, there was a large crowd waiting outside the front doors; some of the people holding posters or shouting things towards the doors.

Gabby sighed and looked so stressed that she might pull her hair out. “I told you this would happen. God, I hate when I’m right.”

“This is just a coincidence,” Her dad said in an effort to calm her down. “This doesn’t mean that you’re always going to be right, Gabs. You don’t have to worry about the visions coming true. It’s nothing to worry abou—”

Y/N interrupted him, her eyes on Gabby. “Dad, she’s gone again. She can’t hear you.”

Their dad turned to look at Gabby, her eyes were gray again and her lip was trembling. Their dad pulled off his seatbelt and slumped back into his seat, the weight of the world on his shoulders as he rubbed his eyes with a pained expression.

Y/N clicked off her seatbelt and leaned forward. She wrapped her arms around her dad.

I can’t handle this. I can’t watch both of them suffer.

A tear rolled down her cheek, but this time she didn’t pull away from him. She pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and he immediately looked better.

He pulled himself away and looked pointedly at her. “Y/N!”

“I know.” She grumbled. “I’m not supposed to use my powers—”

“—Unless it’s an emergency or you have permission.” He finished. “If someone finds out what you can do, they might take you away. And I can’t let them do that.”

“I know, I know. I just…when I see someone in pain…I just want to help. And you have so much on your shoulders! I thought that I could…”

“I get it, and I’m proud that your first instinct is to help. And the whole kissing thing I’m not a fan of because of obvious reasons, but I love that the reason you do it is to help people. But you have to stay out of people’s heads, yeah? There’s a reason they don’t say things out loud and I’d hate for people to be afraid of you.”

“Okay, dad.” She said, quick to drop the subject. “Can we go in now? I’m sick of sitting in the car.”

“Oh, are we finally done here?” Gabby said out of nowhere, gaining both their attentions. “Sooner we’re done, sooner we can go home.”

Gabby’s cheeks were soaked with tears that weren’t there a minute ago. She looked like she might start crying again any second.

Y/N eyed her sister, knowing that she had just seen something really bad. “Dad, can Gabby and I talk for a minute? You can head on in without us, we’ll be right there.”

Their dad nodded and got out of the car without another word, knowing when it was best to let the sisters deal with their troubles. He walked over to the academy and started trying to make his way in.

Gabby sucked in a breath and a tear fell down her cheek.

Y/N picked at her fingernails, keeping her eyes on the floor. “How bad was this one, G?”

Gabby looked out the window, her eyes seeming to focus on nothing particularly. “You didn’t die in this one if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Did someone else?” Y/N asked.

Gabby grit her teeth but didn’t answer.

“Do you know what causes it?” Y/N pressed.

“…No.” Gabby answered after a moment.

“…Do you know how to stop it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should I tell Pops or Dad?”

“No, the less they know, the less likely it is to happen.”

“Okay, anything I can do to stop it from happening. I’m here for you if you need to talk.”

They fell silent for a minute. Gabby chewed her lip and turned to look at Y/N.

“Y/N?” She tentatively asked.

“Yeah?” Y/N answered, taking her eyes off the floor.

“I…I know dad tells you not to do it unless it’s an emergency…but do you think you could…” Gabby trailed off, her eyes imploring Y/N to understand.

“G, you know I don’t believe in the whole ‘only for emergencies’ thing. And for you, I would do it even if it was something as small as a papercut.”

Y/N held out her hand for Gabby to take, Gabby took it without question. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Gabby’s forehead, Gabby immediately seemed to be at ease afterwards.

What would I do without you? Images of Gabby hugging Y/N flashed through her head.

Y/N pulled away before she could hear or see anything else. “You would probably die of boredom. I mean, honestly, without me you would never leave the house.”

Gabby rolled her eyes. “Annnd, moment’s gone. God, I forgot I was dealing with my LITTLE sister.”

Y/N playfully slapped her arm. “You’re only older by four minutes!”

Gabby teasingly stuck her tongue out at her. “Come on, let’s go meet these famous weirdos and the guy that tried to buy us until we were two. We shouldn’t keep Dad waiting.”

Both girls opened their doors and prepared to leave, but before they were out of the car Gabby frowned and looked back at Y/N.

“Y/N?” Gabby said.

“Yeah?” She answered.

“…Thank you.”

“Anytime, G. Anything I can do to help you.”

---

Their dad couldn’t even get in the building. Reginald Hargreeves had disregarded him and his daughters as three more of the crazed fans waiting on his stoop. They kept trying, but Reginald was in a particularly bad mood because of the mission his children had just got back from, so they gave up and decided to just forget about it and go back to the hotel they were staying at; Gabby and her dad argued that it was probably for the best, the whole idea was a long shot going into it.

For Y/N, however, that wasn’t good enough.

While Gabby and their dad had given up and went back to the hotel, Y/N had sneaked away with her presents in hand. This, in itself, was a feat considering there were seven presents in all different shapes and sizes. But she was determined to find a way to at least give the gifts to The Umbrella Academy. She was incredibly stubborn when it came to birthdays.

So, Y/N had found herself sneaking away from everything and trying to find another way into the academy while carrying seven wrapped presents. Which is how she found herself somehow in the alleyway next to a door of The Umbrella Academy: a nervous wreck trying to figure out what she was going to say. She was almost fully prepared to just leave the presents by the door and leave a note when out of the blue, the door was aggressively opened.

A boy Y/N’s age came storming into the alleyway from the door and smack dab in the middle of ranting about something.

“—Right, because Luther is such a good leader! Not like the mission went sideways because of…” He trailed off, seeing he wasn’t alone in the alleyway. “W-who the heck are you?”

Y/N’s cheeks turned a deep red, realizing she was caught somewhere she DEFINITELY wasn’t supposed to be. She knelt down and put the presents on the steps, laying the party invite on top of them, so her hands were free. She took in a deep breath and started rambling, her eyes still on the ground.

“Oh hi,” she said. “So, um I wanted to give these to all of you because I know your birthday is in a week. Which, my birthday is in a week too, and I’m really honored to share the day with heroes! I think you guys are amazing! Helping people and um, you know…So uh for this birthday my dad brought me and my sister into the city for the party and I figured that this would be the perfect time to meet you, since it’s gonna be your birthday too. So, I used all of my allowance from the last couple of months to buy you guys some presents. But see, I didn’t know how many of you there were because I know there used to be six, but one disappeared, and I didn’t know if there were others that just weren’t really known. So, I got two extras just in case but the five of you can share the extras! They aren’t much, but I tried really hard to find things all of you would like because you’re so amazing and I—Oh God, I’m rambling! I’m so sorry, I—”

She finally looked up to see the boy and her words failed her. For a second, she was starstruck, because she was meeting one of her heroes—Number 2 specifically, if she had to guess—and without his mask, no less. 

But that admiration immediately turned to worry when she noticed that he had a black eye.

She gazed at him with concern written all over her face. Without thinking, she stepped closer to him and tenderly put her hand to his cheek. He flinched away from her touch, which she took to mean that he was in pain. She wanted more than anything to help him; in her eyes, the academy kids deserved only good things, not pain or fear. She knew she wasn’t supposed to, but knowing that she could meant she couldn’t let herself not help him.

She took another step forward and leaned her forehead against his chest, being sure not to touch him with her hands. He didn’t move, but this time he didn’t flinch away.

“You deserve only good things.” She whispered, removing her forehead from his chest. 

She stood up on her tiptoes as high as she could go (he was easily a head or so taller than her) and pressed a gentle and timid kiss to his lips. She pulled back to admire her handiwork, the black eye already starting to look much better. She smiled, her focus only on the healing.

Number 2 was blushing a deep red, not moving an inch.

Y/N blinked a few times, realizing four things: 

First, the boy in front of her was the Number 2—if she was right—(the one she had a crush on) and she had just kissed him even if it was to heal him. Second, he was blushing A LOT. Third, he was incredibly cute; and fourth, how she was about to be in so much trouble for every single thing that happened in the last couple of minutes.

“Um…” She said, starting to blush under the boy’s gaze. “Uh, thanks again for being you! I hope you like the presents and come to my birthday party! Okay, bye!” 

She ran off in the direction of her hotel without another word, too embarrassed to hear what his response to her awkwardness for the last couple of minutes would be.

 -

Diego’s Point of View:

He was angry, as he should have been. Luther had made the whole mission go sideways, and Diego was the one with a black eye that got in trouble because of it. He needed some time to himself, being around his siblings felt suffocating. He was planning on sneaking out, go somewhere, anywhere but there, leave out the alleyway and do something that would only get him into worse trouble.

He was ranting to himself, not even really knowing what about, just everything. He hadn’t pulled or pushed the door open, he was too mad for that. He had slammed the door open hard enough that he hoped he broke the hinges. His eyes scanned the alleyway and he trailed off in the middle of his rant, realizing that he wasn’t alone and that the presents with legs had to be a person.

“W-who the heck are you?” He said, cursing the stutter he hated so much to kingdom-come in his head.

The legs bent down to place the presents on the stoop, revealing a girl behind them.

He hadn’t been out of the house much due to the rules of a certain Reginald Hargreeves. So besides his siblings, his experience with kids his age was very limited—especially with girls.

The girl had started rambling while staring at the ground about how amazing The Umbrella Academy was and how she liked sharing a birthday with them. Diego had heard obnoxious fans tell him and his siblings how much they admired them ever since they stepped into the limelight, frankly, at some point it had just become incredibly annoying to him to hear strangers praise his siblings. But he could tell that this wasn’t a crazed-fan kind of rambling, it was more like awkward rambling of not being able to find the right words to say, it was honest and sincere nervous rambling; something that Diego could understand. And he found it adorable.

He was about to say something, maybe interrupt her, so he could ask what she was doing there. Before he could, she looked up into his eyes and stopped talking, and Diego lost whatever thought that had been at the tip of his tongue.

Diego couldn’t find the words, he kept telling himself to picture the word in his head like Grace had taught him, but he was too focused on something else to picture the words. He was too focused on the fear that his heart would leap out of his chest or that it was beating so loud that she could hear it. He had never seen someone so pretty. And he had absolutely no idea what to say to a pretty girl. Throw knives? That he could do. Stop bad guys? Easy. Talk to a pretty girl? Nope. To him, that was impossible.

She took a step closer to him and tenderly put her hand to his cheek. 

He flinched away, remembering that he didn’t know this girl and she could have just been there to start trouble. But then she frowned, and he immediately regretted it. To him, her frown made her look a kicked puppy and he hated seeing her sad.

He was amping himself up to say something, ANYTHING, to get her talking again, maybe even get her to smile if he could. 

She took a small step forward and leaned her forehead against his chest. 

Diego didn’t dare react or break the silence then. He had no idea what was happening. All he knew was that a pretty girl was very VERY close to him and he liked it. He didn’t even know what she was doing or what he was supposed to do; a voice in his head told him to wrap his arms around her but he didn’t even know if it was supposed to be a hug or if he should even be enjoying this from some girl he didn’t even know.

He slightly parted his lips, hoping some sound would come out.

She looked up into his eyes and softly whispered “You deserve only good things.” then stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.

Diego’s face turned beet red, he was completely frozen in place. When she pulled back with a smile, he opened and closed his mouth like a fish. 

He was trying to force words to come out or a reaction or at least something other than blushing redder than a tomato. He had never so much as held a girl’s hand before, and this one just kissed him—and he had let her.

She blinked a few times as a blush came onto her cheeks. “Um…uh thanks again for being you! I hope you like the presents and come to my birthday party! Okay, bye!” 

She then ran off without another word like she had never been there in the first place, leaving a blushing Diego standing by a tower of seven wrapped presents.

Diego shook himself out of it and bent down to pick up the invite from on top of the presents. The place where the person whose birthday it was was scratched out to the point that he couldn’t tell what it originally said, and next to it were the words “It’s your birthday too! Come celebrate with us!”

He sighed and ran a hand down his face, a confused laugh leaving his lips. 

There’s no way he or his siblings could ever go to that party, it wouldn’t matter how much he wanted to go, that would never happen as long as there was Reginald. But the girl had scratched out her name on the invite and ran before she finished explaining, so the party would have been his only chance to find out who she was.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about the situation. He liked it, her kissing him, that is. Her lips were soft, and he could still taste her strawberry Chapstick on his lips. No one had ever gotten him a present for his birthday before or invited him to a party or wanted to celebrate the day of his birth, Reginald was against that kind of thing. No one had ever believed so deeply that he deserved good things and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel. 

She was a stranger that he didn’t know but she had stolen his first kiss, and he had liked it.

He smiled and shook his head. He picked up the presents from the steps and brought them inside, dying to know what he would get to remember his mystery girl by.

If he wasn’t so focused on what had happened, he might have noticed that his black eye was gone, it had healed completely. But all he could focus on for the next few days was the girl who had stolen his first kiss and he forgot he ever had a black eye in the first place.

 ---

At the party…

“I told you they wouldn’t show up.” Gabby said as she took a sip from her bottle.

A bunch of teenagers partied around near the beach as Gabby and Y/N sat next to the bonfire. Y/N sighed in exhaustion as she watched them.

“Yeah,” Y/N said. “I know you did. I was just hoping they would.”

Y/N looked into the fire sadly as both her and Gabby fell silent.

“Hmm, what?” Gabby asked with a playful tone. “Not enjoying your ‘normal’ party? You seem like you’re as done with this thing as I am. Did you really want The Umbrella Academy to come that badly?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just…all of them are kids like us, you know? They have their powers under control, or maybe they just seem like they do. And I…I don’t know. I just felt like they would understand what it’s like to be different and struggle with powers. I love Pops and Dad, but they just don’t get it. I just feel so alone sometimes.”

“Hey, don’t start a pity party. You’re not alone, you have me! We understand each other, we know what it’s like. And hey, we’ll figure out how to control our powers eventually, I’m sure we will.”

Y/N looked at Gabby questioningly. “…You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

Gabby nodded and took another sip of her drink as they both fell into silence.

Y/N smiled slightly and pursed her lips. “I’ve been thinking…”

“That’s dangerous.” Gabby said without hesitation.

Y/N looked at her feet and chewed her lip. Gabby noticed and sat up straighter.

“Oh, okay,” Gabby said. “This is one of those ‘completely-serious-no-jokes’ conversations. Alright, go ahead. I won’t say anything.”

“The Umbrella Academy—”

“—Oh no.”

“—what they do is pretty great.” Y/N paid no mind to Gabby’s interruption. “And I wanna help people, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. But I…”

Gabby’s eyes turned gray and she leaned back, her head hitting the pillow behind her, her facial expressions shifting from one emotion to the next.

Y/N stopped talking and waited, knowing it would be seconds or minutes before her sister was back. She wanted to hold her sister’s hand or comfort her in some way to help her get through whatever she was seeing, but she knew better. Instead, she waited patiently and stared into the fire, her thoughts becoming more and more clear the more she thought about it. She drew her lips into a thin line and nodded her head determinedly.

“Jeez.” Gabby said.

Y/N turned back to Gabby who had sat back up and whose eyes were back to their regular color. Gabby didn’t have tears running down her cheeks, which Y/N took as a good sign.

“Was it a bad one?” Y/N asked.

“Not sure,” Gabby answered, “it was a blurry one, so I couldn’t tell who it was about.”

“You good this time?”

“Yeah, the blurry ones aren’t as bad. Just more possibilities. But, not the time for that, we were in the middle of something serious. So, come on then, out with it. What have you been thinking?”

Y/N smiled and took in a breath like she was preparing herself to speak. “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, that hasn’t changed. I wanna help people who are in pain. And I’m going to keep doing that. But this whole thing with The Umbrella Academy got me thinking.” She turned to her side, so she was completely facing Gabby. “We’re both incredibly lucky to have each other and we’re helping each other with life and our powers. We’d crash and burn if we didn’t have each other. But as far as we or anyone knows, we were the only ones like us that were born as twins. And I…the reason I wanted to meet The Umbrella Academy is because I just feel so alone sometimes, and I thought that they would understand. So, I’ve been thinking—actually, I’ve decided—that I wanna find the others.”

Gabby choked on her drink as Y/N finished her sentence. She coughed and hit her chest to relieve herself. “Y/N, that’s crazy! They could be dangerous!”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Or they could be struggling to find their way in this world just like we are! They’re probably feeling even more confused and alone then us, and we have each other! They don’t! I think I can help them, G.”

Gabby sighed and ran a hand down her face. “Dammit. We weren’t supposed to have this conversation for at least another year.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow at her sister. “You’ve seen me talk about this in a vision?”

Gabby nodded but avoided Y/N’s eyes.

“Then just this once,” Y/N said, “I need you to tell me something from your visions: do I find any of them?”

Gabby nodded again. “Yes.”

“Do I help them?”

“In some ways.”

“Then why do you not want me to do this?”

Gabby finally looked up directly into Y/N’s eyes. “Because I haven’t seen what happens to you if you do. For the first time, I have no idea where the future will go if you do try to find the others and that terrifies me. I don’t have control of my powers; I can’t save you if I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“G, I’ll be okay. I promise. But this is something I have to do. I need to find the others. I’m not going anywhere until both of us learn to control our powers, but I’m going to help the others learn too. I don’t want them to feel alone and I know I can change that.”

Gabby sighed and ran her hand down her face again. “I’m not going to stop you, if you’re serious about this. Dad and Pops aren’t gonna like it and they’re going to kill you. I swear that I’ll have your back, though. But please, for the love of God, be careful with what you decide to do.”

“Okay.”

They both fell into an awkward silence. Both of them looked into the fire as Gabby took another swig of her drink. Y/N smiles and bumps her shoulders with her sister.

“Hey,” Y/N said, “it’s not like I’m in The Umbrella Academy. I’m not gonna put on a mask and go after bad guys or something.”

Gabby reached her hand out as if to hold Y/N’s hand, but pulled it away knowing that she shouldn’t because of their powers. She smiled like she knew something Y/N didn’t, which she did, she always did. 

“Well,” Gabby said, “maybe one day you will.”