melanodis · 11 months ago
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what if you were full of 2 tons of metal wire
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stsgluver · 1 year ago
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synopsis. your husband still ignores the side effects of his cursed technique just so he can get a glimpse of you.
wc. 1.2k
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gojo satoru was born with six eyes — a special cursed technique that allowed for an extremely precise manipulation of cursed energy, down to an atomic level. it also blessed him with a beautiful pair of ocean blue eyes that were practically glowing. you’d never seen eyes so pretty.
the drawback to this gift? the skull-splitting migraines that came with the excessive information constantly being processed by his darting eyes.
as a child, the pain was manageable. gojo didn’t have much of a hold on the technique so his weaker state meant that the migraines were subdued as less information was being absorbed. however, as he grew older and more powerful, he would find himself bed ridden for at least twenty four hours if he did not take some sort of measure to protect his eyes.
his go to method was the sunglasses, almost 100% tinted — no other person would be able to clearly see out of them, if they could see anything at all. his sight, on the other hand, so impressive that he could distinguish people and the objects around them through the levels of cursed energy radiated.
still, accidents happened. whether it be him breaking his glasses, or forgetting them as young children do, he quickly learned the drawbacks to his technique. no normal medicine could relieve the pain and no sorcerer was strong enough to either.
gojo satoru met you at fifteen years old on his first day at tokyo jujutsu high. you wore a uniform similar to shoko's but your skirt was closer to the floor than it was to your thigh. your hair was longer than most female sorcerers and tied into a plait that hung against your back. in all honesty, you appeared quite plain to him. nothing particularly stood out. not even your cursed energy was particularly strong.
but you were gorgeous. completely and utterly gorgeous. his glasses slipped slightly down his nose as he analysed you from afar and it wasn't till a slap on the shoulder from geto that he snapped out of it.
within six months of knowing one another, the two of you were dating. you picked up on his habit to forgo his glasses around you pretty quickly and you definitely didn't miss the increasing amount of discomfort that would cause him.
"why do you do that?" you asked him one time.
the two of you were on a date in the park. a picnic blanket had been laid out and satoru had bought basically every single pastry and sweet at the bakery next to the park. you'd barely managed to make it through half till the both of you had given up and opted for cloud watching, giggling as he joked that one cloud in particularly looked very similar to nanami's 'emo' haircut.
satoru turned to his side to look at you questioningly, his head resting on his hand, "do what?"
"take off your glasses," you gestured to the folded pair of black glasses by his head. "i don't have to be a doctor to realise that you're in a lot of pain right now." the longer you lay there, the less satoru was actually looking up at the sky, instead just listening to you as you pointed out shapes and animals.
you knew the toll six eyes could take on his body.
he kept his eyes screwed shut when he wasn't looking at you to ease the the pain from the intense light that was too overpowering for his splitting headache. he winced when a kid screamed too loudly or ran too close and his fingers would push against the sides of his head frustratedly. as if he thought hard enough, the pain would just go away.
his lips tilted up into a lopsided grin, "but i see you."
you twisted so that your body was parallel to his. there was a faint blush on your cheeks now but you didn't look away from his eyes. how could you? "you always see me."
"not with those stupid glasses," satoru frowned, and you think it was the most serious you had seen him since you met. "seeing you and seeing your energy are two very different things."
"you're hurting yourself," you pointed out, placing one of your hands onto his cheek to gently stroke your thumb against his skin. his shoulders relaxed slightly and he leant into your touch like it was magic. like you were some drug that numbed the pain, replacing it with a special serotonin only you could give him.
"worth it." satoru kissed your palm.
that was his only response. worth it. and he stuck to it even a decade later.
"old habits die hard, i guess," satoru tried to laugh at his poorly made joke, but only a few shakey breaths came out. you'd been home thirty minutes and he'd already been sick twice. he'd curled himself up in your shared bed not long after the second time and that was where he was when you began scolding him for his carelessness.
"you are twenty eight," you rant exasperatedly, juxtaposing your voice that is no louder than a gentle whisper, "you have three first years to be looking after right now, but no, someone wanted to go out for dinner and someone didn't want to wear their glasses, and someone-"
satoru's much larger hand squeezed yours, "don't be cruel. i do this for you, my love." his blindfold was now on (you had made him put it on as soon as you had gotten home) but you know him well enough to know he was staring up at you with those lovesick eyes that made you weak at the knees.
"i just worry," your tone eased. you had no issue looking after your husband, you never had. it wasn't his fault that he got the migraines per se. yes, he could definitely be doing more to mitigate the severity, but he was stubborn. that had never changed. "i've seen you fight special grades. i hate seeing a stupid headache hurt you so much."
"lay with me."
"you're sweaty and sick." you scrunched up your nose, eyes flicking to the en suite you'd just cleaned and back to the cold flannel on his forehead as his body temperature fluctuated.
he shook his head, placing his index finger over his lips. "shhh, i'm passed that stage. pretty please? i need you."
gojo satoru was irresponsible at the best of times. he'd been raised to believe he was invincible and had been spoiled to always get what he had wanted. there was no telling him what to do when he'd already decided an hour ago exactly what he wanted to do.
but there was something about being needed by gojo satoru. you could never say no to him. so whether it be due to his own decision to stare into the eyes of his wife during a romantic night out, or an extensive fight against a cursed spirit, you would always be there to clean up and make sure he was wrapped up in bed all cosy.
and you would always lift up the covers and climb in once there was no more that you could do but simply act as a pillow for your husband as he tried to sleep off the throbbing pain.
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a/n. um so my previous post on this topic blew up and i’m so so grateful so i thought i’d expand a little on this hc for anyone that was interested. rambled a bit towards the end but i hope you still like it!! love you lots xxx
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hisonlyreid-er · 2 months ago
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School Girl Crush Pt 4
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Part 1| Part 2| Part 3| Part 4| Part 5| A new BAU member appears and Spencer sees her as a little threat to his status of boy genius. Being unable to get comfortable with each other causes some issues within the team. Will they be able to move past it and work together?
Spencer Reid x FemBau!OC Warnings: mentions of alcohol consumption
Six months in the US had flown by. My routines had been built up strong as well as my relationships with the members of the BAU. I had grown comfortable in my role in the team and allowed myself to settle in. Each case brought us closer together, letting us rattle our ideas off each other.
A break was uncommon in our line of work, we worked most days and had little time to ourselves between cases. The whole team had been given a week off after a particularly long ad grueling case. I had been dragged to a girls night with JJ, Garcia and Prentiss. We sat in a dingy bar for hours, laughing, talking and drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. Our chatter wasn't about anything, just the most random conversation that was fueled by excessive alcohol consumption. I never had been a big drinker but Garcia was determined to get to me to try all her favourite drinks, in one night. If any of them asked me about Spencer, I wouldn't have had enough sense to keep my mouth shut. I don't even know how I managed to stand up and walk out of that bar.
Sunlight hit my face, burning my eyes. I groaned at the splitting pain in my skull. Now I remember why I don't really drink. The hangover. I was sprawled haphazardly on top of my covers, in the same clothes from last night. How did I even get home last night? There was no memory of the hours I spent with the girls. That's a good sign. It was really lucky that we wouldn't have a case for a few days because it was going to take me at least a day to get over this. I had to think rationally. Water and painkillers. It took a while to get from my room and to the kitchen. The sound of my own footsteps worsened my headache.
When I left my apartment I had taken a couple Advil to try and numb the pain. My outfit wasn't every put together, a pair of baggy jeans and a hoodie with the hood up. I needed coffee but ran out before our last case. There was a coffee shop a few blocks from my place so that was my destination. The spring sun was beating down on me, stinging my corneas. I preferred it back home, always rainy, dark, miserable. That would be ideal for me right now. But alas, I was living my life with my dream job in the land of the free, what a horrible life.
The shop wasn't super busy as it was around 10 am so most people were at work. Suckers. I would laugh but I wasn't exactly in the right place to be laughing at people. The lovely barista took my order quickly and got to making it. Maybe I looked like I really needed that coffee. I didn't even have the energy to scroll through my phone while I waited, just stared off into the distance. "Lyn?" My head snapped in the direction of the voice.
Dr Reid? My face flushed red as I grew shameful of my attire. He was stood there looking very put together, cardigan buttoned up, hair neatly messy. Gosh Lyn, pull yourself together, he's just a colleague. Then, I realised that I hadn't said anything, just stared at him like a creep. "Dr Reid. Good morning." I try to mask my strangeness with a smile. In his hand was a takeaway coffee cup, his signature satchel strung over his shoulder. Why did he have to look so good? Yeah, I was definitely a creep. Before he could say anything, my coffee appeared on the counter. I thank the barista, taking a sip and turned back to Reid. My embarrassment was still strong as he subtly scanned my clothing. "How's your time off?" His voice had an edge to it that made me want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. "Good. Had a girls night last night." I couldn't quite meet his eye as I spoke. "Really?" And then, before I knew it, we were sat across from each other at a table.
"Garcia made you drink how much?" We were laughing together as I recounted my night. "Probably around 6 drinks. Each time she gave me a new one she'd say that she was lying before and that that was her favourite." Our cups were long empty but we stayed. "Aren't you hungover?" He seemed really shocked. I was pretty sure I looked as bad as I felt. "Oh extremely. I was hammered by drink 3, blackout drunk by the end of the night. I don't even remember going home but I woke up this morning in my bed and the same clothes from yesterday." Everything was so relaxed. It was strange to think about how 2 months ago I was convinced he hated me but here we were.
We refilled our drinks twice as we talked aimlessly . Reid spouted the most random information and I listened intently. It was peaceful, watching him talk about the stuff he's passionate about. I couldn't believe some people found this annoying. I never wanted him to stop as I watched him, my chin on my hand. There was a sparkle in his eye that I could not get enough of. "Hotch did what?!" I asked him incredulously. Our conversation had drifted to stories of the team that I had never heard. The stories seemed wild to hear when spoken but they were just the same as what we experienced on cases. God, our job is wild.
A small part of me was sad when we had to part ways. The hour and a half we'd spent together was the best I'd had in a long time. It was refreshing, a normal conversation away from the gore we saw everyday. Reid stood across from me on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop. "I'll see you on Monday." I beamed at him. "Yeah, I'll see you on Monday." He echoed my words but neither of us moved, just stayed staring. I decided to leave first, turning on my heels. "Bye Reid." I called over my shoulder. I saw him raise a hand and give me a little wave. "Bye Colesta." I smiled the whole way home. It was ridiculous but I couldn't help it. My chest was warm and fuzzy every time I recalled the look in his eye or the way his voice got excited. I'll be over my little crush soon enough. I just had to wait it out.
Returning to work on Monday was actually enjoyable, I was starting to lose my mind with nothing to do. Not that I would ever admit it out loud, I missed my team, a lot. When you spend weeks with people you grow accustom to them being there and if they aren't, it's very noticeable. I joked with Prentiss at her desk, Morgan joining us when he arrived. Everyone had their routines. Hotch would be preparing for our next case in his office, Rossi would be in his. Garcia would be clacking away on her keyboard, gathering important information. JJ would be getting ready to deliver the case and Reid would be arriving at any moment. As if one cue, the lift dings and Reid steps out. It's just a silly little crush.
It seemed that I didn't get over it as quickly as I'd liked. Obviously I focused on the case, prioritising it over my feelings but sometimes I'd catch myself staring at him. Butterflies swelled in me when we met eyes and when he smiled at me, oh good lord. I tried my best to be professional but when he smiled at me, I wanted to giggle and kick my feet like a lovestruck teenager. Sometimes I forget that I'm a 23 year old woman and an officer of the law, I shouldn't be acting like this.
After that case, Reid and I would get coffee every few weeks when we had time. We would catch up, exchange stories and laugh together. Each time we spoke seemed like a step in the right direction. Some of the others seemed to have noticed it too. I got questions from Prentiss and Morgan about the change between us. It sounded like everyone knew about the friction between me and Reid, and now we were a little closer, it showed. It was easy enough to hide my feelings from my male coworkers but the girls, they saw straight through me. Prentiss was the first to mention it, she did it subtlety to try and gauge my reaction, forgetting that I'm a profiler too. I managed to keep it from her for a few days before Garcia caught on. Nothing could escape Garcia so I was royal screwed. They interrogated me for an hour and finally broke me. I confessed to my little crush and our coffee shop rendezvous. And they never let me live it down. Every chance they got was used to tease me, even in front of Morgan, but he wouldn't know a thing. They even teased me in front of Reid and I couldn't help the flush of my face when he looked over at us, that made it much worse.
Around a month after we first ran into each other, we went our seperate ways again. On my way home I thought about everything. It made me ecstatic as I realised that we might be friends now, no more hard feelings. I was friends with Reid. He enjoyed my company as I enjoyed his. God damnit. Now it would be even harder to get over my crush but I didn't care. I made a friend. If I was still in school, Mum would be so proud of me. She probably wouldn't care now, seeing as I'm an adult but I was still full of joy. Spencer Reid was my friend and there is no way I would risk messing this up now. I would shove my feelings deep down. Nothing would ruin this. Nothing.
Sorry this is a shorter part. Part 5 will be so much longer and is the one I'm most looking forward to writing.
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bloo-the-dragon · 1 year ago
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They protecc, they attacc... but most importantly oneshot fic under the cat!
🐈
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The day had started out as normal. Sun and Moon were working their part time shift at the daycare, and Bloodmoon had tagged along to volunteer for today. They had been managing quite well too! Usually they could only last so long around kids, especially the rowdy ones but todays crowd was quieter than usual.
Until the man with the knife arrived.
Standing there in the doorway, preventing any possible means for escape. Saying he didnt want no trouble, that he just wanted his kid. But he smelled foul and cruel, and Bloodmoon knew an evil when they sensed it. Their hackles while hidden beneath their hat, raised and a low quiet hiss gathered in the back of their throat.
Sun and moon were quick to confront the man however and kept him distracted while the human daycare attendants ushered the kids away into the naptime area, leaving the celestial duo to deal with the danger.
Bloodmoon was meant to follow suit, as had been long since established before should a situation like this ever occur. And so as much as they wanted to lunge and to bite, they gritted their teeth and followed the protocal.
But then the man took his chances by running at Sun, and all sense of reason left Bloodmoon as protective fury flashed through them in a split second. They dashed forward, faster than anyone else could react. The attacker had barely taken even a couple steps toward Sun before Bloodmoon tackled the human to the floor, pinning him there as their hands found his wrists including the one holding the knife.
Their sharp red gaze bore into the humans terrified ones, their grin stretching wide as their usually triangular teeth splintered into hundreds of needle sharp ones. Their wings spread open and wide like a hawk covering its catch, the thrill of a hunter having caught its prey.
But then a sharp scream rang out, snapping Bloodmoon from their prey drive as they harshly winced. One of the children must have gotten spooked by their actions or were simply overwhelmed by the situation. Either way, Bloodmoon recoiled from the noise as it shot painfully through their skull, bringing their hands up to their ears out of reflex.
A mistake.
They had a split second to process the glint of metal before it slashed across their one good eye, blinding them and Bloodmoon let out a yowl drawing back and falling to the floor, their hands clutching at their wounded eye.
There was more screaming, more yelling and Bloodmoon didn't know if it was the childrens or someone else. Pain shot through their skull, the sharp stinging from their eye mixing with the piercing shouts of others around them.
They saw movement from the corner of their remaining eye, weak and half blind as it was and they kicked out in feral panicked instinct, their foot connecting with something soft sending it flying. Bloodmoon scrambled to all fours, hissing and snarling at anything and everything that came near them, lashing out with their claws whenever they felt something brush them.
Everything was too much, too loud too bright. They couldn't see, everything was a blurred mess of shapes and horribly bright light. Their head was still ringing and even the smallest of sounds were too much for them.
Another movement and Bloodmoon lunged, teeth and claws bared. But something grabbed them before they could, and they swiftly found their arms pinned to their sides as another pair of arms wrapped around them and hoisted the crazed red cryptid off their feet.
Bloodmoon struggled and thrashed about snapping and hissing but the grip on them was strong. There was something whispering in their ears, but they could not decipher it as the excess noise only hurt their head more.
They snapped their head back to headbutt whoever was holding them, which they quickly regretted as it aggravated their wounded right eye and sent more pain throbbing through their skull. Their hissing quickly shifted into a pained whine as they flopped forward pathetically.
It was too much. Everything was too much.
One of the arms that had been wrapped around them came up to cover their face. Bloodmoon automatically snapped at the blurred blob, but it covered their vision making everything go dark. The painful brightness and blurred movement disappeared, and they went still in stunned silence as some of the pain in their head briefly receded.
But there was still noise all around them, and they start to weakly struggle again, this time more out of desperation to get away and to hide but the hold on them remains strong, carrying them away from the commotion.
They barely managed to process the sound of a click and then quite suddenly everything went quiet.
But Bloodmoon was still panicking. They were confused, their face and their head still hurting. The noises may have ceased, but something was still holding them, keeping them from escaping. But then a voice speaks, and it's one they recognise almost instantly.
'Calm down. Safe. I've got you.'
Raspy. Quiet. Soothing. Moon.
Bloodmoon relaxed almost instantly, but not completely. They were shaking and breathing heavily, their head still ringing and their injured eye hurting terribly. But they no longer feel the need to bolt and to hide, as Moon is here and they trusted him.
Now confident they were no longer going to attack, the lunar jester sets them down carefully, but Bloodmoon scrambles around to hold onto him, their hand finding his arm. Their left eye - the partially blind one - is currently the only one working and all they can see is a dark blue and white shape and a red glow where his face is. But they know it's Moon, and that is enough.
They sit there, wheezing heavily and clinging to the lunar animatronic as the adrenaline from before starts to wane and the shock creeps in. They flinch as a pair of hands gently grasp the sides of their head, Moon tilting their head up to face him.
'Let me see' he says quietly.
Bloodmoon can't see his expression, but the worry is evident in his voice. Despite how sensitive their face feels, they allow Moon to inspect the area of injury. They hiss and flinch back when they feel his thumb gently brush over the slash under their eye and they can just barely make out Moons gaze shifting to look at what they can only assume is his hand.
Were they bleeding? They hadn't felt any form of liquid on their face, but then they were in a bit of a panicked feral state before so maybe they hadn't noticed. Moon meanwhile shifts and stands, telling Bloodmoon to stay as he moves across the dark room.
Bloodmoon does as they are told, bringing their legs up and coiling their tail around theirself. They look around the room while they wait. It's dim and they cant make out any details, but they assume its the break room.
Curiously, they draw a hand up to their eye, flinching at the soreness but they manage to feel a gash just under their right eye, which they have kept tightly shut ever since the blade connected.
A hand grabs theirs pulling it away from their face and they squeak in alarm. Two orbs of blurred red fill their vision, and they recognise it as Moon.
'Stop that' Moon hisses, but not there's no real anger to his voice, only concern. 'You'll make it worse.'
Bloodmoon huffed in mild irritation. 'C-Can't… Get a-any worse than… th-than this' they stutter quietly.
'Hush.'
Bloodmoon falls silent at the sharp tone. They didn't have the energy or will to talk more anyway, so they sit and allow Moon to remove their hat so he can wrap a bandage around their head and over their injured eye, his hands shaking as he does so. Bloodmoon wisely chooses not to comment on it, their single solid red eye flickering away as guilt builds in their chest.
Their gaze instead lands on a green blob next to the lunar animatronic which they assumed was a first aid kit. Other than the gauze, there wasn't much else in there that could really help them. Even the pain meds would be useless as they were intended for human children, not a cryptid disguising theirself as a robot.
Once he is done, Moon pulls Bloodmoons hat back over their head again before pulling them up onto his lap holding them close against him. Bloodmoon does not fight it and they even cling to Moon, feeling the faint tremors of the other under their arms. They were both shaking they quickly realise.
Suddenly a thought occurs to them and Bloodmoon jolts, the top of their head bumping into Moon's chin making him grunt.
'Sun! Is Sun-'
'He's fine.' Moon cuts them off. 'Dealt with the intruder.'
A pause, and Moon shifts his hold on them pulling them away so they are face to face. Despite Bloodmoon being unable to see his expression, they can tell he is giving them a severe look.
'Police have been called. We're staying here until they arrive. You will do as we say and let us handle the situation from here. Do you understand?'
Bloodmoon shrinks a little under the piercing tone, but they nod. Moons gaze holds them for a little longer before he deflates and pulls them back against him once again, his vents rattling in the robot equivalant of a shaky sigh.
Moon is clearly mad, and they don't blame him. They broke the rules and got theirself hurt in the process. But the way they can still feel him shaking also tells Bloodmoon that Moon was terrified, just as much as they had been. The guilt that had been building up overflows, and Bloodmoon shuts their remaining eye and presses their face against his chest.
'Sorry' they whisper softly.
Moon doesn't immedietely reply, instead burying his face into Bloodmoon's hat and squishing their ears.
'Idiot' the lunar animatronic hisses, his hold on them tightening. 'Never do that again.'
Bloodmoon remains silent, but they increase their hold around Moon a little more. This seems to be enough of an answer as Moon does not speak again after and they continue to sit in silence together.
After a couple minutes Moons music box starts playing, for his nerves as much as Bloodmoons who also appreciates the comforting sound of the tinkling tune. They stay that way, holding onto one another as they await the approaching sounds of the distant sirens.
~~~
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roosterbruiser · 2 years ago
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𝐅𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐲 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫
𝐉𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝐱 𝐘𝐨𝐮
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 𝟗.𝟖𝐤
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟, 𝐬𝐚𝐝, 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐚𝐝, 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐝, 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝.
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There is supposed to be a sweetness that grows in the absence of great love. They’ve coined a phrase for it, one that never fails to keep your eyes from rolling, one you won’t even waste your breath uttering. People sing about it--all that space someone leaves behind and the way that your heart is supposed to contort and expand with excess affection--and people write poems about it, too.  
But it’s been a year and it still hurts; there is no overflow of fondness. 
The agony hasn’t dulled yet--and you have found comfort in calling it agony and not pain. It’s something you’ve put great thought into: this is not pain, it is bigger than that. It’s rubbing alcohol on a gash that needs sutures. It’s popping blisters with the heat of the sun. It’s smiling finally and splitting your lip down the middle. It’s jamming grimy fingers into bullet holes. It’s chewing rusty nails. It’s falling one hundred feet from a cliff and into the water on your belly. It’s cracking the hardest part of your skull on the pavement. 
Now that it’s been a year, now that you have adjusted to accepting your life in terms of throbbing and aching, you are certain that you would much rather have never loved Jake if it meant losing him. 
That’s how your mother tried to comfort you when you told her about the breakup. It was fresh--though it still feels fresh even right now and you assume it will always feel fresh--and you couldn’t talk about it without salt wetting your tongue and your lips growing swollen around the words you chewed out. 
“Jake’s gone.” It was all you could manage to say to her. 
She was sitting across from you at the little bistro table outside Risotto’s, sipping espresso through a straw so as not to disturb her lipstick. She was glowing that afternoon--wearing a linen sundress with her hair pulled back and her sunglasses big and her disposition sunny. 
When you said it, when she finally paused in her chattering about her latest cruise with your step-father, she raised her eyebrows--stunned. She was the last person you were telling--for more reasons than you have fingers--but she was the first person you were telling face-to-face. Meeting her for an early lunch at Risotto’s was the first time you’d left the house in a long while. 
“Where did he go?” She asked, tilting her head. 
You didn’t feel good. You hadn’t felt good for even one microsecond of one day since the other side of your bed suddenly became so frigid. You knew, also, that you didn’t look good. Unwashed hair, unbrushed teeth, mismatched socks, bleary eyes, a permanent flush in your cheeks. But your mother hadn’t asked you what was wrong; she was never good at doing that. Jake was, though. If he had been there, he would’ve asked. He would’ve known the moment he saw you that you were thoroughly heartbroken.   
“Back to her,” you said, your voice thin and wavering. Your cheeks were hot and the saliva on your tongue was sitting thick in your mouth. “His wife.”
Your mother watched your lip tremble. You were already pulled into yourself, shoulders drooping and chest hollow. Your hair was dipping over your plate and into your food when you finally let your face fall into your hands to weep. It made your mother ill watching your hair sweep through the pasta sauce.  
Someone walking by had given your mother a strange look as you openly sobbed into your palms, those shrill and shrieking things, and she’d grown hot with embarrassment. So, she paid for her cup of espresso and your uneaten pasta and ushered you into the privacy of the bathroom. 
It was hot in there, just as hot as it was outside beneath the San Diego sun. It felt like you couldn’t step out of the heat wherever you went--it just followed you, bit into your skin, blistered you.
You leaned against the bathroom counter, arms crossed tightly over your chest. And your mother stood just before you, feeling out of her element and entirely uncomfortable with the amount of snot dripping down your nose.  
“What happened?” 
What had happened was Jake woke up three Tuesday's ago, looked at your sleeping form, and then decided that he needed to go back to his wife--whom he’d left for you a little bit over two years prior. For all intents and purposes, Felicity was still his wife; there’d been about a dozen delays in the finalization of their divorce, all seemingly minute and at the fault of precisely no one except the courts. 
No rhyme or reason. No explanation. He just waited for you to wake up, held your cheek, and told you he was leaving and that he wasn’t coming back. Then he left. Movers came for his things a few days later. He changed his number. He deactivated every social media he had an account for. He vanished, simply put. Just like that. Somewhere between asleep and awake, he was gone. For good. 
“Nothing. We were fine,” you told your mom, holding your face in your hands again. Your breath was hot in your palms, aiding the blush in your cheeks and the heat rash climbing up your throat. “We were better than fine. We were fucking great. We were perfect. And then he just left.”
“Well, there had to have been something wrong,” your mother insisted, gathering one-ply toilet paper by the handful and unceremoniously pressing it against your hands. “He wouldn’t leave for no reason.” 
“But he did,” you insisted, shaking your head, gripping the toilet paper roughly. “I’ve thought about it good and-and hard. We had dinner that night. I made mashed potatoes, steak, and green beans. We drank half a bottle of red wine. We did the dishes together. We went to a late movie. We came home and took a shower together. We had sex. We went to bed. Jesus Christ, we were laughing all night! Even just before I fell asleep, he told me he loved me and I told him that I loved him. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. Nothing was wrong.”
Your mother listened intently, picking at her long nails. With her eyes narrowed in thought, she tutted. 
“Did you overcook his steak?”
“No,” you told her, flopping your hands at your sides and letting your face angle towards the polished tiles below your untied tennis shoes. “He likes it medium rare and I cook it medium rare.” 
“Was the movie bad?” 
“No,” you answered again. “It was a Martin Scorcese film.” 
She hummed. She kept thinking, kept pursing her lips and squinting at you as you dabbed under your nose. 
“Maybe he got water in his ear in the shower.” 
You sighed. 
“This isn’t making it better,” you told her, sniffling. 
You leaned against the counter, your shoulders slumped and your face drenched in salt. 
“I’m not trying to make it better,” your mother sighed, crossing her arms. “I’m trying to figure out why he left you.” 
It stung to hear her say it. Stung so badly that you flinched inadvertently, just a reaction your body had to the words. It was like the doctors checking your knees for reflexes; you had no control over it.  
“There’s nothing to figure out,” you assured her flatly, fruitlessly wiping at your cheeks and staring down at the scuff on the toe of your shoes. “He’s gone. It’s over. That’s that.” 
“Maybe he’ll come back,” your mother said. 
You shook your head. 
“No,” you whispered, sniffling again. “Movers came and packed him up.” 
“He hasn’t called?” 
“Changed his number,” you told her. Your voice was growing thinner and quieter.
“Well. Maybe he’ll change his mind after a while. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” 
A beat of silence followed that. You weren’t sure what to say. You weren’t really sure what to do other than cry and cry and cry. 
“I don’t think he will,” you said finally. 
She sighed, then. She wasn’t sure what to say either. She had never been good at this sort of thing--things that required her to give you that undivided attention you were always so insistent upon.
You weren’t sure why you even bothered telling her. You knew that she would’ve sat through your entire early lunch without commenting on your appearance if you’d let her. She would’ve pretended like everything was fine, would’ve asked about work, would’ve kept talking about the country club.  
“Wouldn’t you rather have loved and lost than never loved at all?”
Your throat grew hot.  
“Please don’t quote Victorian-era poets to me while I’m upset,” you whispered to her. “And that’s not even the way it goes.” 
You two were always like this. She never knew what to say to you and when she tried, you were convinced that her attempt was half-hearted and in poor taste because it usually was. Even when you were a baby, she never knew much about what you wanted or needed. It was no different now that you were a grown woman. Simply put: she was bad at caring and you were good at rejecting.
She at least spared you from bringing up the fact that Jake had put his wife in your very position a couple years back--for you. 
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” your mother admitted, holding her hands on her hips. 
You pinched the bridge of your nose, squeezing your eyes shut tight. 
“Me neither,” you told her. 
It was quiet for another moment. 
She glanced at her watch. 
“You can go,” you told her. 
She played tennis every Saturday afternoon--you knew that’s where she wanted to be. 
She swallowed. 
“I don’t have to,” she said. 
What she really meant was: thank you.  
“I know,” you told her. Another beat. “Go.”
And so she’d left and then you were alone. 
You’re still alone right now. 
Or you were until twenty-seven minutes ago when the doorbell rang. 
You’d only gotten around to making dinner fifteen minutes before the intrusion so the air was still thick with the scent of Top Ramen. You were sitting on the couch, poking around your bowl of overcooked noodles, watching another episode of The Price Is Right in your dark living room when the chime rang out in the foyer.
If this had happened a little over a year ago, if Jake was still living with you but maybe gone for the evening, you would’ve been frightened. Some unannounced guest at your front door after ten at night while you’re home alone? 
But you’d simply set your bowl on the coffee table and meandered through the dark, your slippers shuffling on the unswept tile. You didn’t even check the peephole--you didn’t care to. You just opened the door.
Then he was there. Just like that, just like he had been for years before and not been for a year, he was there. Standing under the dinky porch light in the silky night air, wearing a pair of old Levi’s and a starchy white shirt.
 And when you saw him, him with his eyebrows pinched the way he used to whenever he was thinking hard about something, him with his lips in that serious flat line you used to run your finger along, him with his Adam’s apple bobbing so profusely, him with his hands at his sides and clenching around precisely nothing--a strange peace flooded you. You’d been trying so very hard to press forward, to forget about him, to wash off the life you shared. Even if you knew it was entirely in vain, you did because that’s what you were supposed to do. But seeing him there on your porch, shrouded in shadows and awash with a strange emotion you cannot read--and you’ve been out of commission in the reading Jake’s emotions department for a while, anyway--you thought okay, this is it. I have been so overwhelmed with grief that my brain is atrophying and I am imagining things. This is my yellow wallpaper. 
For the first time in a year, you felt good. This was your surrender. You were letting go, giving in, allowing yourself to be swallowed. It was like slipping into a warm bath; all the muscles in your body unfurling, all the breath in your lungs escaping, all the pain in your body dissipating. 
But then he spoke. 
“What’s that face?” 
“What?” You choked. 
You didn’t even mean to speak to him. It was just an immediate response.
“That face,” Jake said softly, nodding towards your cheek. “I’ve never seen you make it before.”
“That’s just my face now,” you told him. 
It got quiet after that. There were no crickets chirping, no cicadas calling, no cars rumbling down the quiet street, no music playing through a cracked window. The night was just entirely silent.  
The next few minutes were a blur. You wandered away from the door, still entirely convinced that this was your undoing and that you were taking up company with the ghost of your lost love. He’d taken it as an invitation and followed behind you. When you sunk back down into the sofa, taking your lukewarm bowl of noodles on your lap, he just watched you from the foyer. 
He didn’t really know what he was doing there. He didn’t know why he came back other than to fill the gaping hole in his chest that he’d punctured there. It was selfish, he knew. He kept in touch with a few of your mutual friends and every once in a while, when he could afford it, he’d ask how you were. And the answers were never good. But seeing it, seeing you sit in that pitch-black living room, seeing you sit there with your bowl of shitty ramen, seeing your gaunt cheeks aglow in the artificial blue-light from the television, he understood just how bad things were. Really, he thought he had it bad with the nightmares and the guilt. But this was something different entirely.  
When he said your name, you just glanced over at him. Your eyes were very dull. 
Then he sat on the loveseat, facing you. And you just resumed watching The Price Is Right.
But now the episode is over and your bowl is empty. 
So, you look over at him and his face is angled at the television, too. His eyes are so very glassy that you could watch the television in the reflection. His posture is rigid, which is not how he used to sit on the loveseat. He used to throw his entire body on top of it with a heave, used to sprawl out with his limbs askew. He used to take naps there like that. He used to pull you on top of him, used to keep your head cradled against his chest as it rose and fell with a grace you knew you would never come close to possessing. 
This is all very strange. Jake knows this is very strange. You just left the door open behind you and ate your cheap dinner and watched TV while he sat there. But what is even stranger is that he didn’t want to immediately retreat. He didn’t feel that discomfort in his bones he feared he would. He even ended up watching the episode with you. 
“Are these reruns?” He asks after a moment as a toothpaste commercial plays over the screen. This is the TV he left here--the unreasonably big one that cost a fortune to get mounted. 
“Yeah,” you answer. 
“When does the new season start?” He asks. 
“September, I think.” 
It’s quiet for a moment. You’re still looking at him, wondering how long it is going to be until he evaporates. 
And he’s looking around the room now, squinting through the dark, letting his eyes fall over all the familiar terrain. The coffee table is amess with mail and car keys and matchbooks; you used to get onto him about crowding it with paperwork and glasses. The mantle that used to house all those trinkets you picked up everywhere is void of anything at all save a sad pillar candle almost burned to the wick. The throw pillows are strewn about, not at all in the precise order you liked them to be, and none of the throw blankets are folded and sitting in the basket beside the couch. It’s April now, but there are no pastel decorations littering the room. It’s just dark.  
“How long will you be here?” 
His eyes land on you again. You’ve curled into yourself, knees drawn to your chest, and you’re letting your cheek press against the flat of your knees as you look at him. There is something far-away about the way you’re looking at him, something that just isn’t quite there. 
“What do you mean?” 
“How long are you staying?” 
He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. 
“I don’t know how to answer that.” 
You shrug. 
“Okay,” you say. “Just lock the door on your way out.”
Somehow, even though he knows the opposite, he feels like the strange one here. He was expecting this to go differently. He thought you would cry and he would cry. He thought that maybe you wouldn’t let him in. He thought maybe you would’ve moved by now. Really, he expected things to go any other way than they are right now. 
You’re just blinking at him, fiddling with a loose stitch on the couch. 
“Do you want me to go?” He asks. 
You shake your head immediately. 
“Of course not,” you answer. 
His heart is sitting in his throat, pulsing.
A beat passes. There’s a dog food commercial playing now.  
“Don’t you want to ask what I’m doing here? Or why?”
“No,” you answer again. 
He nods. 
“Why not?” 
You breathe softly, shrugging. This is the most strange conversation to be having with someone who is just not here.
“Why would I?” You return finally. 
He rakes his hands through his hair again, softening into the sofa. He’s missed this sofa very much--he used to take long, open-mouthed naps here with your weight atop him. 
“I don’t know,” he answers and he’s telling the truth. “I guess I would want to know if I were you.” 
“You’re not me,” you answer even though you do think, in a convoluted way, he must be you since you’re the one imagining him here.
“Yeah,” he sighs, nodding. 
“What should we do?” You ask. 
He blinks. 
“About?” 
“Not about,” you answer, sighing. “What should we do now? Go to bed?” 
“Are you tired?” Jake asks. 
“I’m always tired,” you say. 
That hurts. It’s a quick pain that radiates across his chest.
“You want to go to bed with me?” He asks. 
You just nod. Of course you do. It’s all you’ve wanted for the past year. Just to lie beside him again, just to fall asleep with his foot nudging yours. That’s it. It’s simple. 
You’ve missed him the most there--which is a given. Entirely a given. 
He doesn’t know if he should. Things are still strange with Felicity. He doesn’t know where they stand, especially after tonight. Honestly, he doesn’t know where they’ve been standing for the past year besides the edge of a cliff and a stuffy therapist’s office. 
“Okay,” he says softly. He nods. “We can go to bed.” 
You don’t turn any lights on in the house as you navigate through it. You are good at navigating in the dark; it’s how you’ve been living for the past year. Jake stumbles a few times, feeling around for a doorknob or railing. You don’t reach for his hand and he doesn’t reach for the curve of your waist. 
Even when you get into the bedroom, you don’t turn the light on. You don’t wash your face or brush your teeth. You just slip out of your socks, leave them in the heap that sits at the end of your bed, and climb under the unmade sheets.
Jake stands in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. He can make out your silhouette beneath the linens, so much smaller than he remembers you being. Maybe you are--especially if you’ve been eating ramen at ten at night for the past year. He can’t make out much else besides the hunky shadows of furniture and he doesn’t try. He slips out of his jeans and his t-shirt, which feels strangely and achingly normal to be doing in this room at your bedside, and then pulls the covers down. 
The two of you lie side by side without touching each other. 
You can’t believe the peace that has found you so suddenly. This is a peace you have scoured for for twelve grueling months--yoga, acupuncture, retreats, massages, therapy, antidepressants, girl’s nights, blind dates--and never even came close to finding. But here it is now, laying in bed beside you, blinking up at the ceiling. He’s not even touching you, but he doesn’t have to: just knowing that you could reach over and press the flat of your foot against the curve of his calf is enough to untie a knot that’s been sitting in your throat. 
Jake, for some reason, feels the same. He’s been having trouble sleeping for a year--an entire year. Felicity doesn’t snore. In fact, Felicity is entirely soundless when she sleeps. And he hates that. Often, he’s thought about the way you mumble throughout the night and the lonesome snores you sometimes let out. Felicity likes to be held, but you liked to hold him. He’s missed it--missed your arms around his waist, your hips against his. And now that he’s in bed with you, now that all this strangeness is becoming normal in the dark room around the two of you, he can feel himself growing tired. Sleep is starting to tug on his eyelids. 
“Are you sleepy?” You ask softly. 
You used to ask him this a lot. Usually it was accompanied with your fingers in his hair, tugging softly as he laid in your lap as you tried to finish another chapter of a book you’d been reading for too long. Sometimes it was when he was teetering between asleep and awake, when you knew just by looking at his slack face and parted lips that he was sleepy. It used to make the two of you laugh, a sound only the wrinkles in the sheets could hear. 
“Yes,” Jake answers. 
You swallow. There are suddenly tears in your eyes. 
“Okay,” you just say. 
“Are you?” He asks. 
“You already asked me that,” you say softly. 
“Sorry,” he says. 
“It’s okay,” you answer.
This is starting to feel real. It is beginning to dawn on you that this is not a figment of your imagination, you have not been subdued by anguish. This is real, he is here, you watched an episode of The Price Is Right together, and now you’re in bed together. It’s almost too much for you--it’s making your chest tight, making your knuckles white. You thought that being around him again would make grief explode out of your chest like something akin to Alien. But here you are--intact somehow.   
You want to ask him how long he’ll be there. You want to ask if he’ll be there when you wake up tomorrow morning. You want to ask him what he saw in your sleeping face that made him leave. But you don’t. You’re afraid of breathing too hard, afraid of moving wrong. 
“Are you still awake?” He asks. 
You nod and he feels it. 
“What’s happening?” He asks. 
This wasn’t his intention when he came here tonight. Fuck, he doesn’t even really know what his intention was, but he knows that it isn’t this. 
“I don’t know,” you answer. 
He can tell that you’re choked up. 
“Ask me why I’m here,” he demands in a hushed tone. 
You sniffle, shaking your head. 
“I don’t want to,” you say. “Please don’t make me.” 
He bites his lip hard. His throat is thickening with tears, too, just hearing how utterly broken your tone is. Just to know that he is the one that fractured it, just to know that he is the one that’s hurt you--it makes his chest tight. 
“Ask me anything. Please.” He’s begging. 
“You’re being selfish,” you whisper. There are tears rolling off your cheeks now. You take a deep breath. “It’s not fair that you’re making me ask. You know that I can’t say no to you. You know that.” 
He does know that. It’s how the two of you started anyway. 
Jake and Felicity were on the rocks, like they always were, when he met you at the beach three years ago. It was late and the two of you were the only cars parked in that sandy parking lot, each of you staring out over the dark water. 
Jake knew better than to approach a young woman alone at night--so he did his best to not send creeper-vibes in your general direction, barely even glancing at you. But then he made the mistake of crumpling a piece of straw wrapper between his fingers and tossing it out his window. 
He nearly jumped out of his skin when you suddenly laid on your horn after witnessing the entire ordeal. 
He looked at you, bewildered, and you were wildly gesturing for him to roll his window down. So he did, his throat entirely dry, and you ripped into him. 
“Did you just fucking litter? Right in front of me?” 
He didn’t know what to say. He just stared at you, eyes wide. 
“I’m sorry?” He managed to stutter out. 
“If you’ll litter right there in front of me, then what will you do when I’m not here?” You raved at him, throwing your arms up. “That’s the scummiest shit I’ve seen all day and I work at City Hall!” 
He was admiring you without even meaning to. Your eyes were alight with fire, your face glowing in the white light of the moon. The breeze was pressing into your hair, pushing it over your bitten lips. You were beautiful--even when you were yelling at him. 
“City Hall?” He asked. “You the mayor or something?”
You blinked at him, dumbfounded. 
“Do I look like the mayor?” You asked, furrowing your brows at him. 
He made a show of looking over your bare shoulders and the necklace sitting on your throat and the red in your cheeks. And suddenly, your heart was racing. This perfect stranger who just littered in front of you, the one you ripped into, was suddenly undeniably handsome and absolutely checking you out. 
“No,” he answered finally. “Aren’t mayors usually bald men?” 
You wanted to smile. 
“That’s a bit regressive, don’t you think?” 
He grinned. It made your heart stutter. 
“What’s your name?” 
You bit your lip. 
“I don’t give my name out to strangers that litter.” 
So Jake had gotten out of his car, raised his brows at you, retrieved the tiny piece of trash you were so upset about, and walked it all the way over to the garbage can. Then he’d gotten back in his car with a grin. 
“Now I’m just a stranger,” he said. “Do you tell just strangers your name?” 
 There was a grin tugging at your lips. 
“If they tell me theirs first,” you insisted. 
“Jake,” he said without hesitation. “Seresin. C’mon, your turn, City Hall.”
You nodded. Jake Seresin. 
You told him your name and he smiled. It made your toes curl. 
“Nice to meet you,” he said, nodding. 
“Okay,” you said back, shoulders straight. 
The two of you ended up fucking hard and fast against the hood of his truck after the first hour. The breeze was warm and salty, your body was soft and supple, and the waves were crashing in the distance. His windows were rolled down so the two of you could hear Fruits of My Labor by Lucinda Williams playing softly from his radio. For some reason, it was the best sex he ever had.  
There was a strange pull between the two of you, one that neither of you were willing to reject. He told you that he was married just after that and it strangely did not deter you. You had never been the kind of girl that went after married men, but Jake made you dizzy. You were powerless to interrupt whatever was happening between the two of you. 
He left Felicity for you just a month later. 
And now he’s lying beside you and he can feel every shuddering breath that you breathe and he feels like his body is going to turn itself inside out.     
“Why’d you leave?” You whisper. 
He’s guilty. He feels like he’s asked you to do something impossible. 
“I keep not doing the right thing,” he says. He practiced this on the way over, practiced everything he’s wanted to tell you for the past year. But none of it is coming to him now that he’s beside you. “Like I left Felicity for you and then I left you for her and I just thought that if I righted things with Felicity, then I would feel better about myself. Because I don’t. Feel good about myself, that is.”
“Fuck you,” you whisper dryly. It isn’t with malice. It’s just an expression, one that you’ve used frequently enough that he doesn’t flinch. “You don’t feel good?”
He’s quiet now. 
“I feel guilty.” 
You sniffle again. You’re not angry. 
“I bet you do,” you say. “I would feel guilty if I made someone feel the way I have for the past year.” 
He’s quiet. 
“I left because I felt like I had to do the right thing,” he says, quieter now.
He’s telling the truth. He hardly thought twice before he left Felicity and fell right into your life together. You were living together right away and things were good. They were seamless and easy. He kept waiting for something to happen, something that would make him feel guilty about leaving Felicity and moving on with you so quickly, but it never came. His friends loved you. You cooked his steak just right. His mom adored you. You were thinking about getting a dog together. You never argued. He couldn’t get enough of you ever. And you returned that love tenfold.
So that Tuesday morning, after a perfect night for a fucking Monday, he woke up and looked at you. You were sleeping with your face buried deeply in the pillows, your eyes fluttered shut, your face awash with peace. And he cupped your cheek, pressed hair behind your ears. 
And then he thought I want to marry you. It was the first time he thought it; his last marriage, which wasn’t even officially over yet, had scarred him to the point of swearing off legal unions entirely. You’d been all for it, insisting that whatever he would give you was enough. And the thing about it was that you were telling the truth and he knew it. Seamless. 
Then he got scared--the kind of fear that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand to attention--and he thought of you looking at him the same way Felicity had when he handed her his ring. That pain--it was hideous to witness, hideous to inflict. He couldn’t do that to you.
Guilt found him for the first time, too. Guilt that he loved you more in this one precise moment than he loved Felicity in the years they were together. Maybe loving someone as much as he loved you wasn’t natural--maybe that wasn’t the way the world was meant to work. 
So he decided. He was going to leave. 
Then he’d left. To preserve you and your feelings. To preserve whatever goodness you two had that was surely fleeting anyhow, even if it hadn’t shown it yet. Felicity, for some reason, had welcomed him back even if they both understood that there was precisely nothing left between them. No amount of therapy could bring back what they had--and even if it could, it would be remarkably dim in contrast to what he had with you.    
“And was it?” You ask. “The right thing?”
He pauses. He truly doesn’t know. The ache in his chest says no, absolutely not. But the ring sitting heavy on his fourth finger says yes, it absolutely was. Even if Felicity is so rigid still.
“I don’t know,” Jake answers. “I’ve been wondering about that the past year.” 
What you wouldn’t give to have been wondering anything other than your loneliness for the past year. 
“Why are you here?” 
You’re afraid of the answer. Your fingers are numb with grief. 
“I missed you,” he answers instinctively. 
That’s when your first sob punctures the quiet bedroom. Every fiber in his being is screaming for him to reach out and hold you, for him to collect you in his arms and hold you tight against him, to comfort you. But he doesn’t move. 
“Jake,” you cry, holding your face in your hands. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
His teeth sink into his lower lip. 
“Me neither,” he answers. 
“I didn’t even think you were real,” you tell him, mercilessly sobbing into your palms. “I thought I’d finally lost my fucking mind. I thought you were a ghost. I genuinely thought I’d gone insane with grief, Jake. Do you know how fucked that is?” 
He reaches out, a strange lack of hesitance sitting in his belly. Then he lets his hand rest on your belly. It’s a gesture that’s marked your relationship together. He used to call you Fido because you loved for him to rub your belly; he learned that it was because of the lack of physical touch you’d received from your frivolous mother as a child and he was always, always happy to appease you. 
Your breathing steadies, just for a moment. His hand is warm and heavy with familiarity. God, you’ve missed this hand so much that you could stay here and not move for the rest of your life and be content. You could die just like this and it would be okay. It would be good, even. 
“I’m real,” Jake says because he doesn’t know what else to say. 
“I wish you weren’t,” you admit. “It would be a lot easier for me when you go.”
There’s that pain in his chest again. It’s worse than the airframe on his F-18 getting bent as he pulls 9G’s. It’s worse than punching out into the cornflower sky. It’s worse than anything, he thinks, to hear you say this to him. 
But he can’t get himself to say that he’ll stay because he doesn’t know if he can. 
“Don’t say that,” he just says softly. 
“I mean it, though,” you weep. “I wish you weren’t real.” 
His eyes flutter shut. This hurts. But it’s a pain that almost feels good--it’s a punishment. He’s punished himself, sure, and his friends have said some things here and there. But it feels good for you to be punishing him now. This is what he deserves. He deserves for you to tear into his flesh. He deserves to bleed for what he’s done to you--ripping you apart until you’re an empty-eyed bag of bones. 
He strokes the imprint of your ribs beneath his fingers and lets you continue. 
“I wish we never met and-and I wish I just was alone this whole time and I wish we weren’t ever happy together! I wish you just fucking littered and I just fucking let you!” 
He takes it. A glutton for punishment. 
You don’t move his hand away. You’re angry, but you’re not even exactly angry at him. You’re just angry that it is humanly possible to house all this grief. You’re angry that you have the capacity to love someone this much and be hurt by someone this much. It seems unnatural. 
“I don’t,” Jake finally whispers. “You made me feel so happy. So content.” 
“But it wasn’t enough.” 
“I never said it wasn’t enough,” he whispers. 
“You never said anything about any of this,” you tell him. 
You’re still crying. 
He’s still thumbing your bones through your skin, refamiliarizing himself with the terrain. Touching your skin feels like being wrapped in the very first blanket he was wrapped in as a newborn, very warm and soft. It makes him want to be naked and wrapped around you. 
“You’re tired,” Jake says softly. “I’m tired, too.” 
“Yes,” you agree. You sniffle hard. 
“What if we just sleep and then we talk tomorrow? In the morning? As early or late as you want.” 
You’ve never been able to say no to him. 
“Okay,” you whisper. 
He doesn’t move his hand. 
“Jake,” you say because you can’t help it. You almost can’t believe how easy his name rolls off your tongue. You’ve tried so hard not to utter it but here it is, smooth as the inside of a seashell in your mouth. “Please don’t leave before I wake up.” 
He shakes his head. 
“I’m not going to leave before you wake up,” he promises. 
He means it. He owes it to you. He owes it to the pain sitting heavily on his chest. 
And even though he doesn’t deserve it and the both of you know that, you turn in the bed. He’s confused at first, alarmed at the sudden movement. But then you’re doing it, clicking yourself into place. You are holding him. Your lips are pressed to his bicep and your leg is threaded through his and he can feel your tears and your breathing and oh my God he has missed this so much that he’s choked up. 
This is what you do. You love Jake the way he needs to be loved without him uttering a word to you about it. You just know him, you just understand him, you just fucking love him. Felicity has never been able to understand what he’s thinking, has never been able to give him what he wants without him asking for it. He doesn’t blame her--he doesn’t know what she wants either. But he knows that you want him to press his back against your front, so he does. It’s the least he can do for you. 
You’re overwhelmed at the sheer closeness of this encounter. You were so worried he was going to fade into the sheets as soon as you touched him, but he didn't. He’s totally solid beneath your touch. He’s just right there, pressed up against you. He still uses the same aftershave and you’re worried you’re going to get drunk on it--you’ve been limiting yourself to whiffs of his pillow every now and then, always calculating the time wisely. But now it’s just permeating the sheets, sitting heavily in your nostrils.
 And his skin--it’s so warm and soft. It just feels right to hold him. It’s not unfamiliar at all.  
“Goodnight,” he whispers to you. 
“Stay,” you just whisper back. 
You’re desperate. 
So he nods, lets his face press into that pillow that still smells like his aftershave. 
“I am,” he whispers. 
“Don’t hurt me,” you beg quietly. 
You press a tentative kiss on the bare skin of his back. His eyes water.
“I’m trying not to,” he tells you quietly.   
The two of you get your first full night of rest in twelve months in the bed that you used to share. It’s blissful, really. So blissful that when you wake up and he’s not in bed, you think about checking yourself into some sort of institution. Because it had felt so fucking real--so real that you genuinely slept. Like really, thoroughly, actually slept. 
You walk down the stairs in tears already, feeling like you’re back at square one even though you never really got past it in the first place. The house is quiet and you aren’t even sure what day it is and there’s dishes to do and sobs to heave--
But when you walk into the kitchen, he’s still here. He’s sitting at the kitchen table that the two of you thrifted your first year together with a steaming mug in his hand and another one sitting across from him--the coffee is the exact shade you like it to be. 
When he sees you, you in your pajamas with your messy hair and the tear tracks on your cheeks, he wilts. He thought he was doing the right thing letting you sleep in--because he knows you and he knows you haven’t been sleeping very well at all--and getting coffee started. It doesn’t even dawn on him that you probably thought he’d left again until he sees the way your pupils dilate when they land on him. 
“Oh,” you whisper, halting suddenly at the threshold of the kitchen. You sniffle, frowning, swiping your tears away hastily. “I thought you…” 
He shakes his head, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. 
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. 
You shake your head, wrapping your arms around yourself and settling into the kitchen chair across from him. 
“It’s fine,” you tell him. 
It’s quiet for a moment. At the very least, there are birds singing in the gray morning light, hopping from one branch of a eucalyptus tree to the next. The room is washed white and you can see every speck of dust and grime you’ve let build up in the kitchen. The house is just messy--you’ve let it get that way. Without Jake living here, you’ve given up trying to keep the coffee table clear and the shoes on the rack by the front door. It doesn’t matter--well, it didn’t matter. 
“I missed this coffee,” he tells you, bringing the mug to his lips again. “Felicity likes Folgers.” 
You smile softly. You were the one that turned Jake onto good coffee. He fashions himself as some sort of coffee snob now, one that usually gets his coffee imported. But not with Felicity, you suppose. 
You wipe your eyes again. You would’ve liked to have this conversation after a shower--Hell, even just after brushing your teeth. But you’re too afraid to let him out of your sight again. So you settle in against the wood, closing your eyes as it groans beneath your weight. 
“How is she?” You ask. It just seems like the right thing to say. 
Jake winces. He knows he shouldn’t be talking about his wife right now. He knows that. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to be talking about, but certainly it shouldn’t be Felicity. 
But maybe this is a good place to start. Maybe this is the first time he can be honest with someone about the way things are between them--he usually keeps his responses vague with others. People don’t really want to know, especially his friends that were friends with you--the ones that preferred you. 
Oh, we’re fine. We’re working on our marriage. Therapy is helping. 
With you, though--he can just say it. 
“She hates me,” he says, laughing dryly. He’s fiddling with the little chip on the rim of the mug, watching as your fingers slide into the handle of your mug. It’s your favorite--he knows that. “Like, she actually really hates me.” 
He won’t look at you, but you’re looking at him. You’re watching that humorless smile tug at his lips, watching him blink away the tired in his eyes. 
“Yeah,” you breathe. 
If you were Felicity, you would hate him, too. You would hate you, too. 
“Therapy isn’t helping,” he tells you. It’s the first time he’s said it aloud. “Haven’t slept in the same bed for a few months now.”
You nod. If you close your eyes, you can still feel his heaviness in your arms last night. 
“So?” You prompt. 
There’s a lull as Jake bites his bottom lip pensively. He was really expecting more of a fight here. He was expecting you to be up in arms about him coming back. It’s almost worse that you’re so calm, so welcoming. 
He doesn’t know this, but you’re not above begging. If it meant he would stay, you would get on your knees and grovel. But you just wait for him to answer. 
“I told her we should refile for divorce,” he tells you, which is true. 
Your spine prickles. 
“Good for you,” you tell him. “You deserve to be…held.” 
He didn’t even have to say it. You know that Felicity doesn’t hold him--he told you that the first time around whenever you held him for the first time in bed. You know that it’s true even now because of the way he went totally slack in your arms.
“I don’t know what I deserve,” Jake admits. 
Me, you want to say. Me. 
“It’s time for you to tell me,” you whisper. 
You take a sip of your coffee and shut your eyes as it warms your chest. 
He knows what you mean. He can’t bring himself to look at you yet. 
“I woke up and I wanted to marry you,” he tells you. 
He hasn’t told a soul this--not even his therapist. He hasn’t uttered it out loud even once. 
You furrow your brows but say nothing. Your throat is dry. 
“I just…” Jake sighs, blinking at his coffee. “When I met you, things were fine with me and Felicity. We didn’t argue. We were talking about moving houses. But then there was you and everything I thought I knew about love, about my relationship with Felicity, it was just…gone. Shaken up.” 
You just nod again. 
His heart is racing. 
“If I was…if I was a good man, I wouldn’t have had sex with you that first night. Or any of the nights after. If I was a good man, I would’ve stayed with my wife. But I’m not a good man, so I cheated on her and then I left her,” Jake says. He takes another deep breath and sips on his coffee again. “But I just couldn’t help it. I just loved you so immediately.” 
“Mmm,” you hum, wiping under your eyes again. 
You move to hold your face in his hands as he continues, your face contorting with grief again. 
“And then I thought that I could be good for you and I was good for you. We were good. It was all so easy. I felt like I didn’t really deserve it--especially since I just didn’t feel guilty about Felicity. But we agreed to not get married, right? You and me?” 
You nod, not moving your face from your hands. 
Jake wants to hold you. He knows you’re crying. But he’s going to lose his nerve if he doesn’t continue right now. 
“But then I just woke up and we had such a good night--I mean, who has that good of a night on a Monday? I looked at you and I just thought about how badly I wanted to marry you suddenly,” Jake says. His voice is beginning to quiver. “And then I thought about Felicity’s face when I told her I was leaving. I thought about how broken she was. And I-I was so scared that if we got married, I was gonna do the same to you.” 
You sigh into your palms. 
For an entire year, you’d been racking your brain. You’d been trying to pinpoint the moment he fell out of love with you. You’ve been retracing all your steps carefully, trying to figure out where you went wrong. But you didn’t do anything wrong. All you did was love him the best he’s ever been loved--and he still left you. 
“I’m not a good man,” he says. 
“Don’t say that,” you snap, looking up at him. 
He looks at you finally. Your eyes are rimmed with red and there are fat tears on your bottom lashes. 
The two of you just look at each other. You both still want each other so bad that it’s making your bottom lips tremble. You want to make this house his house again, too. You want to hold him every night as he falls asleep. He wants to kiss your throat in the shower and push your hair behind your ears and never litter again.
The both of you feel suddenly how intense things feel right now. 
So, Jake changes directions.  
“How’s your mom?” He asks. 
He’s afraid to talk about anything else. He’s afraid that if he doesn’t ask about that then he will confess his love right here, right now and ruin everything. 
“Still a cunt,” you whisper. 
He smiles softly. 
“How was she? When I left?” 
He was worried about you. Of course he was. He knew it was a grand sort of irony, him being the one inflicting all that anguish, but being distraught over the state of your wellbeing. But he knew that you wouldn’t reach out to any of your mutual friends--it would hurt too bad. So that would leave you with your mom, who was never useful when it counted the most. 
“Terrible,” you answer him. You’re still crying, but now you’re laughing dryly, too. “Left me alone in the bathroom at Risotto’s to play tennis at the club.” 
“You’re kidding,” Jake says, gritting his teeth. 
You shrug. 
“No,” you answer with a sigh. You pinch the bridge of your nose. “I’m not.” 
“She’s a real piece of work,” he mutters. “Was she wearing those ridiculous sunglasses?” 
You laugh softly, nodding. 
“Knew it,” Jake mumbles, rolling his eyes. “I haven’t missed her.”
It’s quiet again. 
“How’s your mom?” You ask. 
You’ve missed her, but you haven’t had it in you to answer any of her calls. 
“Fine. Pissed at me,” he answers, nodding. “Misses you.” 
“Yeah.” You wipe your eyes for the thousandth time that morning. “I miss her, too.”
You finish your coffee. Then you chew on your bottom lip, staring at a stain in the middle of the table that you were never able to buff out. 
“Does she know you’re here?” 
“My mom?” Jake asks. 
You shake your head. 
“Felicity,” you answer. You don’t say her name maliciously. You’ve always felt very bad about the way things happened--but now you feel that you’ve had your penance; your year without Jake. You feel like the two of you are even now. 
“Yes,” he answers. 
Felicity was calm when Jake said he wanted to stop working on things. She agreed. She admitted to having feelings for a coworker, though she hadn’t done anything but kiss him. They had a glass of scotch together. He kissed the top of her head. She asked if he was going to your house. He said yes. And when he left, things were okay. It felt like the first time they’d been honest with each other since he came back. 
“And it’s over?” 
He nods. 
“It’s over,” he confirms. He twists the ring on his finger and then settles it softly on top of the stain you’re staring at. “I mean it.” 
You nod. 
“I believe you,” you answer. You pause and comb your fingers through your hair. “Does that make me stupid?” 
Jake smiles sadly, softly. 
“You’re not stupid,” he answers. “You’ve never been stupid.” 
You laugh dryly again.
“You don’t have to marry me,” you tell him. You shrug, shaking your head as you look down at the table. “I never expected you to. I don’t care about getting married. I never did.” 
Maybe that is what hurts the most--is that all of this could have been avoidable with a single conversation. If he had just gotten on your level. If he had just been honest.
“I want to marry you,” he says. “That’s the issue.” 
“Well, if you ask, I’ll just say no,” you tell him. 
He smiles gently. 
“No you won’t,” he whispers. 
You nod. 
“I know,” you say. You bite your lip. “I was just saying that.” 
“That’s a lot to give up,” he says. “Marriage.”’ 
“It’s a piece of paper,” you tell him. 
He shakes his head. 
“It’s a lot more than a piece of paper,” he tells you. “It’s a wedding and it’s taxes and it’s a legal bind. Even metaphorically, it’s more than just paper.” 
“It’s frivolous,” you insist. 
You mean it, too--you don’t care about getting married. 
“But maybe you won’t always feel that way,” he whispers. “Maybe you’ll wake up one day and you’ll want to get married and I will too and I’ll fuck it up again.”
You sigh. 
“Yeah, and maybe the moon is going to disappear and maybe the sun is going to explode and maybe all the bees are gonna die,” you tell him. He purses his lips. “It’s all relative.” 
He shakes his head again, exhaling. 
“What kind of people are we if we both wanna get married but are too scared to do it?” 
You grip your mug. 
“People that make do,” you say. You sniffle. “People that do what works for them.” 
He sighs. 
“Will it always work for you? Not being married?” 
“Will it always work for you, Jake?” 
He pauses. He doesn’t know. 
“Maybe,” he answers. 
“Before we start talking about all of this again,” you breathe, “I still have to forgive you.”
There’s a lump in his throat. 
“I know,” he promises. “I know that.” 
“And I am going to take my time doing that,” you insist. 
He nods profusely. 
“You should,” he says. 
A beat passes.    
“Jake,” you whisper. 
The two of you finally meet each other’s gazes. Jake nods, earnestly letting his eyes rake over the sunken hollows of your cheeks and the darkness staining your undereyes. Your lips are chapped and your nose is bright red. 
“Yeah, darlin’?” He returns. 
Your skin gooses at the way it falls off his tongue: darlin’. 
“Will you stay while I shower?” 
He does stay. He sits on the toilet, his hands folded in his lap, and watches the steam fog up the mirror. You feel like you’re washing away an entire year’s worth of filth.
“My towel?” You ask when you turn the faucet off, reaching through the curtain. 
He hands it to you swiftly, then settles back down on the toilet. 
“You changed the shower curtain,” he says softly, just to say something. It’s one of the only things he’s noticed that’s been replaced. “I like it.” 
It’s a mirage of moody painted florals, dark reds and oranges and pinks. 
“The other one was too boyish,” you say as you dry yourself off. 
Jake laughs quietly. 
“Well, I’d say this is the opposite of boyish,” he tells you. 
You pull it back, wrapped in the towel, your wet hair sitting limply on your back. He looks at you and you look at him, both of your stomach's in knots. When you bite down on your lip, he watches water droplets roll off your calves and onto the tile. 
“What are you looking at?” You ask him. 
Beneath his gaze, you feel more three-dimensional than you have in a year. You feel, suddenly, like you can straighten your shoulders and square your jaw. You don’t want to slouch through life when he’s looking at you. 
“Your legs,” he says honestly, letting his eyes drag back up to yours. “You.” 
You swallow hard. 
You feel like you have to say it now. 
“You broke my heart,” you tell him. 
Now he swallows hard, blinking, but nodding. 
“I know,” he says quietly. “I know that I did.” 
“And it was because you were scared,” you continue. “Really, you could’ve just talked to me. We could’ve worked it out.” 
He nods again. 
“This has been the worst year of my life, Jake,” you tell him. “And that’s putting it lightly.” 
He nods. His eyes are starting to water. 
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he admits quietly. “And I’m sorry that I did. If I could take it back, darlin’, you know that I would. I would.” 
“I believe you,” you whisper. 
He exhales shakily. He wasn’t expecting to hear you say that. 
“I wanna be with you,” he tells you before he loses his nerve. 
You swallow hard and plant your feet on the ground firmly. 
“If we’re going to do this,” you say, gesturing between the two of you with your heart racing. “Then you have to be solid. Because if we…if we…and then you leave again, I don’t think I’ll survive. Really, Jake. I don’t.”
“I’m solid,” he says. 
It feels like the first time he’s told the truth in a long time. 
“You won’t leave?” You confirm. Your voice is quivering. 
He nods. 
He’s just wearing his t-shirt and his boxers from last night, his hair mussed and his eyes swollen from sleep. He’s glassy-eyed as he gazes at you, his lips flat. You want to run your finger along those lips, want to be close to him. You feel like your bones are beginning to vibrate. 
“I won’t leave,” he answers. “I want this. I want you.”
Your breath visibly stutters whenever he says it: I want you. It’s what you’ve been waiting to hear for twelve long months. It’s what you’ve cruelly dreamed of. It’s what you have ached for. 
“I forgive you,” you say. So much for taking your time. 
Jake watches your cheeks grow pink, watches your hair drip down your shoulders. You’re washed in the low yellow light of the bathroom, your chin trembling. 
“Come here,” he whispers to you, his voice thin. “I have to hold you.” 
For a moment, you feel like you’re frozen. But then he opens his arms and your feet are moving without you, just propelling you forward and across the rug and into his embrace. Then he’s holding you against him so tightly that your back pops, holding you so tight that you can’t breathe. You’re crying and he’s relishing in the way your body just fits so perfectly there in his arms, the way your fingers feel when they tangle in his hair. He’s missed you so much that he almost feels like this is a fuzzy daydream. 
His hair is like velvet between your fingers, his arms like a blanket around you. You’re sobbing, heaving and he’s just hugging you close to him with his head buried in your chest. He’s inhaling the laundry detergent that you buy and the body wash you use and he can feel himself falling into you again. 
“I’ve been crying for you, boy,” you whimper to him, hugging him against your body. 
He’s kissing you now, his lips dampening from the towel still wrapped around you, but it doesn’t stop him. He won’t stop kissing you. He won’t leave. He will prove to you--to himself--that he is good. He will be good for you. 
“I’m gonna take care of you,” he promises. He’s beginning to cry now, too. He doesn’t know if its because of the sudden and overwhelming feeling of being close to you or if it’s because he’s missed you so fucking much or if it’s because he hurt you so bad. “I’m gonna make it right, darlin’.” 
“I know,” you whimper. “I know you are.” 
You stay like that for a long time: wrapped up in each other.
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𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐚𝐝…𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐲.
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𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 @roosterforme'𝐬 #𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐈𝐬𝐈𝐧𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐀𝐢𝐫𝐓𝐆𝐌 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞!! 𝐬𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞!!
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chronically-ghosted · 1 year ago
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will it help?
rating: explicit 18+
pairing: javier peña x f!reader
word count: 1962
summary: javi can't sleep. he doesn't ask you but you help him anyway.
warnings: blow jobs, smoking, no y/n, ball tug
a/n: from @onmysluttyknees 's request: Peña prompt - “Everything in excess is bad, except you”
🤍Masterlist
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In a post-Escobar world, things had changed. 
Cali was snatching up the remnants of the empire left and right. The crimes were dirtier, sneakier, and backed up by the government. Allies were enemies and now enemies were allies. The whole game had been changed overnight and while the DEA was playing chess, the cartels had three boards of parcheesi going on under the table. 
And, perhaps in the most horrifying change of all, Javier Peña buttoned his collar up all the way. 
He didn’t smoke. 
He wore nicotine patches.
He wore ties now.
He wore suit jackets, for christ’s sake. 
He walked hunched and in silence through the office hallways now. He didn’t drink with the team and he was often the last one at the office. No one in recent memory could remember the last time some woman called the office looking for a “Señior Peña”.
It seemed, to everyone who knew him, Javier had become a respectable agent. He reigned in his “machismo”, as it were. He had learned something about restraint. Call it the effects of war, post-war syndrome, but Javier was a changed man. 
Nope. 
To you, who actually knew him, Javier just got better at hiding it. 
He still smoked like a goddamn chimney.
“Those things’ll kill you, you know that?” 
He glances up from the floor, shirtless, in jeans, case files and documents spread around him like debris, smoke rising from in between his fingers. Three more burnt out nubs curled around gray ash in the tray. 
It’s past two in the morning. He only does this when the insomnia is particularly bad.
There are dark circles under his eyes as he lifts his gaze up your bare thighs. You didn’t take his shirt to be particularly distracting; it was the only thing you could find in the darkness and eyes bleary with sleep. But he sighs as he looks you up and down. 
“Did the light wake you up? I’m sorry – I’ll go into the kitchen next time,” he shakes his head. “Those fucking chairs are murder on my back, but –,”
“Did you already sort by date? If they’re making specific drops, there might be a pattern.” 
You sit down on the other side of the paper half-circle surrounding him against the couch, taking up the files nearest you. He watches you in the low light, his mouth not yet curled up, but his eyes are bright.
“You don’t have to do this. You can go to sleep.”
“And those things’ll kill you,” you reply, not looking up. 
He chuckles softly and puts out the half burnt cigarette. With a sigh, he picks up a few papers, collecting them and handing them to you. You notice his piles have been organized by location so you include those in the groupings, your thumbnail in your mouth as you try to see a higher pattern, a more digestible informational system. Head down, you miss the faint grin splitting his mouth open. 
With a groan, he eases up onto his feet. As he passes by you on his way to the kitchen, his fingertips trail up your shoulder, ghost up your neck, intertwine with the loose ends of your hair, nails offering a hint of pressure against the back of your skull where he knows it makes you whine. 
You arch your back up against his leg, your head against his thick thigh covered in jeans, his touch encouraging a feeling that oscillates between warm pleasure and hot arousal. Your eyes slipping close, he thumbs the line where your hair meets the skin of your forehead.
“You know I’ve cut back,” he hums quietly. 
“Mhmm, on the days that don’t end in ‘y’.” He massages the rigid bend of your skull behind your ear and you bite back a moan.
“Are you going to tell me next that I drink too much? Sleep too much?” His eyebrow arches lazily, his tone answering his own question, as he drops the pad of his finger tip across your forehead. 
You crack open an eye to look up at him. He’s smiling. 
“You know sleeping in until noon is excessive.”
He snorts. “Everything in excess is bad.” Javi’s grip slides down your cheek, his middle finger pressed against the corner of your mouth. He taps once. “Except you.”
Inhaling the warmth and burn of the cigarette still between his fingers, you reach under the cuff of his jeans to his ankle. Fine hair, just above, a dusting over the arch of his foot.
“Will it help you sleep?”
“Does that matter?” 
You dig your nails into the soft skin under his ankle. “I want you to sleep.” 
His dark eyes harden, an exposed vulnerability tugging at the corners of his eyes, his mouth, making him look younger than he is. 
“I don’t know if I can. But I want to try.”
You nod, satisfied with his sincerity. Another reward for knowing Javier the man and not only the agent; he never lied to you.
He breathes through those parted pink lips as you tuck your legs underneath you and roll up onto your knees. He stands there, an observer, as you rub your palm up his thigh, the muscles tense in anticipation and exertion. Your eyes caught with his as though tied together, you cup his half-hard length through his jeans, intentionally pressing the zipper into his growing erection. Javi swallows, a grunt so obviously caught in his throat. He doesn’t want you to have that just yet, he wants you to work for it. He needs you to make it rough. 
You unbutton his jeans, fingers grazing the trail of hair that sinks beneath the waistband. He barely twitches. You unzip, the sound almost strikingly loud in the silence, over the distant wailing of sirens, over the almost buzzing heat of Bogota. You drop his gaze, wanting to watch this part, your lower muscles cramping in excitement. Javi breathes sharply through his nose when you reach in and bring out his cock.
In the days of Machismo Javi, there was a secret office bet going around about what his cock looked like. Shape, color, length, girth – there was money to be made all around. You are pleased to say that no one ever got it right.
Flush, darker than his skin, but redder than his nipples, you can honestly say you drool at the size of it every single fucking time. 
You swallow, your mouth flushed with spit.
“Hey, save some of that for me.” Oh, the bastard is smug. But his touch is tender, affection as he rubs his thumb under your bottom lip. 
You eye him as his grows, lengths, aroused by just you looking at him. You nip at his thumb, hands squeezing his thighs.
“Yes, sir.” 
You aren’t sure if the noise he makes comes from your words or the fact that you swallow him nearly to the hilt in one go. Fully erect in your mouth, hot and pulsing, Javi’s eyes roll back in his head and he drops his head against his shoulders. 
“Oh, fuck, baby, that fucking mouth on you,” he groans. 
You breathe out through your nose, pleased at his reaction. You shift higher on your knees, the pressure between your legs already verging on uncomfortable. There is a reason you loved riding him; with this fucking cock, it felt like he was going to split you open, his feet planted, hips bucking up into you.
Fuck. Focus. 
You drag your mouth back, taking time to drag as much spit and drool along his length as possible. You come to the end, swirl your tongue as if you are sucking up the curve of an ice cream cone against the thick vein underneath his cock and he audibly moans, the sound like the plates of the earth shifting to relieve volcanic duress. 
His hands fly to your hair, his hips bucking to chase the heat of your mouth, but your hands at his thighs hold him back. 
“Fuck, sorry.” 
You accept his apology with the tip of your tongue catching on the head of his cock – he trembles under your palms – before taking him in half way, then all the way, then halfway again. You fuck him with your mouth like he fucks your cunt. His fingers tighten in your hair, nails scratching your scalp. 
“Tha’s it, suck my cock, baby, suck it.” 
You slide all the way down, your tongue rubbing against the ridges, your cheeks hallowed in, your mouth a vacuum seal, and your nose brushes the short, harsh hairs around his groin. And then you do, indeed, suck. 
His hips lurch forward, you are expecting that, knowing exactly what that does to him, but still, he pounds the back of your throat and you gag, mouthful of him. Your eyes water, lashes suddenly wet, but he wipes them with his thumb, turning your jaw up to look at him.
Eyes pitch black, mouth agape, chest heaving, Javi looks like you could ask for the moon and he’d go out and find his best lasso. He swallows, the air jagged as he gulps it down. 
“Eres tan sucia. Lo tomas sin que te lo pida. Te lo tomas tan bien.”
You can’t help but grin, spit dribbling around the corner of your mouth. He’s started speaking rapid, almost unintelligible Spanish, it won’t be long now. 
He continues spewing filthy dirty things at you so you drop your jaw out of his grip, pull back out all the way, a string of spittle caught between your lips and the head of his cock, and kitten-lick the precum from his flushed skin. He punches out a groan. With your hand thoughtfully placed on the inside of his thigh, you lick him again, tug his balls just barely, and then release your jaw to swallow him entirely. 
His knees buckle, a pink flush erupting up his chest, and he spews down the back of your throat with such force, you gag again. But you hold on, your nails digging into his jeans, eyes streaming until he stops, his hips slow in their thrusting, his fingers tightly latched on the crown of your head. 
You can’t really understand him but you catch phrases in both Spanish and English as his body relaxes.
Oh my god
Holy shit
Fuck fuck fuck
Oh my god
You drag back mindfully of his sensitivity, your cheeks and jaw damp with tears. You finally swallow when he’s gone from your mouth, but it’s too much and his cum leaks out of the corner of your mouth. 
“Oh, baby, what a fucking mess.”
He drops to his knees, wiping your lips clean with his thumb. He sucks his own thumb once before dropping his mouth to kiss you hotly on the mouth. Javier was always better at using his body, his actions to express how he feels than using words, and you can practically taste the praise, the appreciation, the awe he transfers in that kiss. 
He’s shaking a bit when he pulls back. He continues back, pulling you with him until you’re both on your backs, looking up at the popcorn ceiling. 
His thumb is tracing lazily whorls on the back of your neck.
“If you think those chairs on murder on your back, this floor is going to annihilate you.”
He chuckles, the sound warm in his chest beneath your palm. 
“I know, cariño.”
“Do you think you can sleep?” 
He rubs his face as he sits up. You follow him and take his hand, intertwining your fingers. He looks at your hand in his, contemplative as ever. But the storm clouds often present in his eyes aren’t there. He looks, shockingly, relaxed. 
He nods.
“I’m willing to try.” 
329 notes · View notes
heroictoonz · 5 months ago
Text
Febuwhump 2022 Day 1: Head Injury
Tumblr media
Ships: Twilight & Wind
Warnings: Non-Explicit Head Injury
AO3 L!nk in the Comments!
“...up!”
The words just barely reached Twilight's mind. He wanted to swat them away. He wanted to sleep. He was sleeping right? Yeah, he was sleeping. Sleeping was nice. He felt cold though. He felt. He didn’t want to feel. Why? Why not. Yeah, sleeping felt like a better idea than that voice-
“...ight! W…k… up!”
Though, that voice did sound familiar. And frantic. Was it important? They always shouted for him when they needed him. Maybe the goats got out again. Was Epona around? Yeah, probably. But, maybe it could wait just five more-
“Twilight! Wake the fuck up!”
The shout entered his, now registered as pounding, skull and reverberated throughout the bone and muscle. Only causing the pain to worsen.
Twilight shot up from his sleep. Or at least, he attempted to. Instead, his head got half way there and he felt the bile rise up his throat. His eyes widened, only causing a window for blotched light from the treetops to pierce into his skull. He quickly swallowed whatever was threatening escape to keep it away from his mouth and then slammed his eyes shut with a gasp and a cough.
“Sweet Hylia!” Came the pestering voice, now much sharper and louder than it had any right to be. “Are you okay? Of course you’re not okay,” it grumbled in answer to it’s own question.
It continued to spew mumblings and other words that Twilight had no interest in paying attention to. Instead, he moved to lay back down on what was most likely the ground. Yeah, screw this.
“No! No! No!” The voice called again before hands found their way to Twilight’s shoulder.
The instinct took over before logic could stop it and Twilight growled. It was full of warning and upset. Whatever was continuously bothering him had better get the message quickly.
The hands did leave but the feeling of someone close by did not.
“Twilight, please,” the voice hissed out. A mix of worry and frustration. “You have to stay awake! You hit your head really badly!”
He hit his head? Is that why it hurt so much? It felt as if it were trying to split in two. Every sound and light, an added knife into his skull.
Twilight leaned onto his arm, not able to bring himself sitting but wanting to keep the voice from its excessive shouting.
“Just, let me help sit you up on a tree okay?”
He didn’t immediately feel the hands again and assumed the voice was waiting for some sort of response or confirmation. Twilight, very slowly, cracked open his eyes to aim them at the voice. The largest, ocean blue eyes he had ever seen in his life stared back. They were definitely familiar eyes; especially when paired with that rat’s-nest-like blond hair.
Wind sat on his heels looking back to the other. Worry interwoven in the determined expression he kept steeled to his features. Damn, he looked so young when he was upset.
Twilight gave a huff in response to the earlier words and put his other hand next to his arm, ready to push off and up with help.
Wind quickly ran over to him and grabbed him, pulling him up and resting onto a tree behind him. He always forgot how damn strong the kid was, as Twilight realized he’d barely moved. He couldn’t.
The moment his body shifted he felt it. His whole form blossomed with pain that rivaled that in his head. Fuck. He looked down at himself, now finally taking in what was happening. He wasn’t at home in the village. He was in the woods, with Wind, with injuries that looked like they came from death itself. His body was littered in scrapes and bruises that ranged from minor to possibly life threatening. The pain in his head and side were the worst of it all. He placed a hand over the later ache and sighed in frustration when he felt the tell-tale sign of blood. Great.
He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers before flashing ‘W-Ocean’ at the other.
Wind gave Twilight’s hands his full attention.
“Call Wild,” Twilight slowly flashed. He felt the heavy weight of what was probably a concussion pushing down his ability to move. His hands mirrored this inability.
Wind’s brow creased. “I tried!” he cried.
The sound was a hook to the head and Twilight slapped his hands to his ears, only jostling the pain in his side and causing another agony-filled gasp.
Wind slapped a hand over his mouth. “I tried,” he said again, this time much softer. “For some reason my gossip stone isn’t picking him up. Or it’s the other way around,” he mumbled to himself in thought, fingers gently tapping his lips. He was always so animated, Twilight noted mentally. Wind shook his head and looked back to the other. “Either way, we’re stuck here till they come back for us.”
Twilight let out a low growl and let his head fall back against the tree. Which, when the pain exploded from point of faint impact into the rest of his form, he realized was a bad idea.
Wind tapped his foot to get his attention again. “Can you talk? Is it from the pain or are you not talking right now?”
Twilight had to think before he could answer. There was always the possibility of both but. “I’m not talking,” he responded.
Wind gave an understanding nod. “Okay. I’m.” He looked around momentarily before back to the other. “I’ll be right back!” He said before scrambling to his feet and running off farther into the forest.
Twilight didn’t stop him. Not that the other even gave him the moment to respond.
This was bad. Really bad. Wind was just a kid and Twilight was half dead on the forest floor, Hylia-knows-where. And with no contact with the others, at that. He had to figure them a way out of this mess. Especially before whatever did this comes back.
What did this anyways? It hurt to think too hard but not thinking was easier said than done for Twilight. Especially when he couldn't move and do something. He sighed and ran fingers over his temples as he tried to recount what happened before he lost consciousness.
The group had just entered a new Hyrule. He wasn’t sure if they’d figured out where yet or not. Either way, they definitely ended up in a forest. Then the suggestion for a split up. Wind wanted to go do a quick scout alone while the others set up camp. He seemed upset over something lately. Twilight was told to go with him by Warriors. With that stone of his it would be safe as long as they stuck together.
There was an attack and… Twilight let out a groan. Bokoblins. Of course. They were outnumbered two to one. Twilight caught an arrow to the side, long distance thankfully, and a bludgeon of some kind to the head. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Was the kid okay? How long had Twilight been out?
“Twi?”
His mind spiraled as he placed his hands back to the ground beside him. He had to force himself to move. He had to find Wind.
“Twi?”
He had to get them out of the forest and back to the others. He had to-
“Twilight!”
He slapped his hands over his ears again at the shriek. Twilight’s frantic eyes locked back onto the ocean.
“Are you okay?’ Wind asked the other, concern folding into the skin between his brows. Wind stood there holding a few sticks and large leaves. He looked a little banged up but not nearly as bad as Twilight.
The older let a breath escape his lungs. He didn’t realize he was even holding it in. “Are you okay?” he replied back with his hands and expression. He shot the other a serious look.
“Me?” Wind hissed back. “I’m not the one bleeding out on the forest floor!”
Twilight frowned.
“You-” Wind held a point towards the other at the word but gripped his fist closed and his mouth shut. Instead he let a heavy sigh burst from his chest. Whatever words he was holding in now lost in the trees. Wind sat down beside Twilight and put out his findings.
Twilight watched curiously as the other started to line up a few sticks with his leg. Was it broken? With the pain everywhere else, he hadn’t even noticed.
Wind tied it up with some vine, tight enough to cause a hiss of pain from the older. His worried eyes snapped to Twilight momentarily.
“Fine,” Twilight held up. Yeah, it was definitely broken.
With the confirmation, Wind continued. He pulled off his own robe and tore off a good chunk before pushing it against Twilight’s bleeding side. “Arms up,” he requested. Twilight did as told and Wind tied the cloth along with a large leaf over top in place with a few pieces of vine as well. He then scooted closer and grabbed Twilight’s head in his hands.
Twilight gave a call of surprise at the action.
“I’m checking for bleeding,” Wind explained without letting go.
Twilight let his hands drop to his sides as he let the other work. In the silence, a question started to poke at his mind. He raised his hand and moved it to place over the one on his cheek. With Wind’s partial attention on those fingers, Twilight slowly spelled out, “you…?”
Wind got what he was asking easily. The younger only gave a frown and moved his hand off Twilight’s face and into his hair, now checking the back of his head.
Twilight huffed out in annoyance. He raised his other hand and gave a harsh flick to the cheek closest to him.
Wind gave a call of upset as he let go and shot up to his feet. His cheeks puffed out in anger as he looked to the other.
Twilight only responded with furrowed brows and a smug smirk.
Wind threw his arms into the air with a loud groan. “You treat me like a fucking kid!” he finally cried out in frustration.
“You are,” Twilight signed back. It seemed out of nowhere, almost causing the other surprise. But the more he thought, the more he realized; this is what Wind was holding in lately.
Wind gripped at his hair and spun on his heel before giving a loud stomp. “That’s not the point!” He threw his hands out to the other. His face finally cracked in it’s anger to show the base upset that stirred under it. “I’m not five, Twi! I’m a hyliadamn hero too!”
“14,” Twilight responded, giving the other a pointed glare.
“Yeah, and this fourteen-year-old saved your sorry yeehaw ass!”
Twilight raised his hands to respond before pausing. He lowered them along with his eyes as he took in the words. “Saved?”
“Yeah! When you got knocked out I killed the last two monsters! And made sure you didn’t die choking on your own puke for, like, almost half an hour.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Woulda been a stupid way to die for a hero. I woulda made fun of you, just so you know,” he mumbled.
Twilight let his shoulders slump at that. Was this really why Wind had been acting so upset lately?
The island hero let himself fall back to his legs then to sit. He grabbed what was left of his tunic and held it in his lap. “I’m not just some little kid,” he mumbled. His gaze rose to meet Twilight’s. A dark storm now raged the, usually, calm waters. “I’m not your little brother. I’m Link. I’m a hero. I’m your equal.” He finally let his gaze turn back down to his lap. “But you don’t treat me like that.”
Twilight watched as Wind’s hands gripped at the blue fabric, kneading into it. He wasn’t sure if the ‘you’ was universal to the group or not, but he definitely knew he was a part of it either way.
Twilight snapped his fingers to get the other’s attention on his hands. “I’m sorry,” he flashed. “I trust you. I don’t want you hurt. You’re young, not helpless. I forget that.”
Wind’s eyes flicked between Twilight’s hands and his face as the other signed. When the other was done he gave out a dramatic sigh and let himself flop to his back on the ground. “‘S fine. I mean, it’s not but I accept your apology either way. Just!” He threw his arm into the air and watched the leaves between his fingers. He then let his head roll towards twilight. His hand dropping to his stomach. “Try not to forget I’m a part of this team.”
Twilight gave him a tired smile and a nod.
Wind smiled back.
“You’re still our little brother,” Twilight signed with a smug huff. “Our hero little brother.”
Wind’s smile beamed brighter at that and a laugh bubbled out of him.
11 notes · View notes
naturepointstheway · 5 months ago
Text
Kittens, Lightning, and Magic (Zurich Misto, Cats)
[Characters as kittens] The first winter thunderstorm roars over the house as Tugger, terrified of thunderstorms, sees Misto delighting in the storm, his paws catching forks of lightning, eyes glowing like sheets of lightning. "No, he was a big cat, not afraid of any thunderstorm! Why would he be, when Mistoffelees was the thunderstorm?"
This fic came out at around 4500 words, so a nice chonky one. The characters are kittens in this fic.
Tugger hated thunderstorms, had hated them for as long as he could remember.
And tonight, he hated them no less as he crawled under a blanket in the room he and Misto occupied at the first hints of thunderclaps heralding winter’s first storm. His ears were flattened against his skull, teeth bared like he wanted to fight the storm itself, but was too cowardly to do so—Everlasting! If anyone saw him now!
Stop—just stop!
Now huddled under the blanket, soothed by the darkness inside, he nosed his way in deeper until only his bottlebrush tail stuck out, lashing back and forth, faster with each clap of thunder. He hated all this, he wanted it to be over.
Something clambered—sprinted—over the bed, a tiny thing with four swift paws and a loud delighted purr. Tugger held still, pretending to be a lump of clothing under the blanket—he didn’t want Mistoffelees to see he was here, hiding away from a stupid storm.
Pathetic.
He heard claws scrabbling up a wall, followed by a soft thump on a windowsill, the purrs even more rich with what sounded a lot like delight. He winced at the loud screech of claws that came after, like someone was scratching them down the window. Mercifully, that horrid squeaking sound of claws on glass didn’t come back, and all was quiet—and still he didn’t dare pop his head out of the blanket because what if Mistoffelees saw him? No, Mistoffelees didn’t need to see him scared, he wouldn’t take Tugger seriously after that.
Chirrups and mews of excitement came from the kitten, and if Tugger listened hard enough above the storm, he could hear the tell-tale bap-baps of paws on glass, and well good for Mistoffelees if he was so delighted by the storm. Why was he so happy with the storm tonight?
What does he see in it?
His lashing tail stilled as the air became notably more charged, warmer, like the storm was coming inside, but without bringing along the lightning and rain. It was the same charge he could feel in the air earlier before the storm had fully hit with its full might.
For a time, he wrestled with an overwhelming curiosity to see what on Earth Misto was doing at the windowsill, but eventually he couldn’t help but nose his way out of the blanket, wincing and blinking hard as a sheet of lightning filled the view outside the window with white for a split second. Hot on its heels followed a bright fork of lightning, distorted by the raindrop-smeared windows, partially hidden by Mistoffelees sitting up with ears perked high and eyes wide with what Tugger imagined to be great awe. His little front paws were splayed out against the pane, batting at the occasional raindrop sliding down the window, leaving behind a tiny, ephemeral creek, the ghost of its path. With every fork of lightning, Mistoffelees moved a paw to, it appeared to Tugger, catch it.  
“Misto?”
No response, other than Mistoffelees bapping his paw at another flash of lightning.
“Misto.”
One of Mistoffelees’ ears swivelled toward Tugger, tail twitching the way it did when annoyed.
“I thought you hated loud noises.”
Mistoffelees nodded, an earnest ear still turned toward the window, again smacking a paw against the pane at the exact same time a lightning fork split the night. Mistoffelees bounced on his feet in delight, twirling around once as though to release some excess excitement. Despite the storm, Tugger’s heart still melted at seeing his fearless joy in the storm, watching as Mistoffelees again bapped the window, eyes trained intently on something on the panes, perhaps racing two raindrops against each other to the bottom of the glass.
And then—
BOOM.
Tugger hissed, and Mistoffelees leaped into the air, his tail and back fur immediately spiking as he spun around to glare at Tugger, quickly replaced by what appeared to be a flash of surprise crossing his face. Mistoffelees kept staring at him as he sat down, pressing his back against the windowpane. He arched an eyebrow at Tugger, pointing a paw at him and then the window.
“Yeah, look at me, huh,” Tugger rasped, ears still pinned back, but the snarl had left. “Cowering like a pollicle from lightning.”
Mistoffelees didn’t laugh, but nor did he come down to join him—not that Tugger expected him to—instead tilting his head toward the window, ears perked high as they could be, eyes wide and staring at the weather’s mayhem. As Tugger watched, Mistoffelees pressed a paw pad at the exact time as a fork of lightning outside pierced the sky.
And Mistoffelees glowed, his whole body wrapped in blue-white crackles of mini-lightning, arching and forking over raised fur before vanishing.
Tugger couldn’t help a cry of surprise, sitting bolt upright.
“Misto!”
Mistoffelees turned his eyes to Tugger, and to the latter’s surprise, he didn’t seem to be hurt at all. On the contrary, he was practically vibrating with happiness, paws kneading furiously on the windowsill.
Still, Tugger wanted to make sure.
“Misto, are you…okay?”
An enthusiastic nod, a paw pointing from the window to himself and then Tugger and back to the window.
“You glowed right as it hit!”
Mistoffelees tilted his chin, squinting his eyes with pride.
“Don’t tell me you like thunderstorms.”
A nod from the magical cat as he raised a paw to lick it quickly.
“Don’t you hate loud noises?”
Another nod.
“Then—this—why?”
Fear now all but forgotten, Tugger kicked away the blanket like he hadn’t been scared at all—no not he, the pretty cat with the pretty mane and thick fur! No, no, he was pretending to be scared that’s all! There was nothing to be scared of—just a thunderstorm!
No, he was a big cat, not afraid of any thunderstorm!
Why would he be, when Mistoffelees was the thunderstorm?
Scrambling up to perch on a bed post, he stood, leaning forward, rapt as Mistoffelees rolled a ball of shining mute thunderstorms in between his paws, a corner of his mouth curling upward. Tugger preened when Mistoffelees stared at him, and for a moment, he could swear his eyes were…glowing, like a sheet of white lightning occluded his green irises.
It was there, he could swear, there, and then gone like it never happened.
And that’s when he noticed, too late, Mistoffelees drawing back an arm, ball of lightning clasped tight like he was preparing to give it a good throw.
And he was grinning. Those ears were twitching like mad.
Oh.
Oh no.
Tugger hunkered down, preparing to scoot for it, but too late, Mistoffelees had launched the lightning ball straight at his face with a cackle.
“Aah! Hey!” Tugger yelled, thrown onto his back, paws waving at thin air, sure now every single strand of his fur, from head to tail, was very, very puffed up.
Four little paws raced away out of the open door, Mistoffelees’ laughing fading down the hall.
“Misto! Get back here, you imp!”
He straightened up again, madly grooming down his mane, hoping it wouldn’t look too poofy the next morning—he liked that mane, thank you very much, and he would much rather it not be all puffed out from static like some goofy poodle.
Where could he have gone?
Probably to his favourite spot on the roof or something, no doubt, seeing how much he was glorying in the thunderstorm.
Right on cue, there was a loud purr from the rooftops and what sounded suspiciously like someone dancing up there too.
And he’ll be by the fireplace.
Either way, Tugger was not about to let Mistoffelees destroy his very precious ego by laughing at him with his fur all puffed out; he was going to have to spend the rest of the night just fixing back every hair into its correct and rightful place again.
Stopping at the mirror on his way out, he frantically checked again to make sure he’d gotten every bit of puffed-up fur. Satisfied, he scampered off on the search for Mistoffelees, heading to his favourite hiding places—that purr and rooftop dancing could be very misleading, he knew this from figuring it out after the third time that he had been fooled like this.
For once, Misto was not by the fireplace, nor was he lurking behind any doors (especially the kitchen door), nor somewhere in the pantry, nor even in the dining room.
Huh, the purring stopped, he noted on his second visit to the lounging area—again, no Mistoffelees to be seen.
Then, a giggle from behind him.
Tugger whirled around to see Mistoffelees’ head pop up with a wild grin from behind an armchair, followed immediately by his hand gripping a ball of lightning.
Oh no—
Tugger raised his arms to his face, trying to duck the projectile, but too late, Mistoffelees’ aim was true and hit his upstretched arms, immediately followed by a tingle of static. He was sure his mane was at least twice as puffy as usual now, thanks to Misto’s inescapable aim. As he lowered his arms, Mistoffelees gave him a wicked grin, eyes gleaming, pumping an arm in the air. Before Tugger could react, he leaped over the back of the armchair and tore out of the lounge, racing to the door without a second glance.  
“Oh no you don’t!”
Tugger sprinted after him, but Mistoffelees winked back at him and yanked the door open, running straight into the thunderstorm and sideways rain.
Because of course he would.
And like hell Tugger was letting a little thunderstorm and sideways rain stop him now!
“Misto!”
No sooner did he enter the doorway then a fork of lightning blazed through the night, followed a few seconds later by a loud thunderclap, making him flinch. At the same time, he spotted, lit up for a split-second, Mistoffelees several feet away already, spinning with arms outstretched, face tilted up to the rain, eyes closed and smiling like this was the best night of his life.
Okay now’s my chance.
Tugger crept out into the night, mud squidging between his toes, sneaking up behind the spinning Mistoffelees as quietly as possible.
If I tackle him—
Mistoffelees abruptly stopped spinning, bending over with hands on knees, breathing hard.
Now!
Too late again—Misto spotted him, and immediately threw an arm out, shooting a bolt of lightning from a paw, and Tugger was only just fast enough to avoid being hit.
“Didn’t get me this time!”
Mistoffelees laughed as he straightened up again. At the same time, two balls of thunderstorms appeared in his hands, illuminating Mistoffelees’ face, his eyes glowing like sheet lightning.
Run!
Tugger dove behind a pile of abandoned cardboard boxes, crouching down, flattening his ears so they wouldn’t give him away.
Perfect!
Or maybe not, as a streak of lightning touched the tip of his tail, which Tugger had entirely forgotten about in his rush for a hiding spot.
“Ow!” he yelped, shooting up to his feet, just in time for Mistoffelees to throw the other ball of lightning, Tugger jumping away into a small garden bed overgrown with weeds. He hunkered down into the weeds, immediately before Mistoffelees’ lightning struck the plants around him, scorching them, Tugger wrinkling his nose at the smell of burning.
Ugh, no good staying here.
 He leaped once again to his feet, sprinting over the grass, looking behind to see if Mistoffelees was running after him—judging by the quickly approaching pair of glowing eyes, he was catching up just fine.
A ladder’s frame stuck out into the darkness at the side of a house, leading several stories up.
Perfect.
“Misto!” he called back as he jumped to grab the bottom rung with his hands. “Try and catch me now!”
Tail held out behind him for extra balance, Tugger scaled the ladder, confident Mistoffelees was too small to reach—
Oh.
Mistoffelees had apparently found another way up, appearing out of the darkness on a windowsill not too far from him, a paw glowing with more ammunition, white hot forks of lightning skittering over his claws.
“Can’t catch me!”
He swept his long tail out of the way just in time as Misto launched another streak of lightning magic at him.
“Hah! Not this time!”
Looking down, he saw the kitten getting down on his haunches, eyes trained up on him—tail quivering like he was calculating a jump.
“Oh no you don’t—” Tugger protested as Mistoffelees launched himself up at the ladder, scrabbling before grabbing his bushy tail, teeth and claws sinking into the fur, but not enough to hurt him.
His first thought was to just drop down back to the ground and keep their silly play down there, but nor did he want to risk hurting Mistoffelees with his weight on impact.
How much farther to go?
Looking up, he saw more ladders leading up to the roof.
“You wanna keep doing this up there? On the roof?”
He didn’t bother waiting for any response from Mistoffelees, instead hauling his body up the rest of the ladders, rusty metal cold under his clutches as he climbed.
“One more—almost there—”
Triumph! He’d made it to the edge of the roof, its gutter overflowing with the rainfall, pulling himself up, claws digging in to anchor himself as he dragged up the rest of his body and Mistoffelees still, impressively, clinging on to his tail. Tugger swung his tail up so Mistoffelees was able to let go, flying down onto the roof while he tried to catch his breath again.
Another zap of lightning bolted past him, and Tugger flinched, leaping to his feet with a laugh and shake of his head.
“Not good sportsmanship, Misto! At least wait until I’ve caught my breath!”
Tugger crouched down, ready to scramble out of the way, watching the kitten’s paws closely, waiting until he spotted a growing orb of light between them.
To the chimney!
Squinting into the rain, Tugger pulled himself up the side of the roof toward the chimney, ducking behind the brick refuge.
“Can’t see me, can’t get me!”
He heard Mistoffelees scrabbling around on the roof, and Tugger remained still, confident there was no way he’d see him—
Until Mistoffelees leaped over the chimney onto the top of his head, catching Tugger by surprise.
“Hey, get off from up there.”
Tugger pushed himself up to full height again, Mistoffelees now clambering off him onto the chimney, tail straight up in the air as he did when smug about something.
“How’d you know?” Tugger marveled.
Mistoffelees pointed to one of his Maine Coon ears.
Well! First his tail and now his ear gave the game away.
Nothing else for it but to take it out into the open, have this final showdown on the roof’s ridge.
“Fine, Misto, have it your way, let’s finish this on the ridge.”
Misto spun around a couple times before jumping onto the roof’s ridge at the bottom of the chimney, Tugger following right behind him. Sideways rain blasted the side of his face, and it was all he could do to keep squinting, keep an eye on Mistoffelees, who kept his distance on the other side of the roof.
Okay, it’s show time.
Rubbing his front paws together, Tugger prepared to launch himself into all sorts of acrobats in an effort to dodge Mistoffelees, back flips, mid-air spins, and all.
“Come on, Misto, you can do this!” he yelled, before doing another flip on to the chimney,  crouching as Mistoffelees flung lightning ball after lightning ball, eyes glowing with that fierce light.
His breaths were now coming in breathless pants, body already sore from all the dodging and leaping and ducking under Mistoffelees’ magic. Once he started seeing the patterns of Mistoffelees’ pre-launching warm-ups, he could escape them more and more often.
Until, that is, Mistoffelees paused halfway across the ridge, raising himself on one leg, his other foot placed at his knee.
Uh oh. What’s he planning now?
One spin, then two, then three and Mistoffelees swung out his arms, two ropes of lightning magic flying away. Tugger ducked down, hands clasping the ridge, but the end of one of the ropes swept over him, Mistoffelees jumping up and down in the distance before doing one more series of spins, and this time, a circle of lightning bolts expanded away from him.
Tugger again tried to dodge, but too late: the circle enveloped him and his feet fell away as it dragged him toward a triumphant Mistoffelees, the lightning disappearing once they were only a couple feet apart. There was no way he could have escaped that rope of lightning, what with the way it had yanked him toward Mistoffelees with such force that even his bigger cat’s body couldn’t resist again.
With a loud laugh, Mistoffelees pumped his arms up in the air, practically doing a jig on the roof. Tugger rolled his eyes.
“Okay, I give up: you win.”
A spin and another leap into the air, a leap that on impact saw him slip and fall into Tugger, who, caught off balance, windmilled his arms to try to keep his balance, but gravity and the slick surface of the roof won.
“Careful, gotcha!” Tugger gasped as he held on to Mistoffelees.
They collapsed together on the slick, metal roof, bodies aching from laughing so hard, breathless from their mad play, this absolute…recklessness (but a fun recklessness!)Had they really just spent Everlasting Cat knew how long outside runningaround like two mad cats in the lightning (oh, how Skimbleshanks would have scolded them!) and sideways rain? For a long time, even the smallest glance at each other led to them breaking down into rib-cracking laughter again, damp paws raised to shield their eyes from the fat raindrops splashing on and around them.  Tugger’s back fur stuck to the wet roof under him, every strand of fur was now clinging to his frame, but right now he didn’t care, enjoying this crazy moment, ribs and sides aching from his laughing. Tugger couldn’t tell if his eyes were wet from rain, crying from laughing so hard, or both. Probably both. Definitely both.
It seemed to Tugger like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, before their laughter began to decrescendo; at the same time, so did the storm. No more lightning rippled through dark, roiling clouds, and the wind had died down to the occasional stray gust of wind that stripped leaves off trees bowing to its might. The rain still fell, no longer sideways, just falling straight down to drum cozily on the tin roof. Tugger closed his eyes, losing himself in the soothing rustle of leaves, the pitter patter of rain on tin, the whistle of the wind through telephone wires, and the distinct hooting of an owl far away. Through this calming symphony of a storm’s end, he also heard Mistoffelees’ purrs, deep breathing, and chattering teeth—
His eyes flew open, and he sprung upright onto all fours, claws scrabbling on the roof’s slippery surface.
“Mistoffelees!”
Mistoffelees turned his head to look up at him, questions in his glowing eyes.
“I can hear your teeth chattering. Let’s get back inside—Munk will yell at me if I let you die of exposure.”
Mistoffelees raised his paws to his face, and even in the low light, Tugger could see they were shaking.
Skimble would have my toebeans for this if Misto catches a cold.
The dark shape that was the little kitten flipped over onto his four paws, now all glowing with gloves of liquid honey, with a faint glow like candles.
Like they did that time in the snow last year.
No time to think about that right now—they had to get to the attic or else Mistoffelees would simply shiver himself to a nasty cold or worse. The attic wasn’t exactly the warmest room in the house, but it was still both inside out of the rain and dry.
“Let’s get to the attic.”
Tugger lowered his back, tilting his head over his shoulder in an invitation for Misto to hitch a ride, but the kitten ignored him and sauntered away in his socks of magic toward the glass door that led into the attic below. Tugger quickly moved to catch up to him, glad his paws were wide and furry enough to keep their hold on the rain-drenched roof—not that the attic was more than a couple metres away, anyway.
Only when one of his front paws hit a cold, wet glass panel, did he then immediately make a beeline for the lever, gripping it in his paws and pulling with a grunt. Mistoffelees made a move like he was going to help, but the door finally, with a protesting squeak of the hinges, yawned open.
“Okay, I think we can get in there.”
Right as he said that, a cheeky howl of wind tore the attic door out of his hand and slammed it all the way open, the clash of the door against the roof reverberating into the night, and rain immediately invited itself inside.
Oops.
Oh well. It wasn’t his problem anyway, and he could just blame the wind if anyone asked about it. A little bit of rain falling into the otherwise dry attic was a worthy sacrifice to get himself and Mistoffelees back indoors and get warm and fluffy again by the fireplace.
“After you, Misto.”
A wet arrow of black darted past him, diving straight into the attic opening, and Tugger followed suit, flopping onto the floor below with a fair amount of less grace than Misto had, right into the puddle already forming below the gaping roof doorway.
With a short mutter, he straightened up, trying to primp his fur, only to find that it was next to impossible, what with how waterlogged all his layers had become thanks to their wild, spontaneous idea to play out in the thunderstorm (really, it was Misto’s fault—he ran out the door first, not Tugger!)
Speaking of… where was Misto? He searched around for a pair of familiar glowing eyes, but there was nothing except darkness.
“Misto?” Tugger called out, blinking around for the magical kitten. “Where are you?”
Knowing him, he’s already made his way out to the stairs.
“Misto? You slipped away, didn’t you?”
A pair of glowing green eyes opened out of nowhere right in front of his face in the pitch black, and Tugger couldn’t help a startled jump, stumbling back in his surprise.
Of course.
Mistoffelees giggled, and Tugger imagined he was giving himself a little pat on the back right now.
I fell for that, again. Every time, I swear.
Tugger swung a playful paw at those eyes, but Misto had quicker instincts, ducking easily out of the way, so his paw instead swung at thin air. 
“Fireplace. Race you there.”
A dart of black to the door, and then Misto was gone. Tugger didn’t even bother picking up his pace, full well knowing the kitten was already three quarters of the way to his favourite cozy spot in front of the fireplace.
Deliberately pressing his paws harder on the floor to really leave some big, dirty pawprints behind, Tugger oh-so-casually traipsed his way down the stairs, leaving no step without at least one wet pawprint, until the light and heat of the fireplace from the lounging area swept over his face and shivering body.  
And just as he thought, there was Mistoffelees already upon his favourite seat, making biscuits, his purrs as fierce as the crackle from the fireplace, eyes half-closed, his little blue crochet mouse sitting next to him, waiting for a cuddle.
Temptation crept into Tugger’s brain.
What if I pounced…
Nah. Not tonight, anyway.
“Hey, Misto, I see you beat me to it.”
Mistoffelees curled up on the seat, crochet mouse cuddled between his paws against his white chest. His tailed swept around him, eyes now fully closed, little nose sniffing the air, a smug look on his face.
He beat me to it, and he knows it.
Tugger flopped big and long across the floor next to the raised podium on which the fireplace with its skinny chimney stood, hypnotic flames lapping at a log that was already half-ash; the crackle of the fire and the soft drum of rain on the roof and windows created a sleepy melody.
He turned over on his back, glorious heat already warming and drying the fur of his belly, glancing over in Misto’s direction. At the same time, Mistoffelees, perhaps sensing Tugger looking at him, opened his eyes and promptly dissolved into a flurry of laughter.
“What?” Tugger asked. “What’s so funny?”
Mistoffelees sat up—and of course his fur was already dry, now starting to fluff up like a cotton ball—and pointed at him.
“Ah me. Of course I am.” Tugger instinctively lifted a paw to preen his mane, but only hit completely drenched fur. “The funniest tomcat this side of the Heaviside Layer.”
Mistoffelees again pointed at Tugger before drooping his ears and face into the most pathetic looking wet cat impression.
“Oh, is that how I look right now? Like a pathetic wet cat?”
A grin and nod from Mistoffelees, with a little chirp of confirmation.
“Right, right, not that you don’t look like that yourself.”
Hurt flashed in the kitten’s eyes.
Probably overthinking my words again. I’m trying to be funny.
“But you’re still the cutest fluffball—a fluffball that can shoot lightning from his paws.” Tugger pretended to shoot lightning from his paws, and Mistoffelees appeared to relax again.
“Also, hey, thanks a lot.”
Mistoffelees tilted his head with a confused “Mrrw?”
“For tonight.”
Mistoffelees extended a paw at Tugger, before pantomiming a cat being terrified by a thunderclap, before pointing at him again. All this was followed by a questioning chirp.
Heaviside, why’d you give Tantomile and Coricopat the telepathic powers and not me?
“Are…are you making fun of me, good sir?”
A frantic shake of the head, more insistent charades with paws, and this time Tugger caught a whiff of its meaning.
“Ooh, you asking if I was scared of the thunderstorm?” Tugger lifted a paw, making a great show of grooming it with his tongue. “Who me? Rum Tum Tugger?”
He decided to pretend not to see Misto’s eyeroll.
“Nah,” Tugger rolled over onto his belly, crossing his paws as delicately as possible over his other. “Never me, could never be me, Misto.”
Yeah.
Scared of a simple storm.
Pfft, never, why would he be terrified of loud thunder?
It’s not like he ever had reason to be scared of thunder, especially not with Mistoffelees around.
He’d never admit it to anyone, let alone Misto, lest he destroy his properly curated image of the bravest and coolest tomcat this side of the junkyard, but honestly?
Deep down, he was all but grateful to Mistoffelees for tonight’s distraction and wild galivanting in the rain and thunder, playing Dodge The Magic Lightning Balls, just two silly cats having the time of their lives before coming back inside to collapse by the fireplace to get dry and warm again.
And I’d do this all over again, rain and thunder be damned.
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larkscribbles · 2 years ago
Text
New Blood
Quentin finds, mere days after getting to Waterdeep and joining an adventuring group, that the monsters crawling out of wells are the least of his concerns.
The Yawning Portal is inexplicably empty. The tables and chairs are without occupants. There are no lights. Unease permeates the room, making the air thick. The silence is only broken by Quentin’s shifting of his weight from foot to foot. Fear constricts his throat. Despite the emptiness of the room he feels he is not alone. His skin crawls. He finds, intentionally or not, he has orientated towards the centre of the room. Facing the well. The very well that monsters had clawed their way out of mere hours ago. But he had heard them coming. This is different. The silence is almost deafening.
They start off as murmurs, almost imperceptible, then they rise in magnitude and volume. An unseen choir of incomprehensible voices suddenly surrounding the room. Adrenaline pulsing, Quentin frantically scans the space anew, finding nothing visibly amiss. The alien voices surround him, rising to a roar. His skull pounds. He starts to recognise fragments, snippets of words. The room takes on a sickly blue-green glow, spilling forth from the well. The whispers then begin to coalesce, amassing into one voice.
“Join me in the deep.”
The voice is so otherworldly, so alluring, so overwhelming and oh-so-gut-wrenchingly wrong.
Quentin’s heart seizes, his knees locking in place. He is terrified. He should run. That’s what a sane person would do. That’s what part of him wants to do. But not all of him. That’s the thing that scares him the most. His body refuses. Part of him wants to comply, stand on the edge of the well and submit. All he’d need to do is lean forwards. Stop resisting. He is torn, frozen in place, fighting himself. Desperation between each half builds. The rogue can practically feel himself breaking under the pressure, a splitting headache from the exertion. It comes to a boiling point and only then does he scream.
Quentin gasps awake, fending off his covers and re-orientates himself. He’s back in his room, in the Yawning Portal. The sheen of sweat suggests he never left. It's the middle of the night. His eyes do their best to scan the room, able to pick out the silhouettes of his still-sleeping roommates. Good. People being present does some to alleviate his nerves. He strains his ears for a moment, and can pick out snores. Nothing disturbed, except his sleep. After the afternoon’s skirmish, they need to rest, waking them now especially over a just a nightmare? Not a good look.
Quentin sits up and peels his shirt from his back, making an effort to slow his breathing. The motion sends a twinge through his shoulder and he grits his teeth. A nice reminder that he’d been sleeping around a wound this entire time. A bloody demon-looking-giant-four-winged-mosquito-thing had flown out of the well and saw him as an easy target. He squints at the puncture wound in the poor light. It’s wet. His brows knit in concern, stomach dropping slightly at the sight. That’s not good. He carefully slips out of bed, picking his way across the floor, halting slightly as one would to test for traps. Eventually he locates a washbasin, and drags it to a nearby window - somewhere proper to assess the damage.
He stifles a groan as he pries the shirt from the wound. It’s not bleeding in excess. Thankfully, it is definitely just blood but - wait. He stops, blinks, and holds his blood soaked fingers up to the moonlight.
It’s not the right colour.
Night drains the vibrancy from the world to some extent, of course, but this blood is too dark to be a normal shade of red - perhaps a shade of red at all. Quentin scrubs at his eyes in vain. What he sees doesn’t change. It’s as black as pitch. He shakes his head, as if to dismiss this. No, he must be tired. Frazzled from the skirmish and nightmare, that’s the only explanation. He takes a rag from the basin and begins to clean the wound. It’s slow and tentative work. The back of his neck prickles as he dares to glance at his shifting reflection in the disturbed, murky water. The rogue doesn’t know what he expects, but it unsettles him regardless.
Quentin decides that’s enough of that and forcefully directs his attention elsewhere - bandages the injury, retraces his steps and slides back under his covers. He does not close his eyes, nor does he try to sleep again. He can manage without it for a bit. Better than risking another… ordeal. Or whatever that was.
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mintmatcha · 4 years ago
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I want giggly cuddly sex with tadashi 🥺 where there’s no power dynamic just us two having a good time and wanting to make the other feel good :((
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I combined these two little ditties into a fic!!! I hope you don’t mind!!!
CW: established relationship, praise, sex, fluff/smut. 
yamaguchi x reader 
(reader has a vagina- no pronouns or gendered language used)
first time
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It's one of the pitfalls of a new relationship; everything the other person does is endearing. 
"I'm just saying, it's weird that the fourth movie is so good!" Yamaguchi digs his hand into the bowl on your lap, picking through the entire bowl to scrape at the popcorn kernels. He tosses the bits into his mouth and chews thoughtfully, cracking through each kernel loudly, before pausing to suck the excess salt off of his fingers. 
God, if anyone else did that, you'd probably be disgusted, or at the very least annoyed, but there's something about Yamaguchi that makes it unbearably endearing. Maybe it's the little shoulder dance he does every time he takes a bite. Maybe it's the way your heart skips a beat when his tongue swipes over his knuckle, catching a bit butter. "Name another series that has a good fourth movie. You can't. Scream 4 is one of a kind." 
He does it again, crunching through the kernels happily, tongue peeking out once again to wipe across his fingertips.
God, you wished he would lick you like that. 
"Tadashi, you're gonna break a tooth." you chide, even as you sink further into his lap. There was plenty of space on the couch, but you had somehow migrated to his lap sometime during the previous movie. The arm around your shoulder tightens, pulling you into a kiss on the cheek. It's greasy with butter residue, but somehow it still makes your heart flutter. 
Fuck. Only 3 months into the relationship and you were wrapped around his finger, watching movies that you didn’t have any interest in. Any little annoyance was forgotten as soon as he flashed you that freckled smile. Every little nuance you discovered made you fall deeper into .... like.
Not love. Like. You weren't ready to admit to the 'love' word quite yet, but it was getting closer. You had been 'in like' with Yamaguchi since shortly after he moved into the cubicle next to yours.  Maybe it had been the way he always remembered to grab you an extra sugar packet for your coffee, or the way he laughed at whatever podcast he was listening to that day, or the way he silently procrastinated at the end of the day so you could walk to bus together: whatever it was that won you over didn’t matter, what did matter was that Yamaguchi made you feel happier than anyone else.  It felt natural to be with him, to be held by him, to be ‘liked’ by him.
...Your only complaint was the pacing. One of the best and worst things about the two of you was that you were both polite, constantly dancing around unsaid boundaries, trying overly hard to respect each other, avoiding any situation that could possibly make the other one uncomfortable. Which meant your physical relationship was nothing more than the occasional kiss.
Honestly, you were beginning to think he didn't want to. His hands never wandered, his texts never turned dirty, and you certainly never initiated anything. It felt like there was never an opportunity to start anything; even now, sitting on his lap while wearing a sweatshirt he had left at your apartment weeks ago, it felt wrong to interrupt a wholesome moment.
Not that you didn't want to. God. You wanted to.
"You know,  I don't think anyone's ever worn my hoodie before." he comments, eyes never leaving the television. He’s enthralled with this stupid movie, even though he had seen it 'dozens of times.'
"Really? I’ve been wearing it as a shirt. " you grab at the fabric, "Do you want me to take it off? "
"Yeah, sure." he responds blankly, attention still glued to the movie. Then, he seemingly realizes what he said, face immediately erupting into a furious blush. He's quick to separate for you, almost spilling the entire bowl on the ground. You mirror him, unsure if you should laugh at his panic or cringe. "No! Do not take your shirt off! I do not want that!" 
"Tadashi. Calm down." You laugh, even as disappointment settles in the back of your throat. Does... does he really not want to see you undressed? Is this why you guys having had sex yet? Did he just see you as a friend? For his comfort and not your own, you inch farther away, back against the opposite arm as him. "It's fine, I get it."
"No, I-" he takes a moment to settle himself, "You look phenomenal with my hoodie on, I just, I don't want you to take your shirt off unless you want to, because it’s totally something I want. I think about it-" he pauses mid sentence, ears burning so red that his freckles seem to disappear, " I mean, if- I'm not like that- if you're not ready- that's not why I invited you over. I'm not expecting anything." 
He gives a nervous chuckle, widening the distance between the two of you more. You let his words sit, only the sound of the movie in the air. 
"So." you begin slowly. "You think about me without a shirt on?"
“I mean, of course.” He is acutely aware of the edge of the couch, his body teetering at the brink, but he bares it. "Can I tell you something? You can't laugh at me. Or think I'm a pervert." 
"I can't promise that. Are you, like.... sniffing my underwear or something?" you joke, a grin sneaking across your face.
He snorts and shakes his head almost violently. 
"Okay, no! Now the real thing doesn't sound as pervy." he adjusts only slightly, his shoulders unbunching themselves. Most of the tension in the air has melted away. That's what was so great about Yamaguchi; even when things turned awkward, they quickly returned to normal. "Do you remember that time Yakki split that water all over you?"
You roll your eyes at the memory. "Of course."
"And you had that little white blouse on?" he swallows, "My productivity at work dropped about 50% that day. It was so bad that the boss scolded me." 
"Yeah, because you were too busy worrying about me catching a cold!" you say, "You even gave me your jacket!" 
"No, I gave you my jacket because your shirt was see-through.” he admits, “My productivity dropped because all I could think about was how I wanted to take you and that little see-through shirt into the storage closet."  
Oh God. This is it. This is the opportunity. 
You lean forward with a tilt of your head, the gapping neck of the shirt falling forward past your collarbone. His eyes are glued to the neckline, tracing over the hint of skin, silently begging for more. You tuck your knees up under you and begin to crawl, only half convinced that this is sexy.  The closer you get, the more he can see down your shirt. His breath hitches slightly at the sight, but he doesn't dare to look away.
"Oh? What were you thinking about doing to me in that storage closet?" Yamaguchi lets his legs fall apart and, hesitantly, you place a hand between his knees, fingertips grazing the grey cotton of his sweatpants. The band of his bright red underwear peeks out from under his shirt and, without thinking, you trace over it with a pad of your finger. At the touch, he leans forward, lips tickling the shell of your ear as he speaks. Your heart is thrumming in your eardrum, so hard you can barely hear what he's saying. 
"First, I would have ripped that wet little shirt off, button by button." he chuckles, reaching to tuck a tendril of hair behind your ear. Your pussy clenches at the low rumble of his voice, so hard you feel like your stomach is cramping. "Then, I-"
A scream cuts through the room. The both of you jump forward into each other, knocking your skull against his jaw. Almost in unison, you both reel back: you clutching your ear, him clutching his lip.  The bowl spills across your laps, scattering popcorn all over the couch and floor as you both frantically search for the source of the noise. The dramatic music of the movie drums through you as some damsel in distress is running across the screen, screaming for help.
One beat. Two beats. 
Then, you laugh. It's one from the belly, that makes your gut ache from effort. You're trying to reach for Yamaguchi, make sure he's okay, but your eyes are watering, and your whole body shaking.  He's giggling too, still covering his lip. 
"The movie scared me!" you explain through tears. He nods in agreement, gesturing to the mess across his lap, including a huge butter stain across his crotch. It's not a funny moment, not when both of you are aching, but an intangible something has you both snorting and sobbing through giggles. The moment is way too long, way past the point of any humor, but Yamaguchi's snickering feeds into yours. 
Finally,  Yamaguchi manages to collect himself, scrunching his lips into a straight line. The corners of his mouth twitch upwards and you dissolve into giggles once again.
"I want to fuck you so bad right now." he breathes. His directness surprises you. "But not on top of the popcorn." 
You pull a deep breath, trying to center yourself. "We could move?"
"My roommate is going to kill me when he comes home to this mess." he says, but he stands anyway. You follow and his hand finds the small of your back, pulling you into him softly. He presses a kiss against your lips, warm and gentle, and then pulls back with a grimace. 
"I think you bruised me.” he touches his lower lip gingerly, as if testing it. 
“I’m sorry, we don’t-” he silences you with another kiss and now you can feel the swollen corner of his mouth, gritted slightly with salt. He clutches on to your top as he steps backwards, dragging you along with him so the kiss doesn’t break. Each step is rocky and unsure (you barely miss colliding into the wall) but you stay embraced, your hands clutching into his dark locks, partially to keep your balance as blindly follow. His hands trace up under your shirt, thumbs digging into the soft of your hips, pulling you flush against him, forcing you deeper and deeper into him until-
“Oh, shit.” he breaks away suddenly, pushing you back slightly. “I- my room- I need you to stay here.” 
“What are you talking about?”
“My room’s a mess, I really didn’t expect that you would- that we-” he shakes his head. “Gimme 30 seconds- please. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
You don’t object as he scuttles away, clicking the door firmly closed behind him. You can hear the muffled sounds of drawers slamming and objects being tossed about as you wait. It feels like you have been standing there, starting at the generic art hanging in the hall, for ages. It’s much longer than 30 seconds, but not quite the eternity it feels like.
The door creaks open and your favorite freckled face peeks out.  “Hi.” 
“Hi.” you repeat. Somehow, every amount of tension had returned in the scant amount of time you had been apart. Both of you knew what you wanted to do, but, the knowledge seemed heavy. It was an explored territory, sleeping with someone new. No matter what your past relationships were, each new experience with a new person (especially a new person you CARE about) brought its own pitfalls and challenges. It seems so serious, so scary, until you tear your eyes away from the floor and actually look your boyfriend in the eyes.
"Did you just brush your teeth?" you reach out and brush a little bit of white foam from the corner of his mouth with your thumb. He leans into your palm with a smile.
"I didn't want to taste like popcorn." he says and you can't help but laugh as he leads you into the room. It’s his brand of organized chaos; there’s clothes peeking out from the closet, miscellaneous knick knacks on the nightstand (including a still foamy toothbrush) and half hung posters across the walls. . You break away to sit on the bed, tracing over the pattern of the bedspread. 
“I like this.” you comment, “Very nice.” 
He nods, frozen in the doorway. Slowly, he reaches up to the lightswitch and flicks the light off. The darkness feels heavy with anticipation and worry as he pads around to the other side of the bed. He feels it too, you decide, as you watch his adam’s apple bob in the low light, this insane mixture of pressure and excitement.
For Yamaguchi, it’s the thoughts that usually plague his mind at night that grate away his confidence. The dreams of your skin between his fingers, your taste on his lips, are so close to reality, but he can't bring himself to make the first move. Even in the low light, he can see the curve of your waist, slowly contracting with every exhale. His own breathing matches your pace and, for some odd reason, that realization makes his chest burn with longing.
"I'm not expecting anything. If you don't want to." he reiterates as he lies down. How pathetic, he thinks. He really wasn't expecting anything, but, god, was he thinking about it. He'd been thinking about it since the first time he had seen you from across the If he could just reach out, just grab your collar and pull you to him, he could finally-
"Tadashi." his skin jumps at the sound of your voice and the sound of you shuffling, laying across the mattress. It's enough to knock him out of his thoughts and back into reality. He swallows back the tightness in his throat as he inches closer to you, his knees brushing against yours. He feels the gravity of the mattress shift as you shuffle closer and closer, until you're within inches of him.  You're almost face to face now, close enough that he can feel the way your breathing picks up as his hand finds your shoulder. You hum at the contact; he's warm. Even through the thick cotton, his skin is unusually hot against you. 
"You're like a little space heater." you whisper. Yamaguchi blinks, thinking, before his lips peel into a smile.
"Is that a good thing?" He doesn't wait for an answer.  He squeezes gently and you let him pull you forward, nose pressed against nose, hip against hip. His own shoulders shake with a silent laugh and you can't help but join him. It's something about the novelty of the situation, the joy in doing something new, breaking an unspoken boundary, that makes you laugh. You both dissolve into giggles, shifting closer and closer until you're laughing in each other's arms, fully pressed against each other. Even through your sweatpants you can feel the suggestion of his cock pressed against you, heavy against his thigh.
" ’Dashi." you whisper into the thin space between you. 
"I- Yeah?" he lets out a shaking breath. You take his hand and guide it to your chest, his fingers immediately cupping the flesh, massaging the flesh with a surprisingly steady touch. The way he sucks in air, fast, surprised, and hungry, sends heat pooling to your core.
"There's no popcorn here." you joke, "If you wanna fuck me." 
It's enough to break through his anxiety and he's against you again, this time with no laughter to keep your lips apart. His mouth finds yours, hungrily catching your lower lip between his teeth, tugging it ever so slowly. The sharpness makes you gasp and he uses the opportunity to kiss you deeper, tongue against yours. He tastes like his brand of toothpaste- soft and sweet mint. It's unexpectedly hungry, unexpectedly rough. 
The kiss doesn't break as he rolls over on to you, pressing your back into the down of his bed. His heart is already racing, battering against his ribs, as he continues tugging and teasing your breast, but he can't find it in himself to slow down. His free hand pushes up the hem of your shirt (his hoodie) to expose your chest. The kiss ends as he pulls away, forcing the short in-between your teeth, holding it up to give him free reign of your body. His head dips to join his hand, breath hot against your nipple. The cloth muffles your moan, but not enough to hide it from your lover.
He pauses, mouth open and tongue lulled out of his mouth, gazing up at you through his eyelashes. "Is this okay?" he's not touching you, but you can feel the low vibrations of his whisper against your skin.
"Yes, please." you whine through the sweatshirt, wrapping your hands into his hair. "Please, Please."
His tongue traces over your nipple delicately before he pulls back,  just far enough to watch it pebble under his touch.  He returns to work, clamping down and sucking, leaving the dull pain of a blossoming bruise behind. Your hips rut up into nothing, looking for any sort of friction.
He continues like this, leaving scattered marks across your skin as he worships you. Yamaguchi seems so content, just learning the scape of your body, but the building tension in your core is wearing thin.
Trailing touches down his body, you slipped your hands under the band of his sweatpants, gripping him through his boxers. Yamaguchi breaks, resting his forehead against your collar bone with a swallowed groan, as your fingers trace around the crown of his cock. Unwilling, he bucks into your light touch, dragging his length through your grasp. You tighten your fingers as he continues fucking himself against your palm, his own hands drifting to grasp your hips, pushing down your shorts just a fingers-length. Finger pads traced against the newly exposed skin, dipping lower and lower until tracing over the lace of your underwear.
"Wow." he breathes, lifting his head up to press a kiss against your chin. "Lift your hips for me, beautiful." 
You comply, letting him peel off your shorts and underwear in one pull. The cool night air made you shiver, but his warm hands soon returned to explore the newly exposed skin. 
"Oh, you're so..." his hand dips in between your legs, dragging a digit through your folds. The sound of your slick against his fingers makes his cock pulse in your grasp. He leaves his thought unfinished as he starts circling your clit with a steady touch. The pressure sends you keening, hips rolling into his touch eagerly, but he remains steady, patient.
He's building you up embarrassingly fast, leaving you sweaty and panting under his touch. Just as your legs start shaking, your body right on the brink, he withdraws. His tongue darts out to wipe away your fluids from his hand and he groans at the taste, eyes fluttering. 
"I'm sorry, beautiful. You can't  cum until I'm inside you." he whispers, sitting up to peel off his shirt. Clusters of freckles dapple his shoulders and it's all you can watch as he scrambles away to the nightstand drawer.  He returns a moment later, eager tearing through the tin foil packet with his teeth.
"Tadashi! Be careful!" you scold as you throw the blankets aside.
"It's not ripped!" he says, grabbing the bunched up shorts from the crook of your knee and tugging it completely off, dragging you a couple inches down the mattress with them. He tosses them aside as he pulls off his own; even though you just had your hand around it, the sight of his cock makes you anxious. It's thick, much thicker than you anticipated, and around leaking, a bead of precum catching at little light in the room.
As he begins rolling the condom on, you peel off your top and Yamaguchi's mouth falls open, eyes darting around the entirety of your body.
"Holy. You-" he sighs happily. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen." He surges forward, pressing you down into the mattress once again. His mouth is against yours, swallowing your whines. His hands are at the small of you back again. but now it's about but pure. He's forcefully angling your hips back and forth against his cock, dragging your clit against his spongy head and spreading your wetness against the plastic film. 
"I can't believe I get to fuck you." he says in between kisses. Yamaguchi continues to fuck your folds, his calm pace finally losing it's rhythm. "I can't believe I get to play with this perfect pussy. Can't wait to see you cum around my cock." With a trembling hand, he reaches down and presses his tip against your entrance, hesitating before sinking just the head inside you. The pop of his cockhead entering your cunt makes both of you gasp in unison- and another wave of giggles over takes the both of you.  As he dips down onto his elbows, eyes screwed shut, he doesn't make a move for a long moment, the only sound in the room is his steady breathing.
"I'm sorry, I'm just-." he presses a kiss against your neck, another laugh bubbling up, "You just- ah, you're so pretty. I can't believe this is real." 
Your hand catches his jaw, pulling his face up into yours. Your thumb traces over his cheek, tracing over the subtle dimpling of his pock marks. The freckles scattered across his cheeks, the crinkle at the corners of his eyes as he smiles- he's the beautiful one here. At your touch, he pushes further into you, steadily feeding your tight whole inch by inch, watching the way your mouth gapes and twists at the pressure. Once he's fully seated in you, he pauses, watching your chest move with each breath. 
"Dashi," you whine, hooking your ankles together around his waist, "You're so thick." 
"I know, you're doing such a good job." he presses a kiss against your forehead as he begins rolling his hips against you. Each thrust is rough, your hips angled up for him to sink his full length into you. "Keep being good for me, baby." 
With an unexpected strength, he tugs you closer, lifting your hips off the bed. Each stroke is steady, pumping his entire length in and out of you at a tantalizingly slow pace. His name falls out of your mouth like a prayer, begging for more, but he doesn’t oblige. It stays sinfully slow, building you up in a controlled burn. Each kiss, highlighted by the mingling of your hot breaths, is further raking the coals. 
“Is my pretty baby gonna cum for me? Look how great you’re taking me.” he groans.  He’s praising you blindly now, neither of you sure of exactly what he’s saying, all of his attention focused on grinding into you.
Your back arches further, and you’re seeing stars as he fucks you just right. You can barely keep your vision focused on him, those grey eyes clouded with concentration Your orgasm knocks the breath out of your lungs and you come undone with a strangled laugh, fisting the sheets desperately. The way you clench down around him makes his hips finally stutter, a hiss escaping his gritted teeth. Your chest is filled with a flurry of emotions as you sling your arms around his shoulders, unable to wipe away the goofy grin in your face. 
A few more snaps of his hips has him melting into you as he cums. He tucks his head under your jaw with a hum, dropping you on to the mattress. His hands find their way back to your chest, giving you a final squeeze.
"Fuck." he whispers into the soft of your neck as he withdraws. He's quick to peel off the condom and tie to off, discarding it off the side of the bed. Yamaguchi rolls onto his back, holding his arms open expectantly. "You're so hot when you laugh, you know that?" 
Curling into his arms, finding some sort of gross comfort in his sweaty warmth, you can't help but suppress another giggle.
"Hey, be careful. Keep laughing and we'll have to do that again." he grips your jaw, tilting your face towards him to capture you in a kiss. "Don't test me; I'll fuck you so hard you'll need a standing desk on Monday."
"Oh yeah?" you tease, your hand tracing down his chest, connecting his freckles. "Prove it."
"Oh, I will, come here-"
The distant sound of a door slamming catches your attention. "Yamaguchi, what the fuck?" a familiar voice echoes through the apartment. 
Yamaguchi shoots up, frantically searching for his pants in the sheets. "Fuck, I forgot about the popcorn!"
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mianavs · 3 years ago
Text
the assault
In Lima with You part 4
a/n: this marks the beginning of the end for this story. like previous parts in this story and it’s predecessor, there’s some messed up stuff going on in this part.
tw: non-con, dark content, nsfw, violence
wc: 1.7k+
In Lima with You
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You had been scrubbing for a good thirty minutes, yet the bright red from the tomato sauce you’d spilled on your living room carpet was still there.
Glaring at you
Mocking you
Wiping off the beads of sweat that trickled down your brow with the back of your hand, you ran the scrubby through the bucket of soapy water that was now a milky salmon color. After wringing the scrubby of the excess liquid, you went back to scrubbing that spot while ignoring the growing ache in your fingers and the knot in your neck.
It’d been a careless mistake, spilling your spaghetti while your mind had been elsewhere—a common occurrence since the night your fragile world fell apart when Dabi walked out on you.
Almost as careless as the mistake of letting your captor into your heart where he left a mark that spread until it encompassed the entire thing.
A mistake you were now paying the price for, on your hands and knees trying to scrub the mark stain away only to realize it had spread in spite of your efforts.
You fell back on your haunches and threw the scrubby into the bucket. It had been five days since you’d last seen Dabi, and you were starting to lose it.
Every time you heard footsteps outside of your front door, you would rush over and swing it open only to face nothing or a bewildered stranger. The room that had once suffocated you with warmth was now frigid and made it difficult for you to fall asleep in. Your mornings started with you waking from a nightmare that almost always involved Dabi’s death. While at the beginning of his absence you could still go about your day cooking, cleaning, or engaging in a hobby, you eventually spiraled into a depression that made it hard for you to even get out of bed.
Not only was Dabi the death-sentenced protagonist of your nightmares but he was also on your mind all day. His face during your last argument was one that had been burned into your memory. You could still see the blank look that flashed in his cerulean eyes, the twitch of his mutilated mouth, and then the shock that seeped from every pore in his body as he staggered away from your enraged form.
You’d been the one wronged that day, yet Dabi was the one that fled, leaving you with an all-consuming guilt. It didn’t make sense but then again neither did the overwhelming pain festering away in your heart the more time passed without seeing him, touching him, loving him.
Love. It was a ridiculous notion when you thought about it.
Dabi had been the monster that kidnapped you. He’d broken you down physically and mentally to mold you into the obedient darling you now were, but even with the plethora of scars all over your body, you couldn’t help but feel empty without him. Even with the door unlocked and nothing chaining you down to your shared condo, you would leave only to roam around the city for a couple of minutes before a panic seized your entire body; It was that suffocating panic that forced you back home to the comfort of your bed that still smelled of Dabi’s musk and smoke.
You loved Dabi.
You needed Dabi.
So as you dumped the soapy water down the kitchen sink and washed out the bucket, you mulled over your options in tracking Dabi down to tell him how you felt. Then just as you were putting the bucket away, the muffled sound of footsteps captured your attention and you dashed to the front door on impulse.
Where a scarred face with a wicked grin should have greeted you, there was only a red winged man with astonished eyes.
“Y/N,” Keigo breathed. “You’re really here.”
You looked behind him, searching for the man you actually wanted to see. When it was clear he wasn’t there, you turned to your former friend.
“Where else would I be?” You asked before stepping aside to let him in.
“I assumed you’d be with the League,” He answered amusedly, walking in while you shut the door behind him. “But I guess this was a no ex-heroes type of mission.”
“Where’s Dabi?” The question burst from your lips before you could think it through.
Keigo’s smile faltered at your desperate inquiry, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Last I heard they were two cities away wreaking havoc in true League fashion.”
You raised an eyebrow at his mocking tone. “Sounds like you don’t approve of the mission.”
Keigo laughed at that and it left a bitter taste in your mouth. “How about we drop the act, Y/N. It’s just you and me. Dabi isn’t here to punish you.”
His eyes traveled to a fading scar on your forearm before returning to your face. “We both know that what they’re doing is wrong.”
A bitter laugh tore from your throat as you approached him. “So the HPSC selling me for some intel is right? Them drugging me and sending me off to an orphanage is right? How about them trying to sabotage my career? Does all of that seem right to you, Keigo?!”
You were now in front of him, and he had the decency to appear sheepish after your rant. He averted his gaze and said nothing while you let out an exasperated sigh and ran your fingers through your hair.
“Don’t give me that right or wrong crap.” You retorted when your anger simmered. “Hero society deemed me a villain before giving me a chance to prove myself. I won’t stand in the League’s way if they want to bring it down.”
Keigo’s hand shot out and wrapped around your elbow, fingers pressing into one of your scars. You tried shaking him off but Keigo didn’t relent.
“What about the thousands of innocent civilian lives that will be ruined because of them? Will you also stand aside when they’re screaming for their lives?”
His golden eyes bore into yours and memories of a certain mission hit you like a ton of bricks. You remembered the room full of children that you’d saved with Keigo, and for the first time in weeks, you hesitated in defending Dabi and the League’s actions.
“We’re targeting the heroes and the HPSC, not civilians.” You reasoned, wrenching your arm from his grasp.
“We’re?” Keigo sneered, backing you against a wall. “Are you serious?”
At his aggressiveness, the alarms in your head went off but indignation muffled them. You jutted out your chin defiantly. “Yeah, I am. As long as Dabi remains in the League, I will too because... I-I love him and tha—”
Keigo smashed his lips against yours and took hold of your hands before pinning them above your head. Unlike the first kiss he stole from you, this one was harsh and meant to punish. He claimed your mouth with his invading tongue while you wrestled against his bruising grip. It wasn’t until you realized he wouldn’t let up that you bit down on his tongue until he hissed in pain and released you with a curse.
With the metallic taste of Keigo’s blood in your mouth, you tried recovering your breath only to hear a harsh thump that was immediately followed by pulsating pain on the side of your head. You doubled over from the sheer force of Keigo’s blow that left you debilitated and vulnerable.
And that was exactly what Keigo wanted.
In your stupor, you were picked up like a ragdoll and thrown onto your bed, landing face down on a pillow. The sudden motion only worsened what you assumed was a concussion. As a sharp ringing assaulted your ears, all you could do was grip the sheets beneath you in a weak attempt to stop the room from turning.
So when rough hands pulled off your shorts and ripped off your flimsy lace panties, you were too busy burrowing your spinning head in a pillow and swallowing bile to put up a fight. The severity of the situation finally registered with you when you felt the bed dip and rough hands lift your waist until you were on your knees.
By the time your body reacted, it was too late. Keigo pressed you into the mattress with your hands pinned behind your back as he settled between your legs and spread them open with his body.
His cockhead prodded at your entrance a couple of times before he forced it into your dry cunt in one harsh thrust. Horrified and unprepared, you screamed into the pillow that still smelled of Dabi while Keigo violently took you from behind like an animal.
Pain was all you knew throughout Keigo’s assault. It pulsated in your head until it felt like your skull was being split in half. It coursed through your arms that were pushed together and pressed into your back. It ripped through your cunt as Keigo’s cock rammed into you without mercy.
Concussed, restrained, and without your quirk and voice, all you could do was lie there and wait for your body to produce the slick you oh-so desperately needed to ease the ache in your cunt.
Without changing the pace of his hips, Keigo leaned over you and grunted into your ear.
“Don’t you get it, Y/N? I’m doing this because I love you and right now you’re sick. That so-called love you feel for that bastard is a disease. You have Stockholm Syndrome and I’m gonna cure you with each load I shoot up your womb.”
He let out a chuckle and licked the shell of your earlobe, causing bile to surge up your throat. Unable to swallow it down any longer, you used all the strength you could muster to jerk your head over the bed’s edge.
As you regurgitated that day’s lunch, Keigo’s thrusts ceased and he released you with a disgusted grunt.
“Rude bitch,” he growled, pulling you by your hair and pressing his torso against your body. “I tell you I love you and that’s how you react?”
Keigo shoved your face into the mattress and you writhed beneath his weight and grip as your lungs were depleted of oxygen. When your limbs went limp against the bed and black specks stained your vision, the last thing you heard was Keigo’s honeyed words delivering your sentence for falling for your captor.
“Guess I’ll have to take you away from him for you to be cured.”
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starlessea · 3 years ago
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Here Comes the Sun: XIV. Jailhouse Rock (Daryl Dixon/Reader)
Series Masterlist: Here Comes the Sun
Summary: Daryl Dixon scares the hell out of you climbing out of that damn creek. It takes hauling his ass halfway across Georgia and taking a bullet for him to realise that you're not half bad. He slowly starts to come around, despite grumbling about how much he doesn't like your singing, or that you can't use a gun for shit - and don't get him started on that ugly yellow tent of yours. It takes him a while before he starts to see for himself that he's found a best friend for life, and that he doesn't actually mind the colour yellow that much, after all.
Words: 5378
Chapter Warnings: Language, Injury, Slight canon divergence.
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You threaded the bandage carefully from hand to hand, around the man's leg where he sat. It was tight, like he'd instructed, but you still worked tentatively in case you hurt him. Hershel watched appreciatively as you bound it, covering the stump where his leg had been amputated - just below the knee. It was looking a lot better recently, having been almost a week since the incident. It no longer oozed different colours or looked like it was rotting. The antibiotics from the infirmary had really helped you out there.
Once you had finished, you threw away the previous bandages and rolled down the older man's trouser leg. Beth had cut one shorter than the other, so that the excess material wouldn't trail on the floor when her father walked. The ends were a little jagged and frayed, but the intention had been pure. Hershel let you tend to him without a single complaint. Not once did he wince or look uncomfortable - he hadn't done since the initial injury. He was a fighter, you'd all realised. There was not a thing left in this world that would stop him from spending every last second he could with his daughters.
He gave you a nod and offered you a small smile as you lent him your arm. He gripped it tightly, using his other hand to press down onto the mattress and push himself up. He wobbled a bit as he did so, but you remained steady, supporting him. Once he was upright, he held onto the metal frame of the top bunk, and you let go to retrieve the crutches resting against the wall. You threaded each one under the man's arms and watched as he began to take unsteady steps with them.
It was slow, and you stayed close to him in case he fell. Though, after a few minutes he seemed to get the hang of it, pacing back and forth the small cell. You couldn't help but smile as you watched him.
"Just like riding a bike." You teased, rubbing your palm over his shoulder.
He'd asked you to bring him the crutches that morning, finally feeling up to trying them out. He said that he wanted to surprise his daughters, since he'd felt guilty about making them worry so much.
"I'm ready." He replied with a determined look, and the two of you made your way out slowly to the courtyard.
It had been nearly a week since it happened, but you remembered it vividly. Even as he was recovering, almost every time you closed your eyes you could see the man's face contort in pain. The day after you'd all secured the yard, your plan was put into action to tackle the prison. It had been a success at first, as you set up base in the C Block - but that false peace soon shattered as you delved deeper into the heart of the prison.
Rick took the front, guiding you all with a flashlight as you trailed behind in a line. You were directly behind him, followed by Daryl, then Glenn, and finally Hershel at the rear. The place was like a maze, each corridor leading into two others - like a hydra splitting its heads. Everything was dark save for the single stream of torchlight, and you could hear the occasional drips of water seeping through the cracks of the ceiling, splashing onto your boots when you walked. Corpses littered the floor as you all navigated your way through them, and even more walkers came out from the shadows to greet you.
Rick took the brunt of the assault, sinking his blade into the skulls of any that got too close. You all stuck in a tight formation as you continued on, alert for any more undead. All of a sudden, the atmosphere changed. The tension was cut with a startled yell, accompanied by a familiar groaning sound. You immediately whipped your head back to find the source of the noise, only to see Hershel with his leg caught in the jaws of a walker slumped against a wall. You'd all thought it was dead when you stepped over it - as in actually dead. Yet, now it had its teeth sunk into Hershel's ankle, tearing away the skin there to expose the tendons beneath.
Everyone sprung into action. Glenn immediately drove his machete through the walker's skull and Rick came to pry Hershel's leg from its mouth. He and Daryl then picked up the older man by his arms, as Glenn took his legs. You all ran together in search of the nearest safe area, as you took the front of the formation to clear a path. You'd had to take down two walkers on the way, and everyone started to yell - not caring to keep quiet anymore. Rick was shouting about how Hershel was losing blood, and Daryl pointed to some double doors with the words 'cafeteria' above them.
Glenn placed Hershel's legs down when they got closer, wedging his knife between the crack of the door to pry it open. After a few seconds, you heard the bolt give in, and he kicked it harshly before it flung open. Hershel was carried inside immediately, and placed on the floor. You saw his eyes roll back into his head, as he struggled to stay conscious. Rick wasted no time removing his belt and tying tightly just below the other man's knee. The action alone made you feel sick to your stomach, as you prepared for what you knew would happen next.
Hershel's face was coated in a sheen of sweat, as he lay on the cold concrete. His eyes were cloudy as he met yours, and you couldn't conceal the tears that welled up there. In your peripheral, you saw Rick take Glenn's machete from him - as it was the biggest and sharpest blade you had among you. Daryl quickly moved over to Hershel's left side, opposite from you, and held his shoulder down where he lay. You swallowed thickly and followed his lead, taking one of the older man's hands in your own.
He looked at you, choking on air as he inhaled too quickly. You could see the panic in his eyes, even as he struggled to keep them open. You clenched his hand tightly, feeling him grip onto you with all of his strength. Meeting his vacant stare, you looked into his eyes with intent - trying to reassure him that he'd be okay.
"Hershel." You whispered, looking down at his clammy face.
You remembered how he'd been there for you when you needed him most, at the bar shootout, telling you to keep your eyes on him and focus. You needed to do the same for him now.
"Do you want to go home?" You asked, repeating his question from that time.
You saw a single tear run onto his cheek as he nodded, before his pupils rolled back. Daryl tensed, preparing to hold the man down. You did the same. Then, Rick swung the blade.
You led the way as you and Hershel made for the courtyard, where the others were all gathered. You took small deliberate steps so that he could follow at his own pace. When you stood outside, the sun was so bright that it made you squint your eyes. It was such a contrast from the dark and shady prison. You shuffled out of the doorway of C Block and opened the lattice cage leading out onto the concrete yard - holding the door open for the man behind you.
The sky was a clear blue, completely cloudless, and when you stared out at the field it almost felt like home. You guided Hershel a few more steps before the others began to notice him. Daryl was one of the first. He'd been lying with his back to the concrete, fiddling with the underside of his motorcycle. He had his bandana tied around his mouth and nose to protect him from the fumes, but what was visible of his face was covered in black grease - as were his exposed arms. Once he caught your eye, and saw the man near you, he immediately sat up and pulled the cloth down from his mouth to show his smile.
"Yer one tough ol' bastard!" He called out, causing the others to look in your direction.
Maggie and Beth quickly stopped what they were doing, dropping their shovels to run over and greet their father. You took a step away from the man, letting his daughters embrace him. You could see how proud they were, as Maggie shot you a grateful smile and Beth's eyes welled up with tears. The whole scene gave you hope. Hershel gave you hope. You wondered what you would have done in his position. You would like to think that you would have soldiered on, just as he had, but in reality you probably would have given up. Though when you looked at him, looking at his girls, you understood why he didn't.
Hershel gave you one more curt nod as you left to give them some privacy, and you offered him a small smile in return. You made your way over to Daryl, who leant against his bike waiting for you to come see him. He was wiping his hands in his bandana, like it was a rag, trying to get rid of the dirt on his palms before he dared touch you.
"Hey, stranger." You called out to him with a smile. "Is there a man underneath all that grease?" You teased, making a point of looking him up and down.
"'M not sure." He grumbled, scratching the back of his neck as he squinted from the low sun.
You walked closer to him, reaching up so that you were on your tip-toes, and your face was close to his. You furrowed your eyebrows, now seeing the grease stains that smeared his cheeks - from where he'd rubbed the backs of his hands against them. You pulled his bandana out from his back jean pocket, where he'd shoved it only a few moments ago. Then, you used it to wipe away some of the marks on his face, holding your hand under his chin as you did so.
He grumbled at that, trying to bat your hand away half-heartedly. You just held his jaw more firmly, and continued to scrub the stubborn grease off. You got one cheek relatively clean before giving him his bandana back, not bothering with the other side of his face. Then, you stepped on your tip-toes again to leave a quick kiss there.
"Much better." You smirked at him, only for the man to rub his thumb down over your own cheek in one swift motion - smearing a line of grease over it in return.
You laughed and reached over to smack his chest, causing him to step backwards to avoid it. You tried again to punch his arm, but he caught your wrist - leaving a black handprint around it. Squealing slightly, you tried to pull out of his grip, but his other hand grabbed hold of your free arm and painted it black, too.
"Get your hands off me!" You cried, laughing as you did so. "You're filthy!"
You giggled some more, running away from the man, before the two of you formed a sort of truce and settled back down. You leant against the bike together to watch Hershel make his small laps of the courtyard. Your vest was covered in handprints that looked like they'd been pressed on with oil paint, and you knew you'd have to scrub your skin with cold water later, too.
Maggie had one of her father's arms over her shoulder, as he used a crutch in the other. Beth walked alongside them and you could hear their muffled chatter in the distance. His appearance alone was enough to raise the spirits of the whole group.
"Ya did a good job lookin' after him." Daryl said, eyeing the man who seemed content just to be with his daughters.
You shook your head, crossing your arms over your grease-smudged shirt. "I didn't do much besides staying with him." You admitted. "This is all Hershel."
"He's one stubborn son of a bitch." The archer agreed, muttering below his breath.
You let out a laugh, giving him a side-eye glance and one of your best lopsided smiles.
"Says you, Dixon."
Watching the Greenes made you realise how far you'd all come in just a matter of days. That incident felt almost a world away from you now. In truth, it had been one of the most traumatic things you'd experienced in this new world. That night, after the initial panic of trying to save Hershel's life, you were granted a few brief minutes to go and sit with Daryl. You immediately felt your legs buckle beneath you as you sank down onto his mattress. You were entirely exposed on the upper catwalk of the cell block, since he'd refused to stay in one of the 'cages' - as he put it. At that point, however, you didn't care.
The images of Rick hacking away at bone replayed in your mind as you cried into Daryl's neck, feeling him stroke your hair to try and calm you. You honestly had thought that the older man was going to die, leaving his daughters behind without a father. You'd felt so much guilt, holding his hand and watching the light fade from his eyes. The thought of having to tell Maggie and Beth that you'd failed him was just too much.
You didn't stay long with Daryl, wiping your eyes and collecting yourself not even moments after you'd sat down. You took a deep breath and waved the man who'd comforted you goodbye. Then, you returned to Hershel's cell - where you stayed for days on end until he woke up.
"I'll leave you to your bike." You said, pulling yourself out of your thoughts.
Daryl nodded, wiping his palms over his jeans. You gave him a soft smile before going on.
"You still have to teach me to ride that thing one day." You noted, looking over at the intimidating hunk of metal like you were trying to convince yourself rather than him. "You promised."
The man chuckled lowly under his breath, turning to face the bike. "One day, Sunshine."
You flitted around the courtyard doing odd jobs while waiting for Hershel to finish up his walk. Carol and T-Dog were cleaning some of the guns and Rick had sent Glenn to go check if there was a breach in the back of prison - letting him use one of the vehicles to do so. You sat on one of the rusted metal benches, sharpening your knife which had become dull. You barely noticed when a man approached you, taking a seat next to you quietly.
You looked up, raising an eyebrow at him. It was one of the prisoners you'd encountered a few days ago. Him and the other man, Oscar you thought his name was, had been allowed to stay with you provisionally as you all decided whether to trust them or not. They weren't in the same cell block yet, but you sometimes saw them around the yard. Rick had been skeptical at first, but allowed this much when you'd all insisted on showing kindness to the men.
He gave you a wiry smile as you looked at him. The man was small and scrawny, with long ash hair and a handlebar moustache to match. He was still dressed in his blue prison jumpsuit, and you thought he was lucky not to get shot on that first day of clearing the prison - when those jumpsuits had been your targets.
"I hope you don't mind me sayin', but you're mighty pretty." He remarked, unprompted. He had a Southern twang to his accent, but it rang out a lot more grateingly than the ones you were used to.
You gave him a curt smile, looking back down at your hands as you continued sharpening the knife. "Thanks." You said.
"Like, really pretty." He went on, looking you up and down as though it were flattering. "The rest of the women here are fine, too. But you're just on another level, sweetheart." He smiled, much too warmly, and rested a hand over your thigh before giving it a squeeze.
Your eyes flickered to the palm pressed on your jeans and then back at your knife. He must have seen you do it, because he quickly pulled away and let out a strained laugh. You looked over at Daryl, who watched the exchange with a scowl. He was a few feet away, and you didn't know if he could make out exactly what the man was saying, but he was definitely close enough to get the gist. You shot him a warning look, as you had a feeling he might come over and cause trouble if you didn't.
"Look, Axel?" You questioned, still unsure of the man's name. He nodded, and you went on. "I appreciate you giving me compliments and all, but I know someone who wouldn't."
Axel was sitting with his back to Daryl, oblivious of the way the archer tensed when watching the two of you. You thought that it was for the best that he couldn't see him, and you met Axel's stare in a way that made you hope he would take the hint.
He squinted at you, leaning back against the bench. "You with one of these folks?" He asked.
You nodded, letting your eyes purposefully look over his shoulder.
"The one glaring daggers at the back of your head." You explained, and he immediately whipped around to see.
Axel quickly stood up, throwing his hands in the air defensively when he met Daryl's gaze. He took a few steps in his direction, before becoming intimidated and deciding to stay where he was, instead.
"Sorry, brother!" He called out, giving a quick glance back to you. "I swear I didn't know she was taken."
You scoffed, despising the way he looked at you like you were an object to be claimed. Daryl scowled right back, throwing his rag over the seat of his bike.
"I ain't yer brother." He growled, just loud enough for you to hear it. He then shot Axel a look before skulking away to the other gate.
You didn't have a chance to say anything back, as suddenly an alarm started blaring. It was so loud that you thought it was coming from inside your head. Before you could comprehend what was going on, you heard screams coming from the other part of the yard, and saw the group running for the inner gate.
The next moments were entirely chaotic, as you were reminded of the fall of the farm once again. Walkers poured in through the broken section of the fence, as you all scurried for the inner part of the prison. The alarm continued to whirr, as you stood unable to tell where it was coming from. You dashed towards Hershel and Beth, who'd become separated from the others, and urged them to safety as you locked yourselves up in one of the small lattice cages that connected to the watchtowers. Then, you waited.
With no weapon, all you could do was comfort Beth and offer a shoulder to Hershel for support. The three of you watched as some other members of the group tried to close the gap in the gate, putting down the walkers that had gotten through it. You heard Rick yelling, and everyone followed him to the prison's interior - presumably to find the source of the alarm.
It felt like hours before it was shut off. Even then, the high-pitched noise still rang in your ears for a good few minutes after that. You all remained silent where you stood, enclosed in your metal cage. You didn't know how long you'd been there, but the adrenaline hadn't settled down in your chest yet. Your mind filled with thoughts you couldn't control, as you prayed that Daryl and the others were safe. You'd barely been able to see anything through the mayhem. The group had been split, that you were certain of, but you didn't know who went where, exactly.
After a few more minutes, you saw Rick emerge from the C Block entrance, followed by Glenn and Daryl. You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding as you met his gaze, slipping your fingers through the gaps in the metal like you were trying to reach out to him. They quickly came over to you, unlocking the door so that you could all leave the small space. You instantly flung your arms around Daryl, not caring in the least about the grease and bloodstains on his skin this time.
You barely got to exchange a few words with each other before you noticed Carl and Maggie exiting the prison from another doorway. Rick ran over to his son, pulling him into his chest when he got to him. Though, you didn't miss the look on Carl's face, as he stared straight through his father. What you did miss, however, was the newborn baby bundled up in Maggie's arms.
You instantly felt your face fall, as you stood back from Daryl's arms to look at your friend. She let out a sob, shaking her head at Rick when the man finally noticed her. The officer stood in silence for a few seconds, before he finally comprehended what she meant. He let out a yell, so deep that it sounded like it came from his core, and started to pace back and forth whilst running his hands through his hair. He shook his head, not once looking towards the newborn. Instead, he retrieved his hatchet and walked straight past Maggie, back inside the prison. And all you could do was watch.
The baby cried and cried in your arms as you huddled her close to your chest, trying to soothe her. She was hungry, you knew, but all you could do was wait for Daryl to return with some formula - if he had the luck of finding any. After Rick had left the group, the rest of you got Maggie and Carl back to C Block - where they explained everything that had happened. They both trembled as they spoke, obviously traumatised. You could remember the look on Carl's face when he'd told you about shooting his mother, and you didn't waste any time pulling him into your chest and holding him tight.
Glenn left with Maggie to go back to their cell, since she looked like she needed some comfort. Daryl went to go and search for Rick, but ended up coming back to the block with Carol in his arms instead. She'd seemed so pale when he brought her in, and Hershel had told you all that it was shock once he looked over her. Later, she'd come around enough to tell you about T-Dog, too, and how he sacrificed himself so that she could get back. In one day, you'd lost two members of the group and gained one more. Though, baby Grimes was living on borrowed time. You all knew that she wouldn't survive for long if you didn't get her some formula.
Daryl had left almost immediately after that. You pleaded for him to stay with you, trembling in his arms as you did so, but you knew that he had no other choice. He'd be able to get there and back the fastest on his bike - wherever 'there' may be. So, you sent him off with a sad expression, watching the motorcycle leave through the gates and listening to its signature low rumble. He left his poncho behind, and you'd used it to swaddle baby Grimes when she was handed to you - and you hadn't let go of her since.
You tried to hush her, rocking on the balls of your feet gently from side to side. She wailed in response, and you felt your heart breaking. You unintentionally started to pace around your cell, suddenly feeling like a single mother much too young to take care of the life bundled in your arms. The rest of the group were tending to Carol, Maggie and Carl, so you were left to look after the baby in the meantime. You thought that you could do it, initially. Though, seeing how much she looked like her mother, even as young as she was, made you crumble.
She howled and spluttered against your grubby vest, hiccuping on her own tears as you tried to lull her to sleep. You had no experience with babies, and you felt like you were torturing her by making her starve so soon after she'd come into this world.
"Come on baby girl." You whispered to her, feeling her cheek press up against the skin by your neck.
Her little mouth quivered against you, and you thought you could feel her whole body tremble even through the material you had her wrapped in. She choked out another cry and you felt completely useless. You didn't know what else to do. So, you swayed her gently and began singing.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine." You smiled down at her, trying to compete with her broken wails.
"You make me happy when skies are grey." She spluttered a little, and you rubbed her back gently with your palm.
"You'll never know dear, how much I love you." You stopped swaying as she started to quieten down.
"Please don't take my sunshine away."
The little girl in your arms opened her mouth slightly, but didn't let out a cry. Instead, it almost seemed like a yawn as she offered a couple more whimpers before drifting off against your chest. You looked down at her in disbelief, wondering how something so pure could be born into a world so cruel. Then, you noticed Carol standing in the doorway, watching you.
You immediately opened your mouth to explain yourself, but she just brought a finger to her lips - reminding you to keep quiet. She had a warm look on her face, as she glanced over at the baby in your arms, and approached you with the practiced silent footsteps that only a mother could have.
Wordlessly, Carol readjusted the baby in your hold, so that she was better supported. Then, she gently tugged at the corners of Daryl's poncho, wrapping the swaddle securely - in a way much more experienced than you had done. You watched in awe as she seemed to know exactly what to do. After a few seconds, you glanced down, and then back at Carol, offering for her to hold the baby. She shook her head politely and you nodded.
"The song worked." You whispered to her, and she leant her head on your shoulder to look down at the newborn in your arms.
"I know." She replied.
Not long after that, you both heard the familiar sound of the metal keychain unlocking the cell block door, and made your way out into the main area. Daryl walked through, shrugging off his backpack and letting it fall heavily to the floor. He didn't say anything, crouching down and unzipping it to pull out a bottle and a number of formula boxes. You let out a sigh of relief as the group started to praise him, going to collect the supplies. Hershel clapped a hand over his back and gave him a small nod, but Daryl just continued to make up a bottle in silence.
You walked over to him with the baby in your arms, and saw the softness of his expression when he recognised his poncho as her swaddle. You rested your head in the crook of his neck in a half-hug, as baby Grimes rested between both of your chests - starting to rouse from her nap. You thanked Daryl, and helped him take the baby from your arms.
You watched as he brought her in close and held her nearly as well as Carol had taught you. Everyone seemed surprised, too, as he started feeding her the bottle with a soft look in his eyes. You had to admit, you never would have expected him to be as natural as he was with her. The baby sucked on the bottle contentedly, as Daryl tried not to let her take too much at once. She'd been waiting for her first meal all day, and she spluttered a bit on the milk as she drank too quickly.
"There ya go. Must've been hungry, right?" Daryl questioned, looking down at her little face poking out from the thick poncho.
She gurgled a little, which made your heart melt. "You like that, lil' Ass Kicker?" He asked, and you all laughed.
You crossed your arms, shaking your head at him in disbelief. Only Daryl could nickname a baby as adorable as her Ass Kicker.
"What?" He grumbled half-heartedly, looking up at the group who watched him. "It's a good name, ain't it?"
Carol nodded beside you, and had a smile on her face as she looked over at the baby resting against Daryl's bare arms.
"Ass kicker." She said, trying out the name on her tongue. "I think it suits her."
The others mumbled in agreement, and you felt pride at how Daryl had managed to change the atmosphere in a single instance. You watched as he cradled the baby, holding her like he'd never let any harm come to her.
"What do you think, Carl?" You asked, pulling the young boy into you by his shoulder. "You think she'll grow up to be a force to be reckoned with?" You gave him a warm smile, and he nodded in return.
"She'll be just like mom." He said, and you couldn't help but agree.
Daryl walked you back to your cell that night, after you'd all eaten and taken it in turns to coo over lil' Ass Kicker some more. The two of you took quiet steps as you went, as not to wake any of the others who'd already turned in. You felt exhausted, and could tell by his face that he did, too. So much had happened in the span of a single day. So much had reminded you that this place wasn't actually safe yet. You wondered if you were fooling yourself all along - holding onto the idea that the prison could be a home.
You bit your lip as you got lost in your thoughts. You decided that you had no other option; this place needed to be your home. This baby needed a safe place to grow up, and this had to be it. Somehow, you all had to make it work - for her.
"We've got to protect her, Daryl." You whispered, feeling the words slip from your mouth before you even considered saying them. You looked over to meet his eyes as you approached your cell.
"Yeah, I know." He replied, with a thousand yard stare. He seemed equally as caught up in his own thoughts, too.
"For Lori." You clarified, and he nodded. "And until Rick gets through whatever he needs to get through."
The man stopped once you reached your cell, pulling you into his chest for a few seconds. You allowed yourself to be taken in by his warmth, and feel his heartbeat against your cheek as you stayed there. Though, he soon pulled back. You were almost glad he did, fearing that you wouldn't have been able to let go if he'd stayed any longer. He gave the top of your head a brief kiss before telling you to get some rest, and turning to leave.
You eyed his mattress at the end of the catwalk, just lying on the floor where you'd all had to occasionally step over him some nights.
"Daryl." You called out softly, before he could get far.
He glanced back to look at you, and you opened your cell door further so that he could see inside.
"Stay with me, please?" You asked, and for the first night he did.
A/N As if my 3am writing session last night wasn't enough, I thought 'fuck it, what's one more?' I LIVE for the idea of Teach and Daryl almost being like Judith's godparents at this point - taking care of her until Rick can.
Send me a message if you want to be included in the taglist for chapters!
Tag List:
@xxboesefrauxx @youhavemyfantasticbeasts @teel-dinosaur @greenbeansarelit @bunnymother93 @alularae3 @death-becomes-her @royaleclown @alex-sulli​ @julesmalek
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hext00ns · 3 years ago
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Febuwhump 2022 Day 1: Head Injury @febuwhump
AO3 link in comments
Ships: Twilight & Wind
Rating: T
Warnings: N/A
Description: Twilight wakes up injured and concussed with only Wind to help.
“...up!”
The words just barely reached Twilight's mind. He wanted to swat them away. He wanted to sleep. He was sleeping right? Yeah, he was sleeping. Sleeping was nice. He felt cold though. He felt. He didn’t want to feel. Why? Why not. Yeah, sleeping felt like a better idea than that voice-
“...ight! W…k… up!”
Though, that voice did sound familiar. And frantic. Was it important? They always shouted for him when they needed him. Maybe the goats got out again. Was Epona around? Yeah, probably. But, maybe it could wait just five more-
“Twilight! Wake the fuck up!”
The shout entered his, now registered as pounding, skull and reverberated throughout the bone and muscle. Only causing the pain to worsen.
Twilight shot up from his sleep. Or at least, he attempted to. Instead, his head got half way there and he felt the bile rise up his throat. His eyes widened, only causing a window for blotched light from the treetops to pierce into his skull. He quickly swallowed whatever was threatening escape to keep it away from his mouth and then slammed his eyes shut with a gasp and a cough.
“Sweet Hylia!” Came the pestering voice, now much sharper and louder than it had any right to be. “Are you okay? Of course you’re not okay,” it grumbled in answer to it’s own question.
It continued to spew mumblings and other words that Twilight had no interest in paying attention to. Instead, he moved to lay back down on what was most likely the ground. Yeah, screw this.
“No! No! No!” The voice called again before hands found their way to Twilight’s shoulder.
The instinct took over before logic could stop it and Twilight growled. It was full of warning and upset. Whatever was continuously bothering him had better get the message quickly.
The hands did leave but the feeling of someone close by did not.
“Twilight, please,” the voice hissed out. A mix of worry and frustration. “You have to stay awake! You hit your head really badly!”
He hit his head? Is that why it hurt so much? It felt as if it were trying to split in two. Every sound and light, an added knife into his skull.
Twilight leaned onto his arm, not able to bring himself sitting but wanting to keep the voice from its excessive shouting.
“Just, let me help sit you up on a tree okay?”
He didn’t immediately feel the hands again and assumed the voice was waiting for some sort of response or confirmation. Twilight, very slowly, cracked open his eyes to aim them at the voice. The largest, ocean blue eyes he had ever seen in his life stared back. They were definitely familiar eyes; especially when paired with that rat’s-nest-like blond hair.
Wind sat on his heels looking back to the other. Worry interwoven in the determined expression he kept steeled to his features. Damn, he looked so young when he was upset.
Twilight gave a huff in response to the earlier words and put his other hand next to his arm, ready to push off and up with help.
Wind quickly ran over to him and grabbed him, pulling him up and resting onto a tree behind him. He always forgot how damn strong the kid was, as Twilight realized he’d barely moved. He couldn’t.
The moment his body shifted he felt it. His whole form blossomed with pain that rivaled that in his head. Fuck. He looked down at himself, now finally taking in what was happening. He wasn’t at home in the village. He was in the woods, with Wind, with injuries that looked like they came from death itself. His body was littered in scrapes and bruises that ranged from minor to possibly life threatening. The pain in his head and side were the worst of it all. He placed a hand over the later ache and sighed in frustration when he felt the tell-tale sign of blood. Great.
He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers before flashing ‘W-Ocean’ at the other.
Wind gave Twilight’s hands his full attention.
“Call Wild,” Twilight slowly flashed. He felt the heavy weight of what was probably a concussion pushing down his ability to move. His hands mirrored this inability.
Wind’s brow creased. “I tried!” he cried.
The sound was a hook to the head and Twilight slapped his hands to his ears, only jostling the pain in his side and causing another agony-filled gasp.
Wind slapped a hand over his mouth. “I tried,” he said again, this time much softer. “For some reason my gossip stone isn’t picking him up. Or it’s the other way around,” he mumbled to himself in thought, fingers gently tapping his lips. He was always so animated, Twilight noted mentally. Wind shook his head and looked back to the other. “Either way, we’re stuck here till they come back for us.”
Twilight let out a low growl and let his head fall back against the tree. Which, when the pain exploded from point of faint impact into the rest of his form, he realized was a bad idea.
Wind tapped his foot to get his attention again. “Can you talk? Is it from the pain or are you not talking right now?”
Twilight had to think before he could answer. There was always the possibility of both but. “I’m not talking,” he responded.
Wind gave an understanding nod. “Okay. I’m.” He looked around momentarily before back to the other. “I’ll be right back!” He said before scrambling to his feet and running off farther into the forest.
Twilight didn’t stop him. Not that the other even gave him the moment to respond.
This was bad. Really bad. Wind was just a kid and Twilight was half dead on the forest floor, Hylia-knows-where. And with no contact with the others, at that. He had to figure them a way out of this mess. Especially before whatever did this comes back.
What did this anyways? It hurt to think too hard but not thinking was easier said than done for Twilight. Especially when he couldn't move and do something. He sighed and ran fingers over his temples as he tried to recount what happened before he lost consciousness.
The group had just entered a new Hyrule. He wasn’t sure if they’d figured out where yet or not. Either way, they definitely ended up in a forest. Then the suggestion for a split up. Wind wanted to go do a quick scout alone while the others set up camp. He seemed upset over something lately. Twilight was told to go with him by Warriors. With that stone of his it would be safe as long as they stuck together.
There was an attack and… Twilight let out a groan. Bokoblins. Of course. They were outnumbered two to one. Twilight caught an arrow to the side, long distance thankfully, and a bludgeon of some kind to the head. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Was the kid okay? How long had Twilight been out?
“Twi?”
His mind spiraled as he placed his hands back to the ground beside him. He had to force himself to move. He had to find Wind.
“Twi?”
He had to get them out of the forest and back to the others. He had to-
“Twilight!”
He slapped his hands over his ears again at the shriek. Twilight’s frantic eyes locked back onto the ocean.
“Are you okay?’ Wind asked the other, concern folding into the skin between his brows. Wind stood there holding a few sticks and large leaves. He looked a little banged up but not nearly as bad as Twilight.
The older let a breath escape his lungs. He didn’t realize he was even holding it in. “Are you okay?” he replied back with his hands and expression. He shot the other a serious look.
“Me?” Wind hissed back. “I’m not the one bleeding out on the forest floor!”
Twilight frowned.
��You-” Wind held a point towards the other at the word but gripped his fist closed and his mouth shut. Instead he let a heavy sigh burst from his chest. Whatever words he was holding in now lost in the trees. Wind sat down beside Twilight and put out his findings.
Twilight watched curiously as the other started to line up a few sticks with his leg. Was it broken? With the pain everywhere else, he hadn’t even noticed.
Wind tied it up with some vine, tight enough to cause a hiss of pain from the older. His worried eyes snapped to Twilight momentarily.
“Fine,” Twilight held up. Yeah, it was definitely broken.
With the confirmation, Wind continued. He pulled off his own robe and tore off a good chunk before pushing it against Twilight’s bleeding side. “Arms up,” he requested. Twilight did as told and Wind tied the cloth along with a large leaf over top in place with a few pieces of vine as well. He then scooted closer and grabbed Twilight’s head in his hands.
Twilight gave a call of surprise at the action.
“I’m checking for bleeding,” Wind explained without letting go.
Twilight let his hands drop to his sides as he let the other work. In the silence, a question started to poke at his mind. He raised his hand and moved it to place over the one on his cheek. With Wind’s partial attention on those fingers, Twilight slowly spelled out, “you…?”
Wind got what he was asking easily. The younger only gave a frown and moved his hand off Twilight’s face and into his hair, now checking the back of his head.
Twilight huffed out in annoyance. He raised his other hand and gave a harsh flick to the cheek closest to him.
Wind gave a call of upset as he let go and shot up to his feet. His cheeks puffed out in anger as he looked to the other.
Twilight only responded with furrowed brows and a smug smirk.
Wind threw his arms into the air with a loud groan. “You treat me like a fucking kid!” he finally cried out in frustration.
“You are,” Twilight signed back. It seemed out of nowhere, almost causing the other surprise. But the more he thought, the more he realized; this is what Wind was holding in lately.
Wind gripped at his hair and spun on his heel before giving a loud stomp. “That’s not the point!” He threw his hands out to the other. His face finally cracked in it’s anger to show the base upset that stirred under it. “I’m not five, Twi! I’m a hyliadamn hero too!”
“14,” Twilight responded, giving the other a pointed glare.
“Yeah, and this fourteen-year-old saved your sorry yeehaw ass!”
Twilight raised his hands to respond before pausing. He lowered them along with his eyes as he took in the words. “Saved?”
“Yeah! When you got knocked out I killed the last two monsters! And made sure you didn’t die choking on your own puke for, like, almost half an hour.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Woulda been a stupid way to die for a hero. I woulda made fun of you, just so you know,” he mumbled.
Twilight let his shoulders slump at that. Was this really why Wind had been acting so upset lately?
The island hero let himself fall back to his legs then to sit. He grabbed what was left of his tunic and held it in his lap. “I’m not just some little kid,” he mumbled. His gaze rose to meet Twilight’s. A dark storm now raged the, usually, calm waters. “I’m not your little brother. I’m Link. I’m a hero. I’m your equal.” He finally let his gaze turn back down to his lap. “But you don’t treat me like that.”
Twilight watched as Wind’s hands gripped at the blue fabric, kneading into it. He wasn’t sure if the ‘you’ was universal to the group or not, but he definitely knew he was a part of it either way.
Twilight snapped his fingers to get the other’s attention on his hands. “I’m sorry,” he flashed. “I trust you. I don’t want you hurt. You’re young, not helpless. I forget that.”
Wind’s eyes flicked between Twilight’s hands and his face as the other signed. When the other was done he gave out a dramatic sigh and let himself flop to his back on the ground. “‘S fine. I mean, it’s not but I accept your apology either way. Just!” He threw his arm into the air and watched the leaves between his fingers. He then let his head roll towards twilight. His hand dropping to his stomach. “Try not to forget I’m a part of this team.”
Twilight gave him a tired smile and a nod.
Wind smiled back.
“You’re still our little brother,” Twilight signed with a smug huff. “Our hero little brother.”
Wind’s smile beamed brighter at that and a laugh bubbled out of him.
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geodax · 3 years ago
Note
“No one is coming to help you.” with Obi-wan and, well, any one of his numerous “friends”
requests are open
----
WARNINGS- excessive drinking, depression, suicidal thoughts (obi-wan is really not in a good place right now and is not making good choices)
----
The lower levels of Coruscant are one of the few places in the galaxy where people refuse to look each other in the eye. They can’t risk recognizing someone that doesn’t want to be recognized. Too many people have gone missing when they recognized someone they shouldn’t have, so they all keep their heads down and their lights dim and speak in hushed whispers when they must speak at all. It all makes for an easy crowd to blend into. With his hood up, Obi-Wan becomes just another anonymous being in a sea of those that can’t afford to see.
This bar is the only place Obi-Wan can drink without being harassed. No senators will take his words and twist them around. No press droids will chase after him asking pointed questions about his actions in the past months. No civilians will yank his hood off to spit in his face and voice their hatred of a war they say he should have ended. And no one will offer any more awkward congratulations for not being dead at all.
He can finally be alone.
He waves the bartender over for another drink and tosses another credit chip on the counter. It’s not enough for good whiskey, but he has already blown through most of his credits and still isn’t drunk enough to feel better.
Obi-Wan wrinkles his nose at the new drink the bartender puts in front of him. He has drunk much viler things before, but he isn’t here celebrating a victory with his men or letting loose with friends. He can’t ignore the heavy taste on his tongue and the sickening burn as he swallows.
He sighs, then tugs out more credits. It’s not like he has anything else to spend them on. There isn’t much point in replenishing his dwindling tea stash. Caf is always available and has more caffeine in it anyway. There’s no reason for groceries now that Anakin and Ahsoka don’t show up when he cooks what was once a weekly meal for the three of them to enjoy. There isn’t even reason to save up to treat the troops to lunch. They understand why he did what he did, but they’re still hurt and have kept a professional distance from him.
Cody is the only one that had tried to bridge the gap and put logic before emotions, but he had failed. Some part of their relationship is broken. And Obi-Wan doesn’t know how to put it back together except to give Cody space to heal.
Even the Jedi have remained distant. They’re glad he’s not really dead, but they’ve mourned him and cried for him. They’d broken the news to padawans and younglings that had looked up to him and seen someone who would survive this war and make all the sacrifice worth it. They love him still, but he has caused too much pain for them to welcome him back with ease.
He understands. They need time and he will give it to them. He’ll sit alone in the meal halls to avoid making anyone uncomfortable. He’ll work out with droids in the private sparring rooms. He’ll avoid the common meditation rooms and find a nook for himself, away from the soft, humming warmth of other Jedi, until they’re ready for him to return.
Obi-Wan swallows the next drink in a single gulp, then orders a half dozen more with a slight nudge in the Force to stop the bartender from cutting him off and calling him a cab. His damned Force-enhanced metabolism is burning through the alcohol too quickly. He just wants to drink and forget. That can’t be too much to ask.
----
He wakes with vomit in his mouth and no idea where he is. That should probably concern him, but his head aches too much for him to care. It’s most likely some filthy alley no one can remember the name of where drunks and dead bodies spend their nights.
Obi-Wan presses his head to his hands and whines as his skull threatens to split open. He should have just gone home and meditated. At least then he’d wouldn’t wake with vomit in his nose.
He reaches for the Force to soothe the ache, but it slips through his fingers. He tries again. And again. And again. Each time it skitters away, tantalizingly out of reach.
He scowls and forces his eyes open, despite the agony even the dim light causes. He freezes. This isn’t some alley or hotel he found his way to before passing out. It is not a service station either, though he doubts anyone would have bothered to pick him up off the street.
Obi-Wan tries to get to his feet but stumbles when he finds cuffs around his ankles. He stares at them. Then stares a few moments longer as his brain struggles to catch up. There are cuffs around his wrists too and, like the ones around his ankles, they aren’t attached to anything but each other. There is something around his neck, he can feel the weight of it on his collarbones now that he’s more awake. A collar, he realizes.
His already dry mouth becomes impossibly drier. His fingers scramble over the collar, searching for a lock, for any weakness he could exploit, but finds only the lump of metal where the lock has been welded shut.
His heart pounds as he examines the cuffs and the rest of the room and finds no escape, no air vents, no panels, no way out but a rayshield set into the far wall with a single figure standing behind it:
Maul.
“Pathetic, aren’t you?” Maul sneers when Obi-Wan meets his eyes. He uncrosses his arms and waves the rayshield open. The Sith nearly glides across the floor, a grace to his movements that had been sorely lacking when they met on Raydonia. Obi-Wan can’t help but shrink back. He can’t deal with this now. He’s too tired to put on a brave face and pretend he is unaffected by Maul’s presence. Maul will still torture and hopefully kill him, no matter what Obi-Wan does. “I wonder what your master would think of you now.”
The words don’t cut any deeper than the wounds he already carries. Qui-Gon wouldn’t have forgiven him any easier than Anakin. He would have needed the same space to work through his feelings and perhaps one day reestablish a relationship, but not so soon. He wouldn’t have cared if, in the meantime, Obi-Wan got drunk now and then, so long as his drunken mind didn’t bring him to Qui-Gon’s quarters.
Maul’s fingers dig into his chin, commanding that Obi-Wan look up at him, but he’s too dizzy and tired to make his eyes focus. Maul should get on with the pain. At least that would feel better than the empty hole in chest.
“I have you all to myself now, Obi-Wan,” Maul purrs. “No one is coming to save you.”
Obi-Wan closes his eyes and swallows around the growing lump in his throat. Maul is right. No one is coming for him.
No one will even notice he’s gone.
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mycatisstillloafingonme · 2 years ago
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Random Shuake fanfic idea part 2
so Ren’s just like ”fuck you” and sics Joker on it and Skull’s just like ”bro wtf” and Ren’s just like ”sometimes Excessive Violence™️ is the only answer” meanwhile Joker is ripping the Shadow a new one and then finally the Shadow’s like ”ok ok fine jfc” and fuses Ren and Joker back into one being and Joker’s like “thank you but now we have to kick your ass” and the Shadow’s like ”eh that’s fair” and then the thieves proceed to do just that and afterwards Joker passes the fuck out and collapses because being split into two people, then being fused back together and then kicking Shadow booty does that to a person and the rest of the thieves are like “oh shit” and Crow’s just like “don’t worry I’ll get him home” and everyone’s like “no” and Crow’s just like “yes” and then he carries him back bridal style because he’s gay and then once he’s back at LeBlanc Goro’s internally freaking the fuck out because Ren is like completely out cold but he at least has enough sense to get him into his sleepwear which is honestly kind of hard because Ren’s limp as a fucking rag doll and while he’s undressing him to put said sleepwear on he notes that Ren is fucking buff as hell and he’s like ”how the fuck does he hide that under his clothes” and then he blushes a bit but he would deny he was if Ren were actually conscious and pointed that out but he isn’t, so…and then Goro’s like “wait doesn’t he know that doctor lady” and then he calls Takemi and he’s like “yeah Ren’s unconscious and might be dying send help” and Takemi’s just like “ok calm your tits I’ll be right over” and then she comes and she checks him over and then she’s like “ok he’s not dying chill dude” and Goro’s just like “are you sure” and she’s all like “yeah he’ll be fine his pulse is normal, respiration rate is typical for a person at rest, temperature is good, pupils are reacting normally to light, etc” and Goro almost passes out himself from relief because yay Ren’s gonna live (he wasn’t in any danger of dying in the first place but try telling Goro that) and he stays with Ren until he wakes up and holds his hand because again, he’s gay and he also questions his life choices and then Ren wakes up like two hours later and Goro’s all pissed but secretly relieved mainly because Ren’s awake but also because he wasn’t hit by the Shadow’s attack himself because…reasons and he feels kind of bad about the latter but little does he know that Ren has already figured out that he’s Black Mask but his team hasn’t yet and so that’s why he protected him like that and the last thing they need is two versions of Crow running around especially if it’s his princely self and his…not so princely self but it’s not like he’s going to tell him that because plot so anyways they’re talking about Ren and Joker temporarily being two different people because WOW that was weird and also Ren’s lack of self preservation because let’s be honest this boy is too selfless for his own good but they don’t argue because Ren’s still a little out of it (being unconscious for several hours will do that to a guy) and Goro’s like “do that again and I’ll shove my foot up your ass” and Ren’s like “oooh kinky” and Goro’s like “shut up” and then they make out. So that’s pretty much the fanfic, presented to you in a run-on sentence featuring excessive swearing. Fyi if someone decides to turn this into a proper fanfic I’d be over the fucking moon because my fanfic writing ability is shit.
Alright, shutting up now.
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universalistotalis · 3 years ago
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The Fifth Date
Bokuto Koutarou (Timeskip!!!) x Female Reader
credits to the owner of the picture :)
3k words
kinda long but it's worth it i guess
Masterlist!!!
You can’t believe this. You just can’t!
-
“Hey, are you alright?” Bokuto Koutarou looked at you with utmost sincerity in his eyes. You looked up and wondered if he really was worried or just being polite but either way, you stared right at his pupils.
“I am.” You agreed, letting go of his gaze and wanting to end the conversation.
This was your fifth date with him but there were no sparks since the first. You just didn’t feel his vibes and he could be so noisy at times which you hated. There was selfishness underneath his skin and it reeked in your nostrils. You hated egotistic people and you weren’t going to tolerate this much longer.
What your friends saw in Bokuto, you had no idea! They were all swooning over him when they set you up on a date together. They kept saying that he was perfect so you, being the hopeless romantic that you are, expected a prince who would be a gentleman, who would listen to you talk for hours on end, who would be so loving and caring… But instead, you were presented with boastfulness and chaos all wrapped up into one big muscle of a man! He did look like a prince but that was it!
“You know you can tell me right? I’ll listen.” You didn’t mistake the softness in his voice as he continued to stare at you lovingly.
You didn’t know if it was the beautiful place that he brought you to or if it was his kindness that made your brain turn into mush. But for the first time in five dates, your heart was hammering, its beats already like drums in your ears.
“I-I’m fine.” You stuttered and kept your eyes on the horizon.
You heard him sigh beside you on the railing you were both leaning on. The place you both drove to was divine as it overlooked the city. The twinkling lights below were mimicking the stars above and there were lanterns that hung overhead as well, casting the whole place in a lazy glow. You took a deep breath of the fresh air as you calmed yourself from the most stressful day of your life and from your whirlwind of a date.
A little rustling was heard and before you knew it, you were enveloped in warmth and his scent. Bokuto wrapped his jacket around you, letting you face him, so that he could pull the zipper up to your chest.
“There, so you won’t have to worry.” He smiled sweetly.
So he did notice the large coffee stain on your shirt and not once did he show that he was irked by it. You tried your best to cover it but of course you can't. Everyone at work gave you the side glance or the 'what-the-fuck-happened-to-you' look but he didn’t!
-
This can’t be happening. Were you reminiscing all those moments with Koutarou? AND NOW YOU’RE CALLING HIM KOUTAROU?!
You rolled around on your bed, a pillow tucked underneath your arms. A muffled scream was released as you felt an intense tingling sensation all over your body. You were supposed to end that fifth date! You were supposed to tell him that you both should see other people!
But the way he acted that night… it was as if he’s… perfect.
-
“Don’t hide from me.” He whispered in your ear as you cried in his arms. As his scent and warmth put your senses to overdrive with the jacket, you couldn’t help but sob. It was like the world was against you today. Even the document from work that you were so ready to pass, crashed on you. Even the coffee that you made this morning with care, splashed your white collared shirt. Even your ID lace that seemed so insignificant, decided to get caught on the doorknob and almost snapped your neck in two! And to spice things up, your evil boss humiliated you in the inter-department presentation even when the CEO of the company congratulated you on a job well done!
It was the little depressing and annoying moments that accumulated in your chest.
“Today has been s-so hard.” You cried in his shirt. “I keep on trying my best but it’s like I’m not doing enough. I'm not enough.”
The gentle rocking of your body stopped as he heard the words fall out of your mouth.
“Hey, don’t say that.” He cooed and trying to hold you at arm’s length. “You’re more than enough.”
You shook your head and tried to avoid his eyes again as he searched for yours. Fingers gripped on your chin to steady you and you melt for the nth time tonight.
“Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Alright? This day may have been difficult for you and maybe there are more days that would be the same but you shouldn’t doubt your efforts. The fact that you made it through, that’s already something to be grateful about.” He said while wiping your tears away. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t cry about them once in a while. Let yourself feel but then get back up again, yeah?”
You nodded but you felt another round of sobs escape your mouth. He pouted as he saw your wounded state and again, you were held close to his broad chest, away from the hurt, the pain, the stress…
-
This was dangerous. Are you actually falling for him? You’re actually falling for the loud guy that you swore you hated?!
‘Hey, hey, hey!’
His voice reverberated inside your skull and with that sound came the print of his smile on your brain. He had the nicest set of teeth and the nicest golden eyes you’ve ever seen. His skin was flawless too and under any light, you swore he was shining.
You couldn’t help but grin at the—
Yes…
This is bad. Really bad.
-
“You wanna dance?” He offered his hand out to you, smiling shyly. You were surprised at his somehow timid expression as you were so used to him being his confident self.
“I don’t know how.” You said breathlessly as you stared at his gorgeous face.
He let out a chuckle and reached out for your hand under the table. “Let’s figure it out, c’mon.”
The platform was small and there were four couples slowly dancing to the romantic song that was being played by a live band.
He led your hands to encircle his neck while his rested on your waist. All the motions, even the slightest graze of his skin on yours, were making your mind hazy. Everything seemed to blur and the only thing that made sense were the two of you in each other’s embrace.
“You’re so tall.” You whispered mindlessly which made him chuckle. He noticed that you could barely wrap your arms around his neck and that your arms were getting floppy due to fatigue. He then guided you to hug him around his waist instead so he could pull you closer.
“I’ve never danced like this before.” He confessed, swaying stiffly at the music.
“I can tell.” You giggle and look up at him in time to see him pout.
He poked your side, deliberately tickling you for a while. “That’s mean.”
“But it’s my first time too. And I kinda like it.” You said shyly, feeling your cheeks warm even with the cold night air.
“You think you could get used to it?” He asked, hope laced in his question.
“Of course.” You smiled up at him.
He smiled back and his eyes twinkled as he stared. He scooped your right hand and brought it to his lips for a quiet kiss then slowly intertwined your fingers with his, all while maintaining eye contact.
-
“AHHHHHHHHH!” You screamed into your pillow again as your head played that scene.
Sleep was so far away now that your adrenaline was so high because of him! You swore you could still feel his lips on your skin. It was as if he imprinted it there and nothing on earth can take that away now.
“Bokuto, stop haunting me! Let me sleep!”
-
“Now, listen here, missy.” The owner of the restaurant pointed to you sternly as she stood behind the counter. “Tell this boyfriend of yours to stop going here and actually get some much deserved rest! Athletes shouldn’t be tiring themselves!”
You chuckled at her actions and stole a glance at Bokuto who’s pouting excessively at the older woman with his hair seemingly deflating at her ministrations.
“But I like your food!” He whined.
The woman clicked her tongue, as if annoyed. “You can have better food from where you live. Now, stop pestering me!”
“I will come back here more often if you say that!” He smirked and leaned on the counter.
“As if! I know you’ll come back no matter what happens.” She rolls her eyes then turned to you. “We can’t get rid of him even if we wanted to!”
They kept bickering back and forth as you waited for the fruit shakes and other snacks that Bokuto ordered for takeout. It was a long drive back home and he said didn’t want you to get thirsty or hungry. You just listened to their banters and even though they were dissing each other out, you can’t miss the loving and motherly look the owner had for Bokuto.
“You’re a regular here?” You asked him as you settled on the carseat.
“I’m a fan of the view. And as you saw, I’m quite close with the owners and the workers. This is my safe space.” He replied and started the engine.
“When was the last time you went here?” You inquired, suddenly curious of his whereabouts.
“Yesterday.” He shrugged. “And the day before that. And maybe the whole of last week.”
Your eyes widened at his answer. “This is like two or three hours away! How?!”
“I needed some place to relax. And think.” He smiled sadly as maneuvered the car to begin the journey back home.
“Are you alright?” You blinked at your question. His voice seemed low and so sad in contrast to his usual loud and noisy screeches that you were so damn used to. This Bokuto in front of you was so hard to read!
He turned to you for a split second before averting his eyes on the road. “I am. I guess.”
“Don’t hide from me.” You bit your lip hard as you repeated his words to you. You wanted to know him more, to understand his feelings, and to make him feel better.
“Hey, you can’t use my lines against me.” He laughed lightly as he looked at you. Your eyes were begging him to tell you how he is and who was he to resist? “I’m just nervous about the incoming games, that’s all.”
“You still get nervous?” You turned to him, a little surprised.
“Why are you so shocked? Of course, I do! Some less nerve- wrecking than the others but I do always get tension at every game.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair while thinking. “But the upcoming match is a qualifying game for the Olympics so everyone is anxious.”
“Who are you against with?” You asked.
“See, now that’s another one of my worries. The competitors have still not been announced so we have to wait for a month. A whole month! What am I supposed to do?!” He said exasperatedly. “And just last week, one of our teammates got injured so they gave us time off. You know, to rest and shit. But I am restless and—"
“So that’s why you come all the way here?” You concluded.
“Yeah.” He breathed. “The drive gets my mind off of the anxiety and their food just makes me feel like I’m home.”
‘So he is human after all.’ You said to yourself. It was the simplest realization but it did so many wonders for your feelings and understanding towards him.
The drive home was filled with stories of sadness and laughter. You both sipped at your drinks and munched at the chips he bought. And as you both neared your home, it dawned on you that this was the best date you’ve ever had in your life! Bokuto’s so laid back and chill, kind and generous. He listened so intently and patiently to all your life stories and he had a good memory too, remembering the things you’ve told him about yourself in the past dates.
-
You sighed while sitting up. There’s no question that you were falling in deep for this guy. During the drive, he became his noisy self, acting all the spikes he did at the games comically but instead of being annoyed, you had tears in your eyes because you had laughed so much at his acting. You loved listening to him talk and you realized he wasn’t selfish at all!
Go figure.
Maybe you just mistook his confidence for selfishness and egocentricity.
-
You can’t believe that you were itching to lengthen the time you had with him. The car was now parked in front of where you lived and it was time to say goodbye.
Your eyes met and there was a tinge of sadness in his eyes which surprised you.
“Look.” He turned to the passenger seat and leaned closer. “I know that I’m not the best date there is and you may have been agreeing to these just because of obligation from your friends but… I’d like you to know that I—“
Closing his eyes, he exhaled. “I really like you.”
As the words were uttered, your body visibly tenses under his gaze.
Panic rises in his gut as he realized what he did. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“N-no!” You tried to swallow. “You didn’t scare me.”
“Then why do you look like you’ve seen ghost?” He chuckled lightly not giving up his stares.
Your shoulders slumped as you sighed. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
He nodded, still looking. “I guess this will be our last, huh?”
“What?”
“I know you don’t like me and you hate my company. I just really like you so I tried to drag it out for so long.” He said sheepishly as he deflated back into his seat. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and I’m so sorry if I did.”
This was not how you imagined ending your date. You were supposed to be the one saying that this will be the last. You were supposed to be excited about not seeing him again. You were supposed to go now! But the universe really did pull a reverse card on you today.
“Bokuto…” You started, feeling the guilt consume you to the bones. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that I didn’t like you.”
He was fiddling with his fingers now.
“It's just that your first impressions lasted so bad that it blinded me to who you really were.” Be honest. Just be fuckin’ honest! “I did think I didn’t like you but after tonight, you proved me wrong.”
His face looked at you in a flash, eyes finding the meaning behind your words.
“I didn’t know you could be like this!” You gestured to him, a little frustrated because your heart was pounding so bad and it became so difficult to breathe.
“Like what?” A smirk was beginning to form at his lips.
“This!” You laughed. “You’re fun to be with. You’re calm and reliable when needed. And just… yeah.” You’re just perfect.
You stared at each other’s eyes for a while longer, trying to read and drown in each other.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to give it another try?” You asked, hoping to god he’ll say yes to your request.
His eyes widened for a moment and his gray hair perked up a little bit.
“I told you I like you.” He smiled. “Why would I say no to that?”
-
Your phone beeped beside you. And if you weren’t so red enough from the memory, you knew that you were flaming red now.
It was a text from Bokuto.
Can’t sleep :(
You sighed at what he said. His anxiety about the game catches onto him so much that he often gets insomnia. The poor baby. You were about to reply when another text popped out.
I may or may not be outside your home.
“What?!” You panicked while swiftly looking for a hoodie to put on. Why is he here and why were you feeling excited at the thought of seeing him?
You asleep, little owl?
You bolted towards the doors and true enough, he was there, leaning on his car and dazzling in all his six feet and three inches glory. He looked unreal in this light even in his simple hoodie and joggers.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” His husky voice greeted you as you walked closer.
“No. Can’t sleep too.” You smiled. “What brings you here?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know what came over him when he closed your distance and hugged you tight. To him, you looked like an angel sent to earth only for his eyes to see! You were in an oversized hoodie, hair a little tousled, and your face was so calm under the moonlight. Something inside him prickled at the thought of being domestic with you.
Slowly your arms wrapped around his waist and you surrendered your weight to him. In that moment, he felt like he would burst! Never did he expect for this to happen, for you to give him a chance, but here you were. He deeply breathed in your scent and planted a kiss on the top of your head.
“Do you want to hang out tomorrow?” Your voice was a mere whisper when you looked up at him.
“Like a date?” He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows playfully.
“Yeah?” You nodded.
He wondered if you had any idea about how you're making him feel crazier by the minute. If you don’t, then that’s much worse. “What am I gonna do with you?” He chuckled, arranging stray locks of your hair.
“You can go on a date with me.” You laughed and he was sure, so sure, that you felt his heart do a cartwheel when you were resting your head on his chest.
“I’d like that.” He replied hugging you tighter.
It was funny to you that you planned that fifth date to be the last. It turned out to be the first. The first real date where you felt like a princess in a fairytale. It was the first out of a never- ending series of romantic dates because Bokuto Koutarou had no plans of letting you go. Ever.
--
Okay, wait, hear me out. Have you seen that scene where Bokuto and Akaashi were just outside the hotel and they were just talking all calm and casual? MA'AM THAT'S WHERE I DIED SEEING BOKUTO AHHHH HE'S JUST SO PRECIOUS AND I DO BELIEVE HE CAN BE SERIOUS AND MATURE IF GIVEN THE CHANCE. I AM SIMPING HARD HELP
Masterlist!!!
Reblogs, replies are appreciated! <3
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