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hollyhomburg · 3 months

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Before I Leave You (pt.68)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: Your time is running out. minute by minute, breath by breath, kiss by kiss.

Tags: Angst, Hurt (no comfort yet), illusions to past mental health issues and past domestic abuse, mentions of low-self-esteem, internalized shame and self-shaming behaviors, themes of abandonment, speeding, guns, violence,

W/c: 13.4k

A/N: ahhhhh so here we are! i've been dreaming of this chapter since the very beginning of the series! this is like...the ultimate chapter...thank you for giving me a little bit of extra time to sit with it! we've still got a bit to go! there is a little section near the end where the chapter will prompt you to click on a link to play kate bush 😂 if you feel like you'll be distracted by music in the background you don't need to push it- thats just the song that i always heard playing in my head whenever i heard that part playing.

Previous part - Masterlist - First part

Hobi is sitting on the edge of the nest sipping at his ice water when you come back into the nest room. Someone has drawn all of the heavy curtains over the windows and they pool on the floor at the rim of the room. The plastic pulled up too. The evidence folded and put away for later burning. Like a bad memory or a piece of clothing that doesn't fit right. Shoved in the back of the closet.

The rage and fear and panic are harder to put away. The conviction is not so easy to hide. You can’t put it down the same way that people file their taxes or their children's old scribbles.

You- like a child, have not been able to color between the lines. You- like a child, are messy.

You can’t stop yourself from walking over to him. Drawn to him where he sits nursing his injuries like a moth to a flame. You feel every heartbeat spent in his presence; every breath shared sticky like smoke in your lungs. Every second is savored and every second burns.

You want to ask him if he’s alright, but questions like that seem very pointless now.

Hobi’s not alright- but he will be. He will be okay forever if you do what you have to do. Now that you’ve decided it’s all you can think about. You rarely ever get to know that your last day with someone will be your last day, and now because you know- you look at him a little harder. A little longer.

You wonder what he’ll look like in 10 years and in 20. If he’ll get crow’s feet from smiling so much. If the salt water he loves so much will eventually grow into his features and make him look like something ancient.

You wonder if one day he'll get so many freckles that the tops of his shoulders will be permanently a shade deeper than the rest of his skin- Or if Seokjin’s sunscreen will spare him from the simple pleasure of looking like your favorite thing. Hoseok has always been one part sunshine one part everything else.

He looks pale right now. It hasn't been summer in months and you won't get to see him get all freckly and sun-kissed again.

Growing old is a privilege (you don’t want to grow old) and you’re reminded of that every time you look at his throat and see the bruises there (you wish you and Hobi could stay as you are- like this, in this house- both alive and healing- forever) but you can’t.

You can’t.

You touch his shoulder softly and his head jerks up, body going tense and then slack when he sees it's just you.

It’s quiet up here. The others are just downstairs and they’re making a lot of noise. Hoseok turns, setting his glass of water down on the floor, leaning into your hand in the same movement. It would be cute if he didn’t have black bruises crisscrossing his throat and blood in the whites of his eyes. In truth, every blink only convinces you that this is what you have to do. This is what you need to do.

You know that at any moment the pack is going to come looking for you. That they’ll all come and fill the room with their soothing noises and sweet concern. You're not too worried about finding the right time to slip away. Moonbyul’s given you 24 hours after all.

We didn’t get enough time, did we? I’d have liked more.

Hobi tries to speak and you shush him, he makes a frustrated hum of a noise. You sit down next to him when he tugs you, hand vicelike on your wrist. Your heart is beating really fast. You wonder if he can hear it or at least smell your distress. The whole house is a tangle of distressed scents; your rain, Yoongi’s ocean, Hoseok’s burnt caramel. burning burning burning. It disguises your scent. Hoseok can’t smell how you’re panicking.

You smile at him, and Hobi tries to speak again. unsuccessfully.

“Here your phone-” but Hoseok doesn’t reach for it, he doesn’t reach for anything but you. Pulling you closer to him. His thumb pressed to the pulse point of your wrist, where your skin becomes thin and sensitive. Pulling you until your thigh lines up against his.

The nest up here is the only place in the house that smells somewhat normal, still soaked with your sleepy muted scents from a few days ago (How long will it be until your scent fades from the house?) You take a deep shaky breath, trying to savor it. Hoseok bites his lower lip.

Hoseok starts on your thigh. His hand squeezes it once and then he starts to write. It’s slow going. He can only write one letter at a time but-

“D-O-N-T”

His eyes are positively boring into yours as your breath hitches and you start. “Hobi I-” he repeats it again, writing it out faster. You grab his hand squeezing it. But he pulls it out of your grasp.

“N-O”

You huff, frustrated and close to tears but stealing yourself not to show him your true feelings. How hard this is. You duck in low, kissing over one of the bruises on his neck. He jerks back, furrowing his eyebrows at you. And part of you is just begging him to let it go. You’re half sitting in his lap now all so that he can write out his distress on both your thighs.

“Alright- just stop.” You can hear the rest of the pack on the stairs. It’s getting late, they’ve done all of the cleaning they can manage for today. You can hear Yoongi on the stairway talking to Jin:

“Maybe we should just burn the railing, there’s definitely a bullet or two in it still.”

Jin’s reply is near hissed, utterly scandalized in the way that only Jin can sound. “It is mahogany Yoongi.”

Hobi writes on your thigh, a single tear trailing down his nose. He’s usually a little bit better at keeping himself together but the stress of the day wore him through. Polished all of his usually stubborn edges like the ocean polishes sea glass. He’s too tired to properly argue. Letter by letter as he goes.

“P-R-O-M-I-S-E M-E,” he writes across your thigh.

You have maybe a second before they’re upon you. You have to be convincing. Have to, or else Hobi might tell. You don’t think he’ll get in your way. You don’t want to think about what you’ll have to do if he does.

You dart forward, pressing your lips to his in a way that you don’t really feel, in a way that has him pushing you a little off of him. Trying to reassure him in the only way you know how.

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from crying and he tucks a lock of your hair behind your ear. His fingertips skimming soft across your jaw and your lips. Pressing at the corner of your sad smile like he can peel the fake expression away from your face and have you tell the truth for once.

“I promise, okay? I promise.”

Hoseok is not convinced. He doesn’t believe you all the way. But the pack is up here before he has a chance to write out anything more. Yoongi appears in the doorway, smelling of soap and bleach, a bit of it turning the corner of his shirt yellow where it should be black. His eyes cautious but so loving it takes your breath away a little. He treads softly over to the two of you; like he's worried about spooking you.

The moment between you and Hobi passes when Yoongi's hand curls over the back of your neck and you tilt your face up at him. And he interprets the glassiness there as something else. something more sensitive and more like omegaspace than what it is. you falling through space and time, you dying and drowning infront of him.

He probably thinks Hoseok was just comforting you.

Yoongi’s hand settles softly on the ball of Hoseok’s shoulder too. an equally as tender touch. Long fingers splaying against his collar bones, cradling a bruise there forming. Asking softly, eyes all dark with the anguish and apology of it-

“Do you think either of you can stomach dinner?”

As always, you say you can hot because you want to, but because you know it will make him happy to see you eat. You might not get many more opportunities to make Yoongi happy- you should take this one and savor it.

Yoongi loses that vaguely wounded look in his eyes with every bite you lift to your mouth. His scent sublimating into something sweeter as the night darkens and quiets.

You can tell Hoseok is not convinced of your promises when he stays glued to your side through the whole of dinner. Almost stubborn with how he resists Yoongi’s prodding and Namjoon's. Changing out the cool dressings on his throat and shaking his head at Namjoon’s suggestion that he sleep propped up against the back wall of the nest, where it’s safest. Eyes tracking your movements as you get up and brush your teeth.

His focus remains solely on you, even when Jungkook carries Tae out of the bathroom and places her among the softest things in the nest. When Noodle squirms his way out from under the bed and tries to worm himself in between his legs. Nudging under his elbow with his pink nose.

He wraps himself around you as you get ready for bed. An arm slung protectively around your waist to pull you flush against his front where you couldn’t squirm away without him feeling it and waking up.

It feels like buying time even though you're too distracted to properly enjoy it- the way they try to cheer you up. Everything that they do to try and make things better feels far away like a photograph- a memory just out of reach- the colors a little off.

Jungkook needily wraps himself around Tae and croons soft reassurance into her ear about how pretty her hair looks, how soft her pajamas make her. And would she like some of her skincare routine? Jungkook will do it for her, will pat it across her cheeks, and won't drag it under her eyes to preserve the state of her wrinkles.

Tae answers all his requests with a simple shake of her head. Eyes still frighteningly blank, that 1000-yard stare that you've all seen on your faces at one point or another, that you see in the reflective surface of Namjoon's phone in the nest, discarded and not charged.

Tae's scent is something awful- none of her usual roses and all cinnamon. Does Tae smell more like her old self because that version of her was always afraid? Or was being a boy the first thing she hated and that's why she smells like boy tae now?

You hate it. You can tell the others hate it too. Yoongi drags her close to scent her silly. cheek and neck going all pink from how hard he scents her, and then scents you, and then goes back again.

Jungkook can do little more than cuddle Tae with Jimin, his big hands smooth down her thighs, while Jimin brushes her hair gently- careful not to let the bristles brush her scalp. He's learned how to take care of her over the last few months and he's the gentlest when it comes to detangling. Not like you- who's so used to ripping through your hair without thought.

Up and down their hands go as Jin fluffs the nest around you all. Making the edges of it higher, and more protective of the fragile pups at the center (like fluffy duvets could ever block bullets. In his dreams- Jin’s love is enough to keep you all safe).

Yoongi and Namjoon are only too happy to oblige him with the nest-making and the general fussing. But in between Jin’s request for a hairdryer and another cold cloth for your hands. You catch them watching the door like they half expect some new threat to appear.

Certain things are harder to ignore; like Yoongi sitting on the edge of the nest with a gun balanced across his thigh. Or the heavy thud of a fresh box of bullets, rattling in their acrylic case when Jimin sets them down on the floor. The red shotgun casings lined up in pretty lines- just like Tae’s lipsticks downstairs.

You ask for one of Hobi's sweatshirts and Yoongi puts the gun away to go and give it to you. Hoseok fingers the edge of your shirt stroking over the meat of your hip idly. But every inch of him is taught like he’s going to have to grab you and hold you down. You lace your hand with his and turn to give him a look.

Yoongi’s back with a sweatshirt but it’s Jin who demands to dress you- to guide your fragile and freshly wrapped hands through the holes. Jin pulls it down around your hips with a soft huff before he gets distracted looking at the bruises on your back and side. From getting thrown back into the wall and from an errant elbow. Every time you twist even a little bit- they ache.

A tub of soothing cream that the pack usually uses for the more wanted kind of bruises sits open on the edge of the nest.

The pack moves about in pairs, here and there. Going down to the ground floor in sets of two. Unwilling to let anyone out of sight. There are guns everywhere, Jimin must have let loose his hidden stash of them. A shotgun leans up against the bathroom door. A handgun with an extended stock is always close at hand. There's a larger plan lingering here. You hear it in Jin's soft reassurances. Said hushed over your heads.

"Witness protection isn't as bad as you think it is Yoongi-"

"It won't work- don't you think we know how it works? That won't be safe enough."

"We have at least a few hours, we don't need to make any decisions now."

Jungkook’s scared voice, “Are we really going to have the leave? The house and everything?” A pause. A look is shared between Jin, Namjoon, and Yoongi. Jimin's eyes remain focused on Tae.

“Maybe bunny, we have to wait and see.”

“Do we have a carrying case for Noodle?”

“I think it’s in…” Yoongi trails off, but Namjoon answers for him.

“Yeah, it’s in the basement.”

They set about keeping watch for the night. those of you that aren't nursing wounds that is- mainly Jimin, Yoongi, and Namjoon- Guns remain at the ready and loaded. Jimin will go first, Yoongi second, and Namjoon last.

Jin tries but Namjoon nudges at his chest and growls in a way that has all of your ears perking up. The pack alpha’s commands can’t easily be ignored. Jungkook tries too to convince them too but even Hoseok shakes his head at him. No one is under any illusions of how fragile this peace is.

No one asks Namjoon to leave the Christmas lights on- but he doesn’t shut them off all the way- leaving just one string lit as a bit of a nightlight. None of you are quite brave enough to risk the darkness.

Hoseok stays close by, his hand clutching your wrist more often than not. Even when the pack settles in for sleep. He wraps his arm around your waist and settles in behind you, caging you in.

(Hoseok’s arms are not the prettiest cage you’ve ever been in but they are the cage you’ve liked the most. You think you’ll miss his arms and his hands. They’re so pretty and long, you lean down and kiss one where it’s gripping the nest and he makes a small noise in surprise that quickly gets swallowed by the hungry quiet.)

The quiet is very hungry, every brush of fabric against skin, every slight movement of the pack sets you a bit on edge. You think it will be hard to sleep- wound up as you are.

You don’t think you're even tired until your head hits the pillow and you have to struggle to stay awake. You want to stay up and listen to the sound of your pack, their soft and measured breathing, the sound of kisses shared above your head, the feel and safety of being in the nest. You want to commit the rhythm of them to memory.

Hoseok’s soft rasping breath on the nape of your neck evens out the more that his swelling goes down. It goes from hissing to more of a squeak as the night settles. Tae shakes through her aforementioned panic attack with all of you piled around her. You get your hand on her ankle at least.

Yoongi and Jimin’s shushing is the only punctuating sound in the half-light. Because what can you say besides sweet nothings when you know she has a perfectly valid reason to fear falling asleep?

You savor every little twitch of their trauma-worn bodies as you flit in and out of an uneasy sleep. Every slight sigh and hand on you rousing you. Jungkook, brushing his fingers through your hair. Hobi, pressed along your back like a second skin shifting and trying to tilt his neck to a more comfortable angle.

You get too hot with Hobi wrapped around you like that, eventually tugging at his sweatshirt that you wear and almost purring when kind gentle hands help detangle you from it with a soothing little shush sound so that you hardly have to wake. Yoongi, around midnight.

Yoongi’s thin but strong fingers rub a soothing touch along your jaw. Soothing away a small sad noise you make that has him curling around your front. The sound of Namjoon's low voice as he says something to your mate and then takes his place at the helm of the nest to stand guard.

“It’s okay pup, I’m here- I’m not going to let anything happen to you- not now- not ever.”

It’s unfortunate, but Namjoon can’t let Tae sleep for more than half an hour before checking her pupillary responses, making sure that her brain isn’t swelling. Concussions are no joke and Namjoon does not take chances with his prettiest alpha. He sends her back off to dreamland with a comforting scent mark and a soothing grumble. After the 5th hour when the risks turn nominal, he decides to just let her sleep.

But Hoseok doesn’t sleep, he can’t really. The pain keeps him awake and what with the way that his neck is injured he can’t find a comfortable position. He shifts and settles the whole night. Keeping you close with that arm around your waist every time you squirm so much as an inch away.

He’s restless until Namjoon gets up to get one of Jimin’s painkillers.

He’s resistant even then, half asleep still fighting. Trying to move away and shaking his head at Namjoon. Namjoon mistakes his unwillingness for simple fussiness and not for fear. If Hobi falls asleep it will be substantially easier to slip away- you watch from below as Namjoon props hobi up and pinches his jaw to make him open his mouth, encouraging the alpha to show his tongue with a prod of those gentle hands. His eyes are barely open, exhausted as he is.

“I know it hurts to swallow Hobi but you’ve got too.” Regardless of his shaken head, Namjoon insistently nudges his mouth with it. Soothing his gag with a stroke of his thumb down Hoseok’s Addams apple. A kiss to his lips for being good.

“This will help the swelling go down, you’ll be okay by morning.”

It’s minutes before they take effect. Slowly- Hoseok’s arm melts away from your stomach. His grip on you slackens from the drugs and his breath evens out. You say a quiet goodbye to him in your head and turn around to face him and kiss his forehead.

At least the last time you touch, it’s soft like that. At least the last time you touch him- it’s gentle.

Yoongi, Jimin, and Namjoon trade-off. A gun shared between the two of them. Perched on the edge of the nest. Eyes on the vacant stairway Infront of them. Listening for every creek and whisper met with a held breath and hand tightening around the gun. Waiting for the violence that you can all feel coming.

You won’t let it hit them; you won’t let it into this house again. Not while you’re still breathing.

When you're sure that Hobi is asleep you roll onto your back and stare up at the Christmas lights twinkling in the dark. You remember watching Jungkook hang them for you. You remember. You'll always try to remember; you promise yourself right then and there that you'll never let the memory slip away. No matter what happens.

You look over at Kookie, face so peaceful in sleep, a pillow hugged to his chest belly down in the nest, cheek squished close to the top of Yoongi's head on your other side. His back rising and falling.

Jungkook has always been a pretty omega. You reach over to him to stroke down the stiff bridge of his nose, to commit his face to memory. When you turn back to Hobi, you do the same, touching across the heart shape of his mouth, the subtle roundness in his cheeks everything. You look around at all of them- your pack, sleeping softly- sleeping safely. Namjoon's wide back, his shoulders that could hold the world up. Unaware that you're watching him.

You’ll remember all of it, every car ride, every trip to the beach. Every joke and jab. You’ll store each of the memories like a found thing in your pocket. A piece of seashell or sea glass.

You’ll take Jungkook’s laughter and store it- a memory to use when you need to remember that it’s okay to be young for a minute more. When you need to look after yourself you’ll remember how Jin did it and follow his example. And when you need to rest and be soft you'll remember yoongi. You’ll remember Tae like a tube of lipstick and see her every day in the color pink. And Jimin-

Jimin has a hard time sleeping. Even when Namjoon takes the last shift. He sleeps with one hand on a gun, spaced protectively in front of Tae. His bad arm unfolded from his sling. Putting his body between her and the staircase. Namjoon’s heart pulses dully with the knowledge of that when he glances back, just to check and make sure that Tae and Hobi are still breathing. You hide your open eyes from him when he turns, going extra still and feigning sleep.

Namjoon tamps down on his instincts; the last thing he wants is for his scent to go sour and possibly rouse them. But in the quiet, Namjoon's mind has too much room to fan out and overanalyze. Panic is a particularly alluring drug, his mind festers in it. Rolling around in bad ideas the way that Noodle would roll around in a puddle of catnip.

If he got the pack together, put you all in cars, and drove you far far away from here would that be enough to keep you all safe from harm? Or would that only be temporary? Is temporary safety worse when you know what you have to come back to? Or should he just try to talk to these people, barter with them something. Would money be enough? How much wouldn't Namjoon give?

You are dreadfully similar to him. Only his planning stays in its infancy stage.

It isn’t all silent. Noises punctuate the night here and there. Namjoon is so on edge that he all but snaps his teeth at the shadows. An alpha on alert.

Namjoon’s ears perk up at every car that dares to drive by your narrow street, the neighbor two houses to the left who leaves for work in the city at 4:05 every morning, right on time. Noodle and the sound of his scrabbly little paws on the stairs, zooming up and down them until Namjoon gets up to scruff him too.

Your freaking cat does not like Namjoon on a normal day, he's only ever loved you and Hobi and tolerated Tae and Jungkook- condemning all the rest to hisses and claws, but Noodle settles with Namjoon's hand on the back of his neck. "See, that wasn't too hard was it?"

Noodle gives one last half-hearted hiss as Namjoon places him gently in the nest where he stays put after curled up around Tae’s head like a fluffy little hat. Purring and licking at her forehead. All but taunting Namjoon with his yellow eyes. Flinty and knowing in the darkness. Bushy tail flailing every time the alpha glances back.

You think you’re being quiet when you push yourself up onto your hands and knees. Untangling Hobi’s arm from around your waist and pulling yourself to the edge of the bed. He's out cold from the painkillers. Barely even stirring.

Noodle stirs however, darting from the nest with a small murr sound as if to say, "see- she's awake so why can't I be?" Tail raised high as he prances to the doorway.

You look striking in the half darkness, a pair of Yoongi’s green flannel pajama pants rolled up several times to fit properly around your hips. A thin white tank top that's almost falling down one shoulder. Namjoon’s heart pulses dully with the need to hold, the need to protect. He makes a soft noise in his throat and your head jerks in his direction.

You swallow, and your lips look dry, eyes glassy and innocent in their tilt when your mussed hair fluffs over your shoulder. Messy from where Hobi was nuzzling it in his sleep.

“I was just getting a glass of water.”

Namjoon wordlessly holds his hand out to help you get out of the nest without teetering or disturbing the others. Noodle dashes back down the stairs with a soft meow. Tae sighs and re-settles, smacking her lips and Jimin’s arm tightens. Your mate turns face up in the nest, chest rising and falling, mouth opening like he can taste your scent on the air.

Namjoon doesn't doubt he can, honed in on you and focused as he always is.

Namjoon doesn’t let go of your hand when your feet find the smooth floor. Instead, he checks the wounds on your hands and verifies that they’re clotting. The margins slotted together properly for minimal scarring (he'd redone the glue-suture after your shower with only gentle scolding). He presses a kiss to the bandages after they're re-fastened. Letting his lips linger there for a second.

Namjoon has always had big hands, warm and steadying as they cradle yours. Small and chapped and scarred.

Instead of continuing on downstairs, you linger for a second by Namjoon’s side. Eating up every breath he breathes, his scent, and the comfort of having him nearby. Something you know you won’t have forever. (Somehow- you know that this will be the last time that Namjoon holds you. You can wait one minute more. You can give him one more minute). He sets the gun to the side and pulls you between his legs.

“Joonie?” You ask.

Your pack alpha wraps his arms around your waist and nuzzles forward, rubbing his spiky head across your midriff. Nose nudging the dimple of your belly button and the slight pudge there with a quiet happy growl.

Namjoon will never not be happy that he can see the evidence of the pack’s love on you. Will never not feel proud of you and how far you've come. He nuzzles, resisting the temptation to bite and nip with a breath let out through clenched teeth.

Namjoon feels your quiet laugh against his cheek. Your warm soft skin swelling with laughter. Namjoon’s face is blushing red when he pulls back to look at you in the darkness. Corralled in the safe circle of his arms, fingers digging into your hips and squeezing.

“What are you doing alpha?”

“Just thinking- just-” Namjoon’s voice gets so much lower in the nighttime, it's a gravely growl. A sound that paints pictures of lightning and clouds hovering low like a blanket.

“When all of this is over, I want to go somewhere new.” Namjoon's hands tighten on your waist. fingers pressing to either side of your spine, thumbs sitting on the soft bones of your hips. “-With you. Just you. Just the two of us. Maybe.” Namjoon fights back a fresh blush at the confused cock of your head. “Maybe- like- a fancy Airbnb? Or something? Would that be fun? Would you like that?”

You pause, humming. Indulging Namjoon in this as he holds you, fingers rubbing endlessly up and down the sensitive small of your back. Eyes wide and imploring like a child.

You're only too happy to forget for a second and imagine. What would happen if you didn’t leave tonight? What would happen if you found some way out of this?

It’s easy to go further than just thinking about a simple weekend getaway. You Imagine far into the future; a day that you'll never see. A future with Namjoon and the pack. It hits you with such a profound heartache when you think it that you half expect to look down and see your white tank top speckled with blood. The ache so keen and visceral but-

Namjoon would be a good father.

He’d be kind and patient. He’d never snap. He’d never yell. For a moment that’s all you want to think about- not a stupid weekend but a lifetime. A family. A world where you’re never yelled at, where you don't have to be afraid, where nothing is hard, and even if it’s hard you do it together.

If you had pups, you know Namjoon would treat every skinned knee like it was surgery. Would never tell them to walk it off or say it wasn’t that bad. You know that he’d go through every tea party with gusto and stay up late to help them with their homework. That he’d struggle to say no but that you might never need to. It would be lovely- getting to give something small and innocent so much safety. It would be nice to have pups with Namjoon.

You can’t say you don’t want it, but you know in that moment that you won't get it. You'll never get to see Namjoon be a father- even if the pups aren't yours or are just his and Jin's. You’d love them all the same. What use is it to Imagine things that you’ll never get? What good are dreams like this but to tease you, just out of reach.

Namjoon nuzzles into your stomach again. His nose drawing soft circles just under your belly button.

You’d be a shit mother anyway. Too fragile. Too nervous. Too hurt. Too much of everything. You'd fuck them up just by being you. You'd fuck them up the same way you've fucked up this perfectly good pack. You've brought nothing but destruction upon them. The evidence of your wreckage is everywhere. The bullets in the ceiling, the blown apart door. Your hands and Hobi's throat. All of this is because of you.

You snap back to the present, swallowing down the lump in your throat. You’re gnawing at your own leg to survive. All things that bite cannot resist it. What good does hope do at the end other than to hurt?

You can't resist asking Namjoon for more, curled around you like a protective barrier to keep out all the world's hurts (or to keep you in).

“If we went? Where would we go? If we made it- What would it be like Joonie?”

Namjoon rests his chin on your belly button and looks up at you. Completely unaware of the longing tearing its way through you, of what you’re thinking about. Not just one trip or one year, but ten or twenty or thirty.

“Maybe south, to see the cherry blossoms?”

“We couldn’t go, not without Tae- cuz of the pink, and Hobi- cuz of the flowers”

Namjoon nods, agreeing. “Yeah- she does really like anything that’s pink.” There is a Tae-shaped smile on his face, you can feel it stretching your lips too. But he shakes it off, head bowed before you. Eyes closed against the image.

“Still, somewhere safe and quiet just for us, just for you and I to take a deep breath and-” Namjoon trails off, looking up at you. His eyes sparkle with the idea of it, all the little moments he’s picturing.

A private morning where he wakes up to just you. Where you hog his warm spot and his pillow in the chilly spring air. Your cold toes pressed to his shins with nothing to do but appreciate each other and take your loving slow and intentional. Your body and his body and all the space and laughter that you want in between. An idyllic picture of two young people quietly in love. Gently in it.

After almost losing all of it, he wants the chance to properly appreciate you one-on-one. The others too- but they’re asleep, and sleeping vessels cannot reply to Namjoon’s daydreams. You are the only one awake.

(In Namjoon's fantasy, he'll give each of his packmates a different trip. every one of them even if it's just the ones he's recently almost lost that have him thinking of these particular plans.

Hobi would want just a day trip. Namjoon knows the alpha doesn’t really like to be separated from the pack for all that long, a few hours sure. Maybe to some vintage stores that he’s been eyeing to the city or the botanical garden.

Seokjin he’d take somewhere grand and big and full of adventure, maybe to 6 Flags or something. Jin likes to be reminded that he’s allowed to be a kid again, that he doesn’t always have to look after everyone all the time. That he has Namjoon to lean on.

Tae, he’d take somewhere gilded just as she is, like teatime at the Ritz- or maybe abroad to the castle of Versailles. The hall of mirrors and a million pictures of Tae in pretty dresses, twirling. In Namjoon’s head- he watches her turn and flutter slowly like a top. Spinning and spinning).

But none of that is quite your style. You don't really crave outings or adrenaline or gilded things. Your wants are much more simple maybe- because you've always known how priceless quiet and peace is. Gentleness is all you've ever really wanted- not excitement or acclaim or ego.

“A little cabin somewhere in the mountains, a spot for just us. We wouldn’t even have to do anything, A staycation. A night or two.” As the world spins on, you are who Namjoon craves to be still with.

You swallow hard, lingering, still half leaning over him still. Letting him nose at your jaw and purr.

“That would be so nice Joonie."

You swallow, throat thick with something. You lean forward pressing a kiss- too brief, to his lips, Namjoon’s lips part and he breathes gently. You blink back the glassiness in your eye and hope that Namjoon dismisses it as the light from the moon streaming through one of the skylights. All white and black. Wrenching you through something that feels like film. You commit the feel of him and the sound of his voice to memory and then pull back.

“I really need to get a glass of water.”

Namjoon shifts to get up, to come with you, but you just laugh at him and push at his shoulder, he flops back onto the bed.

“I can go on my own Joonie.” He grumbles but stays put. Nosing at the goosebumps on your arms and leaning to retrieve Hobi’s sweatshirt from where you left it in the nest. It smells like sleeping pups and Jin. Milky and soft and safe. Namjoon’s body shivers happily when he sees you put it on.

You squirm out from between his legs. His palm stays wrapped around the tips of your fingers. They slide out of his a little, and then all the way.

“It’s not safe.” You heave a tired sigh, what he thinks is a tired sigh but is actually you trying your hardest not to cry. You lean over him to grab the gun from where it’s rested against the nesting barrier. Getting your phone while you’re at it and sliding it into the pocket of your sweatshirt.

“Is that better?” Namjoon grumbles but still lets you go. Sitting there on the edge of your nest and guarding the others. You look back at him from the top of the stairs and smile.

The house is quiet, with no creeks on the stairs and no winds blowing across the roof. No sound at all in the house beyond your quiet footsteps that Namjoon listens to as you go down the stairs.

Feeling every second of your distance like the sluggish beat of his heart, thump thump thump. Namjoon looks back to look at his pack. Their bodies curled and resting, so gentle in sleep. After a few minutes, there are footsteps on the stairs, small soft ones.

Thump.

“They’re so beautiful” Namjoon comments to you. Waiting for reply.

The silence gnashes its teeth, still hungry.

When Namjoon turns back, it’s not you standing at the top of the stairs- just Noodle with his tail raised high. His yellow eyes glow almost florescent in the darkness, meowing and hissing so loud it might wake the others.

“Noodle, quiet.” The cat just doesn’t quit, batting at Namjoon’s ankles, claws and all. “Noodle- hush.” He scoops up the fussy cat, but Namjoon’s only reward is some claws to his forearms and some more squirming.

Downstairs, he hears a sound that makes him pause. Instincts going from at peace to on edge.

Thump

The front door opens and closes softly with a soft click of the metal doorknob.

Thump

Namjoon goes to the top of the stairs, holding Noodle in his arms before the cat squirms and falls to the floor with a thud. “Pup?” he calls, hushed. You don’t respond. Only silence greets him, sated at last.

Thump, breath, thud.

Namjoon waits a moment, listening for a response that doesn't come before he goes down the stairs, Noodle nearly trips him on the way down, hissing and pacing back and forth in front of the door. The ground floor of the house is completely absent of you- absent of anyone friend or foe. The room is soaked in the blue darkness of morning that is not quite dawn. The white countertops are unassuming and the plates stay in their places.

Thud.

The couch still has its dark spot from where Jin cleaned it. The tangerines are safely in the bowl back on the counter shining like several small suns or planets. Everything is empty empty empty.

Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud

Namjoon checks the shoe rack. Your sneakers are missing, the same ones that match Hobi's and usually sit side by side with his. The spot where they should be empty.

Thud

Your wallet is missing from the bowl just inside the door.

Thud

Namjoon looks out onto the street and finds it empty.

Thud thud thud

Namjoon does not panic, Namjoon does not head out onto the street and chase you down- maybe he should have. He should have done any number of things. The sun is just barely rising turning the sky into that honey blue-green color and Namjoon just stands there and stares.

Namjoon is frozen. What kind of alpha is he- why kind of alpha freezes instead of fights or flights?

Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud

A few minutes pass and something must tip off the packmates upstairs- either the empty nest or the sound of Noodle yowling and quite literally trying to bite Yoongi's ear off.

The next thing Namjoon is aware of is Yoongi is on the stairs, looking pissed off, looking terrified. almost falling down them with the speed at which he descends.

He takes the stairs down two at a time, colliding with Namjoon at the bottom of them. He looks like a puffed-up cat, hair wild and eyes equally as glaring as Noodles when he shakes Namjoon, just a little. “Where is she? Namjoon? Where did she go? Where is my mate!?"

Is it Yoongi's scent- acrid and angry- that knocks him out of his stupor? Or is it the top of his ruffled head almost colliding with the bottom of Namjoon’s jaw when the beta shakes him again.

Namjoon stutters, panic making him inarticulate. So scared he repeats it twice. "I don't know- I don't know, I- she said she was just getting a glass of water. I swear-"

Yoongi's fists tangle in the front of Namjoon's shirt. He sounds sick with it. Voice twisting in pitch.

"You were supposed to keep an eye on her- you weren't supposed to let her out of your fucking sight.”

There are other people on the stairs, roused by the sound of raised voices. A lone light flicked on sends everyone into yellow chiaroscuro. Namjoon is still staring at the street, heart thundering quicker than your footsteps as you run. The streetlights wink out behind you as you go. Fleeing with the night and bowing under the weight of oncoming daylight. Running as fast as your body can carry you.

Could he catch up if he started running now?

It's Jungkook, his dark hair pushed up at the side where it rested against the nest, who asks, “What happened?What’s going on?”

Tae’s eyes dart between Yoongi and Namjoon, her pink silk dressing gown wrapped tight around her shoulders. “Where’s the pup?”

"Yeah Namjoon, where the fuck is my mate??" Yoongi grits his teeth, shaking Namjoon so hard it almost knocks him off his feet and sends him careening a little into the narrow dresser table that the pack keeps by the door for gloves and mittens and keys and wallets.

“I don’t know, I don’t-"

Jungkook and Tae have just spilled out from the stairs into the entryway when Yoongi’s hands hit his shoulders, pushing and then digging into Namjoon’s skin. He’s shaking so hard he can hardly speak.

“You were supposed to be watching her. You were supposed to make sure she was safe-”

“Yoongi- hey- Stop” Tae’s not shaking anymore when gets her hands on his shoulders pulling him away from namjoon where he simmers. Jin is still asleep upstairs. Hasn’t been roused by all the tense voices. Too tired from yesterday- from staying up to scrub blood with Yoongi.

Jungkook skitters to the door as Jimin and hobi descend the steps. nearly bouncing on his heels as he opens the front door letting in a gush of cold air. “What are we waiting for? lets go."

Yoongi's face crumples. “I don’t get it, where did she go- why would she have-”

Hoseok swallows but talks softly, the swelling’s gone down enough even though the bruises look a million times worst in the sunlight streaming through the window. It’s not even 6am yet. His soft hiss is gentle, but the pack pauses to hear it.

“A deal- I think she made a deal.”

It's the first words he’s been able to speak since the attack. Vocal cords straining with every word. Everyone quiets to listen to Hobi. Jimin’s got the shotgun in his hands. He leans it up against the doorway. The heavy thunk punctuates the shocked quiet- but hobi continues.

“When the man was here- she tried to barter our lives with hers." Everyone looks to Tae. And her eyes lower to the floor.

“She did say that but I didn’t think she was serious, I just thought-”

The conversation is a flurry, everyone talking over each other as conversation explodes. Yoongi's face twists from devastated to enraged. “Jesus fucking Christ- that stupid stupid-”

Jungkook clings to Jimin's t-shirt, “What are we going to do? Hyung- what should we-”

Jimin hasn't spoken a word yet, and softly draws Jungkook's hands away from his shirt. “Where would she even have even gone?"

“Did someone pick her up?” Hobi’s words seem to ring out, even though his voice is so fragile.

Namjoon shakes his head. “No- I was listening, I didn’t hear any car in the road- not for like the whole hour.”

“So, you were listening enough to hear the street but not to stop her from literally walking away from us, great. Good to know Namjoon.”

“Yoongi that is like- the opposite of helpful.”

“There's still the matter of where would she have gone. She didn't take a car-” Hoseok looks up in Tae’s direction. She sees the realization light across his face.

“Hobi?”

But Hoseok ignores her, lurching to the small cabinet by the front door; the pack’s drop-off points for their keys, their wallets and your fuzzy little purse from your first ever date with jimin and tae as well as a good slice of Tae’s collection of little red pocketbooks. They keep their things this way because Namjoon loses his keys at least once a month a nd having a communal spot always helps the general disorder of having 8 people live in one house.

Hoseok scrambles not for your wallet but for his.

He reaches for his wallet. Opening it and searching but-

The train ticket is gone.

Your train ticket- the one that you gave Hobi for safekeeping so many months ago is missing from where he usually keeps it in the last slot. Right next to that folded poem of Tae's and an old gift card. In its place is just a simple folded note, a new piece of paper that hasn’t been worn soft at the edges yet. Torn from the same pad of paper that Jin writes the grocery list on. Hoseok’s hands shake as they fish it out. 5 words that aren’t nearly enough.

I’m sorry, I love you.

You’d never told him that- that you loved him. Not after you’d had sex and he’d confessed. Not in the tangle of moments that followed with Jimin bloody and the pack breaking. You’d never spilled your heart to him that way. In the back of his head, he realizes that there just hadn’t been time.

This is the first time you’ve told Hoseok you love him and maybe the last. Hoseok’s heart beats quick. She loves me. Thump. She loves me. Thump. She loves-

Hoseok shoots off like a bullet out the open door, thundering across the porch slats. Too fast for the rest of the sleepy pack to properly anticipate and follow. Peering out after him, a little sluggish and a lot shocked. His socks skid and slip as he tries to arrest his momentum and almost falls as He doubles back for his shoes.

The rest of the pack stares down at him blankly as he tugs them on, sprawled there on the floor just outside the door. Hands shaking too much for bunny-eared loops. He doesn’t even bother to lace them before he’s lunging for his car keys in the bowl too. Nearly knocking over the table in his haste.

“The train station- she’s going to the train station.” He gasps.

The words you shared that night ring in his head, playing on repeat. Like a record that’s been scratched too many times. He’s replayed those moments too many times. He’s not sure if he remembers it correctly.

“Give me one chance, let me try to convince you to stay and if I can’t- then I’ll let you go, and I won’t tell Yoongi what train you took.”

The countless times you’d joked with him after that, the moment so light that Hoseok didn’t notice the weight behind them.

“You still got that train ticket?”

“Of course I do.”

Hoseok never thought that you’d use it. He thought that the ticket would have stayed frayed and pretty in his wallet until you framed it or something. Until you could look back on it and laugh and say things like “remember that night? Remember how it used to be before we loved each other?”

“No, I don’t, can you remind me?”

This is not that, this is not the future that Hoseok had imagined for the two of you. This abject terror. Suddenly Hoseok is unmoored, suddenly he is falling. Usually, you can see the end from a mile away. Is it worse if you lose the person you love because of circumstance or because they decide to leave on their own? Hoseok never thought you'd actually do it.

Hoseok thought your promise last night meant something. Later when he’s not so scared he’ll remember that he’s angry about that.

The rest of the pack explodes too. Jungkook doesn’t bother to put on his shoes- just heaves Hobi up by his shoulders and pushes him towards his car. Yoongi snatches both of their pairs from the floor and joins them. Cold feet on the small pea-gravel driveway. Jimin darts forward wrenching off his arm sling regardless of Namjoon’s protests.

“I’ll drive” Jimin doesn’t have to wrestle with Hoseok’s keys for long. Even with his hands numb Jimin is still the best driver. He won’t pull corners or care about hitting curbs. He reeves it with a roaring purr while the rest get in and looks at Tae in the rearview mirror. Standing on the porch looking breakable and not all there still. Her eyes on his have that same peculiar weight, the same weight that makes Jimin’s blood sing with purpose.

If there was ever someone that Tae needed, it was you. Not Jimin. He will haul you back from the edge of hell if he needs to, for her. because this is not the ending that you and tae deserve. Jimin will tear you from hell. Teeth and sin and all.

Jungkook has barely shut the door before Jimin peals out, reversing until the tires screech against the asphalt and leave dark lines in their wake. Tire tracks, strings of fate, shoelaces. He shoots off down the street and out of sight, knocking over a trash bin with a clang and leaving Tae and Namjoon back on the porch.

Hoseok knows the name of the station you were most likely to go to but not how to get to it. It's an 15 minute walk, maybe a 10 minute run and it's already been 8 since you left. Jimin points his car in the direction of the main road while he pulls it up on his cell phone.

With every sharp turn Yoongi and Jungkook slosh in the back seat and hit into each other. Some early morning commuter honks his horn at Jimin but he doesn’t even see them. The scenery flickering by and the asphalt melting away underneath the wheels of Hoseok’s red car. The small grey towns melt away, Break lights bleeding less than they should. The engine stutters and engages but no one cares about the uneven acceleration. Hoseok would total this car in a heartbeat if it meant getting you in time.

At the straightaway Jungkook stoops to slip his feet into his shoes, Yoongi holding his shoulder. The phone in between them slides on the leather seat, spitting out its electronic voice, overly cheerful.

"Re-routing!"

“Wait Minnie- go left.”

“Fuck!” Jimin makes the turn just barely, sparks skittering and burning out as he goes over one of those tiny reflective dividers. Hoseok curses every pothole for damaging their momentum and slowing them down.

“Are you sure? Are you sure that it’s this station that she'd go to?” Hoseok’s heart is thundering in his ears, beating furious and fast.

“Almost positive.” Yoongi holds onto the back of Hoseok’s chair to keep himself in place.

“We have to get to her before she gets to the city. Can’t you go any faster?” Jimin jerks the wheel around a flashy BMW. Almost hitting them with how close he gets. Jimin lets the speedometer answer Yoongi's question. Pushing 60 in a 35 and then 70.

Your note is crumpled tight in Hoseok's fist, a tiny bit of yellow paper that he unfolds and looks at before shoving deep within the confines of his jacket.

Yoongi is not looking at hoseok when he says his next sentence. Hoseok's not even thinking about his old pack, he's just thinking about the fact that you love him and he never got to hear you say it. Not when Yoongi pulls himself almost between his and Jimin’s seat and repeats the same to Jimin again, the same only different.

Thud.

“We have to get to her before Moonbyul does, if she gets to her- I don't know what I'll be able to do Minnie- even with the power that I have Moonbyul still has more-”

Hobi’s flinch is visceral, jerking like he's shocked.

He turns around to look at Yoongi as Jimin blows through a stop sign and then a red light. Jungkook winces and doesn’t say anything. Pushing Yoongi’s shoes across the seat. “Hyung- you should get ready to run.”

Hoseok and Yoongi look at each other. Hoseok's turned almost all the way around in his seat to stare at Yoongi- more specifically Yoongi’s mouth. He’s not sure if Jimin’s painkillers would make him hallucinate but that’s the only logical reason his brain can come up with after hearing that name- her name- come out of Yoongi’s mouth.

“What?"

Jimin's voice is deathly quiet. "Hoseok- turn the fuck around. If I get into an accident at this speed you will die if you're not facing forward to the airbag."

Hoseok turns back to face the road. Jimin grips the wheel so hard his knuckles are white. “Thank you.”

The sunlight is just cresting the tops of the trees. Dotting the scenery blue and yellow. Hoseok’s ears are ringing with her name.

Yoongi pulls himself closer to Hoseok, hands still gripping the headrest, the only thing that keeps him from bobbing and moving with the movement of the car. Eyes locked on Hoseok's face in the rearview mirror.

"I said something- I said something and you're having a thought."

"I fucking hope so-" Jungkook's quip goes unnoticed. Unnoticed through the volley of honking horns as the red car tares through the street. By some miracle, they haven’t passed a cop car yet.

Hoseok looks in the rearview mirror, at Yoongi’s face. Biting his lower lip. “It’s nothing just that name.”

Hoseok looks at Yoongi and all he can think about is how he'd never said- he'd never told Yoongi their names. Saying them or even thinking them reminds Hoseok too much of his own begging. What kind of alpha begs for an omega to hurt them- to stay?

Yoongi just about puts himself in the front seat of the car as Jimin breaks hard to navigate around a tractor-trailer. Riding on the shoulder, the rumble strips vibrating all of them hard and roaring just like Hoseok’s blood thundering through his ears.

“Moonbyul? Moon Byul-yi? You know it?”

Hoseok shivers, the reaction of his body route, unavoidable. Jarring. Trauma builds itself into your bones whether you like it or not. Triggers are not so much a part of you as they are a light switch that makes the worst parts of you turn on.

"Yeah- I do. It’s the name of my ex-pack omega.” Now it’s Jimin’s turn to be distracted, and he almost gets into an accident for his troubles. They’re silent for a second, Yoongi and Jimin look at each other.

“It could be the same name.”

Yoongi scrambles for his phone on the seat right as Jimin makes a turn and it goes flying. He finds it underneath Hoseok’s seat, hands slippery with sweat on it.

“Hang on, I think I have a picture of her somewhere.”

Yoongi scrolls all the way to the back in his phone. Switches to Instagram, going back and back and back through time, and then he's sticking it in Hoseok's face.

Seeing her face feels like Yoongi’s slapped him. Her face is on Yoongi's phone. Why is her face on Yoongi’s phone? Her hair is longer than it was when they dated, she must not have cut it since. But it's definitely her.

Hoseok feels like he's spinning, it's been so long since he's seen her face but it's definitely the one from his nightmares, the one he sees grinning and crooning false praises that have stuck to Hoseok's soul like glue. The face that he sees behind his eyes and sees in every criticizing comment only on his bad days. She's standing shoulder to shoulder with Yoongi, both of them in black suits along with a man that looks enough like Yoongi for him to guess that that's his brother, your ex-husband.

Your abuser and his and Yoongi in between them. Hoseok can only hear ringing in his ears, he knows he sounds accusatory when he snaps. "How the fuck do you know my ex-pack omega?"

“She’s my cousin. Are you sure that's her?”

Hoseok feels like he’s spinning. “Yeah, I'm sure.”

“I thought you said your old pack was all omega’s?” Yoongi knows Hoseok’s lore, knows it like he knows the back of his hand. He looks up, hair falling across his face. Hoseok frowns jabbing his finger at the phone.

“I did. She’s an omega.”

The dissonance hits him and Yoongi almost wants to disagree but then-

Hoseok watches the lightbulb go off, Yoongi’s eyes widening imperceptibly as he paws at the phone and Hoseok’s hand. The car sickness lurches in his stomach as he turns to look back at Yoongi, and the g force hits him as Jimin takes another turn Impossibly fast. The seatbelt across Hobi’s chest engages with a click, digging into his skin and the bruises on his neck with a painful jerk.

“Are you sure? Hoseok- you have to be sure.”

“I’m sure.”

This is all a game of leverage. A game of who knows what secret and what gets exchanged for whom. Yoongi spent most of last night wondering about Moonbyul's motivation, and now he knows why.

Hoseok is holding onto Yoongi’s phone, they’re hands gripping it together. “Is this who she’s going too? The one who tried to kill us? Is-” Hoseok has to swallow to get the words out right. “Is Moonbyul the one trying to take her?”

“Yes.”

Hoseok shivers, eyes darkening, scent spiraling wildly. His muscles trembling as he thinks about it. You and Moonbyul.

Yoongi pulls himself around Jimin’s headrest. Hand on his throat, digging into his scent gland. He doesn't have time to explain to them.

Only alphas can lead the family, only alphas can rule. If Moonbyul isn't one- that calls into question the legitimacy of her rule. The families would never stand to see an omega on the throne, she'd be ousted, probably killed for daring to lie. The families would tear her apart piece by piece and Yoongi would let them.

If Moonbyul is the person who hurt Hobi- and now she's going after you- that's two people that Yoongi loves that she's directly hurt. Yoongi is thinking all sorts of dangerous things. But they have to get to you first.

If Moonbyul isn't an alpha then Yoongi's just found his leverage and maybe the whole reason why the pack was targeted in the first place.

A packmate for a secret. Yoongi imagines the worst-case scenario; Don't tell and I won't hurt her. Don’t tell anyone and she lives.

How long had she stewed and festered- knowing that Hoseok was out there- knowing that he knew the secret that could lead to her undoing. Maybe she thought his knowing would never come back to bite her, and had intended on tying up the loose end later. Maybe she didn't know Hoseok had found his way into Yoongi's arms until after the old Don and Beta had died. She probably thought that they’d never put it together- at least not until it was too late.

Whatever her reasons, this has gone on long enough.

Yoongi opens his mouth, but Hoseok’s body is taught like a spring-loaded and ready to burst. His voice a near growl.

“Jimin, I need you to drive.”

~-~

Tae and Namjoon are left standing there on the porch. Namjoon left staring after them as they hurl away from the house. Running his hands through his hair hard. Thinking of what to do until-

Tae tugs on his sleeve, “Your phone- Joonie- you should call her.”

“Right- fuck-” Namjoon goes and gets it, and comes back to stand with Tae on the porch. “Come on- come on pick up.” Namjoon paces back and forth on the front porch, the snowmelt from the roof drips out an uneven rhythm onto the railing. the cold spray hitting his stress-warm skin.

Tae stands by the door. Frozen, a statue of Namjoon’s distress. Inside, Namjoon hears a voice. Jin coming down the stairs, probably roused by the sound of the car screeching out of the driveway and down the road.

“Tae? Where is everybody?”

“Pup’s being stupid. The others left to go get her before she’s like- really really stupid.”

Jin freezes in the doorway, fist rubbing his eye. He sounds smaller and younger than Namjoon’s ever heard him. “Am I having a bad dream?” namjoon's pacing stutters and then starts up again. Jin doesn't need him right now, Jin he can help later.

Tae takes Jin's hand and leads him to the outdoor furniture. The cushions have to be damp but they sit anyway. Tae pulls her knees under her and rests her cheek on Jin's shoulder. “That’s what I thought too at first.”

Namjoon almost sobs when he hears it- the click of the dial tone and a single breath. He can hear the thud of the train in the background, the hiss of pressure against the scratchy speaker.

“Pup? oh thank god, stay where you are- the others are-”

“Namjoon? Joonie stop- I didn’t pick up so that you could convince me to come back. I only picked up because I never said goodbye.”

Namjoon freezes, and he feels like the snowmelt from the roof has just dripped down his back. Growing frigid more with each word. If there was ever a question on if you’d gone willingly or been taken- it was answered with that.

“Pup, come home right now or I swear to god-”

“No! For once you’re going to listen!” You’ve only shouted at him a handful of times and he’s hardly ever heard you sound so serious.

"No- you can't-"

“Namjoon, The second you say anything to try and convince me to stay is the moment I hang up, so what is it gonna be?”

Namjoon goes silent and stops his pacing. Holding the phone so hard it feels like the plastic and metal might break.

Namjoon’s very being hinges on every syllable you say, Like the ocean hinges on the moon. Water tethered and kept from the shore by something as simple as gravity. Tae is right there. Tae is watching the driveway not saying anything with that same blank look Namjoon has seen on your face countless times.

All at once Namjoon is reminded of you in the summertime back when he first met you and trauma had you all quiet. Staring off into space in much the same way. Small and fragile and worth saving. You’ve always been that for him; worth saving.

Jin scrubs a hand across his face, clearing himself of the last little bits of sleep. He holds out his hand for the phone, but Namjoon doesn’t give it to him just paces right by him as he listens to you.

“I only picked up the phone because I have some things that I want to say to you.”

You sound more settled and less angry but just as resigned and convicted of what you're doing. Like no part of you doubts your choices. Namjoon wishes you sounded angry, that you sounded sad, but you don’t sound like any of those things.

“I'm not leaving because I think I don't deserve a life with you and the pack. I’m not leaving because I think that I’m not worth your love. I’m leaving because for the first time I know that I am.

“For the first time I understand why Yoongi left and why he didn’t come back until he knew it would be safe. Because when you love something the way that I love you, you’ll do anything to protect them. Can you really blame me Joonie? For doing what you might have done?”

You continue on like you’re not wrenching Namjoon’s heart clean from his chest. Like you’re not a hurricane on his very being- dark and thunderous tearing through him as impersonal as wind. Namjoon’s heart thuds and thuds and thuds.

“Before I leave you, I want you to know that if I loved you less- I might have stayed.”

Namjoon’s lungs ache, ache and sting and swell with words he can’t say, he can’t breathe. His mouth screwed into a soundless sob. He actually might be having a panic attack. He's never had one before- he's not sure if he knows what one feels like. If it's like this- if it's like this he can understand why people call them an attack.

It's frantic, like he's chewing off his own leg to get out of your words. The panic is so terrible. Namjoon hasn't been this scared since he was a child. At least Yoongi had the fucking decency not to make his leaving so visceral.

Namjoon is bent over, tears dripping down his nose, sagging almost to his knees. “Why are you doing this to us!? To me!”

Something jiggles the phone, something that makes your voice all warbly- Namjoon imagines you on the train in a window seat. Resting your cheek against the balmy glass while you talk to him. Staring out at the scenery racing by. Hurtling towards your future like a comet or maybe an asteroid (something more destructive- more appropriate for the wretchedness filling Namjoon’s lungs like tar, the desiccated bodies of the dreams he had for you and the plans he made with you in mind clogging his lungs and making it hard to breathe).

Who knows, maybe off between the trees and the road, you see a red car zooming, trying to keep pace with the train.

Namjoon’s heart feels like it’s skipping too many beats.

“Something Jin told me the other day got stuck in my head and I keep thinking about it, would you like to hear it?”

You take his silence for permission and Namjoon does not turn to look at Jin and Tae sitting on the outdoor furniture. They just sit there; they don't do anything. Namjoon wishes there was something they could do or something he could barter for your safe return but you already have all of him and all of him wasn't enough to make you stay.

“Jin showed me this little article the other day- a few weeks ago now. He can tell you it in more detail but basically, it was about these mice.”

Namjoon struggles to say something- unsure where you’re going with this but desperate to keep you on the line. At least until the others get to you. Drinking down your voice, the whisper of your breath, everything.

“They made like- two test groups, they wanted to measure like- willpower- or how long they would try to live before they gave up. It’s kinda dark I guess. I'm not a good judge of things like that you know.”

Your laugh is the prettiest and saddest thing that Namjoon’s ever heard. He wants to record it and save it for later like some hidden track and he never wants to hear it again.

“Anyways- they put the mice and a bucket of water and timed how long it took for them to stop swimming, to stop trying to live. They’d try for a little while but give up pretty quickly. Like- an hour. That’s how much will to live that they had: an hour’s worth of it.”

Namjoon breaks, shouting, “I don’t want to talk about mice I want to talk about getting you the fuck home!”

Namjoon can hear your smile in your voice, And no-no-no you won’t even let him fight- you won’t even let him snap at you and engage with it. Namjoon’s seen you sad, he’s seen you defeated. He’s seen you so hungry you could hardly hold your head up. But seeing you convicted of this punishment is worse than anything.

“Anyway- they just killed the first group for a baseline. But with the second group just before they died- just before they went underwater- They took them out of the water and dried them off.”

Your voice goes hushed at the end. The morning sunlight cuts across the top of the house yellow. The tree too- it’s early morning- Namjoon’s favorite time of day and he won’t be ever able to properly enjoy it again. Won’t ever be able to wake up at this time of day and not think about the morning you left.

“They let them rest and gave them some food.”

Namjoon feels like he’s about to have a heart attack, blood thumping and hitting against his ribcage. Bullying out the flowers and the butterflies in his stomach.

“Cuddled them a little.”

Namjoon stands at the doorway to the pack den. Hands so tight in their fists that they ache and ache. Namjoon’s hands have saved countless people’s lives before, and they’ve saved yours too- but right now they just hurt.

“And when they put them back in,”

Noodle meows dolefully from the door, swatting at Jin’s ankles and then purring around Tae’s. Namjoon’s knees are shaking.

“They lasted for a whole 12 hours longer. Because they thought they might be saved. Because they had some love to remember. They were able to last for a lot longer than they would have otherwise.”

His face is screwed something terrible with how hard he’s sobbing. How is it that just an hour ago you were safe in his arms, talking about getting away from here. Just an hour ago. It's still 5am a time zone away, if Namjoon got on a plane and flew there- would you still be safe? Is there any way to turn back time?

You only get to love people for as long as you get and not a second more. You get what you get and you don't get upset. Yoongi might have been your lifeblood, the air in your lungs and your reason for existing, but you’d still be that fragile creature close to drowning if it wasn’t for Namjoon.

“Namjoon?” You say his name once and then softer, a croon. “Joonie.”

He's sobbing too hard to see, “Don’t-”

“Thank you for drying me off.”

The phone clicks and disconnects.

Namjoon falls to the stairs, ass in a puddle but none of him cares. He remembers the first day he heard you speak, sitting on these stairs while he helped Yoongi fix the railing. Namjoon remembers the summer heat and feeling scared for you for the first time- because the railing felt so rickety and the last thing he wanted was for you or Jungkook or Hobi to fall. Namjoon is the one who is falling, hurtling towards destruction that stops and ends with his heart.

His hands hurt. He remembers laughing with the others and stealing sips of sweet tea. Nibbling on the sour lemons, sweaty and hot and dusty. His eyes feel like they’re going to fall out of his head with how hard he’s crying. He remembers that you’d poked his dimples and called them pretty, he remembers feeling tired after but fulfilled for it.

One scene in summer and the other in winter now. At the beginning of a relationship and now at the end. The stairs still creek, the wind still blows and Namjoon's hands are still sweaty.

Namjoon sobs loudly and it echos across the empty cul-de-sac gut-wrenching. People cry differently when they lose people they love. Namjoon has heard people cry like this after he’s told them bad news, no sign of brain activity. We did everything that we could. I'm so sorry. It sounds different now that it’s coming out of his own mouth.

He actually might pass out with how hard he’s breathing. Teeth dig into his lower lip so hard he tastes blood. He’s still holding the phone to his ear. “Pup- wait- I love you- you can’t do this to us- to me.” But you’ve already hung up on him.

The dial tone tears through him like a bullet. Namjoon should be bleeding, broken hearts don't hurt this much without blood. People don’t hurt this much without actual wounds.

Eventually, something touches his back, a soft furry creature that only makes Namjoon sob harder as Noodle bullies his way under Namjoon’s arm and licks at his fingertips. Before long there’s hands on him. Jin and Tae pull him up and onto the furniture. One hand in his hair and the other on his shoulder. Jin grabs his wrist. Circling it gently before he holds his hands and nudges them until they relax from their clenched fists.

Namjoon cries.

Together they watch the road and wait for the others to return.

~-~

(Hidden playlist ▶ Play track?)

“Shit!”

They miss the first train by just a few seconds. It screeches away from the platform when Jungkook gets out of the car. Standing there for a breath and watching it pull away. The metal thud screech of it drowns out Yoongi’s voice.

Jimin hits the wheel and growls before he revs the engine and turns, almost hitting a fire hydrant with how quick and jerky he backs up and accelerates. Leaning forward through the window to snap at Jungkook.

“Get back in the fucking car!”

Jungkook does, the door barely latching and almost swinging free as Jimin peels out of the parking lot. Slamming back shut when Jimin does a near 180 to accelerate back onto the main road.

“Sorry hyung,” Yoongi doesn’t need to reply- they all know that every second matters.

Jimin almost collides with a car stopped at the light before he drives on the shoulder, spinning around them. The train matches the road at this part of the tracks so it’s easy to follow it. They keep pace with it as Jimin pushes 70 miles an hour and then 80.

Jimin keeps the gas pedal well acquainted with the floor until they're going faster than the train. Weaving in and out of traffic back and forth, getting honked at and almost cut off several times. Leaving his packmates to grip to seats and their handles. Worried about getting thrown off but still- not wearing their seatbelts.

“We’re never going to make it! It’s too fast! We’re going to hit traffic soon!” The closer they get to the city the less likely it is that they'll be able to catch up to you. It's nearly early morning rush hour, another 30 minutes and these roads will be at a standstill.

“Hang on- let me see the map,” Hoseok watches Yoongi look at it.

“If we go to the next station, we won’t make it. But, if we try to go to the one after that and cut it off-” A look around the car says everyone agrees with Yoongi. Jimin steps on it, and there are a terrifying few minutes where Jimin’s driving skills honestly make them all count their prayers and promise things to gods that they’re already not fond of- but when they skitter and screech into the next station he hears it.

“The next inbound train will be arriving shortly, please collect your belongings. And remember-“

Hoseok is hot on the announcements heals. Sliding to get out of the car before it’s really stopped. “If we miss this one just go to the next station without us-”

“-if you see something say something.”

The train is coming- Hoseok can see the lights about a 100 feet down the tracks and it's moving fast. Yoongi almost makes to get out but Hoseok just shoves him back inside. Jungkook gets out of the car too, bolting in the direction of the stairs. “Hoseok-”

“Yoongi- Just go!”

There are maybe three flights of stairs up, then 50 feet across the tracks, and then the same amount of steps down. He and Jungkook book it up them. Making every second count. Hurtling through time and air. Ignoring the sore and tired pulse of their muscles. They’re clearing the top step and the train is below them. A silver bullet careening and destined to do damage but slowing down.

They bolt across the landing past the ticket kiosk and through the push doors. The train is stopping with a hiss of breaks and a screech of metal. A release of pressurized air that billows up to them warm carrying with it the smell of tar and city.

Hoseok’s lungs are burning. Jungkook is usually faster by just a little bit and would be on any ordinary day. They might be roughly the same height but Hoseok doesn't do cardio nearly as often as Jungkook does. Jungkook's the one who runs every day, who does cardio like it's sleeping and marathons like they're mid-afternoon naps. Who works out and hones his body to a lethal edge just because he can.

But he doesn’t run like Hoseok does.

Hoseok runs like his life depends on it- the same way you would run if he was walking into Geumjae’s arms. You’d never let Geumjae touch even a hair on Hoseok’s head and if- if Moonbyul is who you’re going to- then there is more at stake than just your phsyical safety, too much at stake for Hoseok to be held back by his body.

Hoseok thinks of the tiramisu. Of walking with you on the beach. Of making your nightime stacks just the way you like it. Of holding you that one time you almost fell into the water. Telling you that you had to be careful. Hoseok remembers driving out in his car, tugging your seatbelt to make sure it fit snug. Standing with you side by side in the flower refrigerators at work and the feeling the first time you’d rubbed your scent gland to his. Every playlist of his with your name on it, every song that you ever shared. All of that- she’s going to destroy all of that if Hoseok doesn’t get to you in time.

He remembers how small she made him feel. How small you were when he first saw you. He won’t let you get that way again. Hoseok won’t let you disappear.

Jungkook is the one who would win this race on any other day, where the stakes any different, but just this once Hoseok is faster. Hurling himself over the concrete as fast as his body will take him. Hoseok cuts through the air like wind.

They run, feet thumping. Bodies thudding, hearts and lungs delivering oxygen to their needy muscles. Beat-up sneakers gripping the concrete. Down and down the stairs, plummeting. Almost tripping and falling on the slippery concrete steps. The doors start to close just as they round the corner.

By some miracle of blood and sweat, Hobi's the one who overtakes Jungkook. The doors are closing and the train's metal shell is beginning to hum and vibrate as it makes to pull away from the tracks.

In a last-ditch effort, Hoseok throws himself in the direction of the closing doors.

~-~

Please Like, Comment, and Reblog! Every bit of encouragement helps me write the next chapter!

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Do i think that hobi could have actually warned the pack what she was planning to do? Yes. Do I also think that he thought he had more time to warn them and really wanted to sleep off his near death experience? also yes. Namjoon giving him drugs obviously didn't help. i honestly don't think he was thinking clearly.

this is one of those chapters where everything could have gone differently if they'd just been given a little bit more- but i digress- we all know life isn't so neat and tidy.

I can't not write thinking about the angsty alternative ending for bily- but you guys should know the namjoon/m/c scene...if things had gone poorly in this chapter- this would have been the last time they spoke or touched each other for 3 years- for those who are wondering about the alternative ending- i will NOT be posting any of it on AO3. Only on tumblr through asks! i'll try to tag the super triggering stuff but yeah.

when i think of namjoon and the m/c and their relationship- i think that what they want most for each other is to just see the other old and happy like- that becomes the foundation for their relationship. thats why it's namjoon who she thanks. it also doesn't escape me that yoongi is not in this chapter very much- this is intentional. just wait for next chapter and his anger! i swear its so fucking hot my god i really wanted them to fuck in the next chapter but i just don't think it's going to happen.

the og version of this chapter called for jimin parking hobi's car on the tracks and literally letting the train hit it- not derail- but just hit it. just to get it to stop for the m/c however i figured that was going a bit too far.

Me writing any part with jimin in it- "what if i added a bit of religious trauma to it?"

the line where namjoon talks about his hands hurting is like- directly related to me, because my hands didn't hurt all the time before i started writing bily but now my Knuckles hurt almost every morning. After writing for more than an hour they hurt. i guess when you love something enough it hurts you lol i don't mind.

the "you want a lifetime with them" lines are mostly a callback to like...grey's anatomy. namjoon's charecter is LOOOSELY based on mcdreamy of course the whole...neurosurgeon thing and i am 3 seasons into a re-watch so~ you will have to tollerate that cringeworthy refrence~

i've always wanted to structure a chapter around the thud and thump of a heart and yeah!! i think did a few back but i wanted to do it again~

i don't think i was very subtle with the hoseok train station and the train ticket parts of the story like- i think i forshadowed pretty heavily that it was eventually going to be used but! i hope you liked the big reveal.

how did you guys like the cliffhanger? should i spoil it for you when i've always said that bily would get a happy ending????? i mean...come on... we all know hoseok's gonna be fast enough right?

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mauvecherie-writes · 11 days

Text

“hi, it’s nice to meet you.” : k.powers

warnings: none.

note: a good ole’ surprise fic that I wrote in a couple of hours since his video is now a viral TikTok sound 😂. support the page any way you can girlies 😘 like, comment and reblog. this was supposed to be less than a thousand words 🫠.

w.c: 1.2K

It has been two and a half hours since you arrived at the event.

For some reason, the promotors really wanted you to come so they went out of their way of booking you a flight from your city to Sacramento and booking you a very suite at the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel. They had even offered to hire you a private driver but even, a woman who often didn’t say no to free things, declined the offer.

Instead, you had messaged some of your friends who were in the local area who had informed you that they were attending the event so you joined them. The event was a pretty successful one for the community. Celebrities and influencers alike would come from near and far to attend because of the safe environment it had cultured due to their strict rules. The event was a space for lovers and to find lovers, consent was heavily promoted and had security constantly surveying the space and the biggest thing you loved when the flyer was sent to you was the insistence to use your phone less and just be present in the moment.

The event, SweetOne, was working to bring back the clubbing culture of the old days with their own modern twist to it. An event where egos were left at the door and people met each other on a human level to connect. You were enticed by that (the $13,000 check for your promotion to your 8.9 million audience and appearance for the night was also a little push.)

So here you were, engrossed within the atmosphere as your body swayed to Body Party by Ciara as your friends cheered you on. The liquor had sunk deep into your veins and you were really letting loose for the first time in a long time. Your sultry black and gold mini halter dress sat on your curves, adding onto the sensuality of your impromptu performance. The bangs of your curled silk press fell over your eyes like a curtain as you sang along to the erotic lyrics.

“Woooo! You go girl!” Your friend, Nikki cheered you on as she recorded you. You turned around and held onto the bars that had been a supporting act to your dance. With your hands on either side of you, your hips swayed side to side.

“My body is calling you.” You sang as your eyes opened and by chance, met the ones that had been tracking your movements all night. Behind the brim of his cup, he was intently watching you with a dark glint in his eyes that amused you.

Your glossed lips curled into a smirk as you turned away from the handsome man and then you brought your performance to a close with your friends shouting for an encore.

“Next performance comes with a charge.” You winked at them as you stepped away from the edge of the section.

When you sat down, you couldn’t shake the vision of him watching you. He was a sight, himself. Chocolate brown skin with dark freckles scattered across his cheeks, a neatly trimmed anchor style beard sitting on the sharpest jawline you’d ever seen with your own eyes. It was too dim to see his haircut but you knew that his hair was short. You were also digging the way that was dressed. The light grey sweater snuggly fit around his long torso, highlighting his muscles.

The thing that captured your attention the most were his naturally pink tainted lips, that he seemed to lick very often. God, you were smitten and you had not shared one word with the man.

“Excuse me?” Your attention was called out of your thoughts and you snapped up to meet the eye contact of a server.

“Yes?” You enquired.

“The gentleman from across the room bought you this drink as a thank you for the performance.” The server said. Your cheeks warmly flushed before you scanned the room and met his eyes yet again. He slightly nodded his head and gave you a slight wink. You turned back to the server with a smile.

“Can you go back to the gentleman and tell him I’ll humbly accept his thanks if he brings the drink himself.”

The server smiled, nodded and then left. You eyeballed them as they walked across the room and back to him. They spoke, he bent down to get closer to hear the server speak. He was tall … even more interesting.

Then, he took the drink from the tray and began walking towards where you were. You took a deep breath as his height became more apparent.

“Hi.” The richness of his deep voice vibrated through you and settled in the pit of your stomach. You were fucked - you were a sucker for a good voice.

“Hi.” You breathlessly smiled up at him as you crossed your legs, putting your carved legs on display to his ravenous eyes.

“You said you wouldn’t accept this drink unless I brought it myself.”

“Mhm.” You nodded your head as you held eye contact, hoping to not let your attraction seep into your actions. “We’ve been tip-toeing around each other for most of the night. Someone had to make a move.”

He grinned and his white teeth shone at you. “I’m a little disheartened that it had to be you to make a move but I like your boldness. I like it a lot.”

“So, sit with me then.” You scooted a bit to the side, opening a space beside yourself. He placed the drink on the table in front of you and then sat down. That’s when you truly took in the beauty of this man. From his full yet neat eyebrows, his tapered sides and most importantly, just how pink his lips were up close.

“That was quite the performance you put.” He commented. And despite the shyness threatening to grip your senses, you rolled your eyes - downplaying the intention of your actions.

“It was nothing. I was just feeling the music that’s all.” You shrugged your shoulders as you reached for the drink he had purchased for you - a French 75.

“Your sentence seems to imply that you could do more than what you gave right now.” His eyebrow inquisitively raised up.

“Well, we’d need to at least be exclusive for that kind of performance.” You boldly stated as your body turned with your legs leaning towards his body. He let out a one syllable laugh as his head fell backwards. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. The length of his neck would be perfect beneath your fingers …

“So how do we get to that stage then?” He brought his head forward and turned to face you.

“Well, you can start by telling me your name.” He brought his hand forward, outreached for you to shake.

“Hi, I’m Keith. Nice to meet you.” You took his hand into yours and you couldn’t help but notice the difference and a shiver ran down your spine.

“Nice to meet you Keith. I’m YN.” You replied as you gazed upon his face. As he met your stare, the dark glint of desire was back with a touch of promise for more in them …

And your body and mind would be readily accepting of that.

————————————

reading list: @queenshikongo3 @dhlfastestlap @saintslewis @serpenttines-library @saturnville @hopefulromantic1 @cocobutterqwueen @bluesole16 @chaneajoyyy @emjayewrites @melodichaeuxx-lacritquexx @sapphireheaven @olyvoyl @lewisroscoelove @lh44adore @hellomadamebutterfly @scorpiobleue @qveenmelanink @tremendousstarlighttragedy @bekindbecoolbeyou @greedyjudge2 @itsapurrfectstorm @createdbylivingclocks @samiwzx @omgsuperstarg @peyiswriting @miyuhpapayuh @blowmymbackout @purplelewlew @henneseyhoe @perfecttrashface

#mauvecherie writes #hi nice to meet you one shot #keith powers x black reader #keith powers x black!reader #keith powers x reader #keith powers x you #keith powers fanfiction #keith powers fanfic #keith powers imagine #keith powers one shot #keith powers

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just-my-latest-hyperfixation · 2 months

Note

Congratulations!!

If you feel inspired by this combo and have time, could you write a ficlet using "I", 🍨, 🥰 or 😂, and 🔨?

Thank you!

(Apologies if you already got this ask--my device froze when I sent it the first time, so I don't know if it went through)

Thank you so much! 🥰I still remember your lovely comments on the mer-dude fic, so I hope you enjoy this little bonus! 🦕❤️🧜🏻‍♂️

Of mates and mer-dudes

Words: 996

Rated: T

Tags: summer camp AU; mer!Steve; established relationship; flirting; sexual tension; fade to black

Notes: Set in the same universe as Just add water

“Hammer.”

“Hammer,” Eddie repeats dutifully. Dustin spends two or three seconds trying to drive the nail in with the object he's been handed, until he realizes it's a screwdriver.

“Very funny. I said hammer.”

“Apologies,” Eddie mutters, chucking the screwdriver back into the mess that is their toolbox with one hand and wiping his sunburnt forehead with the other. “I think we've been out here longer than is strictly healthy. How ‘bout we call it a day and head back to camp? It's almost dinner time.”

Dustin scowls. The hair under his Thinking Cap is matted with sweat and he is red-faced and splotchy. An unavoidable side effect of working out on the secluded pier all afternoon.

“We can't just stop now, it's almost done,” Dustin claims, gesturing at their rickety construction of wood and mesh - it’s supposed to be an oversized fish trap, even though Eddie thinks it’s turning out to be more of a funky modern art installation. “This'll work, I know it. This time, I'll prove that Lovie is real. All those past times, it got away too quickly, but if I could just-”

“Jesus, kid,” Eddie groans. “You and your lake monster. You don't know when to give up, do you?”

“Give up?” Dustin scoffs. “If Thomas Edison had given up, we'd still be lighting candles. If Homer Ahr had given up, we would've never walked on the moon. I sure as hell won't-?”

“The fuck is Homer Ahr?”

Dustin heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“Only mission control's chief engineer, Eddie? Honestly, that's the kinda question I'd expect from Steve, not you. Where is he, by the way? I thought he wanted to help us.”

“No idea,” Eddie admits. “Lucky bastard.”

Dustin draws a breath, probably to ask what he means, but Eddie is saved by the sound of the dinner bell floating over from the camp grounds.

“Okay, you gremlin, off you go,” he says, pushing the kid towards the sound before another argument can break loose. “We can finish this tomorrow when we aren't dehydrated and grouchy.”

Dustin grumbles. “What about you?”

Eddie waves him off. “Be there in a sec, lemme put away your shit first.”

He starts picking up their scattered tools, throwing them back into the box. Only when he's sure that Dustin is well out of earshot does he collapse at the edge of the pier, naked feet dangling over the water's surface.

“Man,” he says. “That kid, right?”

There's a soft growl from behind him, and the barest of sloshing sounds, and a shadow falls over him. He only just manages to suck in a breath - knowing he'll need it - before a massive snout pushes between his shoulder blades and he goes plummeting into the lake. He’s dimly aware of the toolbox going down with him, and then the world vanishes in a whirl of bubbles.

He resurfaces to the feeling of arms wrapping around his waist and massive fins brushing his legs, and the sound of laughing voices - one human, one very much not so. He tries to glower at their owners, but actually needs a second to part the sopping curtain of his hair.

“So fucking hilarious, you aquatic asshats. I thought I told you to quit doing that.”

Lovie the lake creature just chirps merrily and dives back under again, splashing him with her fins as she goes.

Steve shrugs. The motion makes tiny droplets of water run down his bare shoulders and collarbones, bringing out his freckles and moles and tiny, glittering scales. Eddie wants to lick them. He has long stopped worrying about what that says about him.

“Sorry. She just wants you in the water with us. She likes it when the flock is together.”

His smile is apologetic, but his tail curls around Eddie’s legs in the water, fins wrapping around the two of them possessively.

Because, see, here's the thing. Over the past year, Eddie has not only discovered that his infuriatingly pretty fellow camp counselor is a mermaid and the guardian of an ancient lake creature. He has also somehow managed to score said mer-dude as a boyfriend and been adopted into the lake creature's flock.

“She never does that shit with Buckley,” he grouses, even though Steve’s words make something flutter in his chest. Steve's touch, also - hands on his hips, fins on his ankles. “She's part of the flock, too, isn't she?”

“Yeah…” Steve blushes, a delicious pink hue on wet, sun-tanned skin. Eddie wants to lick that, too. “But Robin isn't my…”

He trails off into an unintelligible mumble after that. Eddie wrinkles his brow.

“Your what? Come again, fish boy, I didn’t-”

“My mate,” Steve blurts, and the fins on his hips flutter excitedly under Eddie’s fingers. “Robin isn’t my mate.”

Eddie feels his mouth drop open. The water is unpleasantly cold against his flushed skin.

“Wait,” he says when he finally remembers how to form words again. “Hold on a second. When did that happen?”

Steve’s face is still scarlet, but his lips start twitching when he meets Eddie’s eyes. “That’s just the way she sees it. You can’t expect her to think in human standards. Now c’mon, we gotta get to dinner or the kids will wonder where-”

“Oh, no!” Eddie interrupts him, mouth tugging into a stupid, wide grin of his own. “No, no, no, sweetheart. You don’t get to tell me that we’ve been mer-mated for God knows how long and never officially consummated that sacred connection. I’m gonna get a mer-divorce if you don’t-”

“Oh God, shut up,” Steve groans, and kisses him.

As he gets dragged off to their favorite little shore, well out of sight from the camp grounds, Eddie bids a brief mental farewell to the toolbox lying abandoned at the ground of the lake. He’ll have to make up some story about where it went when Dustin asks him, but that's a problem for later.

For now, he’s got other things to think about.

More celebration ficlets

#steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie brainrot #steddie fanfic #fanfiction writer #fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #just add water #hype's 1k follower ficlets

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illdowhatiwantthanks · 1 month

Note

Hi!!! I love your Amelia and Emily fics so much, I’ve basically binged them 😂 I was wondering if I could request an Amelia x reader fic where maybe reader is like 6 months pregnant with her and Amelia’s first child and has a bad history with her dad and her dad comes into the hospital with his new wife and her kid and it just stirs bad feelings for reader and Amelia comforts her? Maybe autistic reader? Thank you so much!

Thank you so much! 💕 I'm so, so glad you enjoy them! Also, thanks especially for an autistic!reader request, they're some of my favorites to write! Hope you enjoy! – illdowhatiwantthanks

The R Word

Amelia Shepherd x fem!autistic!reader Warnings: autism struggles, ableism, use of ableist slurs, overstimulation (the autism kind, not the sex kind), explicit language, pregnancy times (let me know if I've missed anything!) Word Count: 2.4k

Summary: It's a typical day working with a child in the ER when your estranged father shows up and makes you feel just as small and stupid and alien as he did when you were growing up. Amelia is there to comfort you and remind you of who you really are.

“No, Mommy!” the little girl wailed as she writhed on the hospital bed. “I want to go home!”

Her mom looked at you apologetically as she tried to soothe her child. You needed to get her vitals. Based on the mom’s description, you also probably needed to get IV fluids and an antiemetic in her. But you knew that wasn’t going to happen while the kid felt scared and overwhelmed. This wasn’t your first rodeo with kids in the ER. In fact, the other ER nurses often called you over when kids were difficult to work with. They called you the “bad kid whisperer.”

You knew better. They weren’t bad kids. They were usually just scared. There was a lot to be scared of at a hospital. And you were good with them because you understood better than most what it was like for your body and brain to feel so overwhelmed that you could no longer regulate your emotions. Being autistic was hard sometimes, it made you stand out, but this was a place where it made you stand out in a good way.

You lifted your hands to show the little girl that you were setting down all your medical instruments.

“It’s okay,” you said quietly, pulling the curtain closed around the bed. Sometimes making the space smaller helped. You bent down to her height, careful to keep your distance and not to touch her.

“I’m Y/N,” you said. “What’s your name?”

The girl didn’t answer, shaking as she sobbed.

You nodded. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk right now. Do you feel like you can’t breathe or anything?”

The girl shook her head.

“Good. Then all this other stuff can wait, okay? I’m not gonna touch you. No needles, no thermometer, no heartbeat or anything until you feel a little calmer. We can wait.”

She seemed to calm down a bit when she realized you weren’t going to make her do anything, her sobs subsiding to the occasionally aggressive sniffle.

“Here,” you offered, pulling a tiny tech deck skateboard out of the pocket of your scrubs. “Sometimes when I’m scared or nervous, having something to do with my hands makes me feel better.” You rolled the skateboard toward her, and she started running it across the rails of the hospital bed, her breathing starting to calm.

“Better?” you asked.

She nodded.

You started taking her vitals and continued the conversation. “You think you can tell me your name now?”

“Maddy,” she whispered.

You smiled even as you read her temperature: 103.4. Pretty high. She was almost certainly dehydrated. “That’s a really cool name. Now, do you know why your mom brought you here?”

“I threw up,” she told you, lip quivering.

“Oh, man,” you commiserated. “That’s the worst. I hate throwing up.”

Maddy nodded.

“Did you throw up just one time or a lot of times?”

“A lot.”

You exchanged glances with the mom to make sure this information was accurate.

“She can’t keep anything down,” the mom worried, biting her nails.

“Okay. Well, that’s okay. We’re gonna help you feel better. First, we’re gonna get some fluids in you. Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head as you gathered the supplies and pulled on gloves.

“It means your tummy is so sick that when you drink water, it all just comes right back out. And that’s not good because your body needs water. Your heart and your lungs and all the things that make you healthy and strong, they need water. So since you can’t swallow it, we’re gonna put a little tube in your arm and send water through the tube. That way your body gets the water it needs. And we’ll send medicine and electrolytes and all kinds of other good stuff to fight the sickness, too. It’s like we’re sneaking weapons past the sick.”

This explanation seemed to cheer her up a bit. “Like a secret mission?” she asked.

You nodded conspiratorially. “Exactly like a secret mission. But to get all that good stuff in there, we’re gonna have to put a needle in your arm. Just for a second! It makes the path for the supplies to go in.”

Maddy seemed to think deeply about this, then nodded. You had her play with the skateboard while you placed the IV line, ensuring that she was comfortably positioned for a good hour or so of fluid intake.

“Thank you,” her mom mouthed to you, and you gave her a quick thumbs up before adding a few reminders to your chart–what to check in the next hour, etc.

Maddy, now calmer, took a good look at you for the first time, from your glasses to your fingers that twitched by your ears, to your stomach that protruded out past your waistline–you were six months pregnant.

“Why are you so fat?” Maddy blurted out.

“Madeline Grace!” her mom hissed.

“It’s okay,” you laughed. “My tummy looks like this because there’s a baby in there. But some tummies are just bigger than others, too, and that’s okay. All tummies are good tummies.”

“Where’s the daddy?” she asked, reaching out to brush her hand over your stomach.

“No daddy,” you explained. “This baby has two mommies. His other mommy works upstairs. On brains.”

“Brains!?” she squealed.

You nodded. “Yeah. She’s pretty cool.”

Just then, the relative calm of a midday ER was interrupted by a loud, brash voice, bursting through the doors, yelling at the nurses at the station.

“Where the fuck is my daughter!? Middle of the fucking work day. Unbelievable. Am I going too fast for you? Read my lips, sweetheart. Madeline. Y/L/N.”

You froze, any icy stream of panic running from the back of your neck all the way down to your heels. You’d know that voice anywhere. It was an angry voice, a coach’s voice, the voice that had yelled at you to “stay the fuck in the bleachers” when all you wanted was to sit in the car and breathe. The same voice that growled at you to stop “doing that shit with your hands, you look like a r*tard.” The same voice that told you over and over that you weren’t “stupid enough to be on the short bus,” but you were “too stupid to function in real life.”

You felt your brain start swirling, felt panic building in your chest. You knew he’d gotten remarried, of course you knew. But you didn’t talk to him, hadn’t talked to him in nearly a decade. You knew they’d had a kid, but you didn’t know it was this kid.

All the ER noises, the beeps of the machines, the buzzing of the overhead lights–were they getting brighter?–the clang of instruments being set down, wails, conversations, and above it all your dad’s voice. Your dad’s voice. It was too much. It was all way, way too much.

You felt your hands start to shake at your sides, your body swinging back and forth, and you had to stop. You had to stop. Your dad would kill you.

He threw back the curtain, and his jaw dropped when he saw you.

“You!?” he spat, looking down. “Are you pregnant!?”

Maddy seemed oblivious to the tension. “Daddy!” she called. “Her name is Y/N and she gave me this little skateboard and the water is fighting the sickness through my tubes and she has a baby in her tummy and the baby’s other mommy fixes brains.”

You tried so hard not to stim, but it was not working.

“Don’t tell me you’re a nurse?! God, it’s a miracle you didn’t fucking stab her. You shouldn’t be holding any needles with those flappy arms. Probably shouldn’t be holding any babies either.” He shot out his hand and grabbed Teddy’s arm, which was wild to you. The audacity of the man to assume he had the authority to bother the trauma surgeon. “Yeah, honey, we need a different nurse over here. This one’s a r*tard.”

Teddy looked flabbergasted and deeply offended, but also concerned, as you clenched your teeth, hugging yourself, twisting your body back and forth. “It’s doctor, sir, and that word is not welcome at Grey-Sloan. Y/N is a perfectly capable medical professional. In fact, she’s one of our best, especially with kids.”

“I don’t know if you know this, but I feel like it’s my responsibility to tell you,” your dad whispered loudly to Teddy. “She’s got autism. She shouldn’t be handling tools or people or anything.”

Teddy pressed her lips together in frustration. “As I said, sir,” she repeated more forcefully. “Y/N is a perfectly capable medical professional, and we’re lucky to have her. But I’ll get another nurse over here for you. Y/N?”

Teddy beckoned you over, careful not to touch you, and led you to a quieter corner of the room.

“Who the fuck is that guy?!” she asked.

“M-my dad,” you stuttered. Everything in the room–sounds, lights, smells, all of it–seemed to be crashing over you again and again. As if you’d been knocked over by a wave and couldn’t get back up again because they just kept coming.

“You want to hang out in one of the on-call rooms for a bit?” Teddy suggested.

You nodded.

“Should I page Amelia?”

You shook your head. “She’s in surgery.”

Teddy pulled out her tablet to look. “I mean, we could just check.”

“Don’t bother her,” you repeated. “She’s got work to do. I’ll be okay.”

You made your way to the elevator and up to an on-call room, breathing heavily when you shut the door against the rest of the hospital. You turned off the lights, curling into a corner of the bottom bunk and pulling your knees up to your chest–or as close to your chest as they could get with your baby bump in the way.

You rocked yourself back and forth, thoughts spiraling. The movement and the dark usually calmed you down, but you were having a hard time regulating today, and nothing seemed to be working. Your breath just got faster and faster. And the fact that you couldn’t get yourself out of your spiral only made you spiral more.

You knew you were a good nurse. You knew that. You knew because you’d done it. But you hadn’t ever been a mom before. What if he was right? What if the baby made you overstimulated and you yelled or lashed out? What if the baby went to school and you went to parent nights and he was embarrassed of you, of how you couldn’t make eye contact and didn’t start conversations right and didn’t get the jokes. What if being autistic made you a bad mom?

You had tears streaming down your face by the time you heard a light knock on the door. It creaked open and Amelia’s head popped in. When she saw it was you, she quickly let herself in and locked the door.

“Oh, babe,” she said, watching your body rock back and forth in huge, aggressive sweeps. “A bad one, huh?”

“Go away, Amelia,” you hiccuped.

“Hey,” she said, jokingly. Then when she got closer and saw the tear tracks on your face, she said it again, quieter, sitting next to you on the bed. “Hey.”

When you didn’t say anything, Amelia shrugged. “Teddy said your… dad was here?”

You nodded.

She let out a deep breath, running a hand through her hair. “Honey, will you let me hold you? Please?”

You nodded again.

“Alright,” she said, waiting for your body to line up with hers as you rocked, then quickly grabbing you up in her arms, like she was catching something midair. “Gotcha.” She rocked with you.

“What did he say?” she asked, her breath warm on the top of your head.

“That I shouldn’t hold medical tools or babies because I’m a fucking re– I don’t want to say it. I hate that word.”

You felt Amelia’s arms tighten around you, and her breath came out in huffs. She was very angry. “As you should,” she told you. “It’s a nasty word. And it’s a word that doesn’t describe you at all, you know that.”

“I don’t know, Amy,” you whispered into her chest. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

“Babe, I think that ship has sailed,” Amelia said, running her fingers through your hair.

“Not my dad,” you explained. “The baby.”

Amelia was quiet for a moment, then you felt her lips press against the top of your head.

“Oh, honey,” she said, her voice soft. “Of course he’ll like you. He’ll love you. You're his mom.”

“But what if I’m bad at it? What if autism makes me bad at it?”

“Y/N,” Amelia said, gently grabbing your face and positioning it so that you had to look in her general direction, if not in her eyes. “Look how good you are with the kids in the ER. You’re gonna be an incredible mom.”

“I’m just scared,” you admitted.

“I’m a little scared, too,” Amelia told you. “But you know what? I think we’re gonna be okay. Me and you together? I mean, surely, combined, we can be at least one whole good mom, right?”

You giggled.

Amelia grinned at you. “There she is.”

You were quiet for a moment, playing with Amelia’s finger, with the edges of her scrubs.

“You know what you are?” Amelia asked after a bit, kissing your forehead. “You are smart and kind and empathetic. You’re funny and brave and you work hard. You’re my favorite person in the whole world.”

You looked away.

“Hey,” she said, pulling your face back toward her again. “I don’t like people talking about my wife like that. Even you.”

You nodded, wrapping your arms around her waist and pressing your face to her chest.

“Are you going back down there?” Amelia asked.

You shrugged.

“Want me to check if your dad’s still here?”

“Would you?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, standing and placing one more kiss on your cheek. “In fact, I’d really like to talk to him.”

“Don’t do anything that’ll get you fired, Amy,” you called after her.

She looked back at you and winked as she walked through the door. “Can’t make any promises.”

#amelia shepherd #amelia shepherd x reader #amelia shepherd x fem!reader #amelia shepherd x autistic!reader #amelia shepherd fanfic #amelia shepherd fluff #amelia shepherd hc #hurt/comfort #grey's anatomy #grey's anatomy fanfic

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waterlilyrose · 24 days

Note

I'm glad you felt well enough to write again <3. Do you have any ideas how Kate (and Anthony) would respond to seeing their re-decorated rooms for the first time?

Thank you 😊 it's nice to be back. Apparently all I needed was one good episode of Kanthony and I'm off again. Who knew? 😂

I think Anthony would want to make it THEIR bedroom - there's no way in fresh hell they are living in adjoining suites. Kathani and him sleep together in the same bed - the end. So the maids know that the rooms have to be redecorated before they set off for honeymoon. They just didn't anticipate how many letters from Lord Bridgerton they would get.

Make sure it remains light and airy with lots of natural sunlight - natural light makes Kate feel better. Rip down the old curtains - they are much too thick.

Keep the Bridgertons blue as a staple but have the designs of the room pay homage to her culture.

Commission a little portrait of Newton. Yes, that damn dog will probably be sleeping in the room with them but it will make her happy.

So many details that the housekeeper starts to dread receiving correspondence!

By the time they arrive back at Bridgerton House, the rooms meet even Anthony's approval. But it isn't one little thing that grabs Kate's attention - it's the fact it's a room that was made to her taste with only her in mind. She's never had that. Never had someone pay so much attention to her and made choices based entirely on her likes. Standing in the room for the first time... She can't speak for emotion. It's perfect. And she notices more and more details as the days go on (the bedding is precisely the fabric she likes and the little portrait of Newton on the wall makes her smile for hours - she even picks up the corgi to show him "look - it's you!") but for now... It's them. Their future. Their space. Their home.

#waterlilyrose #kanthony #bridgerton #drabble #tumble prompt

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pablitogavii · 10 months

Note

can you do where the reader is a ballerina and pablo goes to see her and he brings her flowers and he’s so proud and cute 🥺🥺

Bellerina

Pablo's POV

"Will you relax already hermano!?" Pedri was helping me get ready and I was very thankful he and Ansu agreed to come with me to my girlfriend's premier night.

"Do you think we are overdressed!?" Ansu came out never in his life wearing a suit which made both me and Pedri laugh out loud when we saw him. I really needed this laugh right now!

"It's a ballet premier cabrón! Everyone is dressing up!" I said and Ansu groaned rolling his eyes while checking himself out on the mirror. I took my phone out smiling when I saw the message from her.

nena<3: I'm turning off my Pablito..I can't wait to see you after the show ❤️❤️ te amo!

pablitoo: good luck princesa mia! i'll be watching you proudly and know you will do great! just be yourself and be careful please ❤️❤️ te amo muchisimo!

"Ready to go?" Pedri said and I put my phone away grabbing the tickets and we all left to drive to the theater together.

Y/n's POV

"Your boyfriend is coming tonight right!?" Sofia (one of my closest friends) asked and I nodded blushing red at the thought of Pablo watching me dance.

"I know that's exciting, but I hope you will remain focused!?" teacher added and I nodded smiling at my friend when she left.

After texting Pablo knowing I will need to turn off my phone to stay concentrated, I also posted a picture on Instagram hoping people would come see out show we worked so hard to prepare.

y.n.bebe

Tonight is the BIG SHOW! Who is coming?? ❤️ #ballerina

comments:

pablogavi: can't wait to watch you dance bebé ❤️❤️

pablitogavii: he's going to watch her!!??

gavigavi: now i need to go!!

y/ngavicouple: it's her night! 😔

ansufati: I wore a suit for this!! 😂 can't wait!!

pedri: we're all supporting you amiga!!

sofiabellarina: let's do this!

aurorapaezg: always beautiful! 😍

Pablo's POV

We drove first to the florist to grab a bouquet for her and I was looking at all of them unsure which one is perfect.

"If you're nervous, just choose her favorite flower.." lady asked and I smiled asking if she can make anything with orchids remembering your story how people don't appreciate water flowers enough.

"That might be hard..but I'll do my best" she said making the bouquet right there before giving ti to me and I smiled really hoping my girl likes it. I payed and we left to the car.

When we arrived, we gave out tickets walking inside before the hoard of fans could get to us. I promised myself that tonight is about her, and she was going to the the only one who will have my attention.

We went to our seats and shortly afterwards the show started. This was the first time I was in the ballet show and I had to admit it was a strange feeling.

"When is her solo part?" Pedri asked and Pablo showed him the program pointing at your name proudly smiling knowing that he will be keeping this piece of paper forever.

You always told him how proud it made you when you came to watch his games, and tonight he felt exact the same finally understanding what it means.

"She's next.." Pablo said putting down the paper and looking at the stage as the curtains opened and the music started.

Y/n POV

I said my preyer before the music started cuing me to walk on stage. I forgot about everything around em just focusing on the melody moving to it on stage feeling like I was flying.

It was strange but I could feel his gaze on me the whole time. It didn't distract me, the contrary, it made me more engulfed int he feeling of the piece and the emotion it portrayed.

When my solo came to the end I kept the final pose for a few seconds while everyone applauded and I was finally able to open my eyes meeting his brown ones in the close rows.

I saw him smile proudly at me and my heart was full as I walked off the stage. It was a new strange feel of accomplishment when I saw that he was proud of me.

"Y/n!" teacher called and I rushed seeing her smile as she pulled me into a tight embrace. It was very out of character for her to show emotion but I was glad he enjoyed my performance so much.

"You were..I'm speechless..also, this was sent from the audience for you darling" she gave me the bouquet and before even reading the note I knew who it was from..the orchids..he remembered.

mi amor...you're my special water flower and I will forever cherish and appreciate you. te amo! -your Pablito

You just blushed smelling the flowers while all your friends were cheering telling you how lucky you were to have such a sweet boyfriend.

Pablo's POV

Show was soon over and everyone enjoyed it applauding loudly at the end. Even Pedri and Ansu asked if they can come again some time and I chuckled nodding my head.

"We can take you backstage now" they came to pick us up and I was excitedly rushing to finally see her again. I couldn't wait to congratulate her in person finally.

"Amor!" I called and she rushed to me still in her costume which I thought it was adorable. She jumped in my arms and I grabbed her small body twirling her around.

"You were..amazing princesa" I said and she blushed before I held her face and kissing her lips passionately. She pulled away wanting to greet my friends too which I completely forgot they were there.

"Thank you for coming..I hope it wasn't too boring" she said and both of them shook their heads congratulating her which made her smile happily. She was so pretty whens he was smiling.

"You also look amazing in a suit Ansu" she chuckled and we all joined her before both of them hugged her saying they will go back to the seats and leave you two alone before the final bow.

"What can I say except..I am beyond proud of you..and I love you so much" I held her in my arms and she chuckled going up on her point shoes which gave her enough height to kiss my lips.

"Mm those are quite helpful huh?" I said and she chuckled nodding her head before I kissed her again pulling her closer and we danced together for awhile.

"Time for the finale" teacher called and she smiled nodding her head and turning back to look at me. I didn't want to let her go just yet.

Y/n's POV

"I have to go cariño..but we're going home together afterwards" I reminded him hating to see his sad face and he gave me a smile I needed to see kissing me one more time.

"I love you.." he said after letting go off me and I smiled nodding my head.

"I love you too.." I said starting to walk away and he did as well but then something came to my mind and I called his name making him turn around quickly.

"Thank you for the flowers cariño..they are perfect" I yelled and he smiled happy he chose right.

"Just like you..go mi ballerina!" he said and I rushed away while he returned to his seat with his friends.

When we came out for the final bow, everyone applauded and Pablo's eyes were only glued on my face..tonight was absolutely perfect. <3

pablogavi

Mi ballerina, you were incredible tonight and I am beyond proud of you. I can't believe I'm the lucky guy who gets to hold you and love you. You are special mi amor..so special ❤️ @y.n.bebe

comments:

y.n.bebe: this made me cry cariño 🥺❤️❤️ I love you so much!!

pablogavi: only happy tears are allowed princesa ❤️❤️

y/ngavicouplefans: they are so perfect!! always supporting each other!

sofiballerina: you're welcome on the picture!!

y.n.bebe: 😳❤️

belengavira79: perfectos!

pablogavi: ❤️

y.n.bebe: ❤️

pablogavifans: he's so happy! you're gorgeous Y/n!!

#pablo gavi x you #fc barca #fc barcelona #fc barça #gavi #gavigif #pablo gavi x y/n #pablo gavi x reader #pablo gavi #pablo gavi icons #pablo martín páez gavira #pablo gavira #gavira #gavi x vini #gavi x yn #gavi x you #gavi x reader #pablogavixreaderfluff #pablogavixreadersmut

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erathene · 4 months

Text

F*ck It (Part 1)

Summary: Strider pays a visit to the Prancing Pony where you are working as a barmaid, but all does not seem well with the wandering ranger. You do your best to fix it.

Word count: 2.1k

Pairing: Aragorn x Female!Reader

Warnings: LOTS of swearing and cursing, you have been warned. Intoxicated behaviour and alcohol. Mention of menstruation in a humorous manner.

AO3 Link: F*ck It

Author's note: Special thanks goes to the members of @fellowshipofthefics discord group (vamp_ress, prettea and spider__lilies) who helped me explore new ideas when my inspiration dried up 😊 Also thanks to DocFigureskaterM for being my beta reader. I tried a completely new writing style with this fic; my toddler son is starting to understand words now, and I have had to really watch my mouth around him! 😂 So this fic was born out of trying not to use curse words in front of a 16 month old haha.

Part 2 has now been posted!

..........................

The Prancing Pony was busy tonight. All of the parlours were crammed with punters, and the air that lingered around the bar was thick and heavy with sweat and drink and pipeweed smoke.

You picked your way carefully through the crowds, collecting glasses as you went. You didn't mind bar work, but it's not like you had much choice. You couldn't shoe a horse, your needlecraft was shit, and you had fuck-all artistic flair for floristry, so that eliminated about half the jobs going in Bree. You didn't have two pennies to rub together, so that ruled out buying your own land to rear livestock or grow produce to sell. Fuck it, tavern work would do. It kept your belly full and a roof over your head, so it would do nicely.

Barliman Butterbur, the Gaffer, ensured you were paid fairly, but it wasn't a high-earning job. It wasn't a glamorous job either; your days mostly consisted of emptying piss pots from the upstairs chambers, scrubbing the parlour floors, or wiping out the tankards ready for the evening drinkers. And drink they did. As night fell, the punters came, downing pints and pints of ale and cider and anything else that could be poured into a flagon. Some were regulars, loose-lipped locals trading gossip and louts one-upping each other in pointless contests to see who could win in an arm wrestle or a brawl out back. Some were strangers, passing through from abroad or travelling merchants wanting nothing more than a bite to eat and a soft bed for the night.

And then there was him.

You rarely traded conversation with the punters. The less they knew of you and you of them, the better. Moving mouths made idle hands, so your Mam used to say, and she was absolutely right because striking up a conversation with any punter would mean you had less time to get through all your cleaning. But you knew his name, Strider, and you knew he was a ranger. He wasn't a regular, though he frequented the Pony about once a month, and neither was he a stranger, for he knew your name and was on first name terms with the Gaffer too. He was just Strider. He was tall, towering over most men, with a mop of dark hair and curtain bangs that occasionally hid his grey eyes. Grey eyes that were never cold despite the colour. Broad shouldered, a bow and bedroll usually strapped to his back, and a large-as-fuck weapon at his belt. He wore a mottled green cloak with a hood, the type that you'd use if you wanted to fuck off into a forest and never be found again. Whenever he turned up, he had a ragged look about him, like he'd been through a bush backwards and had a good story to tell about it too.

You would never admit it, even if you were on your fucking deathbed looking at the lord creator himself. But if you had to describe your "type", it would be Strider.

So it's no surprise when your heart stuttered for a microsecond as soon as his giant mud-soaked leather boot stepped over the threshold. He'd been gone for a while and it had been months since he was last here. Not that you were counting the days of his absence like some lovesick maiden awaiting the return of her knight in shining armour. Fuck that shit.

Normally, Strider would ask for a half-pint of the local cider, take it to his favourite table in the corner of the bar, and settle himself comfortably, retrieving his pipe and tobacco from his travelling pack. Fuck, if there was a sign you'd worked here too long, knowing his exact routine was probably it. You readied a half-size tumbler as he approached the bar.

"An ale today, y/n" he said, placing a fistful of coins on the bar in front of you. "And make it a full pint, if you would be so kind."

That was.. odd. You did as instructed, like a good tavern girl, pouring dark amber liquid into a larger flagon. As the container filled, you noted Strider looked more roughed up than he normally did; flecks of mud clung to his skin and hair along with perhaps a fortnight's worth of grime, the filth on his palms and between his fingers would have rivalled that of any gardener, and you'd bet your last copper his clothes hadn't seen the inside of a washbasin in over a month. Placing the tankard down in front of the man, you took just one coin from his pile. "The ale's no dearer since your last visit, Strider," you commented with one eyebrow raised and a glance at his gold. But he paid you no mind whatsoever; the flagon you had handed him moments ago was almost vertical as he downed the pint.

"Another," he croaked, planting the empty flagon on the bar beside the coins that remained. You poured another from the same barrel. The second pint disappeared almost as quickly as the first, and was soon followed by a third.

Upon ordering his fourth drink in what felt like as many minutes, you slammed your hands on the bar and looked him dead in the eye. "What the fuck's the matter with you?" you asked, not bothering with pleasantries. His grey eyes met yours for a fleeting second before he looked away. You thought you caught a look of shame in those eyes before he broke contact, as though he knew he was getting a telling-off for his behaviour but he was going to carry on anyway and fuck everyone else. Very strange indeed. This was unlike the Strider you'd had dealings with in the past, who would politely ask you to share any tales you'd heard from locals over diluted cider and a puff of pipeweed. This Strider seemed out of sorts, as though he was holding onto thoughts and feelings about fuck knows what, and all he could do to control it was to force more alcohol down his throat, to drown it and make sure it never saw the light of day. You'd seen this behaviour in other punters plenty of times before. But not in Strider. Strider was always in control, always predictable.

You already knew you weren't getting an answer to your question. Fuck, you shouldn't have even asked in the first place. Another punter down the bar started growling loudly about the lack of service. Resisting the urge to tell the prick to pipe down and wait his turn, you quickly refilled Strider's flagon.

For the rest of the night, your work mostly kept your attention away from the ranger. The fleeting glances you did make in his direction confirmed to you that he continued to drink, and the more he consumed the more he leaned into the bar for support. As the punters began to clear off for home or to their chambers upstairs, Strider was one of the final ones who remained. When the Gaffer called last orders, the ranger had folded his arms across the bar with his head rested upon them. You approached him slowly, ready to take away the many empty flagons that surrounded him.

"I'll.. need a room, y/n", he said as you neared, his words slurring together.

You sighed. Fuck's sake, Strider. "We're full for the night, I'm afraid." If the fucking fool had decided that earlier rather than at last orders, he might have a bed upstairs by now.

Strider groaned in disappointment. Clearly this wasn't what he wanted to hear, but there was fuck all you could do about it. He made to rise from the bar, but his movements were completely uncoordinated, and he staggered sideways, catching himself by the edges of his fingertips on the solid bar. He glanced at you with a confused expression, probably wondering why the world was spinning and why there were six of you standing before him. You'd seen that look before in patrons who couldn't hold their drink. Seemed that Strider was one such patron.

Fuck. With every room upstairs taken, the only option for Strider would be to sleep on the street, and if he was lucky enough to find an alleyway that wasn't covered in pig shit and piss, he'd likely find himself mugged for his remaining coin or possibly worse. Bree was often subject to petty crime with so many people coming and going. Were you resolved to letting this man wonder the roadways until he collapsed in surrender to his drunken stupor? You gritted your teeth. The Gaffer would be locking up soon, he was already rearranging empty chairs and stools at the other end of the room.

You glanced back at Strider. Actually, the street was not his only option. There was a free bed upstairs: yours.

You moved quickly whilst the Gaffer was distracted. Yanking Strider's arm, you pulled the drunkard to his feet, catching his dead weight as he failed to remain upright. You both awkwardly shuffled to the narrow stairway that led to the upper floors of the inn. Strider was muscular and well-built, and that made him fucking heavy. Lifting and shifting barrels over the years here was paying off though as you managed to get him upstairs with only minor difficulty. As soon as you crossed the threshold into your dimly-lit and modest bed chamber, Strider doubled over and vomited violently onto the hardwood floor.

A stream of curse words flew from your mouth, the likes of which would make your Mam turn in her grave, god rest her soul. This was one extra cleaning job you could fucking do without. Fucking Strider and his lightweight stomach, no wonder he never strayed from his fucking cider if this was how he got after one too many ales. You dropped him ungraciously onto your single bed in the corner of the room where he curled up into a ball on top of the blankets, his hands cupping his head. You took a deep breath and tried to calm your emotions. The fool was probably suffering enough right now.

"Wait here whilst I get something to clean this mess up," you instructed him. "And any more where that came from can go in there," you added, kicking an empty bucket in his direction. Strider grunted in acknowledgement, but did not move.

It took you over twenty minutes to mop up the mess and scrub the stink of bile out of the floor. On your way back downstairs to return the mop and bucket, you grabbed a couple of flagons and filled them with fresh water. Strider would probably wake up with a giant fucking hangover tomorrow and he would need liquids that were alcohol-free. Once back upstairs, you tried to hand one of the water-filled jugs to Strider, only for him to crudely bat away your hand.

"It's water, you moron. Drink." You were not in the mood for his shit. You were already facing the prospect of sleeping on your own floor and this thought left your bedside manner extremely lacking. But you tried, adding "you'll feel like utter shit tomorrow if you don't."

Strider lifted his head from your feather pillow. Taking the flagon, he uttered his thanks before drinking deeply. "I s'pose you think I'm a complete fool," he slurred as he returned the goblet to you.

Before you could respond, there was a harsh knock at your door. "Y/n! Are you in there?"

Shit, it was the Gaffer. He was probably wondering where you had got to whilst you'd been spending time tending to the drunk fucker sprawled on your bed. You pulled a throw from your laundry heap and tossed it over Strider to hide his form, before hurrying to open the door.

"Sorry Gaffer, I was just.. changing," you said quickly. The Gaffer looked you up and down with one eyebrow raised, clearly seeing you remained in the same basic dress and apron that you'd been wearing all evening. "My underwear," you added hastily. "Y'know.. Women's problems." You flashed him a friendly smile. He wouldn't ask any more questions after that.

It was well into the wee small hours when at last, your shift was done for the night and you were able to ascend the stairs. You pushed the door to your chamber open and found Strider exactly where you had left him, his dark head poking out from under the blanket. He was snoring softly. Peering into the bucket, you saw with satisfaction that he hadn't lost any more contents of his stomach, nor had he made any more mess anywhere else. This was good. You pulled a spare quilt from your solitary cupboard and laid it out over the floorboards. Sinking to your knees without even bothering to change clothes, you wrapped half the quilt over yourself and within minutes entered a dreamless sleep.

#aragorn x y/n #aragorn x reader #aragorn x you #aragorn #lord of the rings #lotr fanfic #fanfiction

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kitthepurplepotato · 6 months

Text

Chapter 15 - The first fight

Summary: Kirishima goes over to Katsuki’s to see how’s Y/N doing. He sees… uhm… things.

Y/N and Katsuki slowly move in together but they can’t stop fighting about Y/N’s hero work so Mr. Third Wheel Kirishima decides to kick some sense into the two.

Warnings: Swear words, mentions of doing the cheeky, but no details or anything! 5 seconds of angst. 😂

First Chapter Master List

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Kirishima didn’t mean to pry.

He just wanted to see how Y/N’s appointment went, that’s all.

Why didn’t he knock, you ask? He has a spare key, duh. Why would he, anyway? Katsuki is his best bro, he doesn’t need to knock on Katsuki’s door.

Well… he absolutely hates himself right now for even coming over.

Why, you ask?

Oh well, you have a shit load of questions, don’t you?!

Just let him finish his fucking story, goddamnit!

So Eijirou went in with his spare key. He went in and sat down on the sofa with his laptop; it was paperwork day so he could absolutely wait around for the two to come back from their appointment and Katsuki’s sofa is really comfortable so at least his back won’t be aching tomorrow from all the crouching. He was full on focused on his work when the two fumbled in through the door; he was about to say hi and ask how it went when his best bro threw the poor girl into the wall and shoved his tongue right into her mouth, right in front of Kirishima’s face. He wasn’t sure if he was turned on by that or rather disgusted, probably something between the two. He prayed for the gods that they don’t decide to do more right by the entrance, but the gods did not listen to Kirishima’s pleads; he tried not to look, he tried, he swears, but he couldn’t miss the way Katsuki looked at Y/N with eyes dark like … the forest? The empty space in Kirishima’s skull? Fuck, he’s not a poet, leave him the fuck alone.

“Bedroom. Now.” Katsuki muttered, both of his hands on Y/N’s peachy bottoms; Kirishima must say it was quite hot how his best bro just took the girl into his arms like she weights nothing and maneuvered through his flat with his tongue still down the poor gal’s throat.

After the bedroom door has closed, Kirishima stayed in one place, which wasn’t the brightest idea of them all; he heard things he never wanted to hear, tiny whimpers and moans, mostly Y/N and when a really loud moan left her mouth, that’s when Kirishima decided the two are probably too invested in each other to care if the door opens now so he made his way out the flat, silent like a fucking ninja and lonely like the that smelly dude on the train he tried to entertain the other day but apparently, being alone is better than to listen to Kirishima’s shitty jokes.

Kirishima has no idea how he will look into his best bro’s eyes tomorrow after knowing how his horny face looks like.

There are a lot things bros can know about each other, but he’s quite sure this isn’t one of those things.

Kirishima will definitely not sleep tonight. Hell, he will never even blink for too long.

“Are you okay, boss?” His teammate had asked him when he came back into his agency with his face white as a sheet.

“No. I’ve seen something I can never unsee.” He muttered under his nose, not even looking up.

“Did you go to use the toilet when the new lizard guy did? That happened to me too and that was indeed terrifying. I did ask him about it, though and he can retract the spikes in case he wants to… get frisky so it doesn’t hurt the other person…”

“Oh my god, shut up!” Kirishima yelled, absolutely disgusted, for real this time.

You know what, seeing his best bro manhandling his girlfriend is probably not that bad as whatever this guy is talking about it.

Kirishima will be fine… eventually.

~•💥•~

This is just another day for Mr. Katsuki. The sun shines through the slits of his brand new, super expensive curtains, Steven is already wide awake at the humble hour of 6AM, aggressively knocking on his balcony door to get fed, even though Katsuki put a fucking automatic bird feeder right next to his ridiculously expensive bird house and there is a nice warmth coming from his left side but it’s fucking cold on the other.

Steven is really fucking annoying today and he really doesn’t like the cold but nothing in the whole fucking universe can fuck up Katsuki’s good mood today.

Why, you ask?

Because Bakugou Katsuki has finally got laid. And it was really fucking awesome.

It was weirdly awkward sometimes but at the same time it was really… cosy? He is really bad at explaining feelings and shit so don’t ask him questions but while his first time was absolutely not how he expected it to be; he fumbled a lot then he cried like an idiot after the action; but somehow, even with all the weird pauses it was… it was better than he expected it to be. So much better. Oh my, Mr. Bakugou Katsuki can’t wait to try all the possible poses in the near future - ahh, there is a book about it, right? Katsuki needs to get that and start to study.

Okay, Mr. Bakugou Katsuki needs to stop thinking about cheeky things right before work.

Why, you ask?

Well, fucking guess.

“Hm…” Katsuki’s woman grumbles, still attached to his half-dead arm. Oh, that bloody woman, how much he fucking loves her ugly little scrunched face when she wakes up. Fuck’s sake. “You need some help with that?” The menace bites into his ear and Katsuki can barely stop himself from moaning out loud. He got more sensitive, isn’t he? Is this a normal thing?

“We need to be in the office in an hour.” Katsuki murmurs begrudgingly, but he pulls Y/N closer anyway, because he can’t fucking stop himself.

“Challenge accepted…” She kisses down his neck and Katsuki’s little friend comes alive once more.

Mr. Bakugou Katsuki only just woke up but he already managed to try out a new pose, just how he wanted.

This isn’t just another day. No.

This is… the best day of Katsuki’s life.

~•💥•~

When Katsuki and his woman arrives at the agency, Shitty hair is nowhere to be seen.

This is certainly odd; Eijirou is usually the first one to arrive, ready with everyone’s coffee because there is sunshine coming out of his ass even at 7 in the morning; but instead of his best friend, his eyes are met with all the extras looking at them two like they both grew a second head which is impossible in his case and quite possible in Y/N’s. Katsuki looks at his woman and the badly covered bite mark on her neck; he did that and he’s proud and also, she only has one head. Thank fucking god for that.

“The fuck are you staring for, extras?!” Katsuki yells because he’s a good boss who wants to know if the extras are bothered by something - no, he doesn’t really fucking care nor he wants to solve the problem, that’s what shitty hair is for but he can listen. For five seconds, max, but still… he can.

“Uhm… you two came in through the hallway at the same time. I was just wondering…” One really fucking brave bitch decides to speak up for the team - her name? Katsuki has zero clue but she’s quite helpful with the paperwork.

“Can you not finish your sentence, thrift store Avril Lavigne? Do you not have the balls or what?!” Katsuki challenges the chick and hell, he really hopes the chick takes it as that and not as workplace abuse because the last thing Katsuki needs in his life right now is an hour in the HR office.

“Did you guys have a one night stand or something?” Thrift Store Avril comes forward with her hand on her chest, probably to make sure her heart doesn’t jump out of it from how terrified she is right now. Katsuki sees red.

“Did you just call my woman a whore?”

“Katsuki, calm down…” Y/N stands between them to save the poor girl’s life, but Katsuki is not having it. The whole office gawks at the sound of his first name. What the fuck, did they not know his name before?! “She didn’t mean it like that…”

“Be disrespectful to her again and I’ll fire your ass and send you to the moon, I’ll blast you up through your asshole…”

“Babe!” Y/N downright laughs in the blond’s face but instead of getting angry all he can do is to remember how Y/N giggled in the morning while she slowly moved on top of him and… “I’m sorry, Akari and everyone. You’ll see me coming out of Katsuki’s apartment quite a lot because…”

“Because she will fucking live there. From today. Yeah.” Katsuki barges into Y/N’s sentence with zero remorse. “Take that, you lonely bitches, I have a serious relationship and I fucking love this woman and I ain’t ashamed of it anymore.” Instead of the sounds of terror he can only hear a bunch of “awwwwww”, which makes no sense but whatever. “Now let us fucking go and mind your own business. Also, find fucking Kirishima. I can’t be bothered.” He barely finishes the sentence before the door slams behind him. “Fucking nosy extras…”

“I love you too, Kats.” Y/N kisses him on the lips once they’re behind close doors. Fuck, Katsuki loves his life.

It’s really hard to start the day with Y/N’s tongue down his throat but Katsuki manages to get the office ready by the time his useless partner/best friend barges into his office. He looks disheveled and out of breath so maybe… maybe he got into a fight on his way to the office?! It wouldn’t be the first time to be fair nor the last. There are no scars or blood visible on his skin which is also quite normal as the guy is literally indestructible. The only clue Katsuki has about Kirishima’s lateness is the TWELVE FUCKING COFFEES in his hand, 6 in each, in a little plastic holder with red handles.

“What the actual….” One of the handles break in Kirishima’s stressed grasp and all six of the coffees end up on the floor. On Katsuki’s. Fucking. Floor. “Fuck.”

“Katsuki. I’m in love.” Kirishima falls to the floor dramatically, not even saying sorry for the mess he just made. Katsuki… again… sees red. And no, he doesn’t see Kirishima. I mean he does, obviously, it’s quite hard to miss his fucking obnoxious hair but… what he means is that he gets… angry. I know. A shocker.

“And what does the twelve fucking coffees spilled on my floor have to do with that?!”

“Six spilled coffees. Uhm… six and a half. Eight.” Eijirou babbles, clearly ready to die. “She made them, Katsuki. They taste like honey, like happiness. Like unicorns and candy clouds, like Crimson Riot’s sweat and tears, Katsuki she’s so beautiful and so sweet and kinda rude but like, I really like that? She could kick my butt and I’d say thank you…”

“You are fucking dead, Shitty Hair.” Katsuki takes one step, then another and Kirishima falls out of the window, the glass shattering all over as his heavy, hardened body flies towards the parking space. As Katsuki stares after his best friend he can’t help but notice someone inside the staff area of the freshly opened coffee shop, a red haired woman, laughing her ass off as Kirishima finally lands on the now broken concrete, flat like a pancake.

“Call the window people. We also need someone to fix the concrete.” Katsuki mutters, back to work mode as he quickly grabs his handy little car vacuum sitting in his drawer to clean his chair from the glass shards.

“Roger that, boss.” Y/N grins, phone already by her ears.

No one even asks a single question. Not the team, not the repair people. This is how normal it is in this agency to break shit.

Katsuki loves his agency. So fucking much.

~•💥•~

The next few days are probably the best days of your life; you two don’t talk about moving together anymore but you never get to go home or even if you do, Katsuki comes with you and packs random stuff into your suitcase you don’t even need so even without him saying it, you know he was serious about moving in together. You should probably sit down and talk about it, make sure this is what you both want but at the same time, it just feels so… right, to slowly move your life into his home, fill the wardrobe until it’s nice, full and lived in… without words, the decision was made and you are sure that by the time your lease expires, there will be nothing in your flat anyway.

Sharing a life with Katsuki is surprisingly easy.

There is no reason for you to talk about responsibilities around the house; Katsuki loves to cook and you don’t mind doing the dishes, Katsuki enjoys hanging the wet clothes on the drying rack for some reason so you automatically do the washing, knowing the hard work will be shared so there is no frustration in the air about one doing too much or too less.

The only silly thing about Katsuki is his obsession with having all his spices in alphabetical order and his clothes color-coordinated but Katsuki is a great partner so instead of forcing you to do it his way he just asks you to let him do his own thing so he “won’t have a meltdown.” It doesn’t mean you don’t try your best to remember these small things in case you ever need to do it for him, but… it’s a nice thought. Bakugou Katsuki is really fucking nice in his own fucked up way.

There is one thing that you can’t help but fight about and it’s constant; it’s your hero work.

“It has only been two fucking weeks, woman, chill the fuck out! We are training every fucking day.” Katsuki yells, exasperated for needing to say the same thing over and over. “You can’t just jump back into the battlefield like you haven’t been away for years. I know you are fucking frustrated, I hated every single minute of my life after the Big War, I felt fucking useless for not being able to help while my old classmates who didn’t get fucked up were getting all the recognition while I was rotting on my couch for a month.”

“One month Katsuki!” You yell back. “I’ve been rotting away for a whole fucking year, even more than that! I’m not asking you to let me beat up the biggest gang in Japan, I just want to help with smaller cases! You are being unprofessional! Even the small fries are out on the streets, patrolling yet here I am, kicking your fucking ass every day yet I can’t even go out on the street to stop an unarmed, quirkless thief!” You yell back with tears in your eyes.

“Uhm, sorry to interrupt but Y/N is right. She should be able to help out with smaller cases, I would even dare to say she’s more than capable to be on the sidelines when it comes to the bigger ones, like the one we are getting ready for right now…” Kirishima mumbles into the space, feeling extremely awkward to speak up; even though you are all in Katsuki’s office it does feel like a lover’s quarrel and not like a hero talking to her boss about getting a promotion.

“Since when are you here?!” Katsuki yells, even more exasperated.

“Since the beginning, Katsuki.” Eijirou sighs, clearly done with his life. “I’ve been here for an hour. You saw me come in. You even rolled your eyes to say hi.”

“I fucking did not.” Katsuki mutters with a red face.

“So what the fuck do you want me to do to prove I’m more than capable to kick an ass?! Should I write an assay? Should I swear loyalty to you like a fucking knight?! Katsuki, even Kirishima says I should be able to go back! You are not acting as my boss but as my boyfriend right now and while I’m really happy you worry about me, I’m dying here! You are suffocating me!” You yell with tears in your eyes. You hate this. So fucking much. You hate the look Katsuki gives you, the worry in his eyes, the terrified frown on his face as you finish your last sentence.

“Oi, oi, oi, both of you, SHUT UP!” Kirishima yells, for the first time since you’ve started working here. Kirishima can be really scary when he’s mad, by the way. You are actually about to shit your pants as you look at him. “Katsuki, she doesn’t mean YOU. She means this situation. She’s not breaking up with you!”

“Yeah, definitely not. I love you, idiot.” You mutter with a red face, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Kirishima nods at that. Katsuki looks like he’s about to cry from the relief.

“Also, I have an idea.” He continues with determination. “If Y/N is able to keep up with Number One Hero in a fight, will you let her join us on our next mission?” Kirishima has lost his mind, but also, he’s kind of a genius. “Deku has several quirks himself. It will be a fair fight. I’m not saying you are not good enough but Y/N already knows your fighting style. She also knows mine. Deku plus Todoroki would be a brand new challenge for her. Those two are a terrible pair to fight against. If she can win against them or even just bare with the two for a long time she’s more than capable to join our main team. Not the small fries, the main.”

“If I lose I’ll join the small fries for however long you want me to. But if I win… I’ll fight by your side.” You look at Kirishima with nothing but wonder in your eyes; you didn’t realize how amazing he is at compromising. Now it makes so much sense how he ended up being Katsuki’s best friend.

“Fuck. Fuck!” Katsuki yells, frustrated. “Okay. Fucking… okay.” He finally sits down, defeated. You can’t help but go over to him, put your arms around his small middle and give him a kiss on his temple.

“Thank you. I won’t disappoint.”

“I know, that’s the problem.” He mutters with nothing, but worry in his beautiful crimson eyes.

“I love you too.” You snicker, the love pouring out of your heart as you stare at your amazing, caring boyfriend. “We’ll be the hottest hero couple of the history.”

Katsuki pulls you into his lap as you say that; he embraces you so tightly you can barely breathe but the movement is so full of affection and love you have no heart to tell him.

“Okay, I’m leaving before I see something I don’t want to see.” Kirishima leaves you two alone before you can say bye. You need to tell him how amazing he is before your shift ends.

“I fucking hate this, Y/N.” Katsuki admits with his face hidden in your chest. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. I know that’s the shitty boyfriend talking, I know it’s wrong but fuck, I don’t want to loose you.” Katsuki mutters, clearly shocked by the sudden change.

“You won’t. You know why?” You smile at him, your fingers raking through his soft hair. “Because I have someone to fight for, I have a beautiful boyfriend to come home to. I have a family. You are my family.” You leave another kiss on his temple, really close to crying.

“Stop making me feel all mushy and sensitive, I hate it.” Katsuki sniffles, pulling you even closer. Oh, how much you fucking love this man. Fuck’s sake.

“But think about how sexy it will be when I kick your old rival’s ass for you. Think about going home after that and…” you whisper into his ear suggestively, not even sorry for the shudder that goes down the blond’s spine from the action.

“When is your break?” Katsuki mutters with heat in his voice.

“In an hour. But my boss wouldn’t mind if I would take it a bit sooner, would he?”

Katsuki doesn’t answer; he just takes you into his arms and carries you towards the office door with pure determination then kicks his front door open only a few seconds after.

Needless to say, your break was really… uhm… satisfying.

The impromptu lunch was good, too.

… Next Chapter!

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Potato ramble:

- Bro I love these two so much but I also like how sometimes they still need Kirishima to be able to sort their shit out because they are both too stubborn to compromise 😂

- The Kirishima coffee bit is actually a part of the new Kirishima series I’ll start posting once this one ends! We will see how he ended up with 12 coffees in Chapter 1!

- If I don’t deviate from my original plans this story ends after the fight then there will be an extra story (I don’t want to spoil it but it’s connected to something that happened in season 1 and it will be fucking hilarious! Tell me your guesses! :D)

- The next chapter might be a little late thanks to the Christmas rush in retail + I’m terrible with writing fights so GIVE ME SOME TIME 😂

- Tell me how your thoughts! 💜 cheers x x x

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

TL: @sixxze @iwannahaveaprettyaesthetic @hanatsuki-hime @cloroxisadelectabletreat @cheesenmax @coffeent @smolsleepybat @therealpotatobish @qardasngan @canarystwin @unofficialmuilover @nanamomo1 @mikestuffffs @p4ndawrites @yao-ai

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugou x self insert #bakugo x you #shenanigansbypurplepotato #bakugo x reader #bakugou katsuki #pro hero dynamight x reader #soft katsuki

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biteofcherry · 2 years

Note

Ari plus basement wife Reader being kept tied naked an blindfolfed for him to use when he wants. And he wants her plenty? Maybe adding guests to enjoy her and test if she recognizes their touch and cocks? And if she fails she goes at it again? And when she succeds Ari still feels her with his seed?

The prompts were supposed to be simple 😂 You wrote a little story of your own, lol

I'm going with Ari + basement wife in general

warnings: dark!Ari; basement wife kink; kindapping; mentions of voyeurism; mentions of foursome; breeding kink; lactation kink; stockholm syndrome;

"Ain't that lovely?" Ari hummed, running his hands along your body as you stood with your back pressed to his chest.

"You chose a pretty pattern, love." He compliments the curtains you sew - an off-white base with green monstera leaves.

They now framed the little window Ari installed for you; a reward for being compliant and good for two weeks now. The window wasn't big and had bars in it, but it also let the sunlight in and gave you a peek of the grass and lilacs outside.

The glass was reinforced, your small weak fists wouldn't brake it. No sound would carry out either. You weren't considering trying to either, too scared of the punishment that would await you.

Ari was good to you when you obeyed. Very caring and dotting, and worshipping every inch of your body as long as you didn't fight back.

Though sometimes he liked it when you struggled.

He liked pinning you down. Liked the sound of ripping clothes and your muffled cries.

"Thank you," you said quietly. "For the window. And the new dress, too."

You glanced at the short, blue dress draped over the back of the armchair.

Ari brought you a pretty, shell-shaped chair and a small table, so you could sit and read at it, or do your makeup at. He got you any book you wanted.

Often stayed with you in your bed after fucking you senseless and read to you aloud until you fell asleep.

"It may be a little loose for now." Ari pulled down the strap of the white dress you were currently wearing and kissed your bare shoulder.

"But soon it'll fit-" he spread his fingers over your lower belly.

Your breath hitched.

Ari's been talking about starting a family from the very beginning of this madness. You took it as just dirty talk at first. One that scared you, but also made you come harder when Ari spilled inside you.

"Once you're so full of me it starts showing," he said while rolling your dress up over your hips, "I take you upstairs."

He pulled the dress completely off of you then picked you up. He took you to your bed and placed you on your hands and knees.

"To ensure your safety, I'll have a tracker installed in your body." Ari caressed your back as he knelt behind you.

His hand clenched on the back of your neck as he pushed your head down into the sheets.

"Lloyd can do that easily. Said it'll be his wedding gift to us. You remember Llloyd, don't you?"

How could you not. Him and Steve were the two friends Ari introduced you to.

Forced you to pleasure them while he watched. Allowed them to fuck your holes and say degrading things about you.

Though he never let them come inside your pussy.

"Of course you do," Ari's chuckle was dark, his hand slipping between your legs to touch your wet folds - you weren't sure if he conditioned you, or if your body really aroused for him so quickly.

"You cried so prettily when he fucked your tight ass."

He slipped two fingers inside you, your hips rocking back against him eagerly.

"He'll have to rely on the video to get himself off from now on." Ari pulled his fingers out and smacked your ass. "I won't let anyone enjoy this responsive, full body once you're pregnant. You're all mine, love. Only mine."

"Yes, Ari." You whimpered, cheek pressed to the mattress.

"But-" He considered aloud- "we might be generous hosts when my friends visit. Let them taste your milky breasts. Perhaps watch as I pump you full of my cum again."

#ari levinson x reader #dark!ari levinson #dark fic #ari levinson x female reader #ari levinson x you #mind you that it is a dark fic #mentions of :#lloyd hansen x reader #steve rogers x reader #my writing #anonymous #reply

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joels6string · 2 years

Note

you’re a genius and your plot and world-building skills are next level. i’m truly such a fan girl you have no idea 👉🏼👈🏼

i’m politely begging you for a joel miller ANYTHING with prompts 2, 35, 41, and 44. all the sweetness and whatever else you think it deserves! i trust you wholeheartedly with all of P’s characters 🤍 thank you so much for sharing your gift with all of us!!

Stop it...thank you so much. I appreciate you very much💜 Oh goodness, don't trust me with all of them lol. Ezra, you're a gem, but we don't vibe 😂 I was also politely begging for anything Joel Miller so I'll literally happily oblige. Actual loml. I also thoroughly appreciate the subtle shout-out to Buckley the dog. I made a shitty gif and everything for it. I'm fairly certain I'm the only one who likes slow-burning shit like this 😂 but hey, I hope someone else enjoys it too.

Illegible

Joel Miller x f!reader

"Wait a minute. Are you jealous?"//"Stop laughing at me."//"You need some sleep."//"I'm only here for the dog."

Word Count: 3.5k Content: Buckley the dog in all his goodest boy glory, flirting with Joel Miller is like romancing a very handsome brick wall, fluff, mutual crush, two hopeless morons, matchmaker Maria to the rescue, first kiss

Farming rotation had always been your favorite assignment. It was rigorous, exhausting, and the pre-dawn wakeups were less than desirable, but there was something soothing about it. People mostly kept to themselves here, just asking for a hand when needed, and damn if this job didn’t feel useful. Food you’d worked for months to grow fed this whole damn town, and if that wasn’t something to be proud of, nothing was.

Maria knew you preferred it here in the greenhouses, being friendly with her certainly had its perks, too. Your gate patrols had become minimal, the shotgun almost felt foreign in your hands now when you had to head up atop the walls and survey the wilderness for threats from infected and hunters alike.

It was another early morning, an eerie gray seeping through your thin curtains and rain dripping down the windows ahead of your fieldwork, a heady sigh leaving your lips as you slipped the rubber boots that were two sizes too big onto your feet. But even on days like today, you didn’t mind the work. Sure, the soil would be heavier soaked and your clothes would be clinging to your skin within the hour, but it sure as hell beat fighting for your life outside these walls.

It had been a miracle you’d stumbled across a patrol team a few months back, scared and alone. The vetting was brutal and the townsfolk were wary of the newcomer for weeks after your arrival. But you’d earned their trust through your hard work and willingness to do what was needed. You were a damn fine cook, too, and that went a long way.

By the time noon hit, the rain hadn’t slowed at all. You were shivering despite the exertion, the warmth of the pub calling your name even if it would only be for the hour allotted for your lunch. The cover of the plastic enclosures had done little to keep you dry with how many times you’d gone in and out, the humidity the plants needed keeping you thoroughly damp and chilled. You were finishing your final task, your hands quivering too much for the precision you needed,

“You look cold,” a Texas drawl chuckled from behind you, “Why are you out in the rain anyway? Can’t this wait?”

“You tell me, boss,” you replied with a grin, your gaze shooting back over your shoulder to see Tommy Miller, his faithful companion Buckley at his side.

“It can wait til it’s dry. Come on.”

The Millers–Tommy and Maria–were good friends, but Tommy’s brother Joel, while revered in the town, was someone you hadn’t had much contact with, not anything of merit anyway. That was an avoidance of your own creation, your thoughts dizzying into idiocy when you were in his presence for more than a few minutes. It was shameful. But it was thankfully easy to maintain. He mostly kept to himself in his big house by the cemetery, his job solely a patrolman thanks to his exceptional skills with just about every weapon under the sun and his proficiency at what some of the town referred to as “extermination.” Joel could kill anything and not bat an eye, and everyone knew it, too.

“Dinner at our place tonight,” Tommy offered after walking you past the pub and to your front door, “Maria is cooking, but if you wanted to maybe come a little early and make those sweet potatoes, you won’t find a soul complainin’ and I got a basket full.”

“Well, you did get me out of the rain,” you answered, waving goodbye as your body ached for a warm shower and dry clothes.

By three o’clock you were knocking on Tommy’s door and none other than Joel greeted you as it swung open after a single knock, a mug of coffee being swallowed whole by his hand.

“Joel…” you gasped, his hazel eyes widening at the sight of you.

“Tommy said you were comin’,” he muttered, you couldn’t tell if it was just to himself, your stomach flipping just like it had every other time you’d been this close to him.

Joel was tall and broad, his thick gray hair almost brushing his brow and an equally lush and silvered beard covering his jaw and cheeks. Heat flushed your face beneath his gaze–typical–the reason for your stark evasion of the man coming to full fruition here and now. He’d caught your eye long before you knew who he was, not that you’d ever even considered acting on this ridiculous little crush. You were too old for this anyway, and Joel, well, he’d never once acted like he wanted to be bothered by anyone’s attention much less your own. There’d been many shared functions and yet you’d still never graduated past pleasantries, your quick escape plans always being enacted before you could reach the next stage of conversation.

“Are you gonna let her in or leave her to soak?!” you heard Tommy yelling from somewhere in the house, Joel’s obvious alarm from being shaken from whatever mental space he’d gone to playing out too charmingly on his face for you to deny giggling at.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, eyes on the floor as he stepped aside, the sack of spices and honey you’d brought to prep your dish jostling in your arms, “I’ll–let me,” he offered, the way his fingers brushed against the back of your hand had goosebumps erupting across your skin making you thankful for the cover of your sweater.

“Thanks,” you gasped, hoping it didn’t sound as pathetic to his ears as it did to your own.

Long strides had him well ahead of you on your way to the kitchen and you took full advantage to shake off the effects of Joel Miller’s studious gaze before joining the group, you didn’t need anyone getting any ideas.

“Welcome!” Tommy greeted almost too exuberantly, “Joel here said he’ll help you with whatever you need to get started.”

“What?” Joel interjected quietly to himself between Tommy’s words, his hands falling to his hips showcasing toned forearms straining against the rolled sleeves of his flannel.

“Anything at all.”

Clearly, something else was at play. With Tommy and Maria barely able to contain their fits of giggles, Joel’s brow knit in confusion, and you standing dumbfounded with Buckley sitting dutifully at your side it looked like something straight out of the sitcoms that had died decades ago. And somehow it felt like you were the butt of the joke.

“Why are you staring like that?” Maria pressed, “You said you wanted to get better at cooking, You’re reading those books. Time to put it into practice.”

“It’s fine,” you finally found the courage to speak, “I can do it.”

“What do you need help with?” Joel resigned with a sigh, turning to the sink to scrub his hands clean. That was a good start.

“No, you don’t have to–”

“Peel these,” Maria instructed, pushing the bowl of sweet potatoes she’d gotten out his way, “Let’s see if you’re as good with a knife on root vegetables as you are Clickers. Hmm?”

“Well, ain’t you funny this evening,” Joel grumbled, snatching the knife to his left and beginning work on his task.

You almost felt bad for him, watching him struggle to catch only the skin and not the orange flesh beneath it, his tongue clicking in disappointment at himself with every swipe too deep and dropped peel. It was so endearing, Buckley’s little whines matching the way pity had set a breeze on the butterflies that had taken flight in your belly

“Stop laughing at me,” Joel finally snapped after Maria and Tommy’s little snickers had gone on for too long, the knife slamming onto the counter in frustration.

“Let me help you,” you offered, rushing over and plucking the tool from beneath his palm and showing him your technique, his eyes attentive as he watched and listened.

When dinner was served, you took the seat beside him, your appetite whisked away from hours of nervous fidgeting and stolen glances. What you did manage to force down was delicious, but you were more concerned about the reception of your dish from one guest at the table than you were about judging what was on your own plate.

“So,” Maria began after everyone’s forks had started to slow, “I saw you and Gabe hitting it off at work the other day.” What on Earth was she doing? “He’s nice. Good head on his shoulders, competent, great carpenter.”

“Oh,” you stammered, a nervous laugh flitting free, “No, I…I just work with him.”

“I need to get goin’,” Joel announced suddenly, his chair loudly scraping against the floor as he cleared his plate in the kitchen, Buckley getting a pat on the head before he bid everyone a gracious thank you and goodbye for the evening, your nerves settling immediately as soon as the door clicked closed.

After a night of tossing and turning at the replay of the embarrassment of your interactions from the evening, you were back in the greenhouses in much more suitable weather the following day, Maria and Buckley on site to help with the harvesting from half the crops. Gabe had been assigned your partner, something you assumed was no accident after Maria’s prying last night, her quest to get you saddled in with a “nice guy” in full swing.

“Long day, huh?” Gabe chirped from beside you, chest heaving after another heavy load of produce was dropped into the back of the truck, “You doing all right?”

“Yeah,” you answered, keeping your eyes straight ahead on your task, “busy.”

“Lunch!” Maria bellowed, “Let’s go, everyone! No exceptions!”

There went your hopes of skipping the congregated, shared hour in favor of hiding behind the greenhouses for a moment of reprieve. Gabe walked you to the grouping of tables, the citizens of Jackson having banded together to give the farming group a grateful lunch for their labors, a sentiment you should have appreciated but found yourself loathing at the moment. You were too tired, too agitated, and entirely too distracted.

“Joel…” Maria sang knowingly as if she’d been expecting him despite his presence never once having graced the workspace before, “What a surprise.”

“Tommy around? He ran off soon as we passed the gate,” he grunted fresh off patrol, his t-shirt screaming around his biceps ready to tear and his pack equipped with more weapons than you’d ever seen on one person strapped to his back; you couldn’t look away, “Who’s this?”

“Him? Oh, that’s Gabe.”

Why was his face falling? Were you imagining things? His eyes flicked from you back to the man beside you, a hand reaching up to scratch at the back of his head as he repeated the inspection once again.

“That so?” he drawled, “Never heard of ya.”

Well, that was a lie, and the way Gabe’s face fell that the famed Joel Miller didn’t know he existed, despite the fact that he most certainly did, only seemed to add a little glimmer to Joel’s eye as he watched him scamper off dejected. It was a little cruel, but at the moment you couldn’t care less as you tried to decipher what the hell situation you were standing in the middle of.

“Wait a minute… Are you jealous?” Maria asked tauntingly, your face falling in horror at the blatant accusation made on what you knew was your behalf.

“I beg your pardon?” Joel barked, and you had to hand it to Maria for never being intimidated because if you were on the receiving end of the expression currently staring her in the face you’d have cowered into the nearest corner like a mouse being pursued by a cat.

“It’s a simple question.” “I’m only here for the dog.”

Buckley yapped right on cue as Joel bent over to scratch his ear, Maria’s eyes rolling at one of the most pitiful excuses she’d ever heard in her life, especially from a grown man.

“Jesus Christ, Joel,” she groaned.

"You need some sleep, Maria. You're gettin' delusional," he nagged as he stood, following after her as she stormed off towards the tables.

Maria’s question plagued you throughout the week. You hadn’t seen Joel again, but that didn’t stop your brain from spiraling with the hope that maybe she was right. Replaying the brief interactions you’d had with him led you nowhere, the man was entirely illegible, his face a stoic…handsome…mask and his random appearances too few to interpret but also too coincidental to be a coincidence.

During another dinner alone on the old futon you’d scavenged, a soft knock on your door had you ready to duck under your table and hide until whoever it was left. It had to be Gabe, maybe Maria, but your frayed nerves had already had their fill of human interaction for the week, you wanted two days holed up in your little cabin with your books. Was that too much to ask?

“You home?” a gruff, deep voice called out, a timbre that did not belong to Gabe or Maria.

Joel. That had you racing to the point you were tripping over your feet, catching him just as he’d begun to descend the three steps leading up to your front door.

“Joel!” you called out too loud, his demeanor unaffected by your outburst.

“Hi,” he greeted cautiously, “Maria told me your backdoor was broken, wanted me to come look at it.”

Your backdoor was not broken. Never had been. However, if you told him that he would leave, but he should leave because he didn’t need to be here…

“It ain’t broken, is it?” he resigned, the answer clearly written on your face.

“No,” you sighed, disappointment carving a hole out of your chest and hollowing it fast enough to have your lungs depleting.

“Well, if it’s all right with you I’ll check anyway. Can’t ever be too careful.”

The thorough inspection he gave your old wooden door surprised you knowing he’d discovered the ruse before stepping foot inside your house, and he did indeed find a few screws that needed tightening. You offered him a coffee that he gratefully accepted, the last of the grounds you’d traded for last month enough for two cups you sat around the small round table in your kitchen to enjoy as the crickets began to chirp outside the windows.

“Thank you,” you erupted, your voice too loud, too excited, his little chuckle confirming he could sense your school girl nervousness.

“Welcome,” that smooth, Texas twang settled in your stomach, pressing downward in the most forbidden of ways, “You know if you need a carpenter–”

“Oh no. I don’t.”

“Right. Okay.”

Wait, that was rude. He was about to offer help and you’d cut him off. His eyes hadn’t left the brown, murky depths swimming in the pink mug you’d given him, his shoulders slumped, chin to his chest.

“If I do though, I’ll let Maria know to tell you–”

“You can just…knock on my door. If I ain’t out on patrol, I’m home.”

“Oh. Sure.”

It felt like your entire body was vibrating, sweat was beading on your brow and it wasn’t a result of the hot coffee you were drinking. He seemed just as tense, you could see his knee bouncing beneath the table and you were desperate to know if it was nerves or simply his way of tolerating the less-than-ideal situation he’d found himself in. But that required a courage you didn’t think you’d ever be able to muster.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he announced after a moment of silence that had dragged on too long, “Let me know if that door needs tweakin’ again.”

Every nerve in your body lit up with the desire to keep him there, your hand involuntarily shooting out and gripping around his wrist as you leapt to your feet less than a second after he rose, fingers barely meeting around the sheer girth of it. Your stomach dropped to the floor when his head whipped around and his stony stare locked on wear your skin met, his lips slightly agape and brow furrowed. You were panting, not caring how it looked or whatever he was assuming, he was probably right. It was time to admit that.

“Are you hungry?” you asked meekly, listing the ingredients you knew you had off in your head to try and come up with a dish you could prepare, forgetting that your half-eaten dinner still sat on the small table beside the sofa.

“I could eat,” he replied barely above a whisper, his eyes shooting over to that very spot. You should have anticipated that level of perception.

“I’ll make you something.”

“If it’s too much trouble–”

“No!”

Now this was getting embarrassing. Your voice was quivering, breath ragged, your brain reminding you it had been more years than you’d like to admit since you’d had a man in any capacity, and it wasn’t like that was beyond a quick release of tension.

“Calm down, darlin’,” he comforted warily, the pet name hitting you square in the chest, “I ain’t gonna hurt ya…”

That was where his mind had gone? This situation was worse than one you could have ever doomed yourself to in your mind. He thought you were afraid of him? Well, in a way you were, but not the way he was assuming. Your tongue was paralyzed as your brain screamed to fix the situation, your fingers unknowingly tightening around his wrist.

“I know that,” you quaked, “I didn’t think…you would.”

“Okay. Good,” he sighed, tapping your white-knuckling hand with his free pointer finger, “That’s startin’ to hurt, ya know.”

“Fuck! I’m so sorry!”

Balling your fists at your chest, you retreated backward until you hit the kitchen counter, completely overwhelmed and embarrassed, wondering how in the hell you dug yourself out of this hole or if you’d be needing to find another settlement to move to. You couldn’t look him, Maria, or Tommy in the eye after this. You could just go on patrol and never come back, not like anyone would come looking for you when they found out what a fool you’d made of yourself.

“Is Maria right?” he asked softly, his tone gentle and relaxed, “I can’t read this shit.”

“What?” you choked, his eyes taking on a warm glow you’d never seen on him before, it made him look younger and somehow even more endearing.

Nonchalantly, almost annoyed, he waved his hand between the two of you, your eyes widening in shock at his question before his arms crossed over his chest, his biceps stealing your attention so brazenly it had a wheezing laugh breaking free from a bright smile.

“That a yes?” he chuckled, eyeing you through his lashes mischievously.

“Um…” you stammered, did he really just think you were going to admit it so openly?

“S’okay if it is.”

The nod you gave him was barely discernible, but he understood, the corner of his mouth stretching up toward his eye as he took a step forward, then another, and then another until his arms were caging you in as they braced on the counter behind you, the smell of pine wood and leather hitting your senses like a tsunami.

“Joel…”

“Hmm?”

“It’s been a really long time…”

“Yeah. Me too.”

His lips were softer than you expected them to be, plush and silky as they pressed to yours nervously, his beard prickling your skin a sensation you hadn’t felt in too damn long. When he pulled away you sought him out again, following his mouth as your fingers fisted into his shirt, your cue being followed as he came back harder, more intentionally, his nose pressing to your cheek when you pulled him in deeper, a muffled whine hitting him and eliciting one of his own.

“I um–” you began when you broke for air.

“Shh,” he soothed, feeling your fingers tightening in his shirt nervously again, “You don’t need to talk. I can stop, or I can keep goin’. Your call.”

“Don’t stop.”

“Yes ma’am.”

When his tongue slid along the seam of your mouth you relaxed, one of your hands releasing his shirt to slide up into his hair, his groan of approval hitting the back of your throat as you opened up to him completely. You barely needed time to learn one another, your mouths finding a fluid rhythm of give and take quickly. His hands felt so good settled easily on your hips, the lack of desperation in his grip a testament to his self-control, something you were clearly lacking as you pulled yourself in closer, tugging on his hair hard enough to sting. If it did he either didn’t mind or purely enjoyed it, not even a flinch settling across his features as he devoured you.

He stopped you when your hands shot to his belt, arousal and desire having taken your wheel within seconds of this all beginning.

“Not tonight,” he breathed, “much as I want to. I do have standards.”

“Which are?” you inquired, enjoying the way his nose was nuzzling against your cheek.

“At least one damn date. I am a gentleman, after all.”

“Well, let’s just go to the pub now and get it out of the way.”

“Yeah… Yeah, I can do that.”

Part 2: Into Focus

I did not proofread this. I apologize and own any terrible typos.