#house with red tile roof

[rainbowsalt]

Mediterranean Exterior Santa Barbara Image of the exterior of a medium-sized, one-story Tuscan white stucco house with a clipped gable roof and a tile roof

[sevendevilsinwesteros]

San Diego Water Slide Pool

Large tuscan backyard concrete and custom-shaped natural water slide photo

[missxdelaneyart]

Phoenix Tile

[revolverthemes]

Hip Roofing in Minneapolis

[cclust]

Mediterranean Pool

[meridabears]

Southwestern Exterior - Tile

[rogerlilyrp]

Traditional Exterior - Roofing

[homunculus-argument]

Rural Finland gothic

the asphalt road you are driving has been cut through the woods. the sky is clouded and grey, the asphalt is grey, the forest on both sides of you is green. no other colour exists other than green and shades of grey. sometimes blue roadsigns point towards places whose names you've never heard. you don't google them. it's none of your business.

sometimes you drive past a house, a wooden house painted white, yellow or red. the paint is faded and chipping, there is moss growing on the roof tiles. there are lace curtains in the windows and a bench on the yard, but you cannot tell by the quick glance you get whether the house is abandoned or not. the residents don't want you to know. it's none of your business.

you pause at a gas station. it seems to be a part of a chain that you thought went bankrupt in the 90s. a handful of those wooden houses are settled around it, and you wonder if any of the people living there work at the station. not that it matters. it's none of your business.

there are a handful of locals gathered inside the gas station, drinking coffee at the table. They smell like pine soap, resin and mosquito repellent, and you can't tell whether paused their conversation to silently stare at you when you stepped in, or whether they had been sitting in silence to begin with. you don't ask. it's none of your business.

the station cashier doesn't talk to you save for a greeting and a few quick nods. you can't tell whether it's because they assume you don't speak finnish. they don't ask where you came from, or where you're going. it's none of their business.

the road leads you somewhere with more houses and buildings. the locals don't call the town by the name. it's just church town, the church is there. people don't say they're going to the town to buy their groceries, they say they'll be at the church. you're not sure whether the town was built around the church or the church was built into the town. It's none of your business.

people talk of going to the church when they're going to the town, but nobody seems to go in the church. people only go there to be christened, for confirmation, to get married and to be buried. a child has not been officially named before they're christened, and no-one will tell you the name of their baby before the child has been given their name by a priest. most of them don't seem to know why, and you don't ask. it's none of your business.

even the town is strangely quiet. you see seven people altogether, and half of that number is a family of four. besides the sound of a car rumbling by, and the occasional barking of a dog, you hear nothing. you're standing in the parking lot of a grocery store, across the street from a library, in a walking distance from the town square, and it's so quiet you hear the sound of wind whispering in nearby trees.

there is a dog barking somewhere. of course they are barking, they are guard dogs and hunting dogs. they're supposed to do that. they bark to alert their masters of game, of intruders, of strangers and outsiders. sometimes they bark at the woods, when it doesn't look like there's anything there. the locals don't go investigate it. it's none of their business.

you see the same symbol drawn, doodled and carved anywhere that graffiti accumulates to. an oval divided in the middle, with rays like a sun. it's called the "church boat", though everyone knows it's meant to be a cunt. you remember reading somewhere that it's an ancient symbol, from the time of the Old Gods before the christians came, when the inherent power of the woman of the house was considered stronger than even death magic. you don't ask what the people here know about this. it's none of your business.

the locals can tell you're an outsider here because you don't look like anyone they know. if you were someone's visiting grandchild, they could tell by your face which clan you belong to. they don't ask you what other business you could possibly have here. it's none of their business.

[odoraful]

𝐃𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐒

⟡ content: diluc/wanderer/childe x gn!reader; sfw; modern au; established relationship; fluff !! ⟡ a/n: i was scouring pinterest looking the most fitting inspo rooms for each of them hehe

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DILUC ⟡

Your shared home is an old-fashioned but charming house with a tiled roof and a brick archway leading to the entrance of the door. Diluc has a good eye for style — all the furniture pieces you select together are warm and elegant, perfectly matching with the vintage style home.

He’s a bit of a craftsman, and when you moved in he custom built bookshelves just for you. Your house has traces of Diluc’s handiwork: a wooden tissue box cover, tile coasters, a ceramic chess set.

Being a peak acts of service man, if he notices that there’s something inconveniencing you that can be mended, he’ll try to find a way to fix it. That wooden chair that wobbled yesterday when you sat down on it? The next day, it’s miraculously levelled. Always struggling to find your keys before you leave the house? There are now little hooks on the wall where you can easily hang them. He doesn’t make a huge show of it, but you’ll always kiss him on the cheek and say that you should repay him with something.

“There’s no need. Seeing you happy is more than enough for me.” He replies, running a hand through his hair, the tips of his ears turning red.

The house is IMPECCABLY cleaned — the chores are shared out between the two of you, and the both of you work like a well-oiled machine. He’ll insist that you shouldn’t carry anything too heavy though! He doesn’t want you to hurt yourself :(

One of the things that Diluc wouldn’t ever trade is getting the chance to cuddle with you in the evening on the couch. He’ll let you play with his hair and try out different styles, comforted by the feeling of your fingers running through it.

Sometimes, he’ll come home late from work tired and perhaps a bit grumpy, but the sight of you will change his mood completely.

At the sound of jangling keys and the front door creaking shut, you rush out of the bathroom and down the stairs. 

“(Y/N), I’m home!” You hear Diluc’s voice call out to you.

The day had felt far too long for him, and with far too many headaches for him to deal with. The only thing that he looked forward to at the end of it all was to see you again. 

Hearing the patter of your slippers, he looks up. It takes everything within him to keep composed at your appearance. Having just gotten out of a hot shower, your cheeks were tinted pink, hair still damp and slicked. Diluc’s eyes trailed to your clothes, a matching pair of flannel shirt and shorts. He loosens his tie, suddenly finding his breath stuck in his throat. It baffled him how gorgeous you were even in pyjamas.

Wordlessly, he reaches towards you. You look down at his hands and see as they fasten the remaining top two buttons of your sleeping shirt. In your hurry to greet him at the door, you forgot to dress properly. 

“I can’t believe I missed that...” You sheepishly say, observing his hands as they linger on your shirt. Your senses told you something was off.  “Did you have troubles at work today?”

The worry in your eyes melts his heart. Of course you were the one to peer through him and know exactly how he was feeling. 

“A few clientele at the bar today were-” He sighs, still fidgeting with the fabric of your shirt, recalling the events of the day, “-difficult to manage to say the least.” He lifts his head to meet his gaze. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you.” 

Your arms instinctually wrap around him and he collapses into them. Tightening your embrace, he rests his head on your shoulder.

“Diluc, I just took a shower.” You say with a light giggle, trying to pull your hair away from his face.

He feels your breath close to his ear and he wishes he could have recorded that laugh for himself to hear it over and over again. 

“I could tell.” He breathes deeply. “Is this a new shampoo?”

“Well yes, but what I meant from that is that my hair is still wet!”

You feel him smile against you. “It doesn’t bother me. Just a few more seconds, please. I need to recharge.” 

WANDERER ⟡

You share an apartment together since you travel to and from the same university. Although you’re studying different degrees and have different schedules, you’ll both make an effort to spend time together at home during the weekdays. 

You and Wanderer leave little notes cheering each other on and stick them to the walls or the fridge before you leave, or sneak them into pencil cases or onto laptop screens. He has a small box on his desk where he collects all your notes, neatly folding them up to preserve them.

Wanderer enjoys having the home quite minimalist. Just the essentials will do, but the two of you do splurge a bit more on your study space —  the comfiest chairs, wide desks, tactile keyboards — anything to liven up having to do assignments all the time.  

When you’re feeling too tired or distracted from your own studies, you’ll walk over to his desk and try to sit on his lap while he works. He’ll attempt to exert some self-control and reject your wishes, but eventually gives in after seeing your pout.

“Just because you’re distracted doesn’t give you any right to bother me.” He grumbles, resting his chin on your head.

He warns you that if you do decide to put plants in the house, you are responsible for them. Little do you know that he’s secretly also invested in their health. On mornings when you’re in a rush and forget to water them, he’ll spritz them with your spray bottle thinking to himself: If you died (Y/N) would be devastated, so don’t even think about it.

His favourite room is the bedroom. It’s a place for both of you to escape the stresses of being a student and relax together.

The alarm clock beeps and you wiggle in bed, reaching over a hand to quickly silence it. Bright sun filters in through the curtains, its light diffusing into the room. 

You force your eyes open and sit up, your body bent over like a crooked branch. Movement beside you pulls your attention as Wanderer shifts in his sleep. You can’t deny how pretty he looks even at rest. His long lashes fanned out under closed eyes, the steady rise and fall of his chest with each deep breath. His expression is that of pure peace. You know that’ll soon disappear when you both need to properly wake up and prepare for classes.

“Hey, it’s time to wake up,” you whisper, carefully coaxing him from slumber. 

Wanderer opens his bleary eyes ever so slightly, then immediately closes them. He mumbles something of refusal. You roll your eyes in resignation. When it comes to sleep, he acts like a child sometimes. You turn to get out of bed. 

Two arms wrap around your waist and yank you back. You stumble into the sheets with a yelp. Wanderer adjusts the blanket over you and pulls you closer to him with one hand. 

“Not yet.” His voice is low and scratchy, his words slurred. “Want more time in bed… with you.” 

You sigh softly, absentmindedly running a hand through his hair to detangle it. “You do this almost every morning. You’re never going to attend your lectures on time.”

He replies by nuzzling into your neck, and you hear nothing but his slow breaths. His peers would have sooner called identity fraud than believe the stony and scholarly Wanderer to be this clingy and affectionate in the morning. However, in the privacy of just you, it’s become easy for him to let down his guard. 

“Don’t try to get out of this by pretending to be asleep.” You say, deadpan.

There’s a stutter in his breathing as you catch his obvious charade. 

“Stop worrying. I’ll just watch the recording.” He finally responds. 

You realise in a fluster just how close your faces are, barely inches apart. As if sensing this, Wanderer opens his eyes once again, this time there’s a glint of mischief in them. 

He taps his forehead lightly against your own. “And besides, why would I want to spend my mornings in a noisy lecture hall when I can be with you in peace and quiet?”

CHILDE ⟡

You’ve been living together for a while now, and your home has transformed into what can only be described as organised chaos.

If Childe kept up with his interior designing eagerness, it would have been complete maximalism, but you were there to contain his excitement and still ensure your home was still practical. 

The two of you love collecting pillows, plushies and blankets, which adds even more to the cosiness! However, one day you tried to sit down on the couch and realised it was more pillows than actual seat space. In a fit of laughter, you and Childe ruled that you would rotate between different cushions every so often so you could get your couch back. 

Childe will still come home with flowers or sweets (sometimes both) as gifts for you on random nights. He’ll stand on the doorstep looking like a lovesick teenage boy asking his crush out on a date. Taking them from his hands, you’ll ask what the occasion is.

“Well, there isn’t a particular occasion.” He kisses you on the forehead. “Celebrating you should be an everyday thing.”

Board game nights are taken very seriously. You have a bookshelf filled with different types of them. Whether it’s a classic game of UNO or Jenga, or something a little more strategic, he's always hyper-competitive. You also have special punishments for if one of you loses, which are harmless but maybe a little embarrassing (One of his favourite punishments for you is ‘For the entire day tomorrow, Childe will only call (Y/N) by the cheesiest pet names’). 

MASSIVE kitchen since he loves to cook. He keeps a book of recipes from his mum and has since added new ones of his own that he has shared with you. 

“Could you come over here, baby?”

You follow your partner’s voice and the scent of something freshly baked into the kitchen.

Childe is standing behind the counter, his face in deep focus. He takes one of an array of heart-shaped biscuits and dips half of it in a bowl of chocolate before placing it on a lined baking sheet. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up, exposing his forearms. His muscular build is sharply juxtaposed by the cream-coloured apron tied around himself, which has a little teddy bear embroidered in its centre. 

You approach the kitchen bench, eyes sparkling with excitement. “Are they ready yet? Can I try one?” You eagerly ask. 

“Not quite, I need help dipping the rest of these into chocolate.” He stretches his arms out in front of him, shaking the tension out of them.

“That being said,” he grins, extending a hand towards you across the kitchen bench as an offer, “would you do me the honour of being my baking assistant for a little?” 

Chuckling at his dramatics, you delicately place your hand in his like royalty. “I’d be delighted to help.”  

Childe guides you to his side and helps you put on your apron. As he ties the strings together, he relays the instructions to you. 

“You just need to dip half of the biscuit into chocolate, and then add some sprinkles on top before it sets.” He tightens the bow around your waist to secure it.

How hard could that be? You think, nodding along to his words.

Demoing an example, Childe deftly coats half of the biscuit. Angling it just right, the chocolate drips off and evens itself out, leaving a perfect covered half. After placing it on the tray and adding the finishing touch of sprinkles, he gestures for you to try it yourself.

You confidently take one biscuit and dunk it. 

“Ah!” 

Underestimating its consistency, when you lift the biscuit, the chocolate slowly spreads onto the other half of the heart and drips onto your fingers. You quickly place it onto the baking sheet. Childe stifles his laugh, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“My one looks so much worse compared to yours…” you mutter, licking your fingers to remove the evidence of your unsuccessful attempt. 

Seeing the frown on your face, he gently bumps your shoulder with his own in encouragement. “Don’t say that! I think your one has a lot more charm.” He says, adding the sprinkles onto your heart. “I’ll run some extra baking classes with you to build up your skills, how does that sound?”

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[erikatsu]

DON'T LET ME GO ⋆.ೃ࿔* ═ FUSHIGURO TOJI

˗ˏˋ PAIRING ˎˊ˗ fushiguro toji x fem!reader

˗ˏˋ SUMMARY ˎˊ˗ your ex’s dad comforts you after your break up.

˗ˏˋ WARNINGS ˎˊ˗ kinda angsty and soft. age gap, body worship (?), unprotected sex, pet names (baby, sweetheart), multiple orgasms, cervix fucking, baby trapping, creampie, aftercare, unedited

˗ˏˋ NOTE ˎˊ˗ repost from old acc !

The soft tapping of the beginning rain hitting your windshield calmed you as you shut off the car. You couldn't help but think it was funny that the sky matched your mood. Dark, cloudy, and crying for you since you refused to do so yourself. Not anymore. Not over him, the boy who broke your heart after being together for over two years. 

You sighed, shutting off your vehicle as you talked yourself up. You’ll be fine, you assured yourself. Just get your things and go. 

Easier said than done. 

You blindly reached for the door handle, slowly pulling it open. Your heart raced as you yanked your hood over your head, dashing out into the soft rain. The petrichor hit your nose as it began to pick up, and you pulled your jacket tighter around you as you quickly walked up to the large house. You'd been here countless times, but the traditional Japanese style of the home always left you in awe. The dark zegiel tiles that lined the roof and met the kawara with the family crest in the center on top of the white clay walls accented by black wood fed your aesthetic for juxtaposition. 

You could remember the first time you came here. You were left breathless as you stared into the koi pond in the backyard, watching the fish swimming and the reds of the palmate maples and whites of the plum blossoms dance across the water’s reflection. You made a comment to your ex’s father that a Wisteria would suit the garden nicely between the black and white pines, as it lacked blues and purples, upon meeting him before you could think about what you had said. Fortunately for you, he agreed. Seeing it planted exactly where you pictured made you smile to this very day. 

Fushiguro Toji had always given you what your heart desired. When questioned about it by his son, the answer was always a simple, “You two remind me of your mother and I.” But, that wasn't it. Not really. In truth, Fushiguro Toji had always been taken with you. It was wrong, as you were his son’s age and (at the time) his son’s girlfriend. However, it wasn't like Toji would truly act on these feelings. 

No, Fushiguro Toji was a gentleman. All class with a smart mouth and dashing good looks to top it off, not only would he not come between you and his son, he wouldn't risk his career. Pulling away from the Zen’in clan and getting married at a young age had been the wildest thing he’s done in his life. After losing his wife and working full time to support Megumi, he had to do and be better than his family. Risking everything he'd worked towards for a woman half his age would be a waste. Instead, he showed his interest through material things under the guise of “one day she’ll be part of the family, she gets the Fushiguro treatment.”

Because a thing like money was no issue to Toji, he didn't mind spending it on you if it meant seeing you smile. Being the King of Kabutochō meant as long as he had investors, there would always be money. 

Even in the dreary weather, the landscaping of the property was still breathtaking. You didn't realize you'd been standing, staring into the yard instead of walking up the wooden steps to take cover underneath the extension of the roof, supported by tall wooden beams. With one last look, you made your way to the door, raising a hesitant hand to knock. You were so used to just walking in, a backpack slung over your shoulder and full of clothes to stay the weekend instead of staying on campus. Having to knock was another reminder that this would be your last visit here. 

You let your hand fall against the door, causing the dogs inside to bark. A voice barked back at them, telling them to be quiet and go lay down. You recognized it, wondering why Toji was answering the door instead of Megumi. He knew you'd be by today. Was he avoiding you? Or was he with the girl who had stolen his heart from you?

The door swung open, revealing Toji and all his morning glory. His hair disheveled, still in his silk pajamas. His eyes widened when he saw you, not knowing you were coming over. Before he could ask why you were knocking, he saw the red of your eyelids and your bloodshot eyes. His brow furrowed, bottom lip pushing outwards in confusion. 

“You've been crying. What's wrong?” He questioned, causing the familiar sting of tears to torment you as you tried to keep yourself composed. 

You wanted to tell him you'd been crying for three days now, and that you swore you wouldn't anymore before leaving the house. But, when you opened your mouth to tell him the truth, your voice caught in your throat. Just like that, your resolve crumbled. You allowed the tears to form, unable to stop them from flowing as Toji pulled you into the house. 

You refrained from answering as you took off your shoes and faced them towards the door. As soon as you turned back to face him, he pulled you into his chest, causing you to break down in his arms.

“He– He broke up with me,” You managed to choke out, squeezing your eyes shut as if that would stop the tears that fell from them. A harsh sob wracked your body as you felt yourself latch onto him, clinging to him for comfort that you desperately needed. His large hands rubbed your back, trying his best to console you as you gasped for air and dampened his shirt. “There's– There's someone else.”

The twinge of anger he felt flare up was nothing compared to his heart breaking at the sight of you like this. Crying over his son, who damn well had been raised better than to play with something as fragile and delicate as someone’s heart. 

“I’ll kill him,” Toji muttered before placing a gentle kiss atop your head.

You sniffled, trying to quickly compose yourself. You were already embarrassed that you had gotten snot and slobber on his expensive silk. But bringing it back up had all your insecurities floating toward the surface. Your lower lip trembled as you found yourself questioning, “I-is there something wrong with me? Am I not pretty enough? O-or–”

Toji pulled away slightly, softly hooking a finger under your chin. He gently lifted your head up so you'd look at him, his eyebrows furrowed with bewilderment. He shook his head at you. “Stop right there. You're the most stunning person in the entire world. You're kind, you're funny, and anyone would be lucky to have you. Only an idiot would let you go.”

The sincerity in his tone had your heart racing as you stared at him, wide eyed at his revelation. Before you could realize what you were doing, you were leaning into him. Your lips met his, reminding him of honey with how soft and sweet you were. He was too stunned to move, never expecting you to kiss him. But, just as quickly as you leaned in, you were pulling away with apologies falling from your mouth. 

“Mr. Fushiguro, I'm sorry!” You stepped back, shaking your head as you internally scolded yourself for being an idiot. “That was wrong, I don't know what came over me. I just need to get my things from Megumi and I'll be gone.”

“He's not here,” Toji cleared his throat, letting his hand drop from your chin. “You can go to his room, I'm sure he's got it all there.”

You nodded, promptly heading upstairs so you could grab your things and scatter. You were absolutely abashed, kicking yourself for kissing him like that. He was a grown man, old enough to be your own father. You didn't know what came over you, just chalked it up to being lost in a moment of weakness. What person wouldn't swoon at his words? Or read too much into what he said and how he said it?

Shaking the fleeting thought away from your mind, you entered Megumi's room to see a box of your things sitting on the edge of his nicely made bed. You frowned, knowing your relationship was truly over. Your heart clenched tightly as you picked the box up and took one last longing look around his room. 

Another sigh left your lips as you left, going back downstairs to see Toji staring out the window in the living room, watching the steady rain turn into a harsh downpour. No matter how much he squinted, he couldn't fully make out the purple blooms of the Wisteria he'd planted for you in the thick of the gray rainfall. 

He turned, looking over his shoulder as you approached him. Your eyes were locked on the outside, wondering if it was even safe to drive home when the rain could turn into a monsoon at any given moment. Toji apparently had the same thought, taking the box from you and setting it off to the side. 

“I'd be more comfortable if you stayed until it calms down out there,” He admitted to you, just now noticing you were still soaked from the rain earlier. “I'll have a bath drawn for you and get you a fresh change of clothes.”

He insisted, even though you assured him you'd be fine. He wouldn't take no for an answer, leading you to the private ofuro at the back of the house. He slid the shoji out of the way, revealing the large wooden tub full of already steaming water. The warmth hit you as you stepped inside the sunroom, watching the rain heavily hitting the windows that allowed in the natural light. 

You'd never been in this room before, knowing this was part of Toji’s bathroom. You were taken away with the dark hinoki wood that not only made the tub, but filled the room with its natural lemony scent. You weren't listening as Toji told you where you could find everything, walking towards the tub and lightly feeling the water. It was hot, but not scalding as you pushed through the surface tension, swirling your hand for a brief second before pulling away. 

When you turned to ask for a towel, he was already behind you, smiling at you in amusement. You jumped, not expecting him to be right there. Your heart was beating rapidly in your chest again, more due to his close proximity than anything else. The thought of kissing him crossed your mind again, a thin veil of heat covering your cheeks as you looked away. He cupped your cheek, slowly bringing your gaze back to him. His free hand grabbed your hip, pulling you closer before delicately catching your lips with his own.

You don't know what drove you to move your mouth against his, but you didn't stop yourself as you wound your arms around his neck. Your head was spinning as he gently tugged at your bottom lip, unable to believe you were kissing your ex-boyfriend's father. Toji’s fingers dug into your side, gently rubbing his thumb over your hip. You opened your mouth, allowing him in as your mind went blank. Your hands trailed from his neck down to his chest, and just as he thought you'd push him away, you were undoing the buttons of his shirt. 

His breath hitched as you broke the kiss, looking up at him almost innocently, “Stay with me.”

All his morals had gone out the window the second he decided to kiss you. His hands were pushing your jacket off your shoulders and he was lifting your shirt over your head in response, knowing full and well this was crossing one hell of a line. But, it's not like Megumi would know. He'd already texted, saying he'd be at Yuuji’s until the weather slowed so he wouldn't be coming home anytime soon. 

Clothes were haphazardly thrown across the room before you slipped into the ofuro with Toji, back pressed tightly to his chest as he peppered light kisses against the soft skin of your neck and shoulders. The heat of the water mixed with the feathery soft touches caused goosebumps to rise on your skin. You tilted your head back, resting against him as hands traveled over your body, like tracing lines on a map. He'd sear every inch of you into his twisted mind, memorizing the soft gasps that fell off your lips as he gently cupped your breast and ran his down your belly. Once his fingers brushed your clit, you let out a sharp noise. 

He tenderly rubbed at your sensitive bud, kissing at your neck. You allowed your eyes to close as he toyed with you under the water, a whimper escaping you from the stimulation. Wrapped up with him had you forgetting why you had even come over, had you overlooking the fact this was Megumi’s father and he was over twenty years older than you. No, brushed all of that aside as you twisted your body, sitting in his lap as your mouth found his and you rolled your hips against his hard on. 

You were going to drive him wild. 

Your perfect body pushing flush against his as you squeezed him in all the right places, your soft lips against his tasting like strawberries and mint. His mind was reeling, already intoxicated by how you felt and leaving him wanting more as you rocked your hips. 

You shouldn't have been surprised when he lifted you out of the water, carefully stepping out of the tub, but you scrambled to lock your legs around his toned waist as he carried you towards his room. Water dripped onto the floor, leaving a trail from the sunroom to the bedroom. He never broke contact until he placed you on the bed, kissing his way down your body until his head was between your legs as his tongue ran up and down your slick. 

“God, you're so fucking beautiful,” He mumurmed against your skin before gently pressing his lips to your clit. You whimpered as buried his head between your thighs again, lapping at your wet core as if his tongue was trying to memorize your sweet, gummy walls. Because he was lost in you and your moans, adding fingers and not stopping even as you came in his mouth. Overtaken with the need to have you, he ended up drowning in your heat, pussy drunk off the idea of making you cum until you couldn't anymore. 

You tangled your fingers into his hair, pushing him even further as you whined at the feeling of his fingers curling in and out of you, along with his mouth gently sucking at your clit. 

“Toji–” You panted, breath catching in your throat as your head spun from the overstimulation he was putting you through. “Nngh, s’too much.”

But he wasn't listening, working his two digits and mouth even faster. You keened, back arching as you rolled your hips up. Your entire body tingling and about to go through another wave of euphoria when he finally pulled away. 

He towered over you, cupping your cheek as he leaned in. Instead of kissing you, he rested his forehead against yours. He ran his thumb along your bottom lip, breathing heavily, “Do you want this?”

You were nodding before he even finished his question, staring into his dark blue eyes, “Yes. I want you.”

God, did you want him. Your mind was so overclouded with the thought of him, you had completely pushed Megumi far from your mind. You'd forgotten you'd spent days crying, sobbing over a boy as you were under Toji.

He groaned, reaching down to grab his cock, rubbing it over your entrance a few times before pushing inside. Your eyes fluttered, closing completely as he slowly fucked into you. He kissed you as he evocatively rocked his hips, high pitched gasps leaving your body at the feeling of his raw shaft working deeper inside you and stretching you out. You whimpered against his mouth when he bottomed out, brushing up against the entrance of your womb.

“So fuckin’ tight, baby,” He moaned into your mouth, finding a steady rhythm to roll his hips to. 

He was savoring the way you felt as you squeezed him, the way you tasted, how soft your lips were. He couldn't believe he finally had you, underneath him and taking his length like a champ. He never would've acted on his attraction for you if you hadn't done so first. As his cock dragged along your walls and his tongue danced with yours, the thought of filling your pretty little cunt full of his seed briefly crossed his mind. 

Toji pulled away from you, sliding out before rolling you over and pulling your hips up. He sunk back into your slick with heavy curses flying from his mouth. You mewled as he pressed his chest to your back, his lips brushing where your shoulder met your neck. He reached even further than before, his cock kissing your cervix with each stroke, eliciting soft yelps from you every time.

“Toji, please,” You whined out, gripping the sheets tightly in your hands. “Faster.”

His slow thrusts only picked up slightly, teasing you as he smirked against your skin. You let out a noise of complaint as he chuckled, moving his head to whisper in your ear, “You gotta be more specific, sweetheart.”

You groaned as he pushed deep inside, rutting into your tight hole as he turned your head to once again kiss you. As he locked lips with you, he kept his strokes short and deep, but faster as you had asked. Your moans filled his mouth, spurring him on as he bullied you from behind. The sound of his balls smacking against your wet cunt was all he could hear besides you, pushing you closer to the edge with each thrust. 

Your knuckles were turning white as your pussy clenched around his cock and you gripped the sheets even tighter. He groaned, pulling away from you as he murmured, “That's right baby, cum for me.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, crying out as you felt a tight knot building inside you. Toji pushed himself up, grabbing your hips and forcing them back each time he rocked into you. A choked noise left you as he fucked you into your high, cumming around with his cock with a sharp whine. He rode you out, slowing down as your grip on him loosened and you were left breathless. 

He gradually pulled out, flipping you back over. Pushing one of your thighs back, he lined himself up before slipping back into you with ease. Your back arched as he worked his rhythm back up, long thrusts instead of short as he began to chase his own orgasm. Grunts fell from his lips as he rammed into you, yelps emitted from you in turn. You cried out his name, sending his mind into a frenzy. 

He loved the way his name rolled off your tongue instead of “Mr. Fushiguro”. You had always addressed him as that, even though he had told you several times that Toji was fine. He’s glad you waited though, making the experience that much better. 

As you squirmed under him, pleasured noises leaving your mouth, he found himself close to his own high, warning you he was going to cum. He had every intention of pulling out, but something in you snapped and you locked your legs around his waist, jerking him in as far as he could go.

“Nngh, you're playing a dangerous game here, sweetheart,” He groaned, losing all control of his hips as your actions threw him into his high. He drilled into you, his balls slapping your skin so hard you were sure they'd leave marks. With one last thrust, he pushed as deep as he could go, spilling his hot seed into your tight cunt. 

You both panted, catching your breath as he finally pulled out of you. He placed a gentle kiss on your lips before standing. Toji dipped back into the bathroom before coming back with a towel and silk robes. As he cleaned you up, you couldn't help but let your mind wander. 

Toji had always been intimidating, but you got to see that he wasn't. He was sweet and more gentle than he seemed. You couldn't help but wonder what would come from what just happened. Whether it continued, became serious, or was forgotten didn't much matter to you.

You slipped on the robe, lying back down on the side of the super wide king bed that wasn't soaked from the bath water or your juices. Toji flopped down beside you, running a large hand up your leg and stopping as he decided to rest it on your ass.

“If you wanted me to breed you, baby, you should’a just said so,” He teased, causing heat to rush to your cheeks.

The two of you had been so invested in each other, you didn't realize the rain had stopped shortly after it started. But, you were still wrapped up in the older man and how he made you feel so good that you'd completely forgotten the reason for your visit. 

You walked your fingers up his chest, about to give a coy response when a voice from the doorway had you immediately halfing in your tracks. 

“Dad!?”

˗ˏˋ TAGS ˎˊ˗ @sanzucide @dxlucs @mxnjiros @albedxs @suyacho

[amjustagirl]

chapter 4

pairing: hoshina soshiro x f! reader

genre: romance, angst

wc: 5k

summary: you've loved soshiro since you were seven. he will always place his duty above you.

chapt 1 / chapt 2 / chapt 3 / chapt 4 / chapt 5

When you blink open your eyes, you find yourself back in the Hoshina family estate. 

The garden is exactly as you remember it. Bonsai trees, neatly manicured. The white gravel ocean raked with ripple lines. Heat shimmers off the ground, harsh summer sun bearing down on the tiled roof. A young man with dark hair and sad, violet eyes sits across you. 

“Soshiro”, you cry, fumbling to your feet. 

He looks right through you even when you’re standing right before him. 

He’s wearing the navy hakama he reserves for formal occasions, the family crest embroidered in gold thread on the back, a ceremonial katana strapped to his hip. Something’s about to happen, you realise, the compound bustling with servants carrying paper lanterns. No one pays you any notice as you float behind him down the familiar corridors of the house, a ghost. 

His father approaches, severe lines running through his forehead. “You know your duty”, he claps his son’s shoulder with a heavy hand. 

Soshiro’s shoulders slump, an invisible weight bearing down on him. 

His duty awaits outside the estate’s gates. 

A young woman, clearly noble born, waits for them to greet her with her chin in the air, dolled up in matrimonial white, surrounded by a retinue of servants. She tilts her chin higher to assess her groom as he offers her his arm before bowing her head demurely, letting him help her up the stairs. 

The sun in your eyes forces you to turn away. Another woman catches your gaze, the profile of her face backlit in the blue-grey dusk. Rough hands, a cheap, cotton yukata, she hides in the shade. Her anguish is apparent in the defeated curve of her mouth. 

She’s you, you realise, with even sadder eyes. 

This is a dream, you tell yourself. A shitty, crappy excuse of a dream that you probably caused by drinking one too many cans of beer. You really should take better to maintain a healthy REM cycle, maybe pick up some meditation or exercise, because heaven knows your psyche will suffer if your subconsciousness decides to torture you in your sleep too.  

You close your eyes. 

You still don’t find yourself back in your bed. Instead, the stench of manure hits you, then the scratch of straw under your feet. That sad girl - you, in another life perhaps, kneels before the same dark haired boy, Soshiro, still as a statue.  

“The horse is saddled. We can ride somewhere, far away where no one knows either of our names, leave all of this behind. You don’t have to get married to a woman you don’t love -” 

He’s carved of marble in the moonlight, doesn’t move to meet her gaze, not even when she tugs at his sleeve. “I am but a second son, but even I know my duty to my clan.” 

“And what about love?” she asks. “What about me?” 

Neither of them notice you when you tumble out of the stable into the night. But there’s nothing but darkness looming before you, the moon nowhere to be seen, and when you turn back, the stable has disappeared. In its place, a familiar, wooden hut, where a fire grows. The heat of the forge stings your face, ash flying, the smell of burning steel in the air. 

This time, Soshiro’s in the lacquered leather of a samurai warrior from centuries past. “Is it ready?” he directs his question at the woman in the forge. 

Wordlessly, she hands him the sword in her hand, red hot from hammer and tongs. He weighs it in his hand, swings it once, twice, flashing quicksilver in the dim light of the blacksmith’s forge. You recognise the blade. You’ve seen it hung up in one of many sitting rooms in the Hoshina estate, captioned as belonging to a Hoshina ancestor who never returned home. 

You understand why her voice quivers when she calls out to him before he leaves. “My lord”, she says. “Will you ever lay down your sword?” 

“Perhaps in another life”, he replies. 

In the shadow of the forge, the violets in his eyes wither and die. 

You cannot bear to watch this play out before you again and again, a twisted loop you’re powerless to stop. There is nothing you can do to shock yourself awake, a ghost in every lifetime you freefall through, so bone weary, you stop running, sink to your knees. Wherever you are, the nightmares stop once you close your eyes. The damp grass is cool against your back, the darkness becomes soothing. It’s easy to lose yourself to a deep, undisturbed sleep. 

(wake up) 

The thrum of your heartbeat starts to still. You think you hear a faint echo. It sounds like Soshiro.

For the first time in your life, you hesitate to answer. 

(please, wake up)

“But it’s comfortable here”, you say to no one at all. “I’m so tired.” 

The neverending grind of work, of long hours spent hunched over glowering flames and complicated weapon blueprints. The dull ache of heartbreak, the painful lesson of learning to be okay alone. 

“Let me sleep”, you whisper. 

The darkness holds you close, blankets you. It’s too easy to let yourself just be, no one to disappoint, no one who disappoints. You let yourself be pulled beneath the tide, the endless ebb and flow lulling you into a dreamless slumber. 

Perhaps you could be content like this. 

Perhaps not. You think of the menagerie of plants you’ve gathered, they depend on you for food and water. There’s a pottery class on Sunday that you’ve been excited to attend, an abstract pot that you want to attempt. You’re supposed to meet your mother for tea, you’re looking forward to feasting on peaches, in season in the dying weeks of summer. 

Your eyelids are still heavy with the weight of sleep, but you force them open. A streak of pain that shoots through your right side, but you slowly sit up anyway. A sea of hydrangeas,  shimmering violet-blue in the early morning light stretches before you.

An achingly familiar voice calls your name. You lift your face to meet the rising sun, feeling its warmth flicker through you. 

Your heart begins to hum. 

You’re not in your own bed when you crack your eyes open. 

The room is too white, too pin-neat. There are clear tubes running from your arms, bandages restricting even your slightest movement, not that you really can do much other than shift about the too-narrow bed you’ve found yourself in, the sudden brightness disorienting you. 

“Oh!”, an unfamiliar voice exclaims. “Call the doctor, she’s awake!” 

Your head threatens to split open. It hurts too much to stay awake. 

You fall back into a dreamless sleep.

You drift in and out of consciousness after that, the pull of sleep still irresistible, but you stay awake for longer periods of time. Doctors poke and prod at you, nurses fuss over you. It’s hard to recall any conversations you have during this time, your memories melding almost into your dreams. 

People ask you questions about your name, your age, where you’re from. It feels as if you’re stuck underwater, it’s a struggle to gasp for enough air at times to answer them, but you think you find enough brain cells to rub together in the cotton wool jumble in your head, mumble the right answers so they go away. 

Your parents show up to visit you. 

‘’Llo”, you mutter. Your father looks strangely old, your mother tired. 

You’re pleased that your mother brings chopped peaches for you, less so when you realise you have no ability to swallow solid food just yet. They disappear for a hushed conversation with the doctors, leaving you with little distraction so you drop back off to sleep. 

The next time you wake, the room is dark. 

Even in the dim glow of machines beeping, you make out the faint outline of a boy you know too well, curled up uncomfortably in a plastic chair. “S‘ro”, you mumble, half asleep. 

A flurry of movement. He appears by your uninjured side, staring at you wide-eyed, as if he doesn’t believe you won’t disappear. You wonder if he’s another figment of your dreams because he stands so still drinking his fill of you, until he remembers to breathe again. 

“Hey”, he says hoarsely.

“Mmph”, you grunt. In your vague, rambling train of thoughts, you register surprise that he’s even here. “S’ work?”

His laugh is wet. “Are you seriously askin’ me ‘how’s work’ right now?” 

You frown. Why - why is Soshiro even here? 

“I’m here for you, silly”, a warm hand settles on your left arm. “Go back to sleep. I’ll seeya later.” 

You start to stay awake for longer stretches at a time. 

Your parents gently fill you in on your situation. You were touch and go for a while, your mother recounts tearfully, your head injury making the doctors doubt you’d ever wake. You had to be cut open to stop internal bleeding in your gut, fix a multitude of shattered bones in your right hip and leg. Burns, on your shoulder and arm which required skin grafts, extensive medication to keep infection at bay. 

Everyone treats you like you’re made out of glass even as your condition steadily improves, aided by the wonders of kaiju regenerative technology. Your parents fuss over you like a child, tucking you in too tight beneath starched hospital sheets. The nurses refuse to let you shower, only allowing you sponge baths which you detest. 

Soshiro’s the worst of the lot. 

At first it's endearing how protective and sweet he is. The doctors give him a wide berth, most of the nurses terrified of him, though he swears that he’s been utterly polite when you question him about it. He doesn’t allow you to do anything yourself, not even hold your own cup of water when you drink. Your bedside is overflowing with colourful greeting cards, half of them signed by him, and he brings you a fresh bouquet of flowers during each visit. 

“That boy is besotted with you”, one of the nurses who isn’t intimidated by Soshiro trills in with her unsolicited opinion. “It’s adorable.” 

He’s not”, you deny, frowning. “We’re just friends.”  

It’s a little too much. The only visitor who doesn’t smother you is Sochiro, who snaps back to his usual self the minute you show a little of your usual snark. “Did you break your head too?” you ask, when he arrives bearing a hamper of fruit. 

“Impertinent brat”, he snaps back. “I’ll have you know my father put me up to this.” 

You grin. “I suppose that’s where your brother got his manners from. Pity you don’t have any.”

He glowers at you, but doesn’t storm out of the room. Instead, he brandishes a small, silver knife and starts peeling fruit. “I never wanted a younger sibling”, he grouses. “Should’ve dropped Soshiro in the drain the minute he was born, then I’d never have to deal with your smart mouth -.” 

“Aww”, you coo. “Hoshina Sochiro, Captain of the Sixth Division, getting soft in your old age.” 

“Shut it”, he snaps, while stuffing perfect wedges of fruit into your palm. 

It reminds you of the easy friendship you had with Soshiro, not the way he’s behaving, almost as if he feels anything more than friendship for you - which he’s confirmed to your face that he mostly does not. It confuses you, the tender way he treats you, the lingering stares when he thinks you’re asleep, and you much prefer him to go back to the way he was before. 

“Stop it!” you finally burst, when his smothering becomes too overwhelming. “Treat me like your friend - not like I’m some glass figurine you’re trying to keep safe.”

A plastic chair screeches back. He stares at you. “Do you even realise how close you were to dyin’?” 

“Sorta”, you reply, though some gaps remain empty in your memories, “but I’m okay now, and ‘sides, what happened was just bad luck -”

“No it wasn’t just luck”, he replies. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Something shutters behind his eyes. “It’s my fault you’re hurt.” He angles himself away from you. “I crashed into your building.” 

“The kaiju threw you into the building”, you correct. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He lunges forward to grip your bed rail, his sudden intensity scaring you. “I could’ve been the cause of you dyin’-”

“My head’s pretty hard”, you try to diffuse the building tension with a joke. “Would take more than a fallin’ building to kill me.”

He makes a strangled sound of outrage in his throat. “Don’t. Just - don’t.” 

His tone is devoid of its usual lightness. He’s - he’s angry, scared, face twisting into a scowl, body coiling, as if preparing for an attack. “You’re upset”, you murmur. “Don’t be.” 

“You could’ve died.”

“Hey”, you beckon him forward, lifting your uninjured hand off the bed to place it on top of his. He grasps at it, a drowning man clutching at a lifeline. 

“It’s okay”, you say gently. “I’m okay.” 

“Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“I’ll try my best”, you offer. 

An angry sound escapes through his clenched jaw, his face strained. You brush the skin of his wrist with your thumb until the too-quick staccato of his pulse steadies. 

“Go to sleep”, he finally says. “Just stay safe.” 

After that, something shifts. Soshiro resumes the mantle of his chaotic, goofy self. 

“I’m gonna yell at you when you’re better”, Soshiro huffs the next time he visits. “A daikaiju -it was a nine on the fortitude scale, y’know - decides to attack near you, and you not only choose to stay put, you run back into a collapsing building for whatever reason -” 

“I was trying to save some of the blades -” 

“How about you focus on savin’ your own damn skin -” 

You sniff, deliberately closing your eyes. “I’m going back to sleep.” 

“Oi”, he grounds out. “Stop pretendin’.” 

The reappearance of the playful banter you’re used to sharing with him puts you back at ease. “Don’t you need to sleep too?” you ask, staring pointedly at the purple smudges beneath his eyes. “In a bed, not a hospital chair that’s going to give you a crooked neck.” 

“S’fine”, he always replies. “Still way more comfortable than sleepin’ out in a forest durin’ kaiju hunts.” 

“Still”, you insist. “You don’t have to visit me so often. I know how busy you are with work.” 

He squints at you. “Do you not want me to be here?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it -”

“Sometimes work can take a backseat.” 

You beckon him forward, place a hand against his forehead. “No fever”, you pronounce. “That’s odd -  the Hoshina Soshiro I know would never say that unless his mind is addled by illness-” 

He pulls away with a splutter, cheeks a furious pink. 

But awkward moments like this remain, no matter how much you try to keep your conversations light, breezy. There’s a tension Soshiro carries, especially apparent in the broad lines of his shoulders. He’s nervy, jumpy almost, the unguarded hitch in his breath when he draws in just a little too close. There’s something he’s keeping in, deep inside his chest that keeps trying to explode out of him whenever he’s not careful. 

There’s a glimpse of that when you tell him of your plan to move back to Osaka to continue recuperating under your parents’ roof. You’ll miss your apartment where you navigated much of your young adult life, the routines you’ve built for yourself. But you’re tired of living in the hospital, sleeping on a too-hard bed, without much privacy from nurses who pop in and out of your room at odd hours at all times. Your parents agree to ferry you to check-ups and appointments, and they even got your brother to transport your plants to make you feel more at home. 

“You’re not leavin’ for good, surely”, he frowns. 

“I’m not sure”, you shrug. “Izumo Tech does have offices in Osaka, and there isn’t much tying me to Tokyo anymore. 

There’s a sudden lull in the conversation as Soshiro falls silent, face stricken. He opens his mouth as if to speak, once, twice, before shutting it deliberately,  Then his face slackens into a childish pout. 

“Don’t go”, he whines. “Who would I hang out with when I’m off-duty?” 

Caught off guard from this sudden change in mood, you refrain from pointing out that you’d each taken turns to studiously ignore the other before. “You’ll survive”, you pat his hand. “And, on the rare occasions you actually find the time away from work, you’re always welcome to visit me in Osaka.” 

“I will”, he replies, so seriously that your traitorous heart skips a beat. 

“I doubt you’ll get enough time off work”, you brush him off lightly before changing the subject. 

You don’t expect him to visit, not when Osaka is two and a half hours away from Tokyo on the shinkansen, but he turns up at the doorstep of your parents’ apartment with roses, dusty pink like the flush up his neck. 

“Hoshina-kun”, your mother exclaims. “Come on in!”

Something is up. Your mother bustles around, ushers him into your room, lays out before him an offering of cut fruit. Surprised at the tableau before you, you blink, looking up from your book. 

“Don’t you have to work?” 

“I do have days off, y’know.” He says, easing you into your wheelchair. 

“Thought you said killing kaijus isn’t a nine to five job”, you remind him pertly. 

He tweaks your nose. “Don’t be smart”, his eyes crinkle as he laughs, rolling you out of the confines of your parent’s house to a nearby park to enjoy the crisp cool autumn breeze, settling you down in the shade beneath a sprawling gingko tree. 

“Well, how’s work?” 

He considers you with a sideways glance. “I refuse to answer”, he says primly. “If I do, you’ll make use of it to accuse me of being obsessed with my job.”

“Aren’t you?” 

“This is exactly what I mean”, he throws his hands out dramatically. “Shouldn’t you just be happy I’m here -” 

“Actually”, you tease. “Isn’t the train fare really expensive? Can you afford that on your pay?” 

“The Defense Force’s generous enough to give me food, clothing and a roof over my head”, he replies drolly. “So I think my bank account can take the occasional hit.” Then, he shoots another mock glare your way. “Anyway, I don’t wanna talk about work or anything related to work.” 

“Then I guess there’s nothing else to talk about”, you tap your chin thoughtfully. 

“Idiot”, he wrinkles his nose. “We haven’t even talked about how you’re doing.” 

“Me?” 

Exaggeratedly, he takes a look around. “I don’t see anyone else I could be askin’ about -” 

“You wanna hear about my boring doctor appointments?” 

His eyes are wide, earnest. “I wanna hear about everything.” 

The sudden seriousness of his demeanour catches you off-kilter. Haltingly you tell him about the long check-ups that take hours, the doctors being optimistic about your progress, the physiotherapy sessions you’ve started. You’re slowly starting to walk again, a few steps at a time, giving you hope that you’ll be on your own two feet by the time of your brother’s wedding at the end of fall, even if you have to rely a little on crutches. 

“I’m talking too much”, you say, looking down at your lap. 

“Don’t stop”, he urges. “Keep talkin’.” 

A snort. “You’re gonna get sick of the sound of my voice”, 

“What a silly thing to say”, his gaze holds yours, steady, sure. 

There’s something impossibly soft in his eyes, a tenderness in the curve of his mouth. You don’t dare to put a name to it yet, don’t even dare to look too closely at it lest you lose yourself to daydreams that can’t possibly be true. Yet, in the purpling dusk, even though the seasons dictate that there be no summer flowers this late in the fall, there’s a bud of hope in your heart that starts to unfurl, petal by petal, twining itself between the ribs of your chest. 

(i like you)

(i’m sorry)

You remind yourself that your heart is not quite healed. Stitches remain, fleshy scars pink and raised. Ventricles working overtime to compensate for the damage he’s wrought just months prior. Mercilessly, you prune those hopes like unwanted weeds, chopping away at errant stems and leaves. 

“I’m tired”, you break away from his gaze. “Shall we call it a day?” 

He makes it difficult for you to safeguard your heart. 

Once a week, he makes the trek from Tokyo to Osaka without fail, appearing at your parents’ door with a bouquet of flowers and a bag bursting with fruit, whatever is in season - peaches and peonies, apples and chrysanthemums. Picnics when it’s sunny, cafes or supermarkets when it rains. Your mother has a sudden change of heart regarding him, always asking you when he’s coming to take you out next.  

“Seriously, don’t you have work?” you demand. “You can’t keep coming down here, it’s ridiculous.” 

“Is it?” he asks quietly. 

“It is”, you reply. “It’s a waste of your time and money.” 

With careful, calloused fingers, he tilts your chin up to meet his gaze. “What must I do to make you believe it’s really, really not.” 

You flinch, cramming your thrumming heart back into the confines of your chest. “You’re ridiculous”, you say as calmly as you can. If your leg weren’t still broken, you’d flee in the other direction, put as much distance as you can between you and Hoshina Soshiro, for fear of losing your heart again to him. 

He’s relentless, a quality that makes him an excellent swordsman and soldier, though it does not bode well for your heart. You spend the next few weeks keeping your conversations light, unsentimental, refusing to allow that unnamed emotion budding  in his eyes flourish any further, he remains undeterred. You catch him watching you sometimes, with something you don’t dare to name that bleeds into you, spreading the seeds of hope deep in your gut.  

“I’ll be back next week to see you”, he always says. “Stay safe.”

You should tell him to leave you alone, let you replant your heart in another pot, give it a chance to learn to stop looking towards him for his light. But the words choke in your throat, and it’s all you can do to look the other way. 

You don’t get any respite even at your own brother’s wedding. 

It’s too large, too crowded an occasion, your parents booking out a banquet hall in an upscale hotel to cram in their swarms of guests. As the younger sister of the groom, you’re expected to greet each and every guest, thank them for their attendance even if you’d much rather be at home, warm and snug in bed. Instead, your head threatens to split open, your hip’s on the verge of falling apart. You curse your stubbornness in insisting against bringing your wheelchair, the crutches you lean on cutting into the tender flesh of your underarms.  

“Did anyone tell you that you look beautiful tonight?” 

As it was in your dreams, he’s in a haori, deep blue with golden thread, but this time he looks right at you. Your mouth goes dry and you can’t seem to swallow your heart back down your throat. 

“Save your flirting for my cousins”, you retort, turning away. “They’re all aflutter at meeting you tonight.” 

He doesn’t let you flee. An arm loops around your waist, sears through the silk layers of your kimono and smoulders. “You’re cranky cos you’re tired, so let me help you.” 

You blame your capitulation on the absence of your wheelchair, not because you’re light headed from the sudden surge of helpless affection in your gut, as much as you refuse to allow yourself to believe his words. You let him steer you into your seat, palm flat against your back, heat suffusing into your skin. 

“I’ll be here if you need me”, he says simply. 

You don’t need him, you want to say, you can’t, but your mouth can’t seem to form the words when he leans in, tucks a stray strand of hair behind the shell of your ear, his touch feather light. 

“Vice Captain Hoshina!?” As you foresaw, a gaggle of younger cousins goggle at him, drag him away for selfies and autographs. You don’t get a chance to speak with him again once the wedding starts, the seating plan placing him with his parents and other business associates of your parents, a few tables away.  

The sheer scale and grandeur of your brother’s wedding isn’t what you’d have chosen for yourself, the cavernous ballroom feeling too large and impersonal, speeches dragging on for too long, but your brother and your new sister seem to radiate contentment, though you suspect the champagne toasts might have helped. 

As the sister of the groom, you’re the target of your older aunts’ inquiry as to ‘when it’s your turn next’, never mind that you burrow into your seat, trying to disappear from sight, and when that fails miserably, try to divert their attention to anything, anyone but yourself. If you had full use of your legs, you’d make a hasty retreat by now, but you’re so painfully slow on your crutches that you’re sure even the oldest grandma questioning you on your dating status (or lack thereof) would be able to catch up with you. 

“Ladies”, a smooth voice cuts in. “How are you all doin’ tonight?” 

A boyish smile with a cheeky snaggletooth works wonders on elderly ladies, you learn. It gives you the chance to slip away to the bathroom, splash water on your face, shackle your heart back in place. 

This brief reprieve doesn’t last long. Soshiro emerges from the shadows, pushing off the wall to pad quietly behind you. 

“What are you doing here?” you demand. “You should be back inside -” 

“I’m here to make sure you’re safe”, he replies. “Unless you don’t want me to make sure you don’t fall and crack your pretty head open?”  

“Stop it”, you say crossly, your crutches clacking loudly on the floor as you speed up, trying to put some distance between you two. “You’re giving everyone the wrong impression.” 

He follows right on your heels. “Perhaps I’m givin’ the right impression -” 

“Just  - just stop, Soshiro.” 

You burst through glass doors to push your way onto the open rooftop in the hope that the nighttime air will cool the heat rising in your cheeks, but you miss your step, crutches sliding on marble tiles and oof - 

Warm arms wrap tightly around you. You tell yourself it’s the shock of your almost-fall that makes you sag against a broad, lean chest, compliantly allowing Soshiro to tuck your face into his shoulders, settle an arm beneath your thighs, carrying you over onto a seat. A thick, rich fabric rests on your shoulders - his haori, you realise, the warmth from his body seeping into your skin. 

“Are you hurt?” he drops to one knee in front of you. 

The intensity of his gaze flays your chest open, exposing your beating heart, its stitches frayed. The spectre of the girl with sad eyes haunts you, leaving you terrified that you’ll suffer the same fate as her in this lifetime too. 

“I need you to stop”, you shove him back, a trapped animal brandishing its claws. “I want you to leave me alone. I don’t want your pity -” 

“Pity?!” he falls back on his haunches, gaping at you, incredulous. “Is that what you think it is?” 

“What else could it be?” you demand wetly, eyes stinging. “Nevermind, I changed my mind, I don’t want to know -” 

“Haven’t I made it obvious these past few months?” he asks, and you shake your head stubbornly, no. “What I feel for you - I’ve been goin’ crazy from the moment they told me a buildin’ fell on your head, so fuckin’ terrified I was goin’ to lose you just as I realised how stupid I’ve been -” 

Your head swims. “I don’t -” 

“I’ve loved you since I was eight. I just didn’t realise it til I nearly lost you.” 

You push aside the clouds of anger and fear blurring your vision. You see Hoshina Soshiro kneeling before you, slicing his chest open with your blade to reveal his heart, pressing it bloodied and beating into your waiting hands. 

In this lifetime, in this moment, he is yours and you are his.  

There is no guarantee that this will remain. Duty will always call upon him, and he will answer without fail. That is his destiny, as much as he is yours. Realisation crashes into you, relentless waves pulling you underwater. You will have to share him with the rest of Japan, possibly the world. This too shall end, be it tomorrow or years down the road if fate smiles down on you both. 

But even if his heart belongs to you for no more than a day, it’s enough. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. 

“You love me.” 

“Yeah”, he murmurs, moving so impossibly close that you see the violets in the depths of his eyes in full bloom. “And I kinda think you love me too.” 

Instead of answering, you tug him towards you, tangle your fingers in dark hair, let your lips press against the seam of his lips. He doesn’t give you the chance to breathe, arm curling around your waist, his hand cupping your face so he can tilt your chin up to pour himself into you. You drink him in, greedy to take what you can get, mouth open against his, lost to the raging current of want, of love that pulls you beneath the waves. 

“I think I do”, you say softly.  

Hoshina Soshiro smiles at you, wider and brighter than the moon. 

a/n: i hope this chapter soothes the anxiety from last week heh :>

squeal at me pls! muacks always <3

[banj0possum]

Can we get more Goth yandere? Like when he offered us the chance to read those dark fairytales together I imagine us in his bed on a rainy day and a candle is lit and we’re snuggled up next to him reading about the darkest shit ever and he’s stuttering because he’s so nervous. Like we’re both under the blankets with our leg over his

*sniff* man..

Yandere! Goth x GN! Reader Pt. 2

🥀 He was dreaming right? This was a dream? Yeah it's a totally a dream!

🥀 No it's not a dream..

🥀 "Jas? So is it your place or mine?" Your voice snaps him out of his trance.

🥀 "Wh-oh! Uhm, y-you can come over to my place if..thats ok.." He's trying to keep calm, but the fact that you're coming over to his house is almost unreal to him!

🥀 The two of you have been partnered up for a science project and you wanted to work on in together at home.

🥀 Jasper was trying not to pass out from happiness over the prospect of hanging out with you without anyone to bother you two, maybe he can finally make a move!

🥀 You walk home with him, and you arrive at his house. It was a grey house with dark blue tiles on the roof. The yard was filled with bushes and vines that grew everywhere, it was rather charming.

🥀 Your both enter and you're greeting by his mom. She was in the middle of cooking when she greeted you sweetly.

🥀 "Why hello dear! I've never seen Jasper bring home a friend before! I'm so glad he's making friends in school!" She smiles.

🥀 Jasper blushes and pouts "Mom of course I have friends.." he laughs, giving his mom a big hug.

🥀 "Awe I know sweetie, now you two come in! I'm making dinner!" She shoos us away from the kitchen so she could cook, and we run up the stairs to his room.

🥀 His room was full of posters and fairy lights; it was gloomy but in a weirdly comforting way. You could see shelves full of curiosities like a jar full of what seemed like raw ore and..is that the pen you lost?

🥀 Jasper lights a few candles which were scented like flowers, and he sits down on his desk "So where do we start?" he smiles.

🥀 The whole time you were working on the project, Jasper was smiling like an idiot. The thought of you spending time with him in his room sent him over the moon!

🥀 Whenever you leaned near him to look at his laptop, he may or may not have gotten a whiff of your hair..

🥀 A few hours pass, and it's started raining. Jonesy came into the room to sleep in our lap as you two finished up the report.

🥀 "Huh, that's weird. Jonesy hates anyone that isn't me or my mom.." Jasper smiles as he pets the little black cat on your lap.

🥀 You joke that you're his second parent and Jasper turns bright red and starts stuttering like crazy. "R-really? I-I mean you can if you wanna I'm not stopping you! N-not like I'm asking you to be my partner of anything right? I mean it's just a cat! Hahah..yeah.."

🥀 You smile at him and laugh before looking around his room again, complimenting his decor.

🥀 "Th-thanks..Oh! I promised you I'd show you my books! I just got Dante's Inferno! You wanna read it with me?" He asks happily.

🥀 You agree and he gets the book, the two of you lying on his bed as he opens a lamp and starts reading, but he's utterly crap at not stuttering every 10 words.

🥀 He could feel you leaning on his shoulder, your bodies getting closer with each paged turned, it was both exciting and calming to him.

🥀 Jonesy jumps off the bed and out the room as the two of you read.

🥀 The atmosphere was so relaxing, the soft glow of the candles and fairy lights in the room and the rain tapping against the window was like a river flowing all your worries and anxieties away.

🥀 Soon enough the two of you drift off to sleep, cuddling eachother with the book discarded on the floor, Jasper held you close to his chest as your legs were tangled together under his blanket.

🥀 "Kids? Time for- oh.." Jasper's mom quiet's down as she peeks in and sees us sleeping together. She giggles and gently closes the door and picking up Jonesy. "We should let them rest for a bit Jonesy.." She smiles as she goes back down.

[superblysubpar]

<- part one | part three -> | series masterlist

chapter summary: The week of the bet begins with a bang.

the song: Bodybag by chloe moriondo

also for your listening pleasure: Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran / The Girl is Mine by Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney / I Can't Go For That by Daryl Hall & John Oates

4,024 words | please see masterlist for gen warnings / underage alcohol consumption & mentions / slut shaming from idiot/asshole teens | my blog is 18+

A house on Cornwallis Street - the past

The beat from the drums in the Duran Duran song playing throbbed, the speakers physically pulsing as you passed them. Your heels stuck to the kitchen tiles as you entered the room that had been your sanctuary for the past hour. Once the beer had been moved to the living room and the chip bowls thoroughly destroyed, the sticky vodka bottles and punch that looked like something died in it weren’t visited as frequently as they had been at the start of the night. 

So it was there, forearms pressed to the edge of the sink as you lifted a foot and rolled your ankle, then the next, with a soft and maybe too sensual sigh of relief, that Steve Harrington finally caught you alone. 

“New shoes?”

You spun, forgetting the teeny tiny sticks beneath your heels didn’t really care for quick movements or aiding in the process of balancing. 

He caught your forearm, fingers curled around your wrist as you settled. Like he was reminded he wasn’t supposed to like you, he dropped it, fingers running through the darkening hair he was keeping longer now instead as you lied. 

“No.”

Steve squinted at you, taking a sip out of red cup, mumbling into the plastic with a snort, “Sure.”

Your arms crossed, now acutely aware of the fact that the entire outfit you’d been in all night was much more revealing than anything you’d worn around him before. Eyes focused on the denim cut off a little too high on your thighs and the sliver of skin between the top of the mini skirt and your borrowed pink top as you accused, “What are you doing here?”

Steve took a step closer, white Adidas kicking a forgotten red solo cup as he did. 

“Funny,” he clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth, “Was just about to ask you the same thing.”

As you glanced up, you couldn’t help but notice the dark blue of his polo was starting to get tight around his shoulders and biceps.

Couldn’t help but look at his eyes that were unwavering in their gaze on you. Which all only made your skin hot, made you need to look away and pretend you were looking for something on the counter littered in trash. 

“Where else would I be, Harrington?” 

Steve was right behind you as he hummed, “Anywhere else. Literally, anywhere but a house party.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You spun with the biting accusation, the little black heels now your arch nemesis as they wobbled beneath unsteady ankles again. Steve caught your waist that time, bodies closer together as you fell back against the counter. 

He didn’t let go, his finger resting just above the denim, right against your skin. 

“It means,” he swallowed, exhaling a shaky breath as he leaned in and explained, voice taking on a tone that seemed like he was quoting something. Or someone. “That I thought you were better than stale beer and shitty conversation with idiots.”

A flash of an argument with your friend Robin in the hallway ghosted across your memory, making your lips part, but only a small noise escaped them. 

The movement and sound had Steve’s eyes glancing down, his adams apple bobbing. It had him squeeze at your hip involuntarily, had you wondering if it was possible for skin to spontaneously catch on fire. 

“I love beer,” you finally managed to sputter out while wondering if he always had those two freckles on his cheek and if he did, why could you suddenly not look away from them as they lifted with his smirk. 

“Yeah?” He offered his cup out to you, “Have at it, honey.”

Maybe it was the challenge in his eyes. Or that word, honey, that made you do it - made you aware of how close you were to the boy you’d always hated and how he wasn’t the one you came with. 

You took the cup and kept eye contact as the rim met your lips, kept it while the bitter liquid washed over your tongue. You kept it still, as you wondered if it was the color of his eyes or the alcohol that had your stomach warm and fizzing with something abnormal. 

“For the record,” you whispered after your fingers swiped at your lips, “I do hate shitty conversation with idiots. I came in here for a drink for my boyfriend.”

Steve blinked, like he hadn’t heard anything you’d said since you took the cup from him and that wonderful pride swelled in your chest with the thought that you’d successfully gotten the ball back to your side of the court. 

You cocked your head and blinked innocent eyes up at him, “Brenden Peterson? Junior? I think you’re on the basketball team with him…or well…” you winced, “You’re on the bench of the team he plays for…”

Steve’s hand dropped from your waist as boisterous calls came from the other room, shouting about spin the bottle. Tina’s voice carried over the music that dulled to something quieter, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney singing about loving the same girl. Your name called in her shrill squeal, asking if you were playing. 

“Absolutely!” You yelled, still too close to Steve, “I love spin the bottle!”

You were sure it was the beer on your tongue that made the words slip over it, then out of cherry glossed lips so easily. 

Not the way Steve Harrington was looking at you. That had nothing to do with it. 

Nothing at all. 

Steve finally made a noise, scoffing as you shimmied out from his spot keeping you against the counter, wandering closer to the rowdy boys cheering at your agreeability to the suggested game. 

His jaw pulsed as you sipped out of the solo cup and made eye contact with him over the rim. He hated that something deep in his biology or wherever it came from had him suddenly panicked he’d pop a boner when your tongue darted out to catch amber liquid and foam from a pouted bottom lip. 

He hated that he followed you into that room. 

That he sat across from you in that circle. 

He hated what happened next. 

You were looking around the room, eyebrows furrowed together as a girl named Carol patted the carpet next to her and told you to sit. Brendan wasn’t in the room and as you looked around the circle, you caught Steve looking right at you with a challenge in his eyes not unsimilar to the one you just had in the kitchen. 

So you leaned forward and yelled, “Me first!” 

The circle ooh’ed, Steve looked anywhere but your chest as you crawled to the center and your fingers spun the green bottle. 

You were settled on your knees, blinking down at the slowing bottle and silently screaming for it to keep spinning, keep spinning, keep…

Carol yelled out an “Oh La La!” and boys snickered as the green bottle finally stopped right between Steve Harrington and Tommy H. 

“I-I just spin again, right?” You went to do so, panicking as Tina laughed from somewhere on your right. 

“Nope! Gotta kiss both boys!” 

“But I-“

“Oh, come on!” Carol moaned, snickering, “It’s just a kiss! Or two!”

You hesitated, hating the way Tommy grinned at you and Steve continued to stare at the carpet. 

“Wait,” someone in the circle laughed, “You’ve kissed a guy before, right?”

Another person whispered, “Dude, that’s Brendan’s latest conquest. The one who…in the back of his…”

Your vision got a little blurry, the room suddenly too warm.

“Come on, I don’t bite,” Tommy shrugged, lifting his eyebrows up and smirking. “Unless you want me to.”

Steve’s fingers clenched into fists on his knees, he finally looked up at you and whispered, “You don’t have to-“

His words were cut off as you grabbed Tommy’s collar and pulled him towards you. Lips colliding in a kiss that made the circle cheer, wet lips and tongue and you pulled away with a gasp. Grabbing at Steve who looked shocked but his hand landed on your waist as your noses bumped. 

You took a deep breath, your eyelids started to flutter closed when you heard, “What do we have here?”

Brendan stood to the side of the circle, a tilted head of mussed blond hair. He laughed as he gestured to the circle, “Wow, you really will just do whatever guys ask you to, huh?”

Looking around the circle, everyone snickered into drinks or looked at you then Brendan, waiting for more of the show. 

“I-“

“You what?” Brendan interrupted, eliciting more laughs and your eyes started to burn, cheeks too hot when Brendan nodded at Steve and scoffed,

“Enjoy my sloppy seconds.”

A tear rolled down your cheek and when Tommy started to laugh, “Oh no, she’s cry-“

Steve elbowed him and whispered your name.

You shoved at him and stood, ready to bolt, when you saw the girl standing just behind Brendan with the purple mark blossoming on her neck.

Your jaw clenched as you took a step, then another, Brendan too focused on laughing at you with his buddies to care until he was doused in beer. 

The music stopped, the circle fell silent, and Brendan blinked through foam, swiping at his eyes as he growled, “What the fu-“

“Enjoy continuing to fail freshman level biology, getting kicked off the basketball team, and going absolutely fucking nowhere in your life, Brendan.”

You threw the crumpled red solo cup at his face as you tried to leave the room with some ounce of grace on the stupid heels you couldn’t wait to never see again. 

The slam of the front door behind you rattled the framed photos inside as much as the sob in your lungs did to your breath. Your fingers pressed to your lips as you blinked back the hot tears that wanted to pour out of you. 

“Hey,” a quiet voice from your left called, “You okay?”

A boy was leaning on his elbows in the grass, curly brown hair that was a little too long catching in the breeze, a lit cigarette dangling between his lips. He looked familiar, like you’d seen him in the back of the band room or somewhere in the first few months at Hawkins High. 

He looked you over and shook his head with a grimace, “Yeah, no, that’s not an okay face.”

“I’m fi-fine,” you managed to hiccup out. 

“Well, fine,” he groaned like a person much older than the boy he was as he stood, “I’m Eddie. Nice to meet you.”

A laugh left you, despite the tears still trailing down your cheeks. You swiped at them and told him your actual name. 

Eddie nodded and twisted the toe of a black boot into the cigarette now on the ground. “Still nice to meet you, but far less cool and interesting of a name than ‘Fine’ if you ask me.”

“It was nice to meet you too, Eddie,” you waved a little, hugged your arms around yourself and started down the driveway, only stopping to kick off your black heels and leave them in the grass. As you began again, now barefoot, his voice carried on the early autumn breeze. 

“Hey, Fine!” 

He grinned when you turned, and he held up his hands in surrender as he spoke. “Tell me to fuck off, but whatever just happened inside is not worth your time or energy, but you know what is?”

You sighed, and waved your hand towards him, “I suppose you’re gonna tell me yourself?”

He beamed and held a hand to his chest covered in some sort of skull and snake design, “Well, that probably remains to be seen. I do have a whole presentation on the value of having a Munson for a friend, but, nah, I was gonna say cherry pie.”

That laugh left you again, and Eddie only smiled wider at the sound, a dimple poking out on his cheek. 

You looked at him, then the house behind him, then down at the heels in the grass. 

“Can we stop and get me new shoes?”

“Can we…?” Eddie looked at you incredulously, “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t think of bringing you to get cherry pie without sneakers on your feet.”

He waved to a van a few cars down the street, bowing, “Your chariot awaits, ma’lady.”

By the time Steve got outside, bruised and bloody knuckles hung limply at his sides as he watched a van round the corner of his street, then disappear. 

A house on Cornwallis Street - the present

His fingers press the top of the alarm clock at precisely five fifty-nine am on Monday morning, the red glow of clock telling him he’s up too early yet again. 

He doesn’t drive Robin to school anymore, he doesn’t have to be at work till nine thirty, but he’s kind of used to his routine now.

And it’s not like he was sleeping anyways. 

His old Hawkins High swim team t-shirt slips over his head as he sighs, hands rubbing and slapping at his cheeks as he thinks about how he hasn’t really slept all weekend. He’s lacing his sneakers up as he thinks about how he definitely didn’t sleep on Friday. 

Not after he let you inside, and you smiled at him like that. After he yelled about how this wasn’t a fair bet and how Eddie upped the stakes to three hundred dollars then, the ‘arch nemesis’ clause as he put it. 

He holds his ankle in the driveway, pulling his leg up and stretching it, then the other, glaring at the red sign on the front lawn in the hazy morning sun beginning to rise. He starts down the sidewalk, but sees the house on the corner and decides that after an entire weekend of revisiting memory lane, he doesn’t need to physically go down the literal lane of his past mistakes and regrets. 

His feet thump on the ground in time with the Duran Duran song playing in his walkman. 

Family Video - the present

Daryl Hall and John Oates voices abruptly stop when you slam the stop button on your walkman due to the sight in front of you. 

Your feet straddle the baby blue bike, docs pressed to the pavement as you glare at the maroon car idling in the parking lot. 

He has his head leaned back against the head rest, eyes closed. His arms are crossed over the green vest while Tears for Fears plays out the open window quietly. 

Pulling your headphones down around your neck, you slam your hand on the hood of his car and Steve jumps in his seat, blinking profusely and swiping at his eyes before he glares at you.

“What are you doing here?” You accuse, fingers gripping your handlebars.

Steve rolls his eyes then his window up. He yanks his keys from the ignition, the sudden loss of the vehicles noises making the cicadas and frogs in the pond across the street louder. 

He gets out and squints at you as he slams the door. 

“Cute helmet.”

You quickly snap it off, cheeks warming as you shove your bike lock into a wheel and glare at him from your new crouched position. 

“Again,” you snap the lock closed, “Why are you here?”

Steve sighs, leaning against the storefront’s window. “We open at ten, do we not?”

“We,” you laughed, sticking your key into the front door with the shake of your head, “Don’t do anything. You work in the afternoon all week. With Robin. I’m alone in the mornings until we-“

“Find a replacement for Tracy. Yeah,” Steve bites the inside of his cheek, pointing his finger like he’s just remembered something, “Keith said something about that. But, well, I volunteered for extra shifts, to help out while we’re short staffed for summer.”

You pull the key from the lock and narrow your eyes. “You what?”

Steve smiles at you, freckles on his cheek lifting as he shows off perfect teeth. “What can I say, I’m just a nice guy.”

You actually yell out a, “Ha!” with your head thrown back as you open the front door, not caring to hold it open for him. 

“You…you…” you stomp towards the back room as you search for the right words, “Slimy, sneaky…”

“Sexy?” Steve provides, following you.

“No.” You spin with the word, not expecting him to be so close behind you.

He stops just as abruptly as you, face mere centimeters from yours, both of you having the cover of the slow to buzz on overhead lights to steal breaths and find your composure once more. 

Steve sighs, walking past you towards the wall where time cards are kept. “Listen, if it’s actually that terrible to work with me, I can call Keith again. But I really would appreciate the extra shifts.”

You hang your helmet on a hook and push your own card into the machine, skepticism evident in your voice as you ask, “You need the extra shifts?”

Steve faces your profile, and you feel his gaze lingering on your cheek as he whispers, “Well, yeah. I’m about to be out three hundred dollars in a week.”

Turning to face him, you finally take in his appearance. The sincere look in his eyes is almost overshadowed by the circles under them, the frown of his pink lips almost forgotten due to the stubble surrounding them that’s not normally there. 

Your silence seems to mean something to him though, because the frown becomes a smirk, and his head tilts as he asks, “Or am I not?”

“Not what?” 

His smirk becomes a full smile, “Not gonna be out three hundred bucks. See something you like, babe?”

And just like that, it’s gone. 

Your eyes roll as your shoulder bumps his on the way to the coffee pot.

“In your dreams, Harrington.”

He watches you press start on the coffee, sitting on top of the break rooms table with crossed arms over a plain blue t-shirt. 

“Bet you’d like that.”

You fiddle with the cream you’ve pulled out of the fridge, the clipboard of tasks Keith left for the week. “What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask, keeping your tone bored, willing the minutes of this day to go by faster. 

Steve’s voice is quieter, and closer to you as he says, “If I dreamt about you.”

Spinning at his words, cream canister in one hand, coffee mug in the other almost colliding with his chest. You blink at him as he continues, “Bet you’d like it even more if I told you what we did in those dreams.”

Your back hits the counter, not realizing Steve took a step closer as he spoke and there was nowhere for you to avoid how good he smelled or how what he was saying was making you sure there was something wrong with your stomach. Nowhere to avoid the eyes that look at you unashamed, and you could swear dare to seem hopeful. 

Until he’s grinning, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And doesn’t he?

Steve taps the counter behind you twice with two of his fingers and hums. 

“On second thought, maybe you should take my afternoon shifts. Looks like I’m not the one who’s gonna be needing the extra cash after all.”

He leaves, whistling a song you can’t quite place, but it itches at your skin, demanding to be felt like the burn of his words left on your cheeks. 

You shake your head, and fix your coffee. This is not happening. Despite Robin and Eddie vouching for the new and improved Harrington, you will never, ever, believe it. 

You will never let him win. 

Especially after the first morning shift with him. 

When the store opens at ten, there are three cars in the lot already, families stocking up on weekly rentals. Kids are in and out, shouting about candy and horror movie marathons. Steve and you are both behind the counter for most of the shift dealing with returns and large purchases, arms bumping too many times to count. It’s when his hands land on your hips as you threaten to topple over with the stack of tapes you were desperate to get out on the shelves in the lull, that you both notice you’re finally alone again for the first time in four hours. 

Steve’s breath hits your neck, making you even warmer with a murmured, “You’re welcome,” when you gasp out a thanks. He drops his hands quickly and squints up at the ceiling, then out the front doors. 

The sky has turned darker, gray and gloomy, and you wouldn’t be surprised if a typical summer thunderstorm was rolling in. 

Steve leans against the counter, the back of his hand swiping through his hair as the other fiddles with the TV remote. He turns off The Breakfast Club, switching to a cable station. You keep your back to him as he’s surely staring at the news anchor’s chest that most men in Hawkins want to suffocate in, until he mutters, “Knew it.”

“That Lucy Lebrock’s boobs were fake?” You mumble, stacking tapes.

Steve snorts out a laugh and then he gasps, standing up straighter, “Holy shit. Are they really?”

“Honestly, Harrington, look at them.” You spin and gesture to the TV and whisper, “Oh, fuck.”

“I know,” Steve nods, biting the inside of his lip as he glances out the store windows again. 

Lucy points to a map showing a massive storm inching closer to Hawkins, red banner announcing a tornado watch for surrounding areas. 

Steve and you continue to watch, leaning against the counter next to each other in silence as Lucy tells everyone about tornado safety. 

“I cannot believe they’re not real. You’re right. I really am an idiot.” Steve’s whisper finally breaks the silence. 

You snort, covering your mouth with your hand, hiding your laugh but your eyes sparkle when he looks at you. 

And then a loud clap of thunder booms overhead, like the universe itself is warning you of what’s happening, of the danger just around the corner. 

Then the power goes out. 

It all happens quickly after that, and yet, each moment lingers, like it’s making sure you’re committing it all to memory. 

There’s a moment where you grab Steve’s arm and he grabs your hip. 

One where you both jump a part, shouting sorry too loud.

There’s another, that threatens to steal your breath when Steve holds his vest over your head as you squint through rain streaming down your face as you lock the front door, the ‘Sorry we’re closed’ sign swinging behind the glass erratically as you inhale cedar and mint.

Then one, that grabs something inside of your chest and squeezes, when you start towards your bike and Steve slips his fingers between yours and tugs, shouting over the rain, “Don’t be stupid!”

There’s several filled with the splashes of your feet in puddles as he tugs you towards the BMW’s passenger side, unlocking it and racing around the hood himself. 

One that’s silent, save for rain pelting the metal roof, and both of your heavy breaths fogging up the glass. 

Then the sirens start going off, Steve’s fingers shake as he starts the car, swiping water from his eyes with the other. 

“My…my apartment. It’s on the other side of…”

Steve shakes his head, backing out carefully as the wipers work faster than what seems possible, and yet they do nothing to aid in his ability to see out the windshield. 

“Honey, you’re crazy if you think I’m taking you anywhere other than my house that has a full basement and an emergency storm kit Robin made me make with her last summer.”

Honey. 

The word lingers, swooshed away with the sound of the wipers and the Duran Duran song that scratches the itch that lingered all morning spilling out of the car’s speakers. It disappears with the spin of tires on the wet pavement as they take you to Cornwallis Street. 

Tag List - thanks for your endless patience and excitement for this and sorry for the delay in posting today 💛

@ash5monster01 @madaboutjoe @foreverinwanderlust @the-fairy-anon @scarletwitchgf

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@sanniegirl1214 @yourmommilf

[wingedcat13]

Siren Call: 3

[We’ve had past and present Minerva, but what about future?]

One day, Minerva will be familiar with the island’s crags and shelves. She’ll know the way the shore slope becomes a drop off and where the sandbars are, the color and density of all the coral, the migratory patterns of the species who pass by.

Today, she knows enough to avoid triggering the sensors. Even pauses to adjust one that’s started sagging out of place.

Minerva chooses not to walk up the beach, not wanting to track sand into the - house? Facility? Building? - not wanting to get sand caked to her feet and legs. Jumping straight up to the roof in a waterspout is also unnecessarily dramatic when there isn’t a fight to get to. So she just gathers herself, waits for a wave, and urges it a little higher, placing herself at its apex.

It gets her high enough that she can reach the railing of the overlooking balcony, with enough momentum to curl and tuck her body, cartwheeling over the rail partially just for the joy of motion. Even the smooth tiles feel rough compared to the water, strangely unyielding, and she wobbles just a little as she catches her bearings. Belatedly, she realizes she almost kicked the crap out of one of the balcony’s chairs. The little swerve she does is automatic. At least there wasn’t an audience-

“Minerva.” Says Synovus, sitting on the table because they’re deranged. There’s a surprised tilt to the end of her name, like half a question answering itself. They’re wearing civilian clothes again, and some part of Minerva’s mind can’t help noting that their arms are bare. “Welcome - back.”

One day, Minerva won’t scowl at them on reflex.

Today, she demands immediately, “Were you waiting for me?”

“Y-es?” Synovus hedges, not moving. “But also no? I was - I thought you’d be coming up from the shore.”

They sound almost abashed. But that’s too close to ‘embarrassed’ and Minerva is well aware that Synovus has no shame. She may have genuinely surprised them - they’re perched on the edge of the table, and had leaned away slightly. Synovus wanting to be a problem would have chosen a much more… blatant posture. Or at least to sit further back in the shadows. The absence of either a gaudy attention grabber or deliberate stealth indicated this middle ground was not an act. Or perhaps that’s what she’s meant to think.

One day, Minerva will not have to consciously pick aside the paranoia to see what is in front of her.

Today, it takes effort - but she does it.

With a sigh, she closes her eyes, and focuses on each part of her body, bringing herself down from the mild surge of adrenaline. One hand draws back the wet strands of her hair. The other removes the mask that was a gift. She leaves her eyes closed while she rubs the red marks out of her skin.

With her eyes closed, it’s easier to skip past the defensive retort, and say instead, “You could’ve at least had a coffee waiting for me.”

“I don’t actually know your preferences in that regard.” Synovus admits, and for a heartbeat Minerva is worried this will turn into a far too blunt conversation about homecomings, but - “Do you take it black? Iced? Green?”

Minerva scoffs, but it might have just been a laugh. Even she’s not sure. “White chocolate mocha.” She answers. “One shot espresso, oat milk.”

“Ah,” Synovus says, as Minerva opens her eyes. They seem to have had a revelation. “So that’s why Alexandria likes those Unicorn frappes so much. Hm. And here I usually go for the cider.”

A smile tugs at one corner of her mouth at the thought - Synovus, dread assassin, going to a coffee shop and ordering hot apple juice with whipped cream.

Minerva sets her mask on the table. “Stand up a minute.” She tells Synovus quietly, her voice nearly lost in the sound of the waves below.

“I don’t take direction well.” Synovus replies, even as they slide off the table and to their feet, turning to face her. There’s a caution to their movements, but also curiosity, written far more liberally across the unobscured face Minerva once never thought to see.

If Minerva meets their eyes too long, she’ll lose her nerve, so she winds up staring somewhere around Synovus’s collarbone instead. There’s a scar there, hidden for now by a high-necked top, and Minerva knows that because she put it there. It had been a targeted move: Synovus had broken her collarbone the fight before.

She wants to be better at giving back things other than pain.

“Just - give me a moment. Don’t move, please.” She’s pretty sure it’s the ‘please’ that gets them. Synovus goes so statue-still that Minerva’s not sure they’re blinking. But they don’t protest. And they certainly don’t move as Minerva steps forward.

And in one of the most awkward movements of her life, slides her arms around Synovus’s ribcage, setting her chin gently on their shoulder.

This is instantly easier when she no longer has to look at Synovus’s face. Well. When she can’t look. Can’t fixate on finding and parsing the smallest of expressions, assigning meaning to the specific tilt of a chin or speed of a blink. She’s still bad at it - hugging - because she usually just lets other people hug her, and initiating it is weird, but she can’t imagine Synovus is particularly good at it either.

After all, they’re still standing stock-still, and if Minerva wasn’t currently very aware of their breathing, she might even think they were panicking.

“Not a trap.” She mutters, and feels as much as hears Synovus’s responding huff. But their arms slowly, cautiously, hesitantly come up to return the embrace, hands resting lightly on her back. The side of Synovus’s head tips gently into hers.

One day, Minerva might not feel awkward about body contact and physical affection. One day, she may find herself as familiar with Synovus’s scars as she is her own. And she just might reach a point, eventually, where one of them could make a joke about this just being an excuse to get Synovus wet and not immediately both perish from the agony of an accidental allusion to arousal.

For today, this awkward embrace is enough.

———————————————————

Minerva probably won’t ever see a crowd as something other than a threat to be monitored.

Large groups have always made her tense, and that instinct had only gotten worse over the years. Most villains respect the ad hoc agreement about making an entrance, but there are a distinct few who would kill from a crowd. And there are those who are not villains in the distinct, identity sense, but would wreak havoc nonetheless.

So she scans the mall’s sheltered internal colonnade from behind her sunglasses, and listens to her daughter tell her about her day.

“- I just told him that I’d come from further South, and he didn’t ask me any more questions after that, but then freaking Brad asked me if I was an ‘illegal’ and I know what you mean now, about temptation to cram people into lockers. He’s lucky he’s so tall; I couldn’t fold him up to fit without taking some limbs off.”

Alexandria huffs, taking an aggressive pull from her milkshake. The stress of her life is getting to her - no teenager should have worry lines, or bags under their eyes that deep - but she insists this is what she wants. Even if Minerva sometimes wonders whether Alexandria sees herself as a member of the school’s attendees, or just a spectator who sometimes catches a stray ball.

“Did you tell Brad that?” Minerva asks mildly, mostly curious.

Alexandria sighs again, “No.” She says sullenly, shoulders slumping. “I asked him if he thought the government should determine who gets to live where, and then when he started to argue with me I told him I hoped his yacht sank with him on it.”

“Alexandria.” Minerva was still learning to find the right tone. The right amount of reproach, without exasperation or accusation. She must’ve gotten close, because Alexandria just lifts one hand in a ‘not me’ gesture.

“Specifically so he’d wash up in Mexico or Hawaii and get to be illegal himself.” She clarifies. “I don’t think that convinced anyone I wasn’t an immigrant, though. Til Seanna pointed out my grades in Spanish would probably be better.”

Minerva’s sigh is more restrained, but she points out, “There are other languages in South America. Brazilian Portuguese, for example.”

She’s not sure why she’s entertaining this, really.

“That’s true.” Alexandria ponders that for a moment, drinking more of her milkshake. “I mostly just meant to imply I was from one of the towns that got fu- uhhhh, screwed up by the power grabs.”

Minerva briefly leaves the conversation, remembering that shell of a place. The layouts, the dressings of a town, not quite abandoned yet but with nothing else to bleed.

Judging by the nudge she receives under the table, Alexandria isn’t totally oblivious to her distraction. She’s also changed the subject.

“So.” Alexandria is saying, drawing one syllable into three, “How are you and my godparent getting along?”

‘Godparent’ has become Alexandria’s favored way of referring to Synovus in public. It’s a joke on multiple levels, some of which Synovus seems to appreciate. But Minerva thinks it also makes them slightly uncomfortable, in a way they refuse to express to Alexandria.

“It’s fine.” Minerva replies, on rote. Her eyes flick to Alexandria, then back to the crowds. “What is it?”

“What do you mean, ‘what is it,’?”

“You wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t want something in particular.”

Alexandria’s mouth twists down, “Can I just get an answer without fishing for it, for once?”

Startled, Minerva looks at her again. Takes a better assessment of her daughter’s body language, the tension there. She knows she’s also gone tense.

Anger creeps into Alexandria’s voice, replacing the annoyance. “I’m not going to lose control. I’m not-“

She cuts herself off, abruptly looking away. Her fingers relax around the plastic cup, deliberately demonstrating that her strength won’t get away from her.

Minerva has a suspicion of how that sentence might have ended. I’m not like you and dad.

Reaching out physically feels like the wrong move here. So does stiffening up further and refusing to talk about it. Be better, she thinks to herself desperately, her mind flicking back to an image of a person with one foot in the water, one on dry land.

“We still… disagree, on some things. Some major things.” Minerva makes herself say. She still doesn’t like that Synovus kills people. She doesn’t like that Synovus has ostensibly killed for her, or for Alexandria. But she also feels relief that Synovus did, and a sense of gratitude she can’t quite smother. It makes her feel dirty, oily, and she hasn’t found it’s root.

Taking a breath, Minerva continues, “But… I don’t think they mean either of us harm.”

Alexandria has relaxed a little, absorbed by what Minerva’s saying. And probably having to pick through it for what she isn’t saying either.

“Would you say that you, I don’t know, maybe, trust them?” Alexandria prompts.

Minerva’s grimace is answer enough.

Alexandria sighs, “Mom.”

“It’s complicated, Alexandria.” She says, but it’s not the abrupt conversation-closer it would have once been. More… beseeching.

“Do you trust anyone?” Alexandria asks, “And like, I don’t even really mean me, here, but like. Anyone?”

Minerva remains silent.

“Do you trust yourself?” Alexandria asks, sounding a little alarmed.

Minerva hesitates - but she can’t really answer that one either.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, just the background roar of the mall’s crowds between them. Minerva hates this. She hates feeling like she can’t actually control herself, can’t master the emotional impulses she’s forcibly crammed into a box for years. She hates that Alexandria is having to pick up the conversation, make the overtures, do the work.

But any time she tries to think of a way to do it herself, her mind shies away from it. The words wilt and die in her throat. Because what if she gets it wrong?

What if she has more to lose?

Eventually, Alexandria looks at the melted remnants of her milkshake, and asks, “Can we stop at the Hot Topic before we leave.”

One day.

———————————

A week later, Rosie pokes her head into the common room Minerva’s reading in. “Minerva?”

She’d finally been asked point blank by one of them what she wanted to be called, because Athena no longer seemed accurate. Committing to Naiad hadn’t felt right either, so she’d given up her civilian name. Synovus already knew it, what was the point?

(It had occurred to her, later, that the small thrill she felt at being addressed by it was possibly what Alexandria felt at being addressed by her chosen name.)

(Also, it would’ve made Albion furious.)

“What is it?” Minerva asks now, letting one finger hold her place in the book as she sits up.

“There’s a fight drifting our way - Zephyr and a few others against the Eye. He’s made another floating platform again.” Rosie rolled her eyes, providing her professional opinion.

Minerva tilted her head, hesitating. Zephyr was a hero she’d worked with before, though they had never gotten along. He’d offered to take her flying, she’d taken that as flirting and shut it down, they’d never really overcome the resulting awkwardness. She had no idea who he’d be working with.

Eye, in contrast, was Eye in the Sky - a villain obsessed mostly with surveillance, and not being observed himself. He was a center point of several conspiracy theories involving the NRA, CIA, and a number of international organizations. She’d never fought him before, just heard the stories.

“What’s the protocol?” Minerva asks, rather than offer any of that information. She was certain this group of people knew far more about everyone involved anyway.

Rosie smiles, “Not much of one, just a lower alert status. Doll and I will make the rounds and check on everyone, Synovus is going to suit up just in case, but we won’t get involved unless territory agreements are breached.” She added, “Alexandria’s still on the mainland, we’ve made sure she knows to be suited if she makes her own way home.”

Minerva taps at the cover of her book, thinking. She feels adrift, still. This isn’t an actual fight, unless she wants to go and be Athena, and the idea of that is physically uncomfortable. It would also invite too many questions. Naiad would-

Hm. “Does Synovus want me in uniform?” She asks, sardonic.

“I didn’t ask and don’t plan to.” Rosie replies flippantly. “If they want you to do something, I imagine you’ll hear about it directly.”

Somehow, that isn’t the response she wants. “I don’t-“

“They also haven’t given any orders that you’re to be stopped.” Rosie points out, cutting her off. “The rest of us will be either in the operations room or up on the roof to watch. Klaxon if there’s trouble.”

She gave Minerva another smile, twiddled her fingers, and withdrew. Minerva shifted, and opened her book again.

She made it through two more paragraphs, then left it unceremoniously on the floor.

———————————-

On the roof, Synovus was pacing.

In a way, that’s reassuring, because even Minerva knew by now that if there was imminent danger, Synovus would be stock-still. The sun glints off the dark helmet, and threw the matte black of the rest of the suit into stark relief against the sandy-colored rooftop. Wind off the sea ripples through the cape, keeping it blown back, perpendicular to the path Synovus is walking.

The sun is kinder to Minerva’s costume, and there is no cape to blow. The dark mask helps keep her from being blinded by the sun. Athena wouldn’t be of much use here; Naiad might be.

Doll - the larger, Russian man who Minerva thought of as Synovus’s second in command - stood up here too, a viewfinder raised to cover his face. He’s looking into the direction of the wind, angled out and up, and Minerva follows that direction.

There it is - flashes of distant, shimmering silver in a cloud bank that’s thinning. Some masking device, most likely, now disabled. There’s tiny flashes of what must be powers or weaponry at use, but she can’t make out more than that.

“How bad is it?” She asks anyway, brisk and businesslike.

“The wind isn’t in our favor.” Doll comments. He’s always answered her as if she’s a coworker, and she appreciates that. “I can’t tell how much of it is powered and how much of it drifts. If there’s been damage to it -“ He lowers the viewfinder to make a hand gesture. “It might not be able to control its direction anymore.”

“Sloppy.” The comment is out of Minerva’s mouth before she can stop it. It draws Doll’s attention, if not Synovus’s. At the slightly raised eyebrow, she sighs and continues, “Disabling propulsion or navigation creates unnecessary risk to everyone involved. The only time it becomes necessary is when there’s weaponry that absolutely must be disabled, and you don’t have either the training or the time to sort out different power systems.”

Doll nods, offering her the viewfinder. “It could be self-inflicted,” he points out.

“Possible, but suicidal. That would require an exit strategy. Do you think Eye has one?”

“He’ll have three, only two of them will work, and none of them will be enough to keep him from getting captured.” Synovus breaks into the conversation abruptly, annoyed. Or perhaps professionally offended. “They’ll be personal craft.”

Meaning the rest of the platform’s crew would be left to die. Incentive for the heroes to try and rescue them rather than pursue, but what a waste.

The viewfinder lets Minerva get a better sense of the platform’s size, and also an estimate of its height and distance. She can make out a glimpse of a gray-shaded costume, diving through the clouds: Zephyr.

“If you interfere,” She asks, while her view is disconnected from her surroundings, “What would that look like?”

There’s a hesitation. A gust of wind snaps at Synovus’s cape. The distant battle continues.

“If they cross the boundaries, there must be consequences.” Synovus says reluctantly. “I will destroy the platform. Survivors will become my prisoners. If the heroes protest, I’ll fight them.”

Minerva lowers the viewfinder, and returns it to Doll. Synovus has stopped pacing. “You don’t have the facilities for a mass casualty event.”

“No.” Synovus agrees. “I don’t.”

————————————

Rosie has come out to join them on the roof by the time there’s significant change. The wind has died down some - likely a marker of Zephyr changing it, finally reaching their shores. The air feels thick and dead without it.

They’ve mostly stood in silence, watching. It feels longer than it has been, and Minerva knows it’ll be worse for those actually fighting. She’s surprised she hasn’t felt more of an urge to intervene.

Though she has been keeping watch for anyone falling to the water below.

It’s hard to say which of them notices first - their attention is collectively on the sky platform, and not each other. But there’s a decided tilt to the mostly-exposed metal monstrosity now, and in very short order, it begins to fall.

“Catch it.” Minerva finds herself murmuring. “Catch it. At least slow it-“

But no one does.

The platform hits the water at the full speed gained from a several thousand foot drop, slamming into the ocean. Those watching know that the metal will crumple on impact, water at that height and velocity worse than slamming into concrete. The surface area only makes it worse; tilted in at a slight angle, it displaces the water in a specific direction.

Towards the island.

Minerva had studied the ocean as much as she could. She knows this phenomena, and can cite times in the past it’s occurred. Not caused by the shifting of the ocean floor or tectonic plates, but by a sudden mass displacement.

They call it a super-tsunami.

Synovus is a statue beside her from the moment the platform starts to fall. Doll catches on once the surface of the water rises - and then doesn’t fall again.

“Three minutes.” Minerva calculates, based on distance and the probable speed of the wave. As many miles to cross. Much taller. “Evacuation?”

“The Jet is under repair, we can’t get it into the air in time.” Rosie answers, grim.

“Seals on the inner portions of the facility might hold, but we don’t know how long we’d be underwater.” Doll says, hitting the klaxon anyway. “The fridges?”

“Only as good as long as the power lasts.” Rosie replies. “Alexandria?”

“Still on the mainland.” Doll growls, running a hand through his hair. “Even if she could reach us in time, we’d have to get everyone onto the plane-“

Synovus has, so far, said nothing. Minerva is the only one close enough to catch when they choke out a strangled, “-fucking submarine -“

Minerva had expected Synovus to have a plan. A power, a strength, a defense mechanism. The realization that they don’t is like a fire’s been lit at the base of her spine.

She doesn’t remember grabbing Synovus’s collar, or dragging them to face her. She does remember saying, “I can stop it.”

Synovus doesn’t hesitate. “What do you need?”

There is no questioning of if she’s sure, or recommendation that she go into the waves to ride it out. No suggestion of running.

“Get me in front of it.”

Immediately, Synovus has one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and they’re running. Off the edge of the roof, not quite flying, flickers of shadow beneath their feet. Minerva doesn’t have time to question it, because her attention is on the big damn wave.

When she had said she could stop it, she had spoken with a bone-deep certainty. But she’d never actually tried to divert a tsunami before, let alone one of this size. The largest amount of water she’s worked with has always been as much as she needs to accomplish her goal, and nothing more. Diverting some rain-induced flooding is nothing compared to the power of the tides.

But she can feel the ocean beneath them, as Synovus clears the island’s coast. She can sense the oncoming wave, so fast to them, but to the ocean like a flinch in slow motion. The ocean doesn’t know how to control a fall.

But Minerva does.

The trick is in grasping the majority of the wave without over extending. She doesn’t need every droplet, every molecule, but she does need the vast majority of them.

It’s like trying to get a grip on something flat with only the pads of her fingers. It’s like misjudging a stair and finding herself both plummeting and ramming into an outside force. It’s like taking the first breath of rain-rich air in the early morning, and feeling life enter her lungs again.

Minerva twists the top back over itself, breaking the wave in the wrong direction. She cuts it down the middle, diverting it off to the sides. She forbids it to go forward, as though it’s met a cliff. And as the water falls, the wave collapsing, so does she.

It takes a brief second to put together that the body that had been holding her aloft is now limp, twisted slightly as though to put itself between her and the wave. Synovus is unresponsive, the shadows gone, only the cape whipping around them as they fall. Minerva is able to catch them, now, grabbing on before they can drift away.

She reaches for the water below them, calling it up to catch them with less than bone-breaking force. It’s easier, somehow, but also harder, and she’s having trouble fixing a direction in her mind for where the wave was and where the shore should be. Hot air, harsh wind, cool water and the dimming depths as they’re both drawn down.

And she remembers, finally, that Synovus can’t swim.

—————

The disorientation has mostly worn off by the time Synovus wakes up.

Minerva had managed to follow the upset currents, but hadn’t wanted to risk trying to shape and change them. Or to fight them overmuch, with her cargo. So they’d wound up washed not to shore, but to a small opening into one of the partial lava tubes at the island’s base.

Outside, saltwater rain is still falling, though it will stop soon. The ocean’s roar sounds, to her ears, slightly confused. The sun is still shining, and the wind has picked up again. ‘Calm’ is a subjective definition, but they’re approaching it.

Minerva had been relieved to find that Synovus’s helmet was intact, even with the impact to the water. She’d managed to find its clasps, and to remove it, making sure the seals had also held and that Synovus wasn’t drowning in their own personal fishbowl. They’re propped up against her legs, which are folded beneath her, and she’s prepared for a violent awakening.

But Synovus’s eyes blink open, and Minerva is able to watch their facial muscles work as they come to terms with their surroundings.

“You fainted.” Minerva informs them.

Synovus squints at her, but doesn’t immediately protest. They also don’t try to move much, other than a slight squirm that Minerva recognizes as a full body check. Do I still have my appendages? Do my fingers and toes all work?

“Yeah.” Synovus concedes. Their voice is raspy with saltwater, even though they didn’t get much of a chance to drown. This time.

Minerva should probably start somewhere else - like making certain they’re okay, or assuring them about the conditions outside, that the wave had been averted. Instead, she all but demands, “If you’re so terrified of water, why in the hells did you build on an island?”

She can see the balk in Synovus’s expression: a furrowing of their brow, a twitch of the nose. Synovus lifts a hand to consider covering their face, eyes the sand on their glove, and lowers it again.

“I already know you can’t swim.” Minerva says flatly.

“I can swim.” Synovus shoots back, annoyed. “I cannot swim well, there’s a difference.”

They sigh, and move to sit up. Minerva doesn’t stop them. She doesn’t expect an answer, at least not without further prompting, but Synovus continues:

“It’s… easier. The isolation. Clearly defined borders. This is mine, everyone else fuck off. And it…” Synovus shakes their head. “It serves its purpose.”

Once, Minerva would’ve accused them of grandstanding. Of the island being a show of wealth and status. She knows better now - knows that while that is true, there’s other reasons, layered beneath.

And she thinks about everything Synovus has ever told her about self control.

“It contains you.”

Synovus hesitates, partially grimacing, but nods. “Serves its purpose.” They repeat quietly.

The two of them sit in silence, in the dark shadow of the cave. They listen to the water, and the waves as they return to normal.

“Thank you.” Synovus says, into the silence.

“I don’t require thanks.”

“But I feel you deserve it, and it’s mine to give.”

“And if I don’t want it?”

“Refuse it. I will survive the disappointment.”

Minerva has the uncomfortable feeling that they are not discussing only gratitude. Rather than address that, or continue the discussion, she says instead: “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

Synovus doesn’t reply. They tilt their head, studying her in the dark. Minerva’s dragged them into a cave and confronted them with truths after they passed out from fear doing something on her word, she should give them a break. She doesn’t.

“I should be out there looking for survivors, or recovering the dead. I don’t want to. I should’ve involved myself in the fight, reminded them to be careful of the platform’s vulnerabilities. I didn’t. I don’t feel guilt. I feel… annoyed. Angry. Because they should’ve known better.”

Synovus just turns a bit, to rest their back against a rock. “And that in turn makes you feel..?”

“Foolish. Arrogant. A bad hero, and a worse teacher. I should be patient. Forgiving.”

“They nearly killed you.” Synovus points out dryly. “You’re allowed to be angry about that.”

“And more would’ve died if the wave had reached the coast.” Minerva grits her teeth. “But that anger should be - I can’t control them. I cannot fix them. But I didn’t even try to intervene until it was almost too late.”

“But you did intervene.”

Minerva gestures, attempts to pinpoint the logic fruitless and frustrated. “Am I a hero or not?” She demands. “Do I act for others or only my own skin? I’ve spent years - decades - so sure of the answer but now -“

She raises her hands, half-fisting them in her hair. The sensation provides a little bit of grounding, enough of a distraction she doesn’t think about the words before she says them. “- now you make sense to me, and the things I thought I believed in enough to die for are - are hollow or gone or dead. And I let you kill them. I let you kill him.”

Abruptly, she draws her knees up, burying her face in them. “I let - I made - my child - our child -“

Minerva can’t tell if she’s crying or not. Her breath is coming in gasps, and her face feels hot, and this was always the part of weeping that she hated the most; the lack of control, the inability to communicate. Her eyes burn. So does the center of her chest, her stomach.

And Synovus is here, as her witness. Why not? They’ve seen every other ugly part of her, every other failure. She’s spent a good portion of her adult life fighting this person, exchanging scars, only for them to pick up the pieces and try to protect her. She’s finally had the upper hand, proven that she does have power, that Synovus now owes her in the brutal calculus of lives, and instead of reassuring her it’s broken her.

Because Synovus doesn’t trust themself either.

But Synovus trusts her.

“Do you wish I wouldn’t have killed Albion?” Synovus asks quietly.

The answer is as simple and certain as the water. “No.” She says honestly. “No I - I don’t.”

There’s a pause. Then, “Do you wish I would’ve killed you too?”

That answer isn’t as clear to find. “I - some days.” She says hoarsely. “I committed the same crimes.”

Synovus exhales, across from her, and it isn’t quite a sigh. “Alexandria feels differently.”

Minerva stops breathing.

Of all the answers Synovus could’ve given, that’s the one she can’t counter. She can’t afford to do this. To wallow in self recrimination. Her daughter is out there. And while maybe - maybe her morals are falling to pieces, and she doesn’t know who she is, but she knows that whoever she is loves Alexandria.

“Is it pathetic?” She asks Synovus, in the dark she can’t see through and Synovus can. “To need someone else to determine who I am. What I believe.”

She can hear the twist in Synovus’s expression as they reply, “That’s… inherently not a question I can answer. But, Minerva?” Synovus doesn’t hesitate, so much as pick their way across uncertain footing, “I don’t think you would’ve been able to turn back that wave if you weren’t… as much as you are.”

It’s clumsily phrased. Wavering and uncertain. But Minerva, whether because she’s reading what she wants to from it, or because it’s actually Synovus’s intention, understands.

She takes a deep breath. Then another. Then she stands, and offers a hand in Synovus’s general direction. Her voice is much more certain, calm, when she says, “I need to go organize a search party.”

——————

Minerva may not ever come to terms with her role in her ex-husband’s death, or the harm she caused her daughter. She might not ever find the rock-solid beliefs that she once thought she had.

But she might - just might - come to terms with that uncertainty. The ocean doesn’t have roots either.

She’ll have good days and bad days. She’ll need to make decisions about who she wants to become, and how she feels about who she is. But as both Naiad, and Minerva, she has that freedom.

She’ll never touch the Athena costume again.

And one day, while she’s working on a laptop in one of the common rooms, Synovus on one of the other couches and Alexandria sprawled on the floor, Minerva will say, “I have an idea. Something I’d like to do about the Pacific garbage patch.”

And Alexandria will roll over to look at her, and Synovus will glance up. And Minerva will add, “It’s not precisely legal.”

And Synovus will say, “I’m listening.”

——————————

[And so ends Siren Call! This took much longer than it’s other pieces, and there were things I debated including and things I wanted to cut, but in the end, this was the flow the story took. I’m not saying I’m *done* with Synovus and co, but I will say that I’m glad to have this chapter closed and tied off.]

[As per usual, a copy of this will go up on Ao3 soon, and I’ll find out how long it is, because I’ve once again written directly into tumblr drafts. It’s where the Synovus muse lives, apparently.]

[lemon-boy-stan]

BIRTHDAYS - DILUC RAGNVINDR

Summary: Diluc's always hated birthdays, but ever since he's been with you, they've gotten better. Genre: angst, fluff, light smut, family themes. Warnings: alcohol consumption, mention of family member death, slight alcoholism, sad themes at the start (it gets better I swear), sex, pretty vanilla but still MDNI, unprotected sex, foreplay, breeding, pregnancy before marriage. A/N: I should have saved this for his birthday LMFAO but I WANT YOU ALL TO SUFFER. PS. I have several requests in my inbox and I will get to them, I promise, just have been facing a writer's block so I wrote this to get out of it!! Hope you enjoy this for now.

Diluc hated birthdays; ever since his eighteenth when his father died, but he knew you loved them. Diluc never drank, but on his birthday, he always found himself pouring glass after glass of wine, drinking the bitter liquid, staring ahead at the crackling fire.

The first birthday he spent with you, he forgot you lived with him.

He expected the house to be empty again, it's ghosts roaming the halls, maybe the faraway sounds of the maids cleaning before they go home. Diluc only ever drank grape juice, and watched with disdain whenever he saw someone drinking an alcoholic beverage.

It was late at night when you came back to the Winery, the maids greeting you at the door. "Luc!" Your loud, happy voice sang, a wave of confusion flowing over him.

"Happy Twenty-Fourth Birthday, Master Diluc!" You chirped, finding him at the long dining table, running up to him and flinging your arms around him, before smelling the wine on the table, on his lips. "Master Diluc?" You murmured softly.

He let out an angry, slurred sound. Your eyes began to brighten, and you bit your cheek to stop yourself from crying. "Master Diluc," you said softly, "what's wrong? Why are you drinking? You hate alcohol."

He grumbled wordlessly, "couldn't save him." His eyes bright and firey red, he looked close to tears. He reached for the bottle, pouring the glass for probably the nth time that night. As soon as he filled the glass, you snatched the bottle.

He was glaring at you now, and not his reflection in the window above the fireplace. Good. "Give it back," he hissed, the words slurred. "I'm not arguing, YN, give it back now." His bright, red eyes could've scared away an Abyss Mage, but not you.

You shrugged, finishing the bottle in one drink. The alcohol hit you like a freight train. You didn't drink alot, only on special occasions or when you were invited to drink with your friends, but even still, you were a lightweight.

You lost your balance and fell, crashing to the ground, body hitting the newly-cleaned floorboards of the mansion.

Diluc roared, the sound rattling the walls of the Winery as he jumped out of his chair, the legs squealing on the floor. He didn't care about the scratches.

"ADELINE!" His voice shook through the house and the maid came running to him, no longer dressed in her work clothes, "yes, Master Diluc?" He finally let the tears fall from his eyes. "Get a doctor," he breathed shakily, "now. Please."

Diluc did not drink on his twenty-fifth birthday, instead, he sat with you outside on the roof, watching the stars fly by. He brought you up through the window in the attic; "Kaeya and I used to come up here as kids." It was a very big window.

He turned to you, "do you want children?" Taking your hand, which was cold even though you were wearing his big, red coat. You smiled at him, "I want everything with you, Master Diluc." He smiled back, leaning in to kiss you.

"I didn't know you wanted children," you whispered softly into his lips, his coat making the tiles of the roof more comfortable. "I want them to look like you," he murmured, sliding his hand between your legs, "I want them to have your pretty voice." He kissed your lips, moaning and moving down to your neck.

"Oh, but Master Diluc, won't people be able to hear us?" But you arched your back nonetheless. He smirked, "it's my birthday, love." Brushing his finger against your panties softly. You moaned quietly, "mpph, oh, okay... If you insist... Nggh,"

"I'm going to give you my children," he purred softly, "and then I'm going to marry you." You moaned even louder at this, "oh, Master Diluc." And he chuckled softly, "you like that?" You nodded, "yes, Master Diluc, please." But all he did was smile, "'please' what, hmm? Be specific." Digging his finger into the fabric of your panties.

You moaned again, louder this time. "Please fuck me," you whined. He smirked, "I said be specific, dear." You clenched the coat with your hands, "please breed me, Master Diluc. I want to have your children, please." He smiled again, "good girl."

On Diluc's twenty-sixth birthday, you finally decided to tell him. It was a Friday, and you stayed at home with him the whole day rather than going out to do errands (the maids often did the errands, but you enjoyed going shopping. It was calming.), eating a delicious meal prepared by Adeline, no wine.

He was enjoying his birthday more this year. He was happy, but he was always talking about how he liked throwing parties in the Winery because it was always empty. Two people was a small amount for such a big house.

The other day you caught him at the store, looking at baby shoes. You'd thought you'd blown it already. "Aren't they so cute?" He bounded up to you. "Let's have a baby. Please." Archons, how were you supposed to hide it now??? You smiled and shook your head, "one day, Diluc."

Diluc turned to you, looking up from his meal. "Are you alright, dear?" You smiled at him, nodding. "I have... Another surprise," you said slowly, watching him. He smiled, "you've already outdone yourself with the presents, my love."

"It's... Kind of a present," you looked down at the table, smiling. You took the test from your pocket, sliding it over to him.

He spent a good five seconds staring at it before snapping his head up. Diluc never cried, but tonight there were tears falling from his red eyes. "You're pregnant?" He whispered, as if it was too good to be true. You smiled, "yes," he blinked, pulling you close to him, "Archons! You're pregnant! I'm gonna be a dad! We have to get married! I just can't believe it! How?... When?..." You giggled softly, so, so relieved that he was happy, burying your head into his neck.

"Three weeks ago," you said, "I was feeling a bit sick so I went to the doctor... They told me to take a test." Diluc cocked his head. Ever since his birthday last year you'd been trying, but no such luck. "But how..." He was in awe. You blushed, "remember that night where you got jealous of that random bard flirting with me while you were working?"

Diluc scowled, "oh. Him. But still..." You giggled, hitting him softly on the shoulder, "remember what you did to me after?" And now Diluc was blushing. "But how on earth did you hide it from me?" You grinned, "I have my ways, Master Diluc. You're not the only one who's got secrets!" Diluc kissed you firmly, "Oh, this is fabulous. Archons! I can't believe it... I really can't! ADELINE!"

The maid came running in, clearly still traumatised from last year. "Master Diluc! Is Miss YN quite alright? What's wrong?" Diluc shook his head, "no, nothing of the sort. Please send out a message to everyone! Tell them to come over immediately, we're celebrating!"

Adeline smiled, "a birthday celebration? I'm sure Miss Jean and Mr. Kaeya would love to -" but Diluc beamed, cutting her off. "No, no! Something much better! My beautiful girlfriend is pregnant! We're going to have children!" He looked so unbelievably happy.

Adeline's face lit up, "well, of course! A party surely must be in order... I'll deliver the message right away and call the other maids to help set up! Oh, congratulations, Master Diluc! This is wonderful news!"

You sighed happily, resting your head against his shoulder as Adeline ran off to send the message. Diluc gripped your hand, "I can't believe it. You have no idea how happy this makes me... We're going to have children! My... This is the best birthday ever."

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[hometoursandotherstuff]

This 1926 Spanish Colonial in Los Angeles, California looks like a fairy tale house. 3bds, 4ba, $2.2M. Love everything but the taxidermy.

Isn't this amazing? The red ceiling is a stunner. Love the fireplace and shelving, too.

It has a large dining room with fairy tale cottage windows.

The kitchen is large, and look at the cute Dutch door. Love the floor.

The primary bedroom is so cozy. It doesn't look big enough to fit a piano, but it's deceiving.

You don't see many red bathrooms. Very nice. I can't decide if I like the uneven tile look.

Cute alcove is a great place to read, but the small desk looks good in here.

Absolutely love the library. It reminds me of a treehouse.

Bedroom #2 is a child's room. It's pretty big, b/c it accommodates some large furniture pieces.

This bath is cool- burgundy subway tiles.

Bedroom #3 with large sliders to the garden, is being used for an exercise space.

The house has several Juliet balconies and a turret tower.

This is a lovely roof top deck.

The garden is so pretty.

Interesting waterfall and pond.

Not much of a driveway, but there's a double garage. The property is very angular and small, 5,299 sq ft lot, but it's in the expensive Hollywood Hills.