justtogetthrough · 2 years ago
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Today I went outside and it extra smelled like ~farm~ and it was this surreal moment where I felt like a character from the show I just watched, having to escape to a new place to get away from all the fucked up shit that was causing trouble.
I walked out to grab my garbage can, looking at the farms around me and thinking about how I’ve never lived in the country before, and how my ex is the reason I’m here. I literally had to leave the place that once felt like home and start a new life over in a new place and it’s all so different and it’s… hard. To go from the lifestyle I had before, to this.
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comic-sans-chan · 7 months ago
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cursed modern human garashir au where ds9 is an old ruined resort that was built by some evil rich motherfuckers years ago and was recently seized back by the native people whose land and economy it had destroyed. it's since been converted into an affordable apartment complex sort of situation (just... with a pool, bar, restaraunts, spa and tennis court built into it lol) and is run by sisko and kira. since it is rundown, odo gets hired back on to keep kids from further vandalizing it and o'brien's team gets hired on from the nonprofit organization sisko works for to fix the place up best he can. dukat is the old overseer of the property who drops by sometimes to remind them he and his hospitality business still exist, and my, what a fine job they’ve done renovating the place! it’s actually nice again. sure would be a shame if someone bought the property out from under them (lmao jk kardasi hospitality and starfleet are friends! no hard feelings. they should collaborate on some future projects, actually).
garak's a sad bitch who just lost his amazing morally dubious nepotism career at obsidian corp. (which absorbed kardasi hospitality) and moved into the complex just for the comfortingly familiar architecture. even tho he's not on the payroll for his (secret) dad's evil exploitative company anymore he's still vital to its continued efficiency and is an absolute sucker who still does unpaid shady work for them from time to time. so no one in the complex likes him, but also he's a very pleasant and fastidious queer man who pays his rent on time and has completely taken over the laundry room, to the benefit of everyone, because all the machines actually work now, it's always tidy, and there's a variety of forever-stocked detergents and soaps available, plus an iron?? there was not an iron before garak moved in. which is how it eventually becomes public knowledge that garak has an online tailoring and fashion design business, and he's actually pretty good at restoring clothes that get fucked by the washing machine or eaten by rats, soooo. yeah. they let him stick around.
meanwhile julian's a hot doctor who works at the local hospital and is absolutely buried in student debt that he refuses to let his moderately-wealthy family help him with because they're awful people who had him on illegal drugs without his knowledge since he was a little kid. they were afraid he had something wrong with him, apparently. he was too far behind in his class or w/e. they couldn't handle having a kid with special needs, so they pumped him full of dangerous experimental stimulants. only reason he found out is because he snuck off somewhere to start transitioning and had some tests done that revealed all the crazy shit in his system. he's insanely lucky he didn't end up in the hospital with seizures or fall into a coma or worse. not to mention his parents still dead-name him left and right over a decade later. it's a whole mess and a huge secret, because he technically has a history with illegal drug abuse, and it's a partially ongoing history because going cold turkey off drugs he's been on since he was six is Not A Good Idea, so??? fuck his life, actually. he lives in the apartment just down the hall from garak's. 
garak hates the country his dad's company expanded into and would like nothing better than to move back home, but it's not really logistically possible. especially since everyone there hates him cuz his (secret) dad's company is a mega-corporation that's completely taken over everything p much and is a complete monopoly nightmare, and he did... kinda... work there for decades. no one would hire him if he went back. it would be an extreme conflict of interest, since everyone wants to stay on tain's good side, including garak. but starfleet is interested in him, so he does some begrudging contract work for them sometimes, but he really has no desire to join them. he just wants to resume his old career and reclaim his assets.
julian's hospital is owned by starfleet, tho. his scholarship into medical school was also from starfleet, in fact--they're the only reason he was able to (sort of) afford becoming a doctor at all. so he's a big fan, even tho they are pretty hardcore anti-drugs in a way that's made him have to forge medical records and risk serious legal charges and prison time. julian comes across as a squeaky clean medical professional and an adorable idiot, but he's intimately familiar with back-alley dealings. which is kind of how he ends up helping garak with his drug addiction, and keeps said addiction off the record.
but basically, how it begins is julian likes to support the local restaurants in the complex and garak finds him there and thinks he's gorgeous, and it proceeds as expected. they fuck nasty and become codependent. ten years later, julian lives in a modest house with garak in his home country and garak irons all his old university hoodies.
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separatist-apologist · 2 years ago
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Dressing For Revenge
I don't start shit but I can tell you how it ends. Don't get sad-get even.
Summary: When the end of the war with Hybern finds Lucien unexpectedly crowned High Lord, he realizes everyone he's ever cared about has been lying to him.
The new High Lord of Day Court vows revenge.
Elain Archeron is determined to see him get it
Evil Elucien AU
Read More: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | AO3
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Married.
Mated was the important thing, but marriage was the condition to the entire affair. His little, once human wife demanded he marry her like a human male might. Lucien would have told her no, but Elain was clever. She’d asked while unfastening his pants, and had punctuated her question with the wet glide of her tongue until there was only one answer.
Yes. Anything you want. Yes. 
Though Lucien’s ceremony did serve one purpose, beyond pleasing the female so willing to get on her knees—rumor told him Rhysand was irate. Uninvited, which meant he couldn’t spin his little lies and play his little games, Lucien was free to hold court. To tell his own stories, embellished as they were. 
He knew just enough to be a thorn in Rhys’s side. Just enough to alarm the other four courts, who might wonder why Rhys was hoarding Cauldron-made females and trying (with some success) to marry them to his closest officers. Lucien had been delighted, telling Tarquin and Kallias the harrowing tale of how Elain had managed to escape while she stood wide-eyed and nervous at his side. 
“They’ll drag her back if they ever manage to get their hands on her,” Lucien added, sliding a possessive hand over Elain’s waist. She stepped closer, as if she needed his protection.
“If you see me there, know I did not want it,” she added, his theatrical little mate. Tarquin and Kallias exchanged a look, and Lucien wished he knew what they were thinking. If they believed any of it.
“Rhysand has requested a visit,” Kallias finally told Lucien, learning over the intimate table of food Elain had set up. “To discuss this, I assume.”
“He says you’ve kidnapped his High Lady’s sister,” Tarquin added, looking Elain over with his sharp gaze. Lucien couldn’t help but recline back in his chair so Elain could speak.
“I came of my own free will,” she insisted, unaware of how that simple sentence filled his cock with blood. She was going to come of her own free will later that evening when he put his face back between her legs. The wedding was tomorrow, and Lucien was tempted to say fuck it to his promise not to fuck her and do exactly that. 
He tempered his lust before Tarquin or Kallias were made aware.  Instead, Lucien sent Elain out with Cressida and Viviane to work a little magic—the sort that told the nobility of Prythian that his mate was, if nothing else, wild with lust. Rhysand and Feyre couldn’t be kept out of the other courts forever, and all Lucien truly had going for him were centuries of minding his own business. 
“I only want peace.” It was an endless refrain, the words falling easily from his lips each time someone suggested his marriage was merely a political ploy. Surely it could be both��he could be winding up Rhys and he could want her. 
Though, it was mainly a political ploy. The first move on his chess board. Azriel’s illegal trip into his court—and the result of his ruined shadows—were merely rival courts who didn’t trust each other. Lucien had a right to his mate, especially if she’d come of her own free will. 
Another male from another court trying to take her was a death sentence.
“He should be grateful he kept his life,” Thesan opined over a private luncheon. Lucien was all too happy to soak up the praise, to be considered merciful. As if he weren’t baiting Rhys into a vicious, violent response. 
It was Tamlin who Lucien was most interested in seeing. Spared an invasion by Lucien’s brother taking the throne, Tamlin fell into brutal moods seemingly at a whim. A diplomat in Tarquin’s court had informed Lucien that both Autumn and Summer kept the borderlands under control when Tamlin was tired of ruling and turned to the wild as a beast. 
Eris, it seemed, would eventually march into Spring and drag Tamlin out, depositing him back on the throne with a warning that next time he might not be so generous. Lucien might have laughed—if Eris kept Tamlin alive, it was only because it served his larger interests. Not one of them did anything out of goodness. 
Only greed. He, at least, could admit the sort of creature he was. 
Tamlin looked rough. He met Lucien in the Solarium, the golden sun filtering through the rounded dome crowning him High Lord. Nothing else about Tamlin’s appearance did, though. His once mighty friend had clearly seen better days. Lucien went to him, sandals clipping over the marble, to clap Tamlin on his shoulder. 
“You look well,” Tamlin said with a wan smile. Lucien could not repay the compliment without betraying himself for a liar. 
“I’m glad you made it,” Lucien said instead, leading Tamlin towards the grand hall. Let the other High Lords see that Tamlin had come, too. Everyone but Rhysand, who was too insane to be among polite company. Elain was doing a perfect job of smiling with wide-eyed sweetness as she recounted her hasty escape. 
Her fear she might be locked back up, should she stop being so vigilant. 
“Married, huh?” Tamlin asked, trying—and failing—to inject humor into his tone. “Never thought I’d see the day you settled down.”
Lucien kept the frost from his voice. Tamlin met him on the single worst day of his life. “I feel quite fortunate.”
“I’m sure. Stealing your bride right out from Rhysand’s nose. How I wish I could have helped.”
Their eyes met. Lucien said nothing, though he nodded. He tried to block that whole thing out. He and Tamlin weren’t friends, and they both knew why. He’d wanted to protect Feyre and, in the end, had thought the best way to do so was to follow her out of Spring. 
If he examined his actions too closely, he might fall apart. So Lucien shoved it all down deep, content to revel in his hatred. He certainly felt victorious, walking into that room. He was High Lord, wasn’t he? And his mate, who looked like the sweetest trophy, perched on the throne he'd built just at his side. She smiled when he entered, rising to greet him. The picture of a good, well-bred female. 
“They’ll kill you for this,” Tamlin offered before slipping into the crowd. It wasn’t lost on Lucien that Tamlin was the only one who came without a retinue. No friends, no sentries, nothing. Alone. 
Pity spiked in his chest. For just a splitting moment, Lucien wondered what it was all for. If he wasn’t better off closing his doors to all of them, mating Elain quietly, and just forgetting the rest of them. If he failed, did he risk ending up like Tamlin? 
Elain reached him, drawing some of his attention away from the future. He reached for her face, holding her cheek in the palm of his hand. “You look lovely,” he said, eyes raking over the off-shoulder golden gown she wore. 
“You look unsettled,” she said, her gaze sharpening ever so slightly. 
Lucien let her follow his gaze back to Tamlin, seated at one of the long tables by himself. He spoke to no one, goblet in hand, and no one dared to speak to him. 
“It was good to invite him,” she said, her tone sharper than he’d heard all day. Beneath her doe-eyed innocence was a female smart enough to rival every male in the room. “You should have invited Eris.”
“Fuck Eris,” was his automatic response. 
“What’s the alternative, Lucien? He aligns himself with Rhysand? You don’t have to like him.”
Be smart, was the unspoken request. Lucien was blinded in this way and he knew it. Eris had an arsenal of weapons at his disposal. None so potent as their mother, still housed and under Eris’s protection. 
“You don’t understand this,” Lucien snapped, sliding his hand over her hip to walk her up that dais. She went with him, altering her expression into one of love-sick devotion. He wished it was his normal court and a normal night so he could shove her to her knees and put his cock in the back of her throat. 
“Family is complicated, and giving Rhysand any allies at all would be a mistake. He’s too powerful as it is. Sideline people, Lucien. Put your own feelings aside if you want revenge or admit you intend to hold this fruitless grudge until you die.”
“Cauldron boil me, we’re not even married,” he grumbled, dropping into his throne like a spoiled prince. Elain took her own seat, covering his hand with her own. 
“I’ll entertain him if you can’t. Invite him to the ceremony. Remind him you two share blood…and who put that crown on his head.”Lucien ran a hand through his thick hair. “I should crown you High Lord while I’m at it.”Elain settled primly in her chair, her lips pressed into a satisfied line. She didn’t outwardly agree, but he knew inwardly his words pleased her. 
Lucien marinated in his thoughts for the rest of the day while Elain played hostess. He sent that letter—last minute, so Eris understood he was an afterthought. His mother could join, but the rest of his brothers could not. Eris could bring members of his personal guard so long as they were unexceptional, magically. And, because Lucien never missed an opportunity to be an asshole, required Eris bring Elain a gift given she would now be his sister. 
He didn’t visit Elain that night, though putting her on her knees might have settled the knot in his chest. Lucien wanted to be alone, wanted to stew in his thoughts without her trying to fix things. Or worse, reminding him of all the good reasons why allying with Eris—no matter how awful. As if she’d have ever done the same with Feyre. 
If Lucien was honest with himself, he would have admitted he was nervous for more than just Eris. Some not insignificant part of him expected Rhysand to burst in at any moment, laughing that he’d fallen for it. As Lucien carefully braided pieces of his hair, as he dressed himself, that was all he could think of. 
She wasn’t going to be waiting for him. She’d be gone, she would leave, she’d reject him like she’d been doing for years. Lucien was a mass of nerves when Arina and Ajax came for him, the pair cautiously pleased. 
“I have Tamlin sitting with the High Lord of Winter,” Arina began, eyes sliding to a stack of paper held in her delicate hands. “Viviane could talk to a wall.”
“Summer and Dawn are intermixed,” Ajax added, flanking Lucien’s other side as the pair strode down the hall. 
“Unity,” Arina all but teased, her green eyes filled with questions. Why is all this necessary?
Still, his advisors were smart enough not to ask what he was up to, and smarter still to figure it out without Lucien ever needing to share. 
“And Elain?” he asked, trying to remain utterly unaffected. Casual and aloof—and failing, if the amusement on Arina’s face was any indication.
“Ready when you are,” she said with an easy smile.
“Lord,” Ajax added, his words tight. “Autumn Court…where should we put them?”
The dungeon. The words were on the tip of his tongue as he rounded the corner. What would happen if he challenged his brother, besides? Brothers fought–and Vanserra’s were expected to kill each other, besides.
“Wow,” he said instead, eyes landing on Elain. She was waiting in the open atrium, looking towards the closed doors of the hall nervously. Color flushed over her cheeks when she whipped around to look at him. She wore a dress of white, trimmed in melted gold. Standing in pooling sunlight, she didn’t need the pretty circlet woven through her rich, golden brown curls. Lucien forgot he was standing between his two most trusted friends, rooted in place as he drank her in.
She was the most beautiful female he’d ever seen. His eyes traveled down the curve of her throat to the dipping vee of her dress. Her exposed collarbone and the pushing swell of her breasts were dusted with a shimmering powder that made it seem as if she glowed. The beaded white gown clung to the soft curves of her body, flaring to the ground gently. 
“Lord?”
“Put them anywhere,” Lucien dismissed. He didn’t care about his fucking brother anymore. He didn’t care about his planning, his plotting—anything but his mate. Standing under that golden dome, pearls in her ears, and a sunstone on her finger. 
“Hi,” she whispered as he came towards her. Lucien was suddenly afraid to touch her. He felt like that male standing before her moments after arriving in Velaris. Uncertain. Confused. 
Fascinated.
“You look…” he didn’t know how to finish that sentence. She waited, chin inclined, for him to finish what he was saying. He saw her defenses raised, her expectation he would not be kind. Was this who he was, then? It was clear she didn’t trust him.
Lucien didn’t want his mothers marriage reflected in his own. He reached for her face, sweeping his thumb over her cheek. 
“Beautiful,” he murmured, forcing the words to soften in his mouth. He’d make the first move, then. She swallowed, her heart a jumping staccato between them. He wanted to kiss her and thought he might wreck the pretty, pink paint gracing her mouth. 
He’d have her later, he reminded himself. 
Lucien dropped his hand, offering it to her instead. “Are you ready?” he asked, thinking this wasn’t quite the way of things. He wasn’t supposed to walk her down—her father was.
He was dead. Who else was left? Instead of being gifted his bride, he’d walk at her side and mark them equals. True equals, he thought. Everything Elain had, she’d earned. Cauldron blessed by the mother herself. Not by High Lords and not by theft, but by virtue. Her very soul examined and found worthy. A Seer in a land that so rarely gifted that magic to begin with—and powerful enough she could shift the tide in wars, both with her prophecy and a blade in her hand. 
Two sentries pulled open the doors, silencing the chattering crowd. It was the first marriage between a Day Court High Lord and a consort in over eight hundred years–and though rival lords were rarely invited, Lucien had turned his own wedding into a political spectacle. 
Five powerful sets of eyes would watch Elain vow before all the gods to love him, honor him, and obey him of her own volition. 
And at the resulting dinner, they would discuss what was to be done when rival lords sent spies across their borders. Lucien wanted written policy and agreement. It was only a matter of time before another member of the inner circle came crawling into Day, and next time, Lucien intended to send their bloodied face back in a box. 
Then, and only then, would he eat whatever Elain had dreamt up, haul her up over his shoulder, and fuck her like he’d been dreaming of. Lucien was considering he could have everything he wanted. His mate. A family of his own choosing, of his own making. His political ambitions, unhindered by a High Lord too emotional to be logical or rational. 
Lucien was practically giddy, stepping into the hall. All eyes on the pair of them. He squeezed her hand, hoping to steady her. It was impossible not to notice that there was no one from Elain’s family there to represent or support her. Lucien hadn’t tried to get Nesta and some small part of him regretted that. There was no way Elain hadn’t realized that she was utterly isolated in Day with him.
Even Arina, smiling brightly at Elain, wasn’t a substitute for a sister. His eyes fell on his brother, seated in the middle of the room just behind Summer. Eris was glaring at him with icy eyes, his fury a living, writhing thing. It clicked for Lucien, staring down his brother. How he could give his wife her sister, how he could keep tabs on Rhysand, could have his mother without having to be too close to his brother.
Eris would understand. Would accept it, even. No one had ever loved Eris without strings. Why should Lucien? 
He refocused his attention on Elain. One thing at a time. To get what he wanted, he needed to be patient, and clever, and most of all, he needed to focus on the most important thing at any given moment. Cementing his mating bond in front of five High Lords was all that mattered. 
Lucien, standing atop a golden dias, in a room over her noble blooded faerie in the realm, turned to Elain with an easy, hopeful smile. None of it was feigned. He didn’t love her—though he hoped to. Lucien took a breath, took her hand.
And he began. 
Lucien didn’t think he’d ever truly recall any part of his wedding with absolute clarity. Elain was too beautiful, his heart too loud, to hear the words that were spoken between them. A tear slipped from her carefully made up eye, to which Elain brushed away quickly with a sheepish smile. He hoped her show of emotion was real. It certainly felt real when she tilted her chin for a kiss, one he accepted greedily.
Married.
But not mated. That was the lynchpin in Lucien’s plan. His wife had planned a spectacular party which would culminate in Elain offering him a piece of wedding cake. It gave Lucien an immense amount of free time to work the room, Elain at his side.
“Is that your mother?” she whispered when they entered the ballroom. His mother was seated at a table close to the throne he and Elain were walking towards. Lucien’s spine prickled at the sight of her. He had so many questions that he was too afraid to have answered. He didn’t look her in the eye, though he could see from the angling of her body that she was desperately trying to get his attention. His brother had his arm over his mothers chair, that same hateful stare burning against Lucien’s back. 
He led Elain up the steps, holding her hand as he went. She sat first, and then Lucien as he was still the Mother chosen High Lord. His mother, who he was still avoiding like a coward, had produced two High Lords. A feat, all things considered. Lucien could not think of one other instance in which such a thing had happened. 
And he was angry about it. 
“How long do we sit here?” Elain asked, trying again when it was clear Lucien was not going to answer about his mother.
“They dance first, and our courtiers present us with gifts,” he explained, leaning over the arm of his throne to brush a finger against her skin. Goosebumps erupted in the wake of his touch, thrilling him. 
“Are you going to talk to Eris?” she whispered. 
“Noticed him staring, did you?” Lucien’s mouth slipped into a tight smile. 
Elain’s attention was diverted when Arina, dressed in shimmering panels of gold, padded to the center of the room in her bare feet. She wasn’t alone—the other dancers had joined, their bodies slick with coil and dusted in gold. Lucien hadn’t seen one of their shows in a while—too often, he had Elain between his legs so everyone could see just how enthusiastic their new Lady was. 
“I didn’t know she danced,” Elain whispered. Loud drums from the back of the room punched out a hypnotic beat, joining the other musicians who made the very air feel like water. Elain wasn’t the only one transfixed—when he glanced at his brother, Eris’s mouth was half open, as if he’d never seen anything like Arina before.
Lucien settled back against his throne, smug as hell. Stuck up Autumn likely hadn’t. Eris likely ruled with the same prudish morals Beron once had. Lucien made a mental note to tell Arina to harass his brother a little, if only to get under Eris’s skin.
It didn’t last long. Eris was back to glaring at Lucien before Arina’s hips ever stopped swaying. He didn’t stop—not when courtiers and other High Lords began making a processional towards them. Jewels and fine fabric and spices were laid at Elain’s feet. All of it earned Lucien’s approval.
His brother brought his mother, making up the rear of the train. He dropped an ornate, gold box at Elain’s feet with little care while his mother very clearly did her best not to cry. 
“You look well,” she managed, her eyes glassy and hopeful. Eris looked as if he might pull the dagger hidden in his knee high books and cut Lucien’s throat.
“A ruby diadem from the trove. Surely you remember the one,” Eris said. Lucien’s lips curled off his teeth, a snarl slipping from him. His own Autumn crown had a twin for his wife—one he’d tried to give to Jesminda, before she died. He hadn’t considered that Eris might lay such a thing and Elain’s feet.
Elain slid her hand over his own, offering both Eris and his mother a sweet smile. She didn’t know.
She didn’t care, more likely. She rose, having settled him just enough to step off the raised platform to loop her arm through his mothers.
“Would you care for a drink?” Elain, the consummate hostess, asked. His mother nodded, offering Lucien one last pleading look. He ignored the guilt that flooded through him, drumming his fingers over the arm of his throne.
“What,” Eris began, not bothering to conceal his words, “the fuck are you doing over here? Play acting High Lord again?”
Lucien fucking hated Eris. “Does this look like play-acting?”
Eris sneered. “You look like a child in father's robes again.”
Lucien rose from his seat, his temper rising in his throat. A rip on the bond in his chest drew his eyes across the room where Elain stood, laughing at something his mother had said. Some silly childhood story no doubt, trying to win over his wife so he might speak with her. Elain was still paying attention. 
“This is a conciliatory gesture,” Lucien said through gritted teeth.
Eris barked out a laugh. “This is a show. Tell me what you want.”
”My wife wanted you here,” Lucien said dismissively, joining the throngs of well-wishers and revelers. 
“And you wanted, what, exactly?” Eris added, those shrewd eyes never leaving his face. “Another ally in your obvious vendetta against Rhysand and Feyre? You stole his Seer, you destroyed Azriel’s shadows…he’s going to hit you back, and hard, Lucien. You’re not the only one who can work a room.”
“He killed twenty younglings in Winter. Destroyed Spring after stealing their soon-to-be Lady, and in the resulting destruction, allowed a foreign army to sweep through Summer. Who do you imagine is particularly charmed by Rhysand and his child bride?”
Eris snorted. “The same people charmed by you and yours. You have the moral high ground for now,” Eris whispered, waiting for Lucien to reveal his hand. 
“I lost my eye while he was fucking that cunt,” Lucien snapped, grabbing Eris by his upper arm. He pushed his brother towards a pillar, lowering his voice. “You think anyone in Prythian likes Rhysand on anything but a technicality? His own territory is unstable, and none of them know it. He can’t keep the Illyrians in line and is still in our business, telling us how to run things.”
“So what’s your plan? Kill another High Lord in broad daylight and hope everyone hates him as much as Beron and you get to live happily ever after in your sandcastle?”
Lucien hated Eris. He waved a hand, dropping his grip on his brother. “Don’t worry about my plans. Enjoy the party. Make sure you tell Elain thank you for her hospitality.”He turned his back, walking towards her.
One.
Two. 
Three.
“Wait,” Eris called. Just like always, Eris wanted something too. Lucien turned, cocking his head. They were still brothers. Eris knew him just as well as Lucien knew Eris. “A trade.”He hadn’t expected that. “What could you possibly want?”
“The dancer,” Eris said, his words strangely breathless.
“Arina? What—don’t tell me. I don’t want to know,” Lucien interrupted, surprised that the thing his brother wanted was a female. “In exchange for what?”
“Whatever ridiculous thing you wanted when you wrote that letter.”
They stared at each other. “Arina bites.”
An amused smile slid over his brother's cold, pale features. “My type.”
“Nesta Archeron. My wife wants to talk with her. And I want someone inside their court. Someone I can trust.”
Eris chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Nesta accepted her bond with Cassian. She won’t leave. She’s more likely to stage an ambush than she is to defect.”
“But you’ll try?”
Eris shrugged. “Your funeral. She’s toothless now. Just another declawed kitten for his court to play with.”
“And your deal with Rhysand?” Lucien prodded. Eris gritted his teeth.
“Abandon your plan. Whatever scheme you’ve cooked up, forget it. Put your female to bed and be grateful to have her.”
Lucien shook his head. “Yes or no, Eris.”
“Make nice with mother. She misses you. She loves you. We’re brothers—of course I’ll fucking help you. But fuck, Lucien…you’ll get yourself and Elain killed if you don’t back down.”
“Fine.”
Eris and Lucien stared each other down for a moment, their fingers twitching as if they ought to shake on it. 
“Arina goes if she wants,” Lucien dismissed, altering the terms before the magic settled. 
“She will.”
Eris turned, sweeping away before Lucien could offer any further questions. His brother would learn the hard way, just like so many other males, that she wasn’t about to run off to another court because a High Lord had taken an interest in her. Lucien had gotten what he wanted, and in return all he had to do was be nice to his mother.
He made his way to the pair, forcing a smile he didn’t quite feel. “Mother,” he said by way of greeting.
That glassy quality returned to her gaze. Please don’t cry. 
“Lucien,” she breathed.
“Feel free to stay as long as you like,” he said, snaking his hand around Elain’s waist. She brightened, mouthing told you as if Lucien couldn’t see the whole thing. Amera Vanserra nodded, tucking a piece of auburn hair behind her ear.
“I would like that.”
Lucien offered one more tense smile and then swept Elain towards the long table. “I’m starving,” he complained.
“Soon,” Elain agreed, lacing her fingers with his. 
Lucien shook his head, suddenly too raw for his liking. His careful walls were cracked and crumbling, and if he continued as he was, everyone would see the fragile beat of his heart just beneath. 
“I can’t wait,” he said, pulling her flush against him. Lucien reached for a chair, pulling them both into it. Those who happened to see chuckled, more curious than anything of the mated pair.
He was well aware everyone wanted to know if the stories were true. Lucien wanted to know, too. 
Elain reached over the table for a small meatball stuck on a toothpick. “I’ve arranged everything just so,” she said, teasing the piece of food just in front of his face. “Don’t spoil my fun.”
“I’ve had enough,” Lucien half growled, half pleaded. Their gazes held, and he knew she could feel his desperation. 
I can’t take another minute of their presence. 
His brother, sniffing after his friend and his mother floating about a palace he never knew she’d even seen, reminded Lucien of everything he’d lost. All the lies, the time wasted, the centuries of wishing, of wondering, of hoping. He couldn’t count the times he had cried into his pillow as a boy. Wondering why his father seemed to hate him more than his brother. Why he was singled out for every small thing, why he received no affection, no praise? 
No love. 
“Spoilsport,” she chided, but she put the food against his tongue all the same. They had an audience, people watching to see what would happen, Kallias knew, but the others were blissfully unaware. Lucien chewed, his eyes never leaving her face. He expected some vicious clanging in his chest, a bell tolling from the heavens above. 
Mine. She’s mine. 
It was his only thought. Lucien blinked, reaching a hand to cup her face. “Elain,” he breathed, as though he were saying it for the first time.
Her smile was genuine, creating dimples in her cheeks. How had he never noticed that before? Freckles dusted a constellation of stars over the bridge of her nose from where she’d been kissed by the sun. Her brown eyes were flecked with green and rimmed in gold.
“Look at you,” he whispered, drinking her in with new appreciation. “My Elain.”
She brushed her fingers over his lips, as if she, too, were seeing him for the very first time. He leaned forward, the tip of his nose brushing her own. There was a stillness to the moment, their breath mingled in the air between them.
And then a hand on his shoulder, jolting him back to reality. “Would you like privacy, my lord?” Ajax asked it with amusement, reminding Lucien he still had an audience. Lucien cleared his throat, looking up at the room. They were being watched by the amused High Lords and their courtiers—and ignored by his own. Day was far too used to the lurid displays he and Elain often put on to find any of this interesting. They danced and feasted, creating a clear disconnect between guests and residents.
“Enjoy yourselves,” Lucien declared, hoisting Elain up into his arms as he stood. She squealed in delight, cheeks flushed as she ran a hand over the bare swaths of his chest. “Stay the evening—stay the night.”
There were murmurings of appreciation and as Lucien stepped out into the hall, he motioned for Ajax to come with him.
“Make sure the High Lords know they’re welcome to return.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Lucien took off, groaning when Elain licked the side of his neck. “It all feels good,” she whispered, breath fanning against his skin. “Tastes good.”
“Don’t stop,” he asked, though the growing erection between his legs was making it practically impossible to walk. He nearly crashed into a pillar when her teeth nipped at the hollow of his neck, and just barely got them into his bedroom before he was ripping himself out of his ceremonial sandals and clothes. 
“It’s worse than they said it would be,” Elain panted, fumbling the buttons on the back of her gown. Lucien strode to tear it apart, too, but she slapped her palm to his bare stomach.
“Let me,” he growled.
“What if my daughter wants it someday?” she panted. He went still at the notion. Children. He didn’t know how to ask the question, to make her admit she wanted that future with him. Why couldn’t his political marriage have all those things? He’d need an heir, wouldn’t he?
He wanted an heir. 
While Lucien dreamt of the litter that might one day run through his halls, Elain managed to get off her dress. Her naked body was hardly anything new and yet the sight of her filled him with brand-new appreciation. Lucien went to her, pushing her against the bed as his mouth found hers. She tasted like spun sugar. He was addicted, her tongue immediately stroking against his own as her nails raked lightly against the back of his neck. He was already grinding himself against her, the head of his cock pressed into her thigh. 
“I need,” he panted into her mouth, “to be in you.”
Elain moaned, arching against his body. Her legs had fallen open, giving him unparalleled access to every inch of her. There was no rush, given they had an eternity together, and somehow Lucien felt as if he didn’t fuck her right then and there, he would die never having been given the chance. 
Lucien slotted himself against her, dazed to find her wet. Elain hadn’t stopped kissing him and he didn’t think she realized until he pushed himself into her. With a gasping breath, Elain broke away to try and look between their bodies.
“This is really happening,” she breathed, digging her nails into his shoulder. 
He hated himself. Halfway into her, Lucien froze. “Do you want me to stop?” He would—it would be hell, given how tightly she was gripping him, and he would. He’d stop, he’d get off her and walk away.
“No,” she said. One word was all it took to fill Lucien with immeasurable relief. He thrust the rest of his cock into her, holding himself for a moment while she wiggled, getting used to the size of him. Lucien was rather content to let himself get used to her—absurdly tight, dripping wet, and mind-numbingly tight. She’d been made for him. 
“My pretty mate,” Lucien whispered, teasing one of her peaked nipples with his fingers as he began his slow, measured thrusting. She arched her neck, eyes rolling into her head. “Is this what you like, Elain?”
She only whimpered. Lucien thrust a little harder, still toying with her nipples to draw more of those gasping moans. He was merely a creature of need—everything he did was to heighten their combined pleasure so he could have her again.
“What about this?” he asked, thrusting faster, letting himself get a little rough. He pinched and she moaned, meeting him thrust for thrust with her pretty, rolling hips. Pleasure skittered through him, building like an out-of-control fire. She was a match for the magic coursing a river through him.
Elain was a song, was bright, burning light that filled any room. She tightened around him, eyes fluttering open to look.
“Tell me how you like it,” he whispered, reaching for her jaw. He thumbed over her lips, delighted when her tongue darted from behind her teeth to tease at his skin. She sucked him into her mouth, teasing and rubbing like she so often did when it was his cock in her throat. Lucien could feel the combined sensations on his sensitive head, driving him half wild. 
Using his other hand, Lucien pressed his thumb to her slick clit, making tight circles over the little nub until Elain was bucking beneath him, just as wild as he felt. They were both out of control, the slap of skin combined with their breathy, pleading moans. He didn’t want it to end, and yet Lucien was desperate to finish. 
He’d wondered for so long what it would be like to have her. Mating bond or not, Lucien was certain he’d still have felt the same. Would have lost himself when he felt that first wave of her cunt pulsate around him, thrusting viciously—chasing the same pleasure she was drowning in. Lucien was loud enough that anyone nearby could hear him come. It was pure ecstasy losing himself in the softness of her, of pumping and pumping until he could feel his own emissions sliding out with each new drag of cock to make a mess of the sheets beneath them.
Lucien pulled her against him, arms tight around her body. 
“Was it what you thought?” she asked, stroking through his hair, lips against his cheek. 
Lucien pressed a messy kiss to her mouth, his need getting the best of him. His hips were already grinding into her again. 
“Ask me again in a week, Elain.”
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angelinechastain · 2 years ago
Text
the first chapter of my book called Before Us
I killed her. I fucking killed her. The glass went through her skull. My life feels ruined, it feels like I’m losing everything, like my friends. I basically dropped my full love to travel across the country to live somewhere else. This feels illegal. I miss them so very much. But I’m Nerezza, hi and this is my life. We just moved to LA from New York City, and this is the worst thing ever. I hate this. I fucking hate this. I know it's two big cities and it's for my own good, I know it's for the people who hate me. They hate me because they think I killed Gemma. It wasn't my fault. Or at least that's what they want me to think for my “mental health”. But I really think that they just want me to stay sane at this point. I hate the fact that I felt like everyone seemed to hate me. 
Well, except for my friends, Ollie, Jack, Lexis, and Henry. They stuck with me during our last few months of sophomore year. I'm in junior year now, and I can't deal with the fact that they aren't here with them. I miss them and it's been too long, it's been like two weeks since ive seen them in person. I miss them so much. I call them every  day. I’ve known them for around 1st grade,  and they have been my best friends ever since. 
Moving is one of the worst things in the world. It's the worst thing in the world. I have no friends here, nobody but my family to comfort me, sure I’m close to them, but I need someone other than three guys, (even if two of them are gay, and very sterotypical sometimes) I need a girl to hang out with. Like even at home, I was friends with three guys and a girl. Henry, Jack, and Ollie are the sweetest guys in the world, but I definitely would have gone psycho without Lexis around to keep me sane. I hope she stays sane without me.
 And of course I loved the boys, but they were like an extension of my brother at times, like, we were all at lunch and someone yelled at me that I was a “murdering bitch”, Ollie and Jack held his arms as Henry used the guy as a human punching bag. I honestly have no fucking idea howe they got away with that. Maybe it's because they are rich and white, I mean their dads were like part of the royal family at one point. Like that shit. 
Me and Gemma had the best relationship, I definitely had a crush on her, but that's not the point. We spent all our time together. And I loved that. I loved the fact that we were so close. She always smelled like vanilla. The smell always calmed me. It makes me feel like I'm floating, like I'm not really here, that I'm somewhere else. The fact that it all happened so fast and the fact that person just had to drive drunk and hit us, killing her. Killing the person that I loved forever. Forever and always. I just can't. He tried to apologize, but there's no apologies for stuff like that. 
I now live in la, without anyone to beat someone up for me. They helped me with my room to help with the adjustment to La. My bedroom is white theme, white sheets, paintings with light colors, white desk, with books on it, pictures of me with my family and me with them, I was on henrys back, while Lexis was on Jacks back, and Ollie was in the middle of us taking the picture. I have an arm around Henry and I'm holding Lexis’s hand. Lexis and Jack are dating and it's quite obvious in this picture. She was kissing his cheek and he was smiling so big. God, I miss them. There's a white wicker chair as the desk chair. I have pictures on the wall. Like in a heart. All of me and my friends. I have a bookshelf filled with romance books. There are white curtains around my beds. They are clear and have little gems. I always spray vanilla perfume in my room to make sure it never smells bad. I hate dirt and bad smells. It's really just a pet peeve I guess.  
I let out a sigh as I lay on my bed, I'm on my stomach, when I lay on my back I feel fat, and I mean ya I'm plus sized, but that's nolt the point. I'm on my computer, scrolling through youtube, trying to find something to make sure I won’t die of boredom. Kurtis conner videos, Danny gonzalez videos, and a couple other random people that I don't know, or really care about. There's nothing to do without friends here. Like I love my brother and my dads, but daddy doesn't have time to hang out with me, he’s out at work, and I get it. He runs his own fucking business. But still and dad, the model. I am a nepo baby. I will forever know that, I hate when people try to deny it, because we are. It's just me and Ryan in the house currently and I really like that. It's just fun. 
I decide to call Henry, I open his contact, and I realize that we’re in different time zones. I look it up, 3 hours apart, they are ahead. It's 10 right now so I could probably call. I tap the call button. He picks up immediately. “Hey” he prolongs the Y in the hey.
“Hey I miss you guys” I say looking at his facial features, he looks better in person. 
“Just a sec” he says as he starts clicking on his phone. He adds Ollie, Jack, and Lexis to the call. It takes a couple seconds to get them on the call. 
“Heyy” they all say in unison. 
I smile at their jinx. “Hey guys. I miss you so much,” I say. 
“We miss you too,” says Lexis. “I cant tell you how much I cant deal with hanging out with just boys all the fucking time” she puts the phone on her vanity as she ties up her long brown hair. 
“Are you getting ready for basketball?” I ask as I look at my walls. I should really hang up some pictures. It would make it so much better. 
“Yep” she says as she goes off camera, presumably to put on her uniform. 
Lexis is really into basketball since like 8, she's always trying to get on varsity. And she's always on it. It's been her passion forever. We’ve always gone to her games and the fact that I can't be there for her. Our whole friend group helps her when she loses, and I'm the only one who can go into the girls bathroom when she lost the championships. The fact that I'm not with her right now, that makes me feel sad. I always wanted to support them, but now I can't. 
I smile as I think about the time at the last game I went to. “When's your next game?” I ask as I lay down. 
“Uh in two weeks” she says as she gets back into frame. 
“We will record it for you,” Jack says. 
“Thanks” I say smiling. 
“What's happening in Hollywood right now?” asks Henry. 
“Bitch I've been here for like two weeks. I can't know” I say 
“Ugh you should just know LA girl” says Ollie. 
“What the fuck did you just call me bitch?” I say sitting up, pretending to be angry for the effect of the joke. “Care to say that to my face?” 
“Fucking LA girl” sings Henrny with a big smile on his face. Ollie ecos him as he laughs
“Nobody fucking likes you guys. shut up” I say smiling at them, remembering how they have made me laugh. The way they always tried to make me laugh, and I've always loved how they are so thoughtful, the way they care about each other, and me. 
We end up talking for hours and just talking about life. We ended because Lexis had to go to practice, which made me feel like I'm missing something, like I'm not there. I'm missing the way things were. It feels like I'm going to feel like I'm gonna be disconnected from them. I am going to miss them, I hope they don’t forget about me. 
I hear a knock at the door and I look up. It's Ryan. “Hey” I say as I look at my computer. I open a tab and I start to look up the snake google game.
“Hey bestie” he says as comes and sits on my bed. 
“What the absolute fuck did you just call me?” I ask him as I look him right in the eyes. 
He laughs a little, “Never” he says smiling. I put up the middle finger at him. “Oh my gosh” he says “so rude” he puts the back of his hand to his forehead, he pretends to faint on my bed. 
I push him jokingly and I say “Shut up oh my god” he laughs and turns on his stomach. 
“Dude what are you doing?” he asks as he turns my computer to see my search for jobs. “Job? You do know we don’t need those.” hs says to me. 
I roll my eyes and say “We’re gonna need them in the future”. 
“Stop being responsible, making me look bad” he laughs as he looks at my computer screen. “How about this one?” he asks, clicking on a link. 
I look over his shoulder for a listing of a babysitter for a family with 4 children. “I can't do that!” I wine. “There's too many kids,” I say, trying to wiggle my way out of this one somehow. 
“You like kids though?” he asks as he looks up at me. 
“Ya but I was thinking more like I don't know, like mcdonalds” I say, “easy shit”. 
He sighs at me and says “dude just stop, like do it. Al”so what about karens? Don’t they yell all the time, report you all of the time. That’d be the worst. Don't you think?”  He pushes me a little.
“Fine, fine, I'll do it” I let out as I rolled my eyes. 
“Here “ he says as he clicks something and it’s a listing for a babysitter. The family looks like a really rich family, they were paying 35 dollars an hour. There has to be a catch, but do I care, not really. I just want that money. Like a normal person. 
“Fine, fine.” I say smiling at the screen. I scroll down to a description. I know that this might be unsafe, but I don't care, I really want the money. 
Babysitter wanted 
We have two kids (2,4). A boy, Jamie (4) and a girl, Alex (2). We are looking for a high school aged student. There aren't any allergies. We live in LA, this job will only be on the weekends, all day. They will need help with cleaning their rooms, reading, going to the bathroom, and bedtime. Our email is [email protected]
“Sure, sure,” I say as I click on the email. It has a profile picture of a bald white man who is hugging two little kids. A little girl with pigtails, and a little boy, who looks a bit older than the girl, maybe two years. The little boy is wearing a red shirt with a baseball cap. The little girl is wearing a flowery dress with a bow on the waist, she has pigtails and is holding a lollipop.  They seem so cute, I hope they're not terrible. Like they don't make a fuss all of the time. The little girl looks innocent enough. But I know the more innocent they look, the weirder they are. “What should I say?” I ask. 
“How about ‘hi I’m Nerezza and I am interested in babysitting your kids, I am 16 and I am available. I am available everyday at night, or on the weekend.’ easy as that” he states like it's so obvious. It's not. I hate the fact that he's better with words than me, I mean I know he wants to be a writer, but still. He’s just like someone that likes sports, a jock, but a smart jock. It feels like he's always trying to one up me, I know he's not. But it always feels like he is. 
“What no” I say as I look at him. “What if I want to go out with someone?” I ask. 
“Dude you're not going out with someone” he states as he looks at me with an annoyed look on his face. 
“Why not?” I question him. 
“Because, y’know. You're my sister” he says. “Just don't wanna see you dating, you're my little sister”. 
I type in the email ‘on weekends’ “there, I put in everyday” I lie. 
“Thank you,” he says, looking at me as I send the email.”How are you doing?” he asks, putting his hand on mine.  
“Fine, why?” I ask, looking at him, putting my other hand on top of his hand.
“Because of the move, I know moving has been hard.” he says looking at me with real care in his eyes. He hugs me and kisses me on the forehead. 
He always looks concerned when I'm sad. Because well he's always been this way. Protective, I guess, like a normal big brother. But our parents are always proud of him and he's always the favorite, I can tell. Just because hes got good grades and is just like always a great guy. Parents always say they don't have a favorite kid. But I feel like they are always lying. It's not his fault but it kind of is. If he wasn't so perfect they wouldn't care about him more. That's why back home, or what was home, I would sleep around. They always tried to stop me, but they knew they couldn't. I think that was the thrill of being bad. Or what I thought was bad. And of course being the daughter of a Paris fashion week model and a famous fashion designer. I got a lot of recognition of the fact that I was the “bad girl” or something like that. And I know people at the school will find out because of the press, but I want to stay as normal as possible. 
I look at him “I'm fine I promise, it's just thinking that it's gonna be hard, leaving the people that ive known forever” I say looking down, knowing if I don't I'll cry, holding back gasps of tears, knowing I wont see them as much and they will probably find someone to replace me with. Replace the idea of me, to find someone to fill the void of me.
“You’ll make new friends here” he pauses “i promise”. 
“Fine , fine” I say as I look up at him, “but if I don't, you owe me ten dollars”. 
He laughs as he puts his head down on the bed. “Other than friends, what are you afraid of?” he asked me. 
“People finding out,” I say. People can’t find out about gemma and what happened. Its just gonna fuck up my life again. I feel so guilty for something I didn't do. 
“They won't, and if they do and they care, they won't after I talk to them, promise” he says. 
I laugh, “stop” I say “I don't need you to protect me anymore, i'm not twelve”. 
“Are you sure you're ok? And you’ll always be twelve to me” he  asked looking into my eyes, to try to calm me down, from all of this shit that has happened to me. 
“Yes. Yes, I promise.” he looks at me with an eyebrow up. “Seriously” I smiled at him.  
“Ok, well now I'm gonna go hang out in the living room, if you're sure” he walks to the door and stops. “Oh and by the way, my friends that I just met a couple days ago at the senior party.” he looks at me. 
“Ok,” I say. “Wait”  He looks at me with a bit of confusion. “What are their names?” I ask, looking up at him with questioning eyes. I wanna see if they have cool names. I ju​st wanna judge them before I know them. Like any sane person would. 
“ Ty  and Louis, they are twins” he says as he walks out of the room, I watch I’m as he closes the door, the smell of him still lingering somewhere. I grab the vanilla perfume. I spray it around my room, not because I don't like the smell of him. It's just that I like the smell of him, I just like vanilla better. He always smells like weather sweat, because he plays lacrosse, or he smells like lavender, I really like the smell, or a mix of both. By the way, it really smells like shit. I hate the fact that he has to smell all the time. 
Once he closes the door, I run to the window and open it. I open one of the desk drawers as I grab the box of cigarettes and the lighter. I crawl out the window and I sit on the roof, I look out as I get out a cigarette and light it. I put it to my lips and suck lightly. I put my head back as I blew out the smoke from my mouth. I smile as it calms me. I look down at the street that's below the house. I watch the cars speeding by. I smile at how rich the cars look. They are all white or some flashy colors. They’re still pretty, of course. But they are still rich. All the things that have happened in the last 6 months come back to me as tears form in my eyes. 
I let out a sigh as I put the cigarette to my mouth, I inhaled lightly and let the smoke out. A tear falls from my eyes, I put my head down and I wipe the tears from my face. I keep smoking the cigarette as I cry at the fact that my life feels like it's falling apart, like I just can't. I had to move across the country to keep my life safe. I had to move from my friends and the people that I’ve known forever. I just hope that I can make some friends and make people like me. I let out a sigh and I looked to my right. There's trees surrounding the pool and I smile at the fact that there's a bigger place where I live now. I look to my left to see the rest of the house, with a big roof and another floor of the house.
I lay down on the roof and I lifted my leg to put it down on the roof. I look at the sky and I smile at the sky. The sky is so blue and has clouds floating around, there's one that looks like someone singing with a microphone, which I find really cool.I’ve been smoking since the crash, it's been months and i've just been hooked. My dads don't know of course. Well cause they wouldn't like it of course. But right now I just don't care. Theres just so much going on right now, so why the fuck not. And ya know fake IDs and shit. But I digress it calms me, knowing that I will always have this thing in my pocket. 
Once I'm done with the cigarette, I climb back into the window and I dust off my ass. I put a mint in my mouth and I sprayed my body with body spray to get the smoke smell off of me. I set down the bottle as I walked to my bed. I let myself fall onto the bed. It feels like I'm laying on a cloud. I close my eyes and I think for a second, about random things that I feel good about. Like how when I'm with my brother, family and friends. About how the school will be. I hope that I won't be the outcast of the school. I just hope it won't happen to me. I’m entering my junior year and I don't know how it’ll go. I hope it’ll be fine,
 ♡
Ty  Sounds like a nice name, seems like someone that I could get along with. But Louis sounds weird, I don't know, just gives me bad vIbes.  Ty  Sounds cool, Louis doesn't. Maybe it's just me, but that's just my opinion. I just don't see the point of naming your child Louis. It's such an old name. Like king louis the 4th. Just sounds wrong. I mean you do you I guess. But I don't know. I'm just very jugey I guess. I can admit that i am. 
I opened my school schedule, to see all of the easiest classes I could find to sign up for. I chose German for my language this year, since I already know some of it. I smile to see how many frees I have. I didn't take art this year because I don't know. And it's just boring. I feel like I should, I don't wanna fail. I look up the school to see what it looks like, it's really big. Like huge. It has a huge cafeteria, library, and locker area. 
I look for my own, not knowing what my locker number is. They all look nice, the whole school looks so nice, nicer than my old school for sure. The lockers are super big and tall. They are all in a line outside of the class rooms. I love all of the school, it's also the outside that's really nice. It looks like Niagra falls, just without the waterfall. Its so fucking buetiful. There's a forest that surrounds a little wood house that has a little door. Presumably for little kids. It's a private school from preschool to senior year. So that's fun. There's a little quad that has benches and chairs. It has tables with chairs surrounding the tables. 
 The campus makes my old one look like a fucking dump. And that was like one of the fanciest places in the area. I think I will love this place, maybe. Just maybe. But it might be betraying my old friends and home by maybe liking this place. But maybe, just maybe it’ll be ok. I hope so. I really do. 
I get up from the bed and I walk to the shower and I turn on the shower. I let out a sigh as I got undressed. I closed the bathroom door and I feel the water, still cold. I go to the mirror and I smile at myself.  I get my phone and turn on the music. The song “Power” by Little Mix plays. I connect it to the speaker in the bathroom. I grab my hairbrush and I start to brush my hair as I dance around a little bit. I open my drawer and I grab the cleanser and my toner for after the shower. I grab the scrub and the razor. 
I put them down on the bench before I do anything. I then get in the shower with the razor and scrub. I let the hot water run down my body for a couple seconds before I start to wash my hair. I grab my shampoo as I close my eyes to let my fears go away with the water. I squeeze the shampoo out and I scrub the shampoo into my scalp. It smells like roses and flowers. I let the water go through my hair to wash out the shampoo. I grab the conditioner and I put it on the ponytail of my hair.
 I grab the soap and scrub it on my body, the soap smells like lavender. I love the suds on my body. I wash off all the soap from my body and hair. I grab the razor and the scrub. I scrub my legs with rough soap. I start to shave the little hairs, they always annoy me. The scrub smells of vanilla and rose. I used the water from the shower to wash off the little hairs on my legs. 
Once I'm out of the shower I grab my towel and I rub off all of the water. I go to the mirror and I look at my face. I sigh and grab my clothes. I changed into a big t-shirt and some black pj pants that are way bigger than is necessary. But who needs nice fitting pants? I grab my phone from the bathroom counter, I turn off the music, it was playing Bigger Than Me by Louis tomlinson. I walk to my bed and sit on the bed. I let out a sigh as I looked around the room studying my surroundings. 
 I put my phone onto the bedside table and I walk to my desk and I sit down. I let out a sigh and I open my computer.
I hear a knock on the door as I start to type on a doc, “Honey” Dad yells into my room before he comes in.
“Come in” I say, not looking back at the door to see him walk in. 
The door creaks as the door opens a little. He fills the room with the smell of his pine body wash. It comforts me in a way, to know that every time I smell pine, I think of my dad. My dad sits on my bed and says “would you be interested in a trip to france for two weeks? The school offers it for all of the French students every year. Seems like something you’d be interested in,” he says as he looks at me with the warmest smile in the world. 
“Sure, that seems fun enough. It'd be good to learn” I say as I look back at my dad. There's a silence for a second. 
He smiles at me and opens his mouth “great i’ll put in the deposit.” he stands up. He gives me a hug and kisses my forehead. He goes to the door “i love you” he says before he walks out of the room. 
I look at him as he stands there, “love you too”. He walks out of the room and I drop my head on my desk. I smile at myself, knowing I got away with smoking on the roof of the house. It makes me so happy, knowing I could probably do whatever I could. By the end of this year I could smoke in every room of the house. It's my goal for my junior year. But at the end of the day I just wanna pass my classes and maybe just maybe find someone to be with. And I know that maybe i will be happy here. Just maybe. I know that one day I have to get over her death, but today, tomorrow and the day after that isn't that day. Or at least I dont think it will be.
I get to recreate myself at this new school, to be a new person, a person that is something different from what I was last year, something different from the person that's haunted by her best friend that she thought she killed. But they all say she didn't. And nobody will ever find out because I will never tell anyone. And if they find out? They find out. And my life will be ruined, the best thing we can do is move to germany. I mean I speak German so I could just move. Boarding school, ya’know? Just have fun. I'd be willing to do that. But that's not the point. I'm gonna be ok here. I just know it. It's gonna be something that I get through. I will get through this, being new, and not having any friends other than my brother. Well maybe his friends too but that's not the point. Not having any friends that are girls, who understand me. 
0 notes
beth-march · 3 years ago
Text
just sitting in a cloud, oh wow
Summary: 
Fez would do anything to make Lexi happy. Apparently, this includes adopting four cats.
For @earnmysong, thank you for the request! Also inspired by a post by @fexilovebot
Read under the cut, or on Ao3:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/36897967
Once, when they were first talking, and their bond felt so precarious it was prone to the occasional bout of awkward silence, Fez had broken a lapse in conversation by asking about her favourite animal.
“Cats,” he remembers her saying. So quickly, her answer comes, like this isn’t a matter that has room for debate, like Lexi has been rigid in this forever.
“Word.”
A minimal answer, but a distinct sense of hope unfurls on her face.
“You like cats?” Lexi asks.
“Hell yeah I like cats. We used to have a stray hangin’ around the store, he was good company. Minded his business, only hung out if he wanted. Not like dogs, dogs love anyone, they fuckin’ fools.”
Laughter spills from her, and it’s breathless and happy. She’s beaming, and Fez thinks that it’s a disproportionate reaction to an expression of fondness for cats, but he’ll take it. Every time he elicits her smile, it feels like a gift.
“Yeah, exactly!” she exclaims, like vindication, like something long sought finally found. “Their temperaments are so cool, they’re so deliberate in everything they do. And they just have the sweetest little paws, you know, with the little toe beans, and don’t even get me started on their noses - ”
Fez is grinning in earnest, by now. There’s nothing quite like listening to Lexi talk about something she’s passionate about.
“You got a cat?”
“No, I wish,” Lexi sighs. “I’ve always wished.”
“You know you talking about a cat, right? Not some fucking illegal wildlife or somethin’. Like, shit, we can go down to the pet store right now, I’ll shout you the two hundred bucks.”
“That’s really nice of you,” Lexi says, and he smiles all the more when he realises she’s squirming with just how nice she finds this, fingers wringing together. “But my mom doesn’t want pets in the house, so that’s that.”
It might strike another person as silly, the way that dejection overcomes her. Not Fez, who is already so far gone it hurts him to see Lexi like this, sad because she doesn’t have the pet she wants, and has clearly wanted for a long time.
“Someday, Lexi,” he says softly.
He doesn’t realise that he’s making her a promise.
-
Someday arrives, and falls on the day before Lexi turns nineteen.
It feels long overdue, though it’s barely been two years since she confessed her love for cats, and it isn’t as though he could have hosted a pet in a drug house in good conscience. Things have changed since meeting Lexi - somehow, he’s found himself out of the town that ruined him, severed from the business that strangled him. He’s working a terrible job for terrible money so he can cover rent for their apartment and medical bills for his grandma and send his brother to a proper school, and Ash is still angry at him for uprooting their lives to try to act like they’re people they can’t be, but Fez doesn’t care. Maybe he’s playing a fool’s game, but isn’t that what all people do? Fake it ‘til you make it , he remembers Lexi advising the people in her play during her junior year.
For the first time in his life, he looks at the future and the picture is not blurry. It is not smeared in blood, it is not framed by metal bars.
It shouldn’t be significant, that Fez feels secure enough in his life to decide to buy his girlfriend a cat for her birthday. But it is. The freedom is staggering.
He wants to surprise her, but there is a problem in this idea, in that he’ll have to choose the cat himself. He assumes it will be a difficult decision to make in his first glimpse of the kittens wriggling in the glass, some cuddled together, others swatting at toys, others leaping about. They blur together for him, a heaving mass of fluff, a cacophony of sweet meows - but then, he spots a kitten the colour of honey sitting in the corner, and his mind is made up.
There’s something about the little cat that reminds him of Lexi. Maybe it’s the way that she sits perched in the corner, spectating, something knowing in her gaze. Maybe it’s the quiet dignity of her stance, the delicate graze of her tail where it is woven around her soft paws. Maybe it’s how pretty her pale green eyes are.
Whatever it is, Fez looks at the little cat, and he knows she was always meant to end up with Lexi - and, by extension, him. Not twenty minutes later, she’s in his car, hooking her claws on a loose thread in the passenger seat and yanking until it pulls apart, a little tear appearing in the cushioning.
“C’mon, man, don’t pull that shit,” he huffs, plucking up the kitten by her tiny shoulders, setting her atop his knee. “How you gon’ play me like that?”
It seems very rude, considering what he’s saved her from. A glass tank full of annoying brothers and sisters, or maybe a future with a family of young children who might tug on her tail too hard. Instead, she gets to have Lexi Howard as her owner, which makes her the luckiest cat in the world.
He explains this to her, while he sets her things up. Bowls of food and water in the kitchen, litter box in the laundry, a squashed pillow of a bed and a pile of toys in the corner of the living room. He tells her all about Lexi - “You don’t even know, cat, you in for the time of your life, your mama’s the best, she’s gonna spoil you like you wouldn’t believe,” he mutters - and he doesn’t really register how insane this is until Ashtray gets home from school.
“Who the fuck are you talkin’ to?” Ashtray asks, when he steps through the front door. “I know Lexi ain’t here, you’ve been bitchin’ about not being able to wake up with her on her birthday for like two weeks straight.”
“Yo, kid, how was school?” Fez asks, ignoring his tirade.
“What you think? That institution’s fucked, glorified babysitting, the way they treat us like preschoolers who ain’t got a clue about - what the fuck is that?”
Ash stops dead in his tracks when he takes stock of the tiny ball of fuzz streaking across the living room. The kitten does her best to leap atop the sofa, but she’s too small, and she comes crashing down to the carpet, rolling around and shaking her head to straighten herself out. Fez can already hear Lexi cooing - and he can already hear Ash cursing. There’s a gleam in his eyes that suggests he’s not far from it, from breaking out in furious protests.
“C’mon, you know this one,” Fez says. “Says meow, starts with a C?”
“Why the fuck is there a cat here?” Ash thunders. “You best tell me that little fucker’s out by tomorrow, Fez, I ain’t playin’ around. I don’t want no cat.”
“You liked that street cat who came by the corner store!”
“Yeah, but he didn’t live with us! You outta your fucking mind if you think I’m ‘bout to clean up after your girlfriend’s cat, that shit is nasty, literally - ”
“I ain’t askin’ you to do shit. Just ignore her, aight, and be nice? For Lexi.”
Ash grumbles and storms off to his bedroom, but Fez knows his brother well enough to recognise acquiescence. For Lexi is a compelling argument in this house. So much so that Fez doesn’t even have to decorate the place by himself - Ash stands on a chair on the other side of the living room and holds the banner straight while Fez pins it in place, his face only mildly murderous.
In the morning, Ash even agrees to keep an eye on the cat while Fez leaves to pick up Lexi from her dorm room. If he notices Ash dangling a toy mouse by its tail for the cat to swat at, Fez says nothing, only smiles to himself on the way out.
When he reaches Lexi’s college, he finds her already in the parking lot. She’s decked out in her usual eyelet lace, her hair in a low bun and her red lipstick pristine. She looks beautiful, and her smile is radiant.
He gets out of the car and Lexi twines herself around him, her arms fierce around his neck, her face powdery in his neck, her hair soft beneath his nose, and he soaks all of her in, he whispers tenderly, “Happy birthday, Lexi.”
���Thanks,” she giggles, hands twiddling at his nape.
“It’s been good, so far?”
“It just got perfect,” Lexi confides.
“I think it’s ‘bout to get a whole lot fuckin’ better,” Fez admits, his smile impish.
“That’s impossible,” she sing-songs.
Fez imagines this might be among the rare occasions that he is right and Lexi is wrong, and he relishes in it, because it’s a wonderful sort of thing to be right about. Indeed, they get inside, and the first thing Lexi reacts to are the decorations - the blue and purple balloons he’s hung by the banner wishing her a happy birthday, a minimal effort that has her gushing with gratitude.
Fez barely acknowledges it in his haste to ask, “You want your present?”
“There’s more?” Lexi’s voice sounds weak. He’s not sure why - this is the second birthday of hers they’ve shared since they’ve been a couple, and he certainly hadn’t held back the first time, though the pressure to make it nice was more evenly distributed between him and Cassie for her eighteenth. That could really be the reason, he supposes - he knows she’s been lonely without her family, however adamant she is about her relief to have him with her.
“More’s a fuckin’ understatement,” Ash scoffs, from his corner.
This draws a look of curiosity over Lexi. She follows with wonder as Fez guides her to his bedroom. It looks unassuming, neat as always, one nightstand table covered in his things and the other stacked in hers.
There’s no sign of the cat, which makes Fez frown, especially when he notices a pucker of confusion in Lexi. He releases her hand and crouches on the ground, checking the most obvious spot - and finds what he’s looking for. The cat is huddled beneath the bed, legs tucked under her like she’s a loaf of bread. She regards Fez with curious eyes, and doesn’t protest when he reaches under the bed and slips her into his hands, pulling her into the open.
The gasp that flows from Lexi is definitely reminiscent of her theatre days. Fez watches with a grin as she folds her hands over her mouth, her eyes shining.
“Oh my god,” she whispers. “Fez, are you serious? Is this real?”
“Real as all hell,” Fez assures her, bringing the kitten closer. Lexi dusts three careful fingers over the little cat’s forehead, and he swears that there are tears glazing her eyes. She looks up at him and laughs wetly, incredulity clear.
“Fez, I don’t know what to say,” she bumbles. “You really remember me telling you how much I’ve always wanted a cat? We weren’t even officially together, back then!”
“For sure I remember. I remember everything,” Fez says.
Lexi bops up on her toes to kiss him, and she’s sort of crying, sort of laughing, but Fez leans in as close as he can, cupping her face with his spare hand.
“This is the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever gotten,” she admits, stroking the kitten’s face. “But, Fez… I can’t keep a pet in my dorm room, you know.”
“Nah, she’ll stay here. I already got her set up, got her some toys and shit.”
“You’re going to look after a cat? For me?” Lexi asks, dumbfounded.
“You think it’s hard?”
“I think it’s inconvenient! It’s, like, a lot to ask of you.”
“You haven’t asked me for a fuckin’ thing,” Fez says. “I didn’t see you in the pet shop or nothin’. Anyway, you’ll be here next year to help me out, won’t you?”
That’s when her mother will relent on the importance of living a proper college life, and Lexi will be free to move in with Fez and Ash. They’ve alluded to it before but never made formal plans, and Fez has no idea why he hasn’t spoken to her about it outright, because her happiness is an abundant outpour, filling the room with light.
“Yes,” she says, nodding, grinning. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“I’ll be aight ‘til then. She’s only small,” Fez says, freeing one of his hands so that he can unspool Lexi’s fingers and settle the kitten in her palms.
“Oh,” she mumbles, pulling the cat close to her chest, cradling her. “She’s a girl?”
“Yeah. Shit, I hope you didn’t have a preference.”
“She’s perfect,” Lexi assures him. “You chose perfectly. What’s her name?”
Fez scoffs. “You think I got you a cat for your birthday and then fuckin’ named her myself? That’s on you, Lex, you gotta think of something good.”
“Well, she’ll be your cat too, really,” Lexi says. “We should decide together.”
“No way, this one’s all you. I know you got somethin’ in mind. You’ve been dreaming of having a cat how long, again?”
He’s surprised when she bites her lip.
“Actually, I do have something in mind, something I chose when I was really little and watching a Barbie movie…” she says, sounding sheepish.
“Mm?”
“I don’t think you’ll like it,” Lexi says.
“I don’t give a fuck. Whatever you want, for real.”
“I want to name her Serafina.”
Fez blinks. “How the fuck you spell that?”
Lexi giggles and spells it out for him, and Fez lets the letters uncurl in his mind, nodding slowly. “Serafina,” he repeats. “That shit’s dope. I think it suits her.”
“Really?” Lexi asks, brightening. Serafina squirms in her hold, abruptly darting away, leaping atop the bedsheets with a graceful curve of her tail.
“She’s a wily motherfucker, I’ll tell you that much,” Fez says, scooping the kitten back up and bundling her in Lexi’s arms again. “This is Lexi. I been tellin’ you ‘bout her, what the fuck is wrong with you, tryna leave her? That’s the best place in the world, those arms, best take advantage, you dumbass cat.”
“Don’t be mean to her,” Lexi scolds, bringing Serafina close, so she can nuzzle her cheek against the cat’s soft face. It only takes a moment for Serafina to realise just how lovely this situation is, and she breaks into high pitched purrs, a look of curious contentment dancing along her little face.
Fez doesn’t think twice about it - he tugs his phone out of his pockets and snaps a photo. Realising what he’s doing, Lexi tilts around so the angle is better, so Serafina is more visible, and makes her smile wider.
It’s the sweetest picture Fez thinks he’s ever seen. He hates social media with a passion, but an odd compulsion rises in him every so often, like his blood remembers that he’s Gen Z and insists that he has to do something to remind the world that he exists, and it usually coincides with a desire to brag about how stupidly lucky he is to have Lexi.
So Fez posts the picture to Instagram, captioning it something vague about it being his girl’s birthday. It slips nicely alongside all the other squares depicting Lexi in various positions - across the table on a date last month, a blurry selfie where she’s laughing and snuggled in his arms, standing with Ash at her high school graduation, a candid of her with sunshine making her hair glisten.
Rue has called his Instagram a Lexi fan account before, and Fez doesn’t dispute this claim. He’s even changed his bio accordingly, much to Rue’s chagrin, and Lexi’s pleased embarrassment.
Some time later, a chime from his phone informs him that the picture has been commented on.
@casshoward: oh my god it happened @lexihoward you finally got your serafina! please tell me you actually named her serafina!
That makes Fez laugh out loud. He joins Lexi on the floor, where she’s dragging a shoestring along the floorboards in the kitchen, giggling with delight as Serafina pounces at the shapes she traces on the ground.
When he shows her the screen, Lexi offers him a flat look.
“It’s a good name!” she insists.
“I love you,” is all he can say. And he does. He thinks of her tiny and wishing for a cat and deciding she wants to name her cat after a Barbie character and telling her sister about it, holding onto that wish for over ten years, and he cannot believe how much he loves her, loves that little girl and the woman she has become, the woman in his arms, the woman whose wishes he gets to grant.
Whatever dim embarrassment marred her a moment ago is long gone.
“I love you, too,” she confesses, with such ardour to suggest novelty, though it’s anything but - she tells him this every day, she shows him every moment.
They’re halfway to a kiss before Ash smacks them with one of the balloons. It goes careening between them, and Serafina eagerly bumps her head against the lilac globe, nudging it along the kitchen floor.
“Yo, what the fuck, Ash?” Fez grumbles, frowning at his brother.
“Y’all make me fuckin’ sick,” he declares. “Happy birthday and all, Lex, but seriously, I curse the day you came to visit our old store.”
With that, he leaves, stomping away to his bedroom. And Lexi and Fez dissolve into laughter, curled together on the kitchen floor, awash with bliss.
-
“Hey, you’re into cats, right?”
The question comes unexpectedly, about midway through their shift at the convenience store. Fez glances up from the shelves he’s stacking with a surprised look. This coworker is a nice kid, just a bit younger than Lexi, taking a gap year before he starts at college - but he’s rarely chatty. Fez thinks the kid might be intimidated by him. Lexi keeps telling him that he should make an effort to make his niceness more obvious, because he can be intimidating from afar, with his air of mystery and his foul language and the big scar on his head.
So Fez nods, and tries to make his posture as open as possible.
“More my girl who loves them, but yeah, I fuck with cats. Why you ask?”
“It’s just, my mom’s cat had kittens, and we’re trying to get rid of the runt.”
Fez can’t help scoffing at this. “Way to sell it to me, bro.”
“Shit, I mean - we’ve got one left, that needs a good home. And he’s cute, I swear, real cute. You wanna see a picture?”
There’s no real chance to offer a response before the kid has descended upon him, phone in hand. If he could refuse him, Fez thinks he might have - he adores Serafina, truly, loves to wake in the middle of the night and find that she’s tucked herself in the groove of his legs, loves to scratch behind her ears when she wanders into the kitchen to meow at him with demands for food, loves how happy Lexi gets whenever Serafina indulges her with cuddles. But he isn’t sure if he wants to have two cats, even if it would be a lot easier to manage looking after them, now that Lexi is living with him.
Seeing the cat in question doesn’t exactly convince Fez. The little kitten is pathetic, really, skinny and tiny, a black and brown tabby cat with thick white fluff protruding from his ears. He’s visibly smaller than his siblings - his paws are ridiculous, like little twigs, and he’s curled in on himself, his eyes bleary.
“Do they stay that fucked forever?” Fez wonders aloud.
“No, man,” the kid laughs. “No, runts almost always catch up. He might be a little bit smaller, but that’s no big deal, and he’ll be just as strong. He’ll be running around with your other cat someday.”
“That’s mad presumptuous of you, homeboy. I ain’t agreed to nothin’.”
The kid falters, which makes Fez feel bad. “No, I know, it’s just - I don’t know, I’ve got you on Instagram, you know? It’s obvious you and your girlfriend really love your cat, so I thought you might be interested in having another.”
There’s some insight in that. Fez has no doubt that Lexi would be thrilled to have a second cat, and the idea of coming home with a little cat, watching surprise steal her away in a rush of delight, holds a tremendous appeal. He knows the tenderhearted part of her would take great thrill in nurturing a little runt, so tiny he’s been left unchosen among his more robust siblings.
If Fez is honest, there’s even some appeal in this notion for him. Get rid of him, he hears again, and realises that he wants better for the little guy. It’s not his fault he’s so weak and ugly, after all.
“I’ll talk to Lex,” he tells his coworker. Which is really as good as yes, something self aware in Fez can acknowledge, but he dismisses the thought, because the sheer amount of power Lexi has over him is old news, this many years in.
Predictably, Lexi takes one look at the picture of the kitten and is utterly dazzled.
“He’s the runt of the litter?” Lexi asks.
“That shit’s not obvious?” Fez asks, laughing. “Look at them fuckin’ alien eyes!”
“I can’t believe nobody’s picked him just because he’s the runt,” she says. “He’s adorable, and he’s sure to grow. Look at those pretty markings on his forehead!”
There’s already something that resembles love in the way Lexi talks about the little cat. Fez looks at what shines in her eyes and realises, for the umpeenth time, that he would do anything, anything at all, to make her happy.
“You want to take him, then?”
“I mean…” Lexi trails off, chuckling. “Of course I do. But only if you want to keep him, too. I know you’ll say yes to me, and I don’t want to take advantage…”
Fez squeezes her hand, because Lexi really isn’t the sort to wield power in such a way, and that’s exactly why she has so much of it over him.
“Anything you want, baby,” he murmurs.
A few days later, they pick up Alfred. Lexi has picked another weird old timey name, and Fez doesn’t even blink, just says, “Cool. I’mma call him Alfie.”
Alfie the alien, Fez decides, when he realises that the kitten is even weirder looking in real life, with bulging eyes and spindly legs. Fez actually kind of likes it, how he’s so small that he can fit into even Lexi’s frail palm.
“Fez, that’s our son,” Lexi whispers, as they watch him shuffle headfirst into a cushion, bouncing backwards onto the blankets with a little wheeze.
“And he can’t even walk in a straight line,” Fez says, booping Alfred’s grey pink nose. “We chose real fuckin’ well.”
“We sure did,” Lexi says, without a trace of irony. She weaves her fingers around Alfred’s scraggly frame, flips over and lifts him into the air, giggling as she watches his legs kicking about, as though paddling through invisible water.
Fez takes a photo - Lexi sprawled on her back, grinning up at the ball of fluff in her hands - and in what he hopes isn’t becoming a tradition, posts the picture to Instagram.
-
Fez has no idea how they’ve ended up here. One moment, they were in the supermarket parking lot, unloading bags into the car. The next, Lexi has dragged him across the street, to the neighbourhood park, which is decked out in streamers and balloons, a massive banner announcing PET ADOPTION FAIR!
“What the fuck we doin’ here? I wanna go home, for real,” Fez grumbles.
“Okay, Ashtray,” Lexi says, laughing. “Remind me which brother I’m with?”
“We ain’t got no reason to be here,” he insists. “We ain’t getting no more pets. I cannot deal with another cat dragging dead mice and shit into my house.”
“No, I know we’re not, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look!”
It might be the reason why he’s so reluctant to go along - he can see how this is most likely to unfold. Indeed, Lexi finds her way to the corner of cats, and from there, it doesn’t take long for her to latch onto yet another cat.
Cat, and not kitten. A big cat with fluffy, dark ginger fur, and bright amber eyes, white on his chin and the toes of his paws. He seems curious about Lexi - she crouches by the cage, and he pokes his nose through the gaps, nuzzling her fingers.
“Oh, hello, beautiful,” she greets, slipping her fingers through so that she can pat his head. This cat clearly knows his stuff - he ruts into her palm, purring loudly, and the happy sound that slips from Lexi makes Fez groan.
“Fez…” she says, turning on him with pleading eyes.
“Hell the fuck no,” Fez says.
“No, but look at him! Look how sweet he is!”
“Look, Lexi, I ain’t playin’. You know I love you more than anything, but we ain’t gettin’ no more fucking cats, I already got them two bitches at home getting into fights with the street cats at three o’clock in the fuckin’ morning - ”
“I thought you liked that they could hold their own against the street cats!”
“Not as much as I like stayin’ the fuck asleep.”
“Maybe he won’t get into as many fights. He doesn’t seem like the type.”
Fez doesn’t know how Lexi has managed to find the single most manipulative cat he’s ever seen - the cat is fixating him with wide, hopeful eyes, and he turns around with a huff. “Motherfucker, damn it all to hell. Fine.”
Relenting is the time that Lexi backtracks, mumbling worries about it being his choice as well, but Fez shakes it aside, joins her to kneel in the grass.
“Hey, bro,” he says, grazing  the cat’s face with his fingers. The cat seems to like him, too, licking at his knuckles with his prickly, bumpy tongue. “You right, Lex. He’s a good one. Shit, I think he’ll be runnin’ circles around our poor little alien.”
“Alfie is literally normal now, you need to stop calling him that,” Lexi says, laughing.
The way she walks back to the car with the ginger cat clutched to her chest reminds Fez of children leaving carnivals with stuffed toys. He’s a very placid cat, the one they’ve chosen, content to curl up into her throat and purr.
This is the picture he takes, of Lexi kissing her latest little love’s forehead, against the backdrop of an azure sky. Fez swears it’s the last time he’ll have a picture to post, and this time around he feels the sentiment is less hollow, because he is very much aware of how awed Lexi is by his relenting, how grateful she is.
“I’m so happy,” she tells him, burying her face in the cat’s thick ginger fur. It’s weird, how he’s reminded of Rue, of a life so long past it seems detached from everything Fez now knows - but it’s good for Lexi, because it spurs gratitude in him, and he leans in to touch his forehead to hers, brushing the cat, too.
“I’m glad, Lex,” Fez murmurs. “What name you thinkin’ of, this time?”
“You don’t want to name even one of our cats?” Lexi asks.
“I don’t got anything in mind. Do you?”
“Yeah, what do you think of Humphrey?”
This is the last straw for Fez. He pulls away from her and offers her an incredulous look. There’s old fashioned names, and then there’s Humphrey.
“Humphrey?” he repeats, staring at her in shock.
“It’s cute!” Lexi insists. “That guy on the Great British Bake Off had a rabbit named Humphrey, remember!?”
For a moment, Fez allows the information to wash over him, that if anyone ever asks him about his cats, he’s going to have to look them in the eye and explain that their names are Serafina, Alfred and Humphrey. He accepts it with a sigh.
“Anyone ever tell you how fuckin’ weird you are, baby?” he asks.
“Yeah, you, every chance you get,” Lexi huffs, but she’s laughing with joy.
(For a fledgling moment, a bizarre thought crosses his mind - a wonder, about what kind of funny names Lexi might pick for their actual children. Once he realises what’s occurred to him, his stomach lurches, and he banishes the thought with insistence, because they’ve never talked about kids before, he’s never even thought about having kids before. That it’s even grazed his mind seems like a miracle - evidence of how things have changed, how the prospect of that future is becoming less inconceivable all the time.
Still, he stops himself from thinking about it. It’s crazy enough that he shares three cats with Lexi, impossible enough that he has confidence that they’re going to share a life. If he stops to imagine what she might look like pregnant, what she might look like holding a baby, his baby, he thinks he’ll lose his mind.)
-
The fourth time it happens, the fight is entirely drained from Fez.
Lexi comes home, and she makes for a very melodramatic picture, with the rain splaying her hair in wet splotches on her cheeks, and a filthy cat smearing dirt all over her blouse. Fez has never seen a dirtier cat - he thinks that the kitten is a pale grey, but there’s so much mud obscuring the fur it’s difficult to tell.
“I know what you’re thinking, but this is an emergency,” Lexi blurts, as she rushes to the bathroom, knowing that Fez will follow her. He does, not bothering to release his hold of Humphrey as he does. Alfred is perched atop the toilet seat, so he sets Humphrey to sit alongside them, and both cats watch with curiosity as Lexi carefully sets the mewling little creature in the sink.
“An emergency? Is that it?” Fez asks, eyebrows raised.
“I’m not going to keep her, I just want to help her,” Lexi says, frazzled, running a tablecloth in warm water. Fez watches the movement of Lexi’s deft fingers, the tremendous caution she employs, as she runs the cloth into the kitten’s body, soothing away the dirt in gentle motions.
Rosy blood trickles into the bath, and Lexi makes a noise not dissimilar to a whimper. Fez takes over, gently brushing her aside, inspecting the mark - it’s only a shallow cut on the bottom of her foot. He suspects a shard of glass is to blame, and he knows that her paws will cease seeping soon.
“It ain’t deep,” Fez assures Lexi. “It’ll stop soon.”
“She seemed so distressed,” Lexi admits. She wipes a hand on her face and smears mud all over her forehead. Fez takes a moment to remove the face washer from the cat, folding it in half and pressing it to Lexi, instead. He makes quick work of washing the dirt off her face, and then returns to the sink.
man whatever just fuck me up, Fez captions his new Instagram post. The one where Lexi is beaming and holding all four cats in her arms.
Ivy, the grey one, named for a Taylor Swift song Fez recognises from the bathroom while Lexi does her makeup in the mornings, is noticeably smaller than her siblings. She’s squeezed between Humphrey and Serafina, looking much fluffier now that she’s been clean and dried, her grey coat almost snowy.
The comment section is quick to swirl with chaos.
@baddiemaddy: LMAOOOOOOOOOOO
@rueruebennett: dude you got another fucking cat?
@fezcoz: @rueruebennett lexi gets what lexi wants, you know how it is
@casshoward: my brother in law is the only man ever tbh
@fezcoz: @casshoward you a real one lil sis
@ashttrayz: i hate this fucking family
@lexihoward: @ashttrayz you know what, you’re in time out, get on top of the fridge
@rueruebennett: lexi coming in hot with a vine reference in 2023…
@lexihoward: @rueruebennett the joke’s on you, you got it!
@jules.vaughn: cat number five when?
@lexihoward: @jules.vaughn fez is lucky i’m not that mean :-)
“If only they knew the fuckin’ truth,” Fez says, and pulls Lexi into his embrace, so that their cats squirm between them. The extent can’t be emphasised enough - Fez is beyond lucky that Lexi isn’t mean, because they both know that Fez would do absolutely anything to make Lexi happy.
-
There’s something cyclical about the way that Rue falls apart.
Being clean, feeling stable, it’ll last for a few months, and then something will happen, some reminder, or seasonal depression will strike, and she’ll find herself in shambles on the floor. This year, Jules doesn’t want to deal with it, and nobody really begrudges that, after how hard she’s tried to make it work during their college years. Rue doesn’t want to call her mom, and nobody really begrudges that, because nobody wants to burden family with things like this.
This year, Fez and Lexi are the ones called upon. It upsets Lexi that she can’t come along for the drive to pick Rue up, but as Fez points out to her, someone has to see Ash off to school, and the cats aren’t going to feed themselves. (Really, Ash can take care of himself, and while he mostly hates the cats, he wouldn’t ever let them starve - but Fez makes it firm that Lexi needs to stay, because he wants to gauge Rue’s mindset before he imposes her on Lexi. Lexi can be pretty fragile when it comes to Rue, and Fez needs to make sure Rue will behave herself.)
It’s been some time since Fez had to deal with an addict. Rue is the only trace of his old life that still comes up in the present - everything else is a tangle of memories, something that rises up constantly, troubles him perpetually, but it only exists inside his own mind.
But when he finds Rue, slumped on a park bench in a random city halfway between her apartment with Jules and his apartment with Lexi, his old world comes crashing back, twisting back to frightful life. Frightful, real life.
“How’s it goin’, kid?” Fez calls, as Rue pulls her bag over her shoulder and shuffles over. He gets out of the car to help her with the duffel, placing it neatly in the backseat before he pulls his sister into a brief, one armed hug.
“I’m alright,” Rue says, even while she sniffles, starts crying. “I’m so fucking sorry, Fez. I’m so embarrassed to be burdening you and Lexi like this. I wish it hadn’t come to this, I really, really wish it hadn’t.”
“Nah, c’mon now,” he says, patting her back. “You ain’t no burden. Not to us.”
“God,” she mumbles, fumbling to swipe at her cheeks. “I just remembered something that happened fucking forever ago… Something Lexi said to me when she was dressed up like Bob fucking Ross…”
“That’s a sensitive subject, Rue. That’s the fuckin’ tragedy of my life, that I never got to see her in that getup,” Fez says, hoping to elicit a laugh.
When Rue’s laugh comes, it’s an unthinkable relief for Fez. They climb into the car, and the tone has already changed. Rue is desperate to hide her vulnerabilities under a veneer of something untouchable, so she lets herself laugh, lets herself joke, lets herself be the annoying little sister Fez always thinks of her as.
Fez doesn’t even protest when she steals his phone.
“Yo, how you know my password?” Fez huffs.
“I made an educated guess,” Rue snorts.
If Fez weren’t almost four years into his relationship with Lexi, he thinks he might be more embarrassed about the fact that Rue could so easily guess his passcode - 5394, numbers coordinating with letters to spell out Lexi’s name.
“Holy shit,” Rue says, a moment later, looking truly baffled. “There’s literally nothing in your phone but pictures of Lexi and the cats.”
“What about it?”
“I just… can’t believe that this is your life,” she admits, laughing. “How many cats do you have again? Five?”
“Four.”
“And their names are fuckin’ weird as shit, right?”
“No doubt.”
Rue tilts the screen at him, an amused smile on her face. “Tell me the story behind this one?”
The picture depicts Lexi and Alfred, wearing matching crochet bonnets, soft ivory trimmed by green. Both of their expressions are grumpy, because Alfred had been less than cooperative with his birthday treat, and Lexi had been disappointed by how reluctant he had been, when she found the idea to be so sweet.
“Lexi got them matching hats for Alfie’s birthday. He looks like he wants to kill himself, but it’s the cutest shit ever, right?”
What unfolds in Rue’s face seems bewildered. As though experimenting, she flips to another picture, one of Lexi in a pink and yellow tie dyed jumper, Serafina cradled in her hold while they sit on the sofa. “And this one?”
“Man, I dunno. They just chillin’.”
She shows some more pictures, waiting for Fez’s responses.
“That was before we left for Ash’s middle school graduation,” Fez remembers, when Rue shows him a picture of Lexi in a gentle purple dress, her crimson lipstick smile beautiful, her hair woven in braids like from the night they first met. She holds Serafina beneath her arms, so that her fluffy belly hangs on display.
“Humphrey was bein’ a bitch, which he’s not usually,” he explains, for a picture where the ginger cat is swatting at Lexi’s face.
“Serafina’s a good study buddy,” he says, for a picture where Lexi is decked out in green and has the honey coloured cat peeking from the blankets, gazing at the computer balanced on Lexi’s knees.
“That’s a pic she sent of her and Ivy when I was at work,” he says, for a picture where the girls are on the bed, and Ivy is nestled close to Lexi’s cheek, and Lexi is smiling brightly, her eyes closed so her eyelashes fan over her cheeks.
“And so, you think all of these pictures are like, so important to take?”
“Rue, will you put the fuckin’ phone down?” Fez asks, finally losing his patience.
Rue acquiesces, setting it atop the centre console with a clatter. She glances between the phone and him, several times over, before she speaks up again.
“Remember when you were a gangster? Those were the days, man.”
Fez throws her a wry smile. “If you think I miss doin’ shit like this, then you trippin’.”
That makes Rue avert her eyes. Embarrassed, overwhelmed, she turns to the window, where the world streams by in a blur. The colours blend together, and Fez wonders what she makes of it, wonders how sober she is, wonders just how many more years she’s going to be stuck in this terrible dance.
It could be forever. For a lot of addicts, it’s forever. For every addict, in fact, but Fez always hoped that Rue would be one of the ones who could smile a tired, triumphant smile, and talk about five years clean, ten years clean.
Fez still has hope, though the years are starting to wear on, and Rue has yet to yank herself from her eternal spiralling, her endless suffering.
“I don’t think I’m like you, Fez,” Rue admits, quietly.
“What you talkin’ about?”
“I just… I don’t know if I’m ever gonna get my shit together like you.”
“I don’t think anyone has their shit together, kid. That’s like a myth. We all just doin’ our best, you know? Making it up on the spot.”
“Lexi has her shit together.”
“Not exactly. She got shit to deal with, same as anyone.”
Rue sighs. She presses her temple to the window. “Yeah, but why is her version of shit to deal with - your version of shit to deal with - I don’t know. I don’t even fucking know what I’m talking about. I mean, her life was fucked, too, right? Her dad ran out on her, her mom’s drunk more often than she’s not, her sister’s basically a blowup doll… And you , you were stuck dealing drugs when you were still in fucking elementary school… And what, I’m the disaster, because my dad died? Neither of you have dads either but you’re good, selfless people. And you’re living this, like, pseudo normal life, by now. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“You ain’t gonna accomplish nothin’ by thinking like that, Rue,” Fez says softly, his heart awash with secondhand sadness. “You got wires crossed in your mind, you an addict, whatever the fuck. It is what it is. Me and Lexi aren’t addicts, we got different shit to deal with. Ain’t no point in comparing yourself to us.”
“What is there point in doing?” Rue mumbles. “What am I supposed to do ?”
“Shit, kid, why you think I know?” he tries for a laugh, but nothing feels very funny. He considers the anguish edging Rue, how it has always been there but hasn’t shown this blatantly until now, and he pauses for a moment.
“It snuck on me. Whatever changed, whatever made me... grow up. I ain’t never thought I’d have an apartment, and my GED finished, and Ash in school, and someone like Lexi…”
“And a bunch of cats,” Rue adds, with an impish smile.
“Yeah, a bunch of fuckin’ cats,” Fez says, with a sigh. “What a trip, bro. It was right outta left field… Maybe it’ll be the same for you.”
“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I hope so.”
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go-learn-esperanto · 2 years ago
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soo, do you have any crimeboys superhero au recommendations?
Not counting the classics TommyInnit's Unbeatable Method of Avoiding Sudden Death and TommyInnit's Clinic For Supervillains I'll add:
One More Step Out of the Pit Fluff!!!! It has less angst than the other two by a long shot. It isn't all happy and sunshines of course. It takes a but of time for Tommy to get used to his situation. There's also Tubbo destroying the city. That was a thing that happened.
Summary:
It had been Tommy and Tubbo for practically forever. They clawed their way out of hell together. They discovered their superpowers together. They started working for the Superhero Guild together before even coming of age. Tommy probably owed Tubbo his life ten times over. So, when the three supervillains he'd been assigned to bring in managed to take Tubbo hostage, well, there was really only one thing to do.
He knew, of course, he was signing himself up for torture and death by offering that trade, but that was okay.
It'd have to be okay.
New Deceit's an Old Design First of all: Fuck this fic. Just fuck this one. I can't say anything but aahhh just. I hope you like feeling utter despair.
Summary:
Wilbur sighed. This kid would be the death of him. “Wednesday,” he said definitively. “If it doesn’t get better by Wednesday, I’ll call a doctor.” That was when he got paid, so maybe it wouldn’t be as bad. They’d just have to be a bit careful about spending money for the rest of the month. “Deal?”
“Fine,” Tommy agreed, though it didn’t look as if he liked it. “Deal.”
Or: Wilbur is sick, Tommy is stressed, and they can't run from the past forever. Crime boys-centric superpowers AU in which I take 'Crime boys' too literally.
Hush Now (You Were Lost but Now You’re Found) - Welcome to conflicting feelings about Dream and Wilbur really said "I'm a possessive bitch" and he means it.
Summary:
Red Chaos was the name the world had bestowed upon him, and Dream had laughed as he dragged Tommy down against his chest in a rough sprawl back against the couch, squeezing him tight after their first official mission together.
Tommy had done good and Dream had been proud.
-
Siren shifts, a look Tommy can’t be bothered to understand flashing briefly before his shoulders roll into a shrug.
“You saved my life.”
I know, Tommy thinks, lips drawing back in an ugly grimace. It ruined mine.
-
The morning paper lies discarded on the couch beside him with black bold headlines:
RED CHAOS: HERO OR VILLAIN?
No Cause for Concern - You know, Tommy really has the smartest of ideas. Working for the Heroes that very much want to catch him for bein a Vigilante? Really big man behaviour. Of course it doesn't go bad at all. Wilbur is a bit conflicted about vigilantes but he'll come around. :)
Summary:
So maybe applying for a job at the heroes' base of operations when he could be arrested any moment for being an illegal vigilante wasn't Tommy's smartest move. But he gets to work with his idols — Ghostbur, the Blade, and Philza Minecraft, Angel of Death himself, just to name a few — how could he turn down that opportunity, honestly?
And keeping his two identities separate can't be that difficult, really. It'll all be a piece of cake.
---
or, tommyinnit just wanted to pay the rent and save people at the same time. things can't go his way for just once, can they?
Why Little Songbird (What’s Happened To Your Wings?) - Not finished (RIP) but pretty fun with what it has. Tommy working at a coffee shop? What a surprise /s Philza was the one to find him first which is peculiar, however Wilbur is still the one to truly break the ice and to annoy Tommy as a civilian. ^^
Summary:
One of those obligatory Superhero AUs every DSMP fanfic writer must attempt at least once.
It’s been about two months since Tommy’s world collapsed around him, and now he’s dragging The Angel of Death up the stairs of his apartment building, because the idiot got stabbed and then passed out in the alleyway next to his house. And he would rather not have to walk by a rotting corpse every time he has to take out the trash. So he attempts first aid, has an odd, brief conversation, stumbles through an awful day at work, and then attempts to continue living his “normal” “civilian life” without anymore unwelcome interruptions.
This unwelcome interruption calls himself Wilbur, and Wilbur has a very punchable face. Tommy tells him this, very helpfully, the first time they meet. Then semi-regularly after that.
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pyroclastic727 · 4 years ago
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Owl House said fuck capitalism
So this episode was interesting. Lilith pretty much killed her sister. Why the fuck would she do that?
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Even more interesting: why is Belos like that? How did Hooty put his head through one of those guards? Who the fuck is the Titan, and why does everyone like him? And how are these all tied together?
This episode was a metaphor for capitalism
...and another delicious step towards radicalizing the youth into dismantling this fucked-up neo-feudal system.
We’ll start with Belos. 
Emperor Belos is a weird name, don’t you think? We all thought it was spelled “Bellows,” but it wasn’t. In fact, it’s five letters, starts with Be, ends with os, and describes a megalomaniac emperor that restricts people’s freedom in order to accumulate wealth for himself.
Sound familiar?
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Emperor Bezos Belos created capitalism. He saw the beauty of magic and decided to make himself the most powerful.
Belos created a system that destroys the masses and boosts his power.
 I’m dipping into fan theory a little, because the fan theory fits. We know that people get branded with coven magic that makes it so they can only specialize in one area. We know that Belos is the most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles. We know that the excess magic, magic created by restrictions, has to go somewhere.
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It’s the same system that many viewers see all the time. A job takes up all your day and tires you for the night, so you can only do one skill for the rest of your life. Jeff Bezos is the most powerful man in the United States. Excess money, money taken by restrictions, has to go somewhere.
The magic goes to Belos, like how the money goes to Bezos. Belos created capitalism, and he won it.
The guards aren’t real. 
Look, we’ve never seen their faces. They’re all the same. Why would you work so hard to get to the top, just to become a nameless, faceless killing machine?
Oh, also Hooty stuck his face through one. There is nothing under the armor.
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Why? Well, it’s the same reason you see all those celebrities going around flaunting their wealth and bragging about how hard they worked. Like all those songs about how they grind every day and work harder than everyone else while you’re out clubbing, and that makes them dope. And then you take a closer look at them and see that they had a small loan of a million dollars fueling them, or an entire talent agency behind them, or their dad was a famous country star in the 80′s. 
They’re fake. They’re hollow. They’re a ploy created by the capitalist emperor to try to delude you into working harder. 
Let me put this into perspective. I guarantee that every single one of you has heard stuff like this: “Hard work makes you successful.” “I put in the work, and that’s why I’m successful.” “If you work hard enough, then you can be as successful as Mark Zuckerberg.” 
And unless you’re a robot or really lucky, I’m sure all of you have failed at this. Maybe they told you that hard work would make you good at math, so you spent 22 hours a week working on calculus, only to pass it by 3 percentage points and have it destroy your perfect 4.0 GPA. Maybe they told you that if you talked to people enough, then you would make friends, so you spent a lot of time talking to people, only to end up lonely and friendless. Maybe they told you that if you did well in school, you would get a good job, so you spent all your time working hard to be a good student, and then ended up in a soulless, dead-end job.
The guards are there to delude you. Look, who really gains from you being productive? The answer is the ruling class, the CEOs, the government, the bourgeoisie. It has always been that. All you get from working is a paycheck that lets you survive. They get a paycheck that lets them get rich. Just like Belos gets the magic and productivity of the specialized coven witches.
The guards are there to trick you. The truth is that nobody can join the Emperor’s Coven. It’s just there to make you think that hard work will make you successful. Then you spend your entire life working hard, trying to prove to the person in charge that you’re worthwhile. You give your whole life to the Coven, and they give you nothing. 
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Magic is supposed to be something you pursue for fun. Being skilled at things, being good at something beautiful...that’s supposed to be something you do because you want to. But they took that and made it into a source of productivity. It doesn’t matter if you make good content. All people fucking care about is if you upload the day of premiere, if you make a lot of content quickly, if you maintain a million different conversations with strangers who expect you to be the most interesting person in the room. They don’t care how it hurts you. They don’t care how you crack from the stress. How you cry when you think no one can see you, and then you check your phone and someone can see you, someone did see you, and you have to put on your face and be the charming, magnetic person they want you to be. (oh by the way that’s why I wasn’t online much last week)
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And it ruins it. Suddenly you can’t watch The Owl House without being stressed. You can’t make any content. You can’t make spells as powerfully as you want to. Your passion is replaced by perfectionism and insecurity, a voice telling you to keep being the best at what you do, or else they’ll forget you and let you die.
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There’s also the Titan. 
So nobody has mentioned him before, because in addition to the Boiling Isles being a hellscape full of witchcraft and queerness, it’s also full of atheists. 
But suddenly we have people saying all this shit about him? Shit like, he gave witches the gift of magic, and then they learned to use it in a civilized manner, since being uncivilized was disrespectful?
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I mean, first off, that’s fucking wrong. The island gives people magic. The island, which just so happened to be shaped like a titan-sized human. But the island/titan gives everyone all types of magic. Hell, even Luz gets to use magic, and she’s human. 
It sounds really fucking familiar. (tw for discussion of homophobia and colonialism and misogyny). It sounds like when the news is on and they show some Tr*mp supporter talking about how fetuses have more rights than people and it is their holy duty to take away a woman’s control over her body and force her through unbearable pain and into an 18-year commitment she didn’t want to make. It sounds like all the times people tried to say homosexuality should be illegal, citing a single line in a book written two thousand years ago and heavily edited by a European king. It sounds like all the times people said God wanted them to conquer, to own the entire earth, to force the other races into pain to support them.
This is that bullshit thing people do where they commit awful sins and justify it by citing the will of God. 
Or, it’s the Coven using religion as an excuse for evil.
Look, the Emperor’s Coven is clearly colonizer-coded. Saying that people’s original form of magic was wild (and showing a picture with the same joyous, rowdy energy of an 18th or 19th -century Black or indigenous party), and that it was God’s will for them to be “civilized?” Sounds like that thing that powerful white people did where they went and murdered people and forced them into their twisted capitalist system. God, gold, and glory, is what they said, because history books just love to omit the gore.
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Lilith is passing the abuse cycle along. 
You know, like a good little colonizer. God I fucking hate her. She’s a MILF, in the sense that she’s a Mother I’d Like to Fling off a cliff. 
Ah, enough screaming about how much I want to drown Lilith in a tub of Hooty’s mucus. Let’s go into why I want to do that, and how she took the evils of capitalism and just...adopted those.
So, Lilith is sick and twisted for what she did to her sister. But, uhh, that’s the point. You see, there are so many other people out there like Lilith who would do the exact same thing, if given the chance. These are the people who do mean things when the teacher isn’t looking, and then act nice and try to frame you. These are the people who will hate you if you’re better than them. These are people who would do anything to bring you down, if you dare outperform them.
It’s greed, my friends. The mental illness that capitalism blesses us all with.
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Lilith herself said it: she dedicated her entire life to the Coven. What she wanted was to be the best. And she almost was...except for her own sister. Someone who lived with her, annoyed her at home, bested her at school. Someone she could never beat, no matter how hard she worked. And her sister was younger than her, too! How insulting was that? Lilith wanted to be the best, and someone in her exact situation did better than her.
Lilith was insecure. And it consumed her.
But why? Why does insecurity consume her? I mean, no one can be motivated by insecurity forever. Well, not unless someone conditions it into you.
The lovely thing about the capitalist system is the morals it teaches you. Things like: “You’re only useful if you’re the best.” “Being school smart makes you smart, while being social smart or sports smart or creative smart or fandom smart is worthless.” “Your worth can be quantified by numbers and is based off arbitrary measures like your income or your grades.” Things that can and will drive us crazy if we let ourselves believe them.
And it did drive Lilith crazy. She got so twisted by a society that said being good at magic is her only worth. Look, Lilith used to be good at things, probably. She was good at sports. At times, she slips up and does an okay job of being Eda’s sister. She has a powerful presence when she’s in a room. And she’s wicked good at manipulating people. 
But that didn’t matter. Lilith bought into the lies. She let herself believe that magical skill was the only way to measure her worth. And since she needed to be the best, she hurt Eda for it.
The beautiful thing is, Eda didn’t buy that. "It’s my power, kid. And before you showed up, I spent my whole life wasting it.” Is what Eda said, as she used up the last of her power, the last of her life, to save Luz. In her final moments, she proved that she’s not like them. She’s stronger than them.
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None of this matters. Not magical prowess. Not the hierarchy. Not the promise of joining the Coven and having more power than anyone else.
The only thing that matters to Eda is her family. Her real family. Her Luz, King, and Hooty. And by extension, Willow, Gus, and Amity. Those are Eda’s real reason for fighting, for dying: to protect them. Look, there’s no way she would’ve come out of that fight alive. She has a family, and her love for them is stronger than greed or jealousy or capitalism. 
Lilith never understood that. She thought the water of the womb was thicker than the blood of the covenant. Or, that the water of the womb and the blood of the covenant are stronger than the bonds of found family. She thought it didn’t matter if Eda loved, her, only if the Emperor loved her. Fucking bitch.
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And now, a little something to worry about, before we go. Amity Blight. The girl who wanted to join the Emperor’s Coven more than anything, who dedicated her whole life to doing well in school, to being the best, to being perfect.
And then she met Luz. She fell for Luz. Now she’s in a tricky place, where habit and conditioning want her to join the Emperor’s Coven, but her heart wants her to do the impossible and destroy capitalism.
She wasn’t in this episode. Funny that being injured and unable to work ended up saving her from watching her future mother-in-law die. So she bought some time.
But Luz’s true mom is dead. This is the second mom she has lost, and she’s only fourteen. As powerful as King and Hooty are, Luz needs Amity. Luz needs Amity to support her and help her get back her mom.
So Amity has to make a choice. Fear and insecurity, or love and a high chance of death? 
She’ll probably choose death. Because that’s the message that this family-friendly show is giving us kids. Fuck capitalism. All you need in life is to do what makes you happy and be with the ones you love.
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rintarous · 4 years ago
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birthday week — kageyama tobio
SUMMARY: before kageyama finally joins the world of adolescence, you thought it would be nice if you showed him what it feels like to break some rules and that it’s okay to be reckless every once in a while. 
PAIRING: kageyama x reader; best friends to lovers!au 
A/N: happy birthday to my number one forever and always, kageyama! let’s pretend kageyama is turning 18 and i hope you all enjoy. feedback would highly be appreciated and this is inspired by jessica vu’s video, ‘my last week as a teen’ 
WORD COUNT: 4.4K
EXTRAS: huge huge HUGE thanks to @kkulbloom​​ and @tobiiok​​ for taking the time to proofread and help me with this!!! i dedicate this entire thing to you guys HAHA + gracie, i kept some of the shit you wrote hehe ++ I’M LIKE 2 DAYS LATE I’M SORRY LMFAO
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“any plans on your birthday this year?” you asked kageyama as he walks you to class. “just the usual. eating out with you and my family” he shrugs, sipping on the rest of his milkbox. 
“wait, you’re not doing anything for your birthday this year?” you stopped your tracks and whipped your head to face a very confused kageyama. “what’s so special about my birthday this year?” he raises a brow at you. 
“it's your eighteenth birthday; you dummy” you poke his chest. “it’s the year you finally turn into a wholeass adult and you’re not gonna do anything?!” you continued, standing in front of him with your hands on your hip. 
before he could say anything, the bell rings indicating that lunch break was over. kageyama hurriedly walks you to your classroom. “i’ll see you later,” he waves off, walking away from your classroom to head to his own. 
you watched his silhouette slowly disappear by the door frame before an idea popped into your head. kageyama never strayed far from his routine and was always a stickler for rules even as a child, and this part of him hasn’t changed since. you were always more mischievous and outgoing; you were dubbed the troublemaker while kageyama was treated as the model child. 
you wanted to take this opportunity and show him that breaking the rules could be fun. 
you sat inside their infamous volleyball club gym, waiting for him to finish up their daily practices. 
you were on your phone, listing the possible ideas that you and kageyama could do that were reckless but also deemed as “kageyama friendly” as you liked to call it- basically stuff that are just within his comfort zone, but at the same time not. 
you thought long and hard about the things kageyama likes and dislikes. only to end up with five possible things you two could do on such a short notice which are sneaking out late at night, sleeping on the top of his roof, and lastly driving around sendai and going shopping.
“what are you doing?” kageyama sneaks up behind you, peeking over your shoulder to see what you were so serious about. “huh?! nothing!” you yelped, flailing your arms around and almost dropping your phone in front of him. 
kageyama cocks his head to the side. “... okay” he holds his hands out in defense before shrugging. “i’m done for the day. c’mon let’s go home”
“oh yeah, didn’t you say you wanted to talk about something?” kageyama brings up to the conversation you were having with him. you looked at him for a moment before your lips formed an ‘o’ shape. 
how could you forget your own plan? 
linking your elbows with his, a terribly old habit of yours that formed throughout the years of friendship with him you’ve gotten from the day you met him. you bat your eyelashes in front of your best friend. “say, how about i show you a good time” you wiggle your eyebrows suggestively..
kageyama makes a face and pushes you off of him, making you laugh. “i’m kidding” you hiccuped, latching onto him again. “what i’m saying is, do you kageyama tobio,” you run up in front of him and got down on one knee, 
“allow me, y/n, to show you how to have fun for once in your life?” you hold your hand out dramatically, covering your eyes with the other as you waited for his answer. kageyama simply slaps your hand away and tells you to get up from the ground. 
you pout as you walk beside him again. “c’mon dude, you’re always in your own bubble” you tried to explain, “let me be the first one to pop it, your highness” you joked, tugging his arm. 
kageyama sighs before looking down at you. “what will we even be doing?” he questions, looking at your pouting face. “i’m not helping you hide a body or anything illegal like that,” he adds, pointing a finger at you.
you looked at him weirdly before shaking the thought away. “just simple things like sneaking out late at night” you shrugged, peering over to watch his reaction. “i know you don’t have the balls to do it”
kageyama scoffs, shocked that you actually said that. “you know what..” he starts, the desire to prove you wrong getting the best of him. “i’ll prove to you that my life isn’t just in a bubble” he quotes. you can’t help but smirk at his answer. maybe provoking him was the right choice after all.
“alright tobio, you got yourself a deal.” 
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3 days before his birthday...
it is thursday, december 18th, there were three days left before kageyama’s birthday and not to mention, this week is also the last week of school before winter break starts. for your first plan of action on giving kageyama the best week of his life was to pop his late night escapade cherry.
“i’m outside” you texted kageyama at 11 o’clock sharp. you shove your phone back into your pocket and looked up at kageyama’s window. you see the window open slowly and kageyama’s leg thrown over. you smirked proudly at your best friend who found the courage to do this and ruin his meticulous sleeping schedule just because you said he couldn’t do it but we all know he did this out of pure pettiness.
kageyama silently closes his window, in hopes no one in his family heard but then again, they were already out like a light. he carefully climbs down off his balcony and lands on the grass patch in front of his house. he then jumps over his own gate and jogs over to you.
“wow THE kageyama sneaking out in the flesh” you applaud, teasing him. kageyama scowls and looks away to hide the embarrassed blush on his cheeks. “now where are we going this late at night?” he grumbles, putting his hood on. 
“the convenience store of course!” you grinned, leading the way to your favorite store that was still open. kageyama feels a vein pop on his forehead upon realizing that he did all of this just to head over to the convenience store you two nearly visit everyday after school. 
“want some?” you hold out a plastic spoon, offering him some ice cream. kageyama shakes his head no as he stares at you. he was kinda mad at you for ruining his sleep schedule just to get some ice cream. “why are you staring at me like that?” you asked, savouring the sweet delicacy that was on your mouth as you speak. 
“you made me sneak out just to watch you eat ice cream” kageyama deadpans, dropping his head on the table. “i asked you what you wanted but you didn’t say anything!” you furrowed your brows. “that’s because i want sleep!” he argues, flicking your forehead. 
“you have to stop flicking me all the time” you point your spoon at him menacingly, trying to sound as threatening as possible but it comes out as a choked cry as you tried not to laugh. kageyama bites his lip in attempt to stop himself from smiling. he was supposed to be mad at you but why wasn’t it working?
“whatever you dumbass” was all he could say before he snatches your spoon from your hand and takes a bite out of your ice cream.
“what time is it?” you ask kageyama who was dozing off to sleep in the middle of the park. kageyama grunts, blinking the sleepiness away. “you’re weak” you comment, grabbing your phone to check the time yourself. it wasn’t even half past twelve and yet he’s already sleepy. 
“we have school today you know” he says, leaning his head on top of yours. “so?” you shrugged, scrolling through your phone. you wanted to skip anyways since it was the last day before winter break. “i still have practice” kageyama notes. 
you huffed knowing he was right. even if you wanted him to fuck around, you know how important attending practice is for kageyama as he is the vice captain of the team. ‘he wins this round’ you think to yourself. 
“keep an eye open when you sleep later. we’re not done yet with this thing we have going on” you say loud enough for him to hear. kageyama grunts again and yawns, “yeah whatever you say y/n” he stands up and stretches his limbs,
“let’s go home”
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 2 days before his birthday…
you figured you wouldn’t see kageyama this morning and you were right. shrugging, you headed downstairs tot the vending machine to get yourself some canned coffee to wake yourself up. 
today’s agenda is to have a sleepover at his place and go on top of his roof to go stargazing but if he wasn’t having any of that, you already have some movies in mind to watch with him inside. 
taking a sharp left, you were surprised to see kageyama at the vending machine. you crept up behind him and jumped on his back. “good morning!” you exclaimed. kageyama spits out the milk he was drinking as he balances himself (and you for that matter) from face planting on the cold hard floor. 
you giggled as you ran around him to take a good look at his tired face. his eye bags were already prominent on his flawless face even if he just slept late once. you also took the leisure to notice how his hair seems to be unkempt today and how his uniform was wrinkled. It was as if he just rolled out of bed and went straight to school.  
“oh shit you were late for school too?” you gasped, covering your mouth to prevent yourself from laughing. kageyama narrows his eyes, clicking his tongue in annoyance. “this is your fault” 
“well i gave you a choice and you agreed to it” you countered, crossing your arms as you look up at him with a devious smile. “anyway, i’m staying over at your place today” you mentioned, moving past him towards the vending machine, clicking the button for canned coffee. 
kageyama continues sipping on his drink as he watches you grab your canned coffee from the machine. you walked up to him and offered him some. “drink some of this so you’ll feel less tired” you say, handing the drink to him. 
kageyama reluctantly takes a sip. he’s not particularly fond of coffee but desperate times call for desperate measures. he still had after school practice after all.
he handed you back your drink when he noticed your cheeks have gone pink. why were you blushing? 
“we just shared an indirect kiss!” you gushed, your hands on your chest as you dance around him. kageyama felt blood rush to his cheeks. “no we didn’t” he immediately denies, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
no way in hell was he gonna let himself slip like that in front of you.
“i’m just kidding, tobio” you wipe a tear that was escaping your eye from laughing so much. it was always fun to tease kageyama especially when he reacts like this. it was so easy to make him feel flustered and sometimes he wouldn’t even fight back. 
“i’m coming around yours later, okay? see you” you wave off, leaving a blushing kageyama standing still near the vending machine. what is this effect you had on him?
you were finally at kageyama’s house just like you mentioned earlier today. you were on his bed, waiting for him to arrive from afternoon practice. 
you’ve already set up the shit you two would need for tonight such as extra blankets and throw pillows that you brought from your own home and some movies you had downloaded in case kageyama gets bored from stargazing. 
it was all ready just for him. 
kageyama comes home an hour later after you. when he walks in his room to sees you sprawled out on his bed taking a nap. he smiles softly to himself seeing your state. that’s what you get for sneaking out with me late at night, he thinks to himself, placing his gym bag on the floor quietly, careful not to wake you. 
“tobio?” you mumbled, waking up from your nap. you sit up and wiped your mouth in case you drooled. “good evening” kageyama replies, whacking you with his sweaty shirt. “kageyama that’s gross!” you grimaced, shielding yourself with his pillow. kageyama laughs, grabbing his shirt from the end of the bed before ruffling your hair. 
“i’m gonna take a shower. wait for me”
it was time for dinner by the time he finished showering. after you helped his mom with the dishes, you and kageyama finally went back upstairs to his room.
“any plans tonight?” kageyama asked, closing his door. you plop down on his bed, snuggling closer to his blankets before nodding your head. “we’re sleeping on your roof tonight.” 
kageyama looks at you skeptically. “i’m not hauling your ass up there” he says, crossing his arms. he looks around for something and grabs the pillows and blankets you’ve brought from home. “let’s just build a fort here like we used to,” he tries to convince you but to no avail, you didn’t say shit.
after having a heavy argument and him having to drag your ass up onto his roof, you two were finally settled in your little makeshift fort you built for yourselves. which basically just consisted of a messy pile of blankets and throw pillows on top of each other but nevertheless, it looked and was cozy as fuck. 
“what now?” kageyama breathes out, a bit exhausted after everything. you lie down next to him and pointed towards the night sky. “we watch the stars!” you exclaimed, pulling a pillow close to your chest. 
you began babbling on about the stars you were looking at and if kageyama was being honest , he didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about. he didn’t have the heart to tell you because of the way your eyes lit up and how genuinely excited you looked just by stargazing with him. 
he could stare at you like this forever if he could but he won’t. for now at least.
you turned your head slightly to the right to see kageyama fondly staring right back at you. your eyes’ both widened as you two quickly averted your gazes from each other, cheeks heating up in the process.
“so... where were we” you coughed, breaking the awkward tension. “i don’t know, wasn’t listening” kageyama admits. “of course you were” you say sarcastically, “that’s why i prepared some movies for us to watch.” 
the next morning arrives after what just seemed like watching a handful of movies. you don’t even know how you ended up sleeping on top of his chest but you weren’t complaining at all. 
you tried recalling the events that happened last night but all you can remember is that it started out as platonic cuddling as he was lying down with his hands behind his head. it got chilly in the middle of the movie marathon, so you cuddled up next to him for some warmth. he even offered his arm for you to lay on. 
little by little his hands were creeping up your arm until he pulled you right on top of him like it was nothing. your legs were entangled with one another and if anyone saw you, it would look like a couple laying on the roof watching some cheesy romcoms. 
“kags?” you murmured, looking up to see him fast asleep. he stirred in his sleep and unconsciously pulled you closer to him, like he’s afraid of letting you go. kageyama grunted, burying his head into the crook of your neck. “just a little longer...” he croaked in his morning voice. 
it wouldn’t hurt to stay in his arms a bit longer so that’s exactly what you did. 
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1 day before his birthday…
kageyama didn’t bring up the incident that happened between the two of you earlier today and you were glad he didn’t. you don’t want to remember the fact that you deliberately stayed in his arms until he woke up. not to mention the growing sexual tension between the two of you, it was better if it was swept under the rug. 
it’s the day before his birthday and the third and final thing on your kageyama list was to drive around sendai and spend a shit ton of money with no remorse.
“wanna drive around with me today?” you asked kageyama as you two ate in silence. kageyama scoops himself some cereal before answering your question. “do i even have a choice?” he rolls his eyes. it was true though, it’s not like he had a choice to begin with anyway.
“... good answer”
“think of this as my advanced birthday gift to you” you assured, as you two walked around the streets of sendai. “just tell me what you want and i’ll buy it for you” you added, showing off your credit card.
“anything i want?” kageyama repeated, racking his brain for anything he needed. you nod your head as you looked around for some good shops to start with. “need clothes? or anything like that?” you pondered, trying to help him decide.
in the end, he asked for some new knee pads and a new volleyball along with it. 
after doing some shopping, you two were currently resting on a bench in a park nearby, while eating some crepes he bought. “is this all?” you look up at him, kind of thrown off by how short his wish list was. kageyama holds up a finger to signify that he was still chewing his food. “there’s really nothing i want at the moment,” he answers, looking at your face. 
his eyes fell to the corner of your mouth where there was a bit of chocolate syrup smeared. kageyama uses the pad of his thumb to wipe it away, completely catching you off guard. you felt your face instantly heat up at his gesture before you jerked your face away from him, toying with your car keys.
“let’s go for a drive.” 
— 
after mindlessly driving around sendai, past his old middle school, to shiratorizawa, you two somehow ended up in the middle of nowhere with a cliff side that you can see a clear view over sendai. you got out of your car and sat on the hood with kageyama beside you. 
“it’s so pretty,” you commented, staring at the bright lights emitting from the buildings down below. “it is,” kageyama agreed. “where did you even hear about this place?” he asked, sipping on a drink he got at some gas station.
“tsukishima told me about it,” you shared, fumbling with your hands. kageyama scoffed, shaking the drink in his hands. “of course he did.” he looked down at his ground before glancing at you. “did he bring you up here before?” 
you shake your head no, “we broke up before he had the chance to bring me here.” kageyama hummed at your answer before lightly punching your shoulder. “what’s with the sour mood all of a sudden” he taunted.
you glared at the boy beside you, “that’s because you brought up this shit again,” you hissed, crossing your arms and shifting your body away from him. kageyama laughed at your reaction, using the hem of your sweater to pull you into his embrace. “i’m just joking.”  
“doesn’t sound like you are,” you murmured against his chest. you pulled away from him and stared up at him again. “but i am,” he assured, smoothing down your hair. “technically, i brought you up here first” 
you rolled your eyes at his attempt to be cheesy and pushed him away. “whatever loser” you stuck your tongue out at him. you grabbed your phone from your pockets to check the time. “it’s getting late. we should go home” you say, unlocking your car. 
before you could actually go home, kageyama suddenly asked if it would be alright if he could be the one to drive the two of you home. so now you were in the passenger seat, belting out to your playlist that kageyama saved on his phone as he drove. you took your phone out and started recording everything. just for keeps you tell yourself as you filmed kageyama singing along to the songs that were playing on your stereo. 
kageyama was genuinely having the time of his life with you right now, that’s for sure. he was laughing and singing along with you without a care. it was a rare sight to see him so carefree, no restraints from himself and that made you really happy. 
you’ve known kageyama way back since middle school. being in the same friendship group with him and all. in a nutshell, your relationship with kageyama is what kunimi is to kindaichi. you are his anchor, you keep him grounded and above all,
you will always be there for him even if the rest of the world would be against him.
maybe that’s why you treasure kageyama so much. you don’t want him to ever feel like he’s all on his own like he was once in his own team again. 
you snapped out of your little trance when you noticed that this wasn’t the route from earlier. kageyama saw the look of confusion on your face when he took a quick glance at you. “we’re taking the long way home” he tells you as the car comes to a stop at a red light. “you’re telling me this now?” you huffed, crossing your arms
kageyama suddenly places his hand on your thigh, making your eyes pop out of their sockets. you freeze under his sudden touch, obviously not used to this type of shit from him. 
“just relax,” kageyama mutters, tapping random beats on your thigh. “o-okay...” you choked out, feeling your face heat up again. you resisted the urge to put your hand on top of his. snap out of it, you think to yourself. you aren’t supposed to think like this. he’s your best friend! and definitely not your lover! 
your head was spinning, were you overanalyzing this? you squeezed your eyes shut as your brain was racking every single moment that led to this until he gives your thigh a firm squeeze making your breath hitch. 
fuck it, you think to yourself. you unbuckled your seatbelt, grabbed his face and pulled him in for a kiss. 
for once in your life, you were glad he chose the long way home.  
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the day of his birthday…
it was finally the day, his 18th birthday. you were honestly pretty proud of yourself on how your week long plan was going smoothly and was finally coming to a close. kageyama now has stories to tell his grandkids about his teenage years. how he sneaked out for once in his life, slept on his roof, drove around his hometown and kissed the girl of his dreams.
speaking of which, there’s no denying that there’s something going on between the two of you now. not that you planned all of this just to confess to your best friend or anything like that. it was anything but that. 
“what are we..” you mumbled quietly after you two pulled away. kageyama intertwines your hands with his. “whatever you want it to be” 
it went silent after that. maybe he was right for making you take the lead. the last thing he wants is for you to feel uncomfortable for taking things too fast.
kageyama ended up staying over at your place last night. by the time you two arrived at home it was already quarter to 12. he couldn’t make it home anymore because the gates were already locked.
which is why he’s in your room cuddled up against you. “so what are we doing later?” kageyama yawned, pulling you closer to his chest. you threw your leg over his torso before answering. “it’s a secret” you tell him, suddenly feeling drowsy over the warmth he so conveniently provided.
kageyama turned around to look at your clock on the bedside table. “wanna sleep a bit? it’s getting late” he proposes, running his hand along your arm. you shook your head, “we won’t be needing sleep for now” you hummed, tracing random shapes with your finger on his chest. “what?” he asked, yawning again. 
“anyways” you changed the subject, “i’ve been meaning to ask you,” you paused momentarily before looking up at him.”what are we?” you look up at him. “what about us?” kageyama questions, looking down at you with curiosity written all over his face. 
you scrunch your nose, “we’re best friends, kags” you start, breaking eye contact with him to look up at your ceiling. “and best friends don’t kiss each other” you breathe out, the heavy feeling slowly being lifted off of your shoulders. 
“maybe some do” kageyama muses, completely disregarding whatever you were hinting at him. you let out a scoff, “like who?” you scowled, glaring at him. “like us” he shrugs, rolling his eyes at your overreaction. 
“how bold!” you faked gasped, a hand on your chest. kageyama was still on top of you, his eyes never leaving yours. “i think it’s pretty obvious what our status is now” he comments. “a couple..” you murmured. kageyama felt his heart swell at your statement. “a couple of besties!” you laughed out loud.
“fuck you” kageyama growls, rolling off of you. he shifts his body to the side where he isn’t facing you and started sulking. “kags” you laughed, shaking his arm. “oy kageyama” you whined, trying to catch his attention
kageyama shoos you away and continues to sulk. you take notice of the clock which read 11:58 PM. you had exactly two minutes to do something before the clock hits midnight.
clicking your tongue in annoyance, you rolled on top of kageyama, “what are you doing-” you hear him say. you support yourself with your arms in between his head, trapping him in the middle. you leaned down, your nose touching as he felt your breath fan his face. “happy birthday, tobio” you greet, as the clock hits 12, closing the distance between the two of you.
this was probably his best birthday gift yet. 
139 notes · View notes
justoneday-namjoonii · 4 years ago
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forgive me
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anon request: “I really love the way you write angsty stuff so if u want, can u write a scene where jungkook is like involved in illegal stuff like drugs or maybe he's a hitman, Y/N and Jungkook have a conflict about that because she's not happy with what he does, he gets hurt a lot but he enjoys his job and doesn't wanna give it up cuz he loves the thrill. It can be an emotional scene where Y/N tells him that she's afraid of losing him because of what he does. Honestly come up with anything, I don't mind 😂”
prompt: Jungkook is a druglord, you’re a waitress at a shabby burger place. He loves what he does and even though you try to ignore it, it scares you. You fear you’ll lose him if he doesn’t quit and he’s all you have. Your so called family are full of lies and if it wasn’t for Jungkook, you don’t know where you’d be. You wonder every night if the sirens you hear are for him—you pray it’s not for him. Secretly, he feels the same about you.
pairing: Jungkook x reader
genre: angst, drabble, mental health issues, mentions of murder, mature subject matter
author’s note: For the anon who requested this, this is for you! I hope you enjoy~ did i watch Truth be Told and decide to make the OC a twin? yes, yes i did
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When you opened your eyes, you started to feel around for your cellphone. When you couldn't feel for it, you rolled over and yawned, it's probably under the bed. That's where its gonna stay too. As soon as you got home from work, you fell face-first into your bed and taking a shower was the last thing on your mind. But now you're feeling the stale department store smell on your clothes. It takes about two minutes for you to roll out of bed and realize you that Jungkook should have been here by now. You grab your phone and see two missed calls and a text from 2 hours ago.
jungkook💖💫: im sorry ill be over a little later baby, something came up 
jungkook💖💫: i miss you angel
You smile, he always misses you. And you miss him too, but you know he's probably out there in the slums of the city, doing what he does. How you lucked out with him, you have no idea. One night you were trying to call an Uber to get home from a birthday party at the club. It was around midnight and you had to work so you couldn't hang with the hardcore crowd. You went outside to call for a ride but you were being watched. Some guy kept catcalling, just outright harassing you. It was the scariest night of your life. You were telling him to leave you alone but he was drunk or high, either way, he wasn't all there. He snatched your phone. Just when you thought he was going to grab you, a black sports car, one you would have had to work two lifetimes to afford, stopped at the light. And before you know it, the man trying to get you is being dragged into the alley where he probably would have taken you. You remember being frozen, all you could hear was cursing and blunt force. The mystery man, whose car is still in the middle of the road, emerges from the dark corner between the buildings.
You were completely taken. The smile, the hair, the tattoos, and dangling earrings, paired with a striking gaze—he was an angel. He was so beautiful and he was just looking at you stand there with your mouth open.
"If there's one thing I hate, oh here you go," He hands you your phone and you get a nice look at his hand tattoo, "it's motherfuckers who can't leave women the fuck alone. Sorry you had to deal with that, but he won't be bothering you or anyone else after tonight, or use his hands again," He sighs, fixing his clothes a bit and wiping the blood from the corner of his lip, "are you okay?"
"Yeah, thank you," You slip the phone in your bomber jacket pockets, "not a lot of people would stop a stupid guy from bothering a girl they don't even know."
"Yeah, I'm Jungkook by the way," He introduces himself with a smile, situating his nice clothes, "do you- Um, did you need a ride? I'm not a creep I swear," He holds his hands up in surrender when you furrow your brows at the suggesting—great, now she thinks I'm a pervert. 
"I didn't stop that guy as blackmail to get laid, I just-" He pauses to grapple for the right words, "I saw you just standing on the curb and I know it's not safe out here-"
"If it's not any trouble," You interrupt his rambling, "I live about 15 minutes away, I was gonna call a ride but if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it. My name is Y/n, by the way."
That night changed your life forever. It was the first time you had wanted to kiss a stranger, the first night you ever came close to a soulmate. He confesses to having seen you in the club, he was at the bar, refusing offers from every girl from the bartenders to cougars out on the town, at least that's what you always thought. In that little fifteen minutes, you got to know very little about him but you felt so comfortable sharing things about yourself when he asked. He dropped you off and said if you ever needed anything, to give him a call. 
You never got to use the number because you ended up seeing him again. He showed up to your job, but he wasn't there for you, he was there for one of your money laundering and pill-popping associates. You were taking a break and for some reason, the break room was eerily empty. After you heard gunshots and the whole store went into chaos. You remember trying to leave and suddenly being swept away and into an outside electrical room apart of the building. You calmed down enough to realize that it was him but you were baffled.
"What're the odds that you would work at the same place as that bastard," He fiddles with the gun, tucking it to his side and flipping on the safety and pulling off his mask with a toothy grin, "do you remember me?"
"You?... Jungkook, how did you- Why are you-..." You make a small step back and swallow, scrambling to think of something to say. "Have you been following me like some creep?!"
"No! this is just a run-in by fate, I swear I didn't plan it. I'm not even supposed to still be here but I couldn't just leave, not without saying something to you."
"Okay...What do you want to say? I have to get back on the clock." You look him up and down, his all-black clothes and heavy boots intimidating but alluring in many ways.
"Wanna grab a coffee?"
For some reason, you said yes to the familiar stranger.
"Sure- I mean no! No, I can't Jungkook, I have to get back to work-"
"Trust me, just come with me," He extends his hand for you to take and smiles, "you won't regret it."
You took his hand and never looked back.
* * *
Nights like this.
When it's too early to ruin his life and too late to pretend like he wouldn't care. So when he shows up to the lounge to enforce an unpaid debt from a client, he leaves with bruised knuckles, two grand, and a rush of adrenaline. He went a little hard on the guy, but can you blame him? He messed up his plans. Tonight is date night, also known as 'crash at your place' night. It worked out though, you had to work late so he wouldn't be too tardy. Judging by the fact that you haven't answered your phone, you must be knocked out.
He slips his hand into his pocket and fumbles with his keys until he finds the one to your apartment. When he walks inside he hears the sink on and smiles to himself, you must've just woken up. 
"Baby, it's me," He announces himself, "how was your day?"
"Fine," You step out in your work clothes, still trying to get your earrings out, "as fine as a day working for the devil could be." 
"That bad?" You take note of the silk black shirt that's rolled up to his elbows, letting you see his beautiful sleeve of tattoos. When he comes dressed like this, and smelling like smoke you know he's been out into high-end clubs. The way some of the women look at him makes you feel small and a little self-conscious. But he always reassures you that you're who he wants, not some woman who sees him as an experimental one-night stand. When he tells you to meet him in the restroom because he needs to tell you something, you're reminded that you're all he wants.
"She screwed the schedule. My only day off was taken because her favorite, Kasey, has to go out of town."
He unbuttons the buttons on his shirt with deliberate fingers. "You walked out on a job for me before, remember that?" He smiles, letting his shirt fall from his shoulders like a dream. A bruise on his upper arm catches your attention but you don't say anything. "If you're not happy, just leave. I can take care of you, you can be my sugar baby."
"Yeah, my step-mom would love that, I could see it now," You cringe at the thought, "Hey, just a heads up, I'm not working or married but I have a sugar daddy who pays all my bills and lets me use his money for free, oh, he's also a drug lord. She'd really think highly of me then." 
"Fuck Carol, she's a judgmental priss anyway," He comes up to you, hands finding your waist, "why do you care what she thinks about you?" 
"I don't care what she thinks, but if she finds out she'll tell my dad and I don't want to hear it from him. If he pretends to not be disappointed by the lesser-twin one more time, I'll actually cuss him out...He's such a liar, he lied to my mom and he lies to me.”
"Quit saying that," Jungkook grabs you under your thighs, wrapping your legs around his waist so he can sit on the edge of your bed, "you're not the lesser-twin, you're the cute and sexy twin." You sit back on his thighs and you both laugh at his attempt to lighten your mood.
"Well, I'm not a successful surgeon and I'm broke as hell, but at least my boyfriend thinks I'm cute." His hands find their way to the hem of your shirt and pull it over your head, revealing a disappointing tank top.
"See, this is disappointing. Why are you wearing a tank top? It's a hundred degrees outside." He sighs, looking up at you like a pouting little kid.
"Because I want to," You grin, brushing his hair from his brows, revealing a scratch, "you're cut."
"Yeah, had a run-in with an old friend, we're obviously not friends anymore."
"You should take me with you on these deals and stuff, I'd make a great bodyguard for you," You joke, "if you showed me how to use a gun."
"You?" He giggles at the image of you secretly acting as a bodyguard, a dagger, and a gun in a garter under a skintight dress. "That's not a bad idea, they'd be too distracted looking at how fucking beautiful you are to see you as a threat."
"Yeah, I always saw as the Bonnie & Clyde type of couple," He leans up to kiss you and you smile through it before he pulls away, "eh, you need to shower, you smell like weed."
He furrows his brows, a snarky smile on his mouth. "And you smell like French fries, but I still kissed you.”
"Touche." You can't argue with that, the French fries smell gets to you too.
He picks you up, carrying you to the bathroom with a beaming smile.
"Let's shower then."
 * * *
A deal went bad, he got grazed by a bullet and spent a few hours at the emergency room.
When he pulled in to the driveway and saw your car, he sighed in relief—he was hoping you'd come. After work, you had come by earlier to clear your head and take a breather from your cramped apartment and rowdy neighbors. Ever since his 'new position' he was put up in this huge mansion, equipped with a full staff. Luckily, they were off tonight so no need to keep quiet.
It's getting late and you've been trying to watch a baking show to stay awake but it was getting difficult. He hadn't called or answered any of your calls or texts. When you hear the garage door open, your heavy lids lift and you yawn, trying to wake up so you can tell him how your day has been.
He opens the door with a deep sigh and he's glad you can't see the thick white bandage on his upper arm and tired shadows under his eyes because of the dim lights. "Jungkook, it's so late..." You mumble, sitting up. "what took you so long?"
"Yeah, baby, I just had a mix up with someone who owed the group a lot of money, they, uh- They opened fire and we had a lot to clean up." He offhandedly mentions that and goes to the bathroom to change and you just wait for him.
The painkiller is wearing off but he manages to brush his teeth and slip into some sweats and a t-shirt. After flicking the light switch off, he falls into bed with a heavy exhale. Glad to finally have him close so you can tell him about your terrible day, you turn to hug him, and instantly a wince of pain leaves his mouth. 
"Sorry," You giggled, thinking he was just kidding until you see the bandage on his arm, "Oh my gosh," You sit up, hand reaching for his bandage with concern in your brows, "what happened?"
"It's nothing baby, I was grazed by a bullet and had to go to the ER," He spares you a weak grin, hand rustling through his damp locks, "but it's nothing, I feel fine."
It's always nothing to him. You lean down and place a gentle kiss on his forehead, one he would normally place on you. Nights go by and you know he's out there risking his life, not thinking how devastated you would be if one night he doesn't come back.  
He caresses the apple of your cheek, lips parting when sits up to try to kiss you, but you pull away.
"Hey, I've had a long day I just want to kiss you," He sits up now, "talk to me." 
"Talk to yourself, I'm going to sleep."
"Where the fuck is this coming from?" He glares at you, tone firmer than before. "Y/n, cut the crap. What's the problem?"
"Jungkook, there's no problem I just worry about you."
"I don't mean to make you worry," He speaks softly, "but you know this is what I do, I can't stop now, even if I wanted to."
"I know," Sadly, "but you're all I have."
He tilts his head, a bit confused. "What happened?"
"My sister called when I got off of work. My dad isn't doing well, his liver is in terrible condition and he needs a transplant...He's on a wait-list now." 
Knowing the severed relationship you have with your family, he treads lightly when requesting this. "Do you want to go see him?-"
"No!" You snap. "Why would I want to see him? This is what he gets for killing my mother."
"Y/n, you don't mean that..." Jungkook gets uncomfortable when you enter that head-space, you become ruthless in your words and your eyes glaze over with something he has yet to understand.
"Why not? It's true. He was cheating on her, that's why he never came home and she thought something was wrong. So drove out in the middle of the night during a storm and ended up crashing into a tree, because of him. My sister has always defended him, but I think it's because she didn't like mom either...The two of them may have cried at the funeral but I know them, they were glad she left us. That's why I need you, Jungkook, I don't have them or want them..."
"Y/n, you have to learn to forgive them for whatever you think they did, it's going to drive you insane if you don't...Fuck them, spend your energy on us, okay?"
"I'm already insane, I'm with you, aren't I? You come close to being killed every week, and it bothers me to think you might not come home...But I'll go through that if it means I get to have you, I love you, I only love you..." You lay your head on his shoulder.
He’s your angel.
You aren’t sure what you are to him.
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jjk-anime-horray · 4 years ago
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Past Demons
Dazai Osamu x reader x Oda Sakunosuke
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Series Summary: While Dazai finally gets over the death of his friend and moves on with his life, he has to watch him unnaturally return into the would, and now he has to watch him turn twisted and into everything he hated in a way.
Chapter Summary: Dazai goes and rediscovers a part of his past he wanted to leaves behind forever.
Trigger Warnings: Emotional trauma, mentions of extreme violence, mentions of emotional distress, mentions of illegal activities, and strong language.
Previous Chapter: All Dead Ends
Note: This chapter will be following Dazai not the reader just as a disclaimer.
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The final dusts of the sunset finally left the vast sky as Dazai finally arrived in the alley, home to the bar with the white and red sign, Lupin.
Dazai wasn't sure if he was going to find him at this old spot of theirs, but it was the only clue he had, and frankly right now he had more questions than answers, and he was going to try to take a chunk out of the void of knowledge currently in his brain.
Did he actually want to be doing this right now, absolutely not, truth is back while he wished his friend was still alive, but he didn't want to see him again. No one wants to keep staring at the dead body of someone they cared about.
He wasn't happy that Odasaku was potentially alive, he was terrified, he doesn't want to encounter the friend that died in his arms. He doesn't want to see the man that he mourned over for years. He doesn't want to relive his pain.
But as he opened the door to the bar Lupin, he knew that his wishes weren't going to be an option.
Not as the bartender called to him saying that someone left a letter for him.
Not as he broke the seal of the envelope to find a note containing his previously dead friend's handwriting.
Not as he read the location on the piece of parchment to be the place where he was supposed to be buried.
Nothing, Dazai can barely think about why he's walking to meet his new nightmare, his body is just moving towards the disaster. His body is moving towards the old trauma, moving towards the pain, moving towards the embodiment of his emotional suffering.
Yet here he was now, standing right infront of the man of his emotional sorrows, sitting on his own grave under the blanket of the night's darkness.
"It's good to see that you again, It's good to see that you grew out of your emo shrimp phrase."
"What is the meaning of this? It's been seven year and you haven't even aged properly." Dazai started to rage, no longer able to contain his own feelings within his body. "You are just sitting there like it's not even your grave! You're acting like nothing happened!! You acting like you didn't bleed out in my arms!!! You're acting like it's normal, like we're just some old chums meeting up after not seeing each other for a year, you're acting like you didn't fucking di-"
"I know I fucking died okay!" Oda roared, like a injured beast just unleashed into the wild for the first time in years. "I was finally at peace, I finally was with them again, and yet that got fucking ripped away from me just like they did!" The words spoken then weren't spoken in rage, but something more destructive than that.
Pain.
Dazai's heart broke like glass dropped on concrete, he didn't know how to stop the stream of tears running down his friends face. In fact, right now he had no idea what to do, or what say. He felt useless. Like the way Oda felt when the bomb when off in that car.
"You're probably thinking why am I alive, the truth is I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you how long i've or better to say my body actually has been alive either, all I remember is that I when my body re-aligned with my mind I was already fully dressed in civilian clothes walking down a street. I couldn't tell you what i've done, I couldn't tell you what I was used for, I couldn't tell you why I was resurrected, but I know I'm going to rip apart who did this too me, RUINED MY PEACE! Don't try to stop me."
Dazai was frozen when is friend walked past him and left, but he didn't reach out, he didn't even know if he could. All he knew was that he was his fifteen year old self again, trying to hold on to what he and Oda had in the past. That he would ultimately have to let go again.
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drwcn · 4 years ago
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Not to bring up the distasteful teenager memory of Twilight LMAO, but yall remember that part of the story where it is revealed after Rosalie turns into a vampire she goes and devours every single one of the men who r*ped her.
Fierce Corpse!Qin Su coming for Jin Guangshan’s life.
JIGGY was always looking for ways to make a fierce corpse wasn’t he? Well consider this.
Madam Qin confronts JGY, but it was already too late. Qin Su was already pregnant. JGY, being the dumbest smart person, realized he has fucked up, but what to do? It’s not like he can tell Madam Qin he knocked up his own sister accidentally. Unknowing of this, Madam Qin then went to Qin Su to tell her the truth. Surely even if that degenerate won’t stop this marriage, once Qin Su finds out they are related, she wouldn’t go through with it.
Well, little did Madam Qin expect, once Qin Su finds out, she’s so overcome with disgust she takes her own life (canon compliant, I think? idk what that episode was about to be honest. I always assumed Jiggy drugged her to keep her quiet, but Qin Su was the one to take her own life. Jin Rusong is at best a ball of cells at this stage and abortion is a staple trope of cdrama don’t @ me. I take no criticisms.)
Well shit, now Qin Su is half a step away from death. Jiggy discovers this first, and is like O.O oh feck, but also... opportunity????  He recruits evil gremlin extraordinaire Xue Yang, and beginner’s luck takes them to a successful resurrection.
*cue Mary Shelly shaking her head from beyond the grave or... in the future....technically.*
Qin Su is rightfully like wtf JGY, but Jiggy is like aight sis i know you’re mad, but hey now that everyone knows what’s the deal here, I think we have a common enemy: Jin Guangslut. Should we kill him or should we kill him?
Xue Yang: yo so .... you still gonna get married or what?
Qin Su: if you even think about getting married i swear to god -
JGY: ....okay, how about “fake” marry. Once dear old Dad is dead, we can...idk have an amicable separation. I can even set you up on a date with a guy I know in the fierce corpse community. His sister is still in my basement come to think of it -
QS: what
JGY: what
QS: you are a fucking nutjob, Jiggy, you know that? I can’t believe I was attracted to you.
JGY: first of all that’s hurtful, but... hey at least you didn’t insult my mother.
QS: why would i? our mothers are innocent. *deep sigh* okay fine, how should we kill JGS, I vote for castration. Also *points to the black veins on her paste-y complexion* this is gonna be a problem.
XY: *quirk an eye brow* realllly starting to see the family resemblance now. Don’t worry I got make up to cover that up. Also gotta find you some blush, so you don’t look so ... undead.
~
JGY “so we get prostitutes -”
QS “No. Jiggy, I’m sensing some internalized classism. Let’s just sic Xue Yang on him and be done with it.”
JGY “....you were less bossy before.”
QS “I was also less dead before. Also, Xue Yang doesn’t mind, do you dear?”
XY *eating the candied pastries QS got him* “Nah, not at all, jiejie. I can wear a dress and get dolled up if you want, but I want silk and the dress needs to be tailored. Bespoke. *points to his plate* These are great. Do you have more?”
JGY: *facepalm* what have done.
QS: created a fierce corpse you can’t control. Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it brother?
~
QS “I feel bad for Chifeng-zun. If I had to sit and watch you and Lan Xichen make eyes at each other over the guqin day in and day out....”
JGY “Oi, you’re not even my real wife.”
QS “Doesn’t mean I can’t nag you. Also, you have an issue, you know. You can’t just murder your way to the top.”
JGY “I wasn’t -”
QS “Save it. If you give Xue Yang enough candy, he’ll tell you anything.”
JGY “NMJ is a problem. He disrespects -”
QS “You think maybe the reason he thinks you’re a untrustworthy little shit is because you are...an untrustworthy little shit? Also he’s always violent and aggressive towards you...yeah ‘cause you’ve been playing Terrible Temper Tango on repeat for weeks.”
JGY “.....................” *well sis does have a point, maybe i should re-evaluate my strategy “Then what do you suggest I do?”
QS:  I believe Xue Yang calls it “when it doubt, fuck it out.” 
JGY: ...............................you two need to stop hanging out together. 
~
Jin Guangyao and Qin Su spend many nights in the secret chamber plotting together. Apparently the Jin crazy can both be inherited and developed. Qin Su decides her second life is rather nice, and having power is nice too, but she’d rather have some friends. 
*Jiggy and Qin Su’s Ten Step Plan to Un-Fuck the Cultivation World*
Aka Jiggy’s illegal but necessary emergency U-Turn. 
Step 1: Start playing some nice music ffs, and maybe when NMJ is in a better mood, the venerated Triad can be the venerated Triad. ;) 
Step 2: start treating MXY better. He could be useful as a loyal brother. 
Step 3:  Sic him on Nie Huaisang. They seem like they could do well together. Also, the easiest way to get through to NMJ is through his little brother.  
Step 4:  Make Jin Guangshan disappear.
Step 5: Speaking of little brothers, they’re gonna have to eventually deal with Lan Wangji. Even Qin Su’s 78 year old grandma with cataract can see he’s just a liiiiittle hung up on Wei Wuxian, who is unfortunately....dead. 
”How do you suppose we fix this particular problem?” 
”Isn’t there some cultivator prisoner found guilty punishable by death in your single minded cleansing of your political enemies?” 
"Of course. Go on I’m listening, mei-mei.” 
”So while you were off being shady, I did some research. There is a spell. I think a potential trade off could be made if we bargain right. Their soul, which was forfeit anyway, in exchange for a lifetime of protection and financial stability for their families.” 
“>:) dear sister, where have you been all my life I’ll never know.” 
Qin Sun, “Just make sure they’re not too hard on the eye. Lan Wangji doesn’t seem to be the shallow type but one never knows.” 
Step 5: Jiang Wanyin needs an emotional laxative like... last year. Look into resurrecting Jiang Yanli. Once she’s alive, all that Yunmeng Bullshit will resolve, and you will also have a Lotus Pier forever grateful for Jin Guangyao and Qin Su’s kindness. If that doesn’t work...idk get Jiang Wanyin a dog. 
“Okay, hooow are you going to get a woman to give up her soul to -”
“Can we fierce corpse her? Wei Wuxian had a bunch of undead ladies hanging around right?” 
“........worth looking into.” 
Step 6:  Jin Zixuan. Yikes -
JGY “I didn’t kill Jin Zixuan. Wei Wuxian did.” (note: CQL washed WWX of any responsibility for the deaths of others by making it so that the Song of Turmoil caused him to lose control. This, in fact, is not what is written in book canon. WWX did lose control by himself without external influence. I can cherry pick the plot points I want to keep.) 
QS “..........but you sent him to his death.” 
JGY “..........”
QS *Deep sigh* “Who can we throw under the bus this time for Jin Zixuan’s death, Jigs? Someone that won’t be missed...got it. Su She.” 
JGY “He’s loyal to me, he’s an ally -” 
QS “Listen here, once you resurrect Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian, you will have the eternal gratitude of Yunmeng Jiang and Gusu Lan. Who gives a shit about Su Minshan that simpering turd.” 
JGY: True. *he’s understood by now that he could get rid of those who would talk shit, belittle, and disrespect him...but he could always do more with a couple of important influential people who would spread words of his goodness. Stubborn righteous cultivators like the Jiangs, Nies and Lans.* “Also Jin Zixuan’ll be an undead, not able to inherit. We’re safe.” 
QS: “Exactly.” 
Xue Yang: eating candy......... *eye roll* 
Step 7: Because Step 6 didn’t work out, forget about Jin Zixuan. 
JGY: “you know... maybe Jin Zixuan moved on.” 
QS: “Would explain why we couldn’t call his soul back the way we called back Jiang-gu’niang.” Qin Su glances back at Jiang Yanli’s soul-infused clay body in the process of being reanimated (lifted this idea straight from Inuyasha - ahem- kikyo.) “It’s probably better this way. I don’t like the thought of sharing the control of Lanling Jin with more people.” 
JGY:  “Ah, blood of my blood you are indeed.”
Step 8:  Reveal Jin Guangshan’s evil deeds. Once they kill Dear Ol’ Dad, they can just blame EVERYTHING on him and have him be the disgrace of the entire cultivation world, and them the unfortunate children left to do his bidding and trying the best they could to salvage what they can from his trail of ruins.
Step 9: Reunite Wen Ning and Wen Qing. Lie. Blame it all on Jin Guangshan who is too dead to argue in his own defense. If Jiang Wanyin finds out about Wen Qing...well, information gets around. 
JGY “So about that Date.” 
Qin Su: “Yes I distinctively remember you promising me eligible young men of the Fierce Corpse Community.” 
JGY: >:) I’m here to make good on my words. 
Step 10: Reap the benefits of a world restored. 
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brattyfics · 4 years ago
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Beach Bums
Summary: Used a few prompt lines including: “I like this outfit. Easy access.” and “I can’t wait until we’re alone. There are so many things I want to do to you right now.” “We’re in public, you know?”
Pairing: EZ Reyes x Black!OC
Warnings: Public sex, sandy beach sex, unsanitary sex (cause of the sand), exhibitionism, a little angst.
Word Count: 3.2K (I hate that I’m so long-winded)
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Lena listened to waves lap at the shore of the beach with a relaxed smile on her face. The smell of saltwater tickled her nose while sand tickled her toes with each step. The chilly California night made it so she wore a flannel over her loose-fitting, flowy dress. 
To her right stood her Knight in a Kutte, AKA EZ Reyes. A rare, genuine smile graced his own face. She couldn’t remember the last time they were together and he wasn’t on guard. There at the beach, none of the club bullshit mattered.
For that reason alone, she was happy she accepted his invitation for a one-day getaway. She had work she should be doing, and she was sure he had club business to attend to, but they were together in spite of it all. 
EZ and Lena were on and off again high school sweethearts. The two of them didn’t see each other often anymore— Lena moved a few cities over to begin the next chapter in her life while he rebuilt his life in Santo Padre.
“What you thinking ‘bout, mamita?”
She found herself admiring his dimples. “You.”
“Yeah?” They deepened even further, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “What about me?” 
She rolled her eyes and decided to mess with him. “I was thinking your head is kind of funny shaped.”
“What?” He asked, eyebrows shooting up. He jumped at her causing her to shriek and take off. 
He chased her a few yards before reaching to grab her up by the waist. She side-stepped him and pushed, giggling even though her heart was racing as if she was really running from danger.
Lena’s mouth fell open as she watched EZ tip over in slow motion like a cow. Her hands reached out to steady him but it was too late, his big ass landed with an ungraceful plop in the sand. He looked just as shocked as she felt. She was stuck somewhere between being speechless and wanting to apologize. When their eyes met, the only thing they could do was laugh. 
She clumsily sat down beside him, grabbing a hold of one of his big arms. She couldn’t get an apology out because she was laughing so hard. 
“You’re cold blooded! You just tried to kill me!” 
“I didn't expect for you to fall like that!” She managed to wheeze out in between laughter. “It’s not even all my fault. It’s all that damn wine you had at dinner. I tried to tell you, it sneaks up on you!” 
A few fellow beach goers eyed them with amusement. EZ straightened when he saw the attention they garnered, face flushing at the attention. She tried to quiet down for his benefit but when he began dusting his sand-covered side, she fell into another fit of giggles.Soon enough, everyone went back to what they were doing. 
To their left, a group of teenagers burned what she was certain was an illegal bonfire. To their right, people were scattered loosely, sitting on beach towels while watching the stars or walking the shore. Almost no one was left in the water. It was too late and too dark for a swim. 
She crawled over to sit directly in front of him, her back against his chest, his arms holding her tightly to him. They sat in silence watching neon city lights dance across the dark water, enjoying the warmth the other provided in spite of the cool night.
EZ let his hands roam, lighting her body up with each stroke of his fingers. The two of them had many risky sexcapades back in high school. He could never wait until a party was over before he was trying to sneak them off somewhere. Then there was the time they missed half of senior prom.
“Can I ask you something?” Lena asked, gazing at the night sky.
He let out a fake sigh. “If you must.”
“Do you miss me?” Her eyes focused on him, ready to hyper analyze his response as she often did.
“How can I miss you when you’re right here?” He joked, trying to keep the mood light.
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
He seemed to consider it, avoiding her eyes. Finally, he decided on a response. 
“Of course I miss you.”
“Like a lot?” She hated how needy she sounded.
He smiled. She wasn’t always forthcoming with her real thoughts and emotions, especially since she had been disappointed by him before. His eight-year stint in jail wasn’t just hard on him. He liked when he saw flashes of the old her, the her he knew when they first met, before he hurt her. 
“A whole lot, chula. You know that.”
She wanted to ask him how she was supposed to know that. He had been different since they reconnected. He could be distant, avoidant at times. She understood he lived a complicated life, but she wanted him to want her enough to fight for a future.
Her chest tightened every time she thought about the fact their love was fleeting. She snuggled further back into him, choosing to let it go. There was no sense in ruining a good night, one she could remember long after they were done. 
EZ worried about them too. He knew it wouldn’t be long before she had no room for him in the new life she was building. He thought about her more than she would ever know. All around Santo Padre there were reminders, memories of her. Every day he passed the high school he remembered the day they met. 
They both felt the tension of the unspoken words between them. When he could no longer stand it, EZ defaulted to sex. It was the one thing that was never wrong between them.
“I like this outfit, easy access.” He joked, pulling at his flannel until he could see the thin straps of her dress. He tugged at one of them until it fell, nibbling on her bare shoulder.
“I can tell.” She grinned naughtily, grinding her ass against him. Like him, she just wanted to forget all the bad stuff. 
“I can’t wait til’ we’re alone.” He noticed there were only a few stragglers left on the beach. It had thinned out for the most part, the bonfire now an abandoned pit of soot. “There are so many things I want to do to you right now.”
She eyed their fellow beach goers, calculating the risk. “You know, you don’t have to wait until we’re alone.” She wanted him bad. Her heart lurched. She knew she was being driven by insecurity but she couldn’t help herself. Even if they didn’t last, she wanted to hold a place in his heart forever. She wanted him to remember she was his best and dirtiest fuck. 
She turned to look him directly in the eyes. “I wanna fuck you right here.”
“I don’t think---”
“Are you kidding? You’ve been teasing me all night.” She pouted. His hand had been under her dress all night, pinching her thighs, tickling her legs, but never touching her where she needed.
“You’re trying to kill me.” 
He’s one to talk.
“No I’m not.” She said in faux innocence. “I'm just trying to make you feel good, baby.”
“We’re in public, chula.”
“When has that ever stopped us before?” 
He snorted. Points were made, so he wasted no more time, his resolve gone.
“You gotta relax though.” He hissed when she grabbed a hold of his dick. “Turn back around.” He instructed, pulling the big flannel from her shoulders so that he could use it as a makeshift blanket to hide their activities. She held it close to her chest while he went to work at unbuckling his pants. She kept turning around to peek at him.
“But I wanna see.” She hummed impatiently, stretching her legs out. “Have I ever told you how pretty your dick is?”
“You tell me that every time.” He tried to sound unimpressed, but it came out more strangled than anything. She knew all his tells. He was as desperate as she was. 
She watched with open fascination as he stroked his dick. She sucked on her bottom lip as she watched it fatten up under her gaze. Fuck, he’s going to stretch me out. He leaned forward to kiss her, thinking about how he wanted to use her lips for other things. 
After a long kiss, he pulled back with a groan, looking to see if they had gained any admirers. Once he deemed it safe he leaned in to kiss her again. He sucked on her lip this time, hands tugging her loose-fitting dress up until it rested underneath her breasts. Their legs were the only bare skin touching and he wanted more. He wanted her naked and underneath him where they could be as loud as they wanted for as long as they wanted, but a quickie would have to do. 
When he pulled away from the kiss again, her eyes bore into his. He froze. 
Her eyes were so expressive-- he knew when she was disappointed, angry, turned on. In that moment, she looked at him like he hung the stars and the moon just for her. He felt the same about her, taking her beautiful features under the moonlight. 
Her thick hair blew over her shoulders in the breeze, the smell of mango invading his nose. He loved her smell. He leaned in to rub his nose against hers, giving her an eskimo kiss because he knew it would make her smile. Her lips parted slightly, her pink tongue wagging at him in a teasing manner. He shook his head, smirking. As much as he found ways to make her smile, she did the same. 
“Come here.” He lifted her so she hovered just above his crotch. The flannel slipped down slightly.
She reached for his dick anyway, gasping at how hot and heavy it felt in her hands. She probed at her wet slit with his tip. Lena wanted to ride him the right way, chest to chest where they could kiss and hold each other. She held in a whine, doing her best to look normal as if nothing was happening. Underneath her, his hips surged forward, desperate to get inside her.
“Stop moving.” She bossed him the way he sometimes liked. The club looked to him to fix and handle everything as their prospect. He looked to her for grounding. She reminded him he wasn’t invincible, humbled him. 
Her stalling wasn’t just for his benefit. It had been months since they were together. If she didn’t mentally prepare herself first, she’d be shouting his name for everyone at the beach to hear. 
“Hurry up.” She could hear the frustration in his voice. The awkward position they were in, the contrast between the cool night air and her warm center on his dick, the strain of holding her hips up, and his flannel slipping down had him nervous and impatient.
“Be still, baby.” She whispered sweetly. She used the mushroom tip to tap her clit and though she had been expecting it, she jumped up moaning. 
His fingers dug into her hips as a warning, head on a swivel for any peeping Tom’s. 
“Fuck. Me.” She listened to him, lining his cock up with her entrance. His hips lifted as best they could in his position, pushing past tight resistance until he was inside her. 
They did their best to be quiet. She bit down on her lip and pinched one of his thighs. He closed his eyes, holding her as he tried to adjust. It had been too long since they were together. 
Lena was as wet and warm as he remembered. Even tighter than he remembered due to not being stretched out first by his fingers or his tongue. He loved playing with her pussy, watching the way she would tremble and try to hold her moans in. 
“You feel so good.” He buried his face in her hair momentarily. 
“Mhmmm…” She was having a hard time forming words. She used her hands on his thighs for leverage to ride. “...you too.” She couldn’t ride him the way she wanted, but she did her best, squirming in his lap at the slight discomfort. “You’re too deep.” She pouted.
“Relax.” He moaned into her hair, burying himself to the hilt. She let him work, lifting her up and down on his dick as best he could without causing a scene. Each time he hammered her hard and deep. The slow, but bruising pace made the filthy act that much more intense. 
“Fuck, nena.” He grunted as his forearms burned. “Take that dick.” And she did. Sans a few escaped mewls, she took all of him with no complaints, letting him use her in the best way possible. 
As much as he hated himself for it and wished he could focus, all EZ could think about was her being with other people when they were apart. It was hypocritical of him he knew--he had gone on a sex binge with Vicki’s girls as soon as he got out, but it didn’t change the way he felt. 
“I love this dick, baby.” She purred, looking over her shoulder into his eyes. 
“Yeah?”
“Yes, daddy. It’s my favorite.”
He pounded her harder, angry at the admission. 
“You fuck other guys like this?” 
Lena moaned to avoid the answer. She had definitely tried to get over him while under other men. Eight years was a long time. One of his hands left her hips to tug her hair. She was forced to take over the majority of the grunt work, bouncing in his lap despite the awkward angle. 
“Do you?” She winced as he got aggressive, knowing her scalp would be tender the next day. 
“No.” She finally moaned, sounding defeated.
“They don’t fuck you like I do, mami?”
“No!” It came out louder than intended, catching the attention of another couple on the beach. Neither Lena or EZ let it bother them. 
“Be quiet.” He gritted out, continuing to pound her out. Her walls constructed around him, sucking him in deeper. He could feel her wetness dripping down his shaft onto his balls. 
“Wait—“ Movement to their right caught her attention. The couple had risen from their spot. One of the girls gathered their things into a tote bag while the other rolled their towels up. 
“Baby—“ she tried to warn him, pushing at his thighs. She felt like she was going crazy. Overwhelmed was an understatement. At that point, holding her breath was the only way to keep from yelling his name out. 
His hand left her hair to press against her tummy. “You feel that shit?” He was being mean, holding her in place so she couldn’t do anything but take it. 
“Babyyyy.” she whined. 
“What mami?” His face was buried in her neck and she could feel him leaving what would be hickeys on her brown skin. He couldn’t keep her with him forever, but he could scare his competition away for a few weeks if he marked her good enough.
“I think they’re watching us.”
His head lifted from her neck, dark eyes searching for bodies in the night. He saw them. The two girls were still several yards away from them, but headed their way. They spoke quietly to each other, giggling every few seconds. 
He made a decision. They were too far gone to stop, potential audience be damned. 
“Then you better hurry up and come.” Her stomach tightened at his words. “Don’t stop.” 
“I won’t.” She sobbed, concentrating on her hardest on being quiet. 
“You better not. Fuck that dick until we both come.” His fingers dug into her hips painfully as their skin loudly slapped together. “I don’t give a fuck about some gringos watching.”
The combination of the time they spent apart, the fact they could be caught, and his dirty words were too much for her. She came so hard tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, needy moans spilling from her lips. If EZ could see her face, she’d be embarrassed at the way she went cross-eyed. 
The flannel slipped down to their legs where it barely covered anything. Lena silently thanked gravity that her dress had also slipped down so she wasn’t completely exposed. That didn’t mean she didn’t look the part of a desperate slut. 
Tears fell freely from her eyes, leaving a trail of mascara in their wake. Judging by the looks on the girls’ faces, they were concerned. She flushed at the attention, but was too overstimulated to disguise her dick-drunk state. 
EZ showed her no mercy, drilling her like she hadn’t already come. He didn’t give a fuck about the two curious set of eyes on them. 
Picturing her with other men had his mind racing and it made it hard for him to concentrate on his release. “Tell me it’s mine.”
“It’s yours.” She panted immediately, eyes wide and pupils blown. She couldn’t believe what they were doing. He didn’t show any signs of stopping so she talked him through it. 
“It’s always been yours, daddy.” He hammered into her. 
“I love that dick.” In. 
“I miss it so much.” Out.
“It’s too good.” Her voice got progressively lower as the girls got closer. They seemed to have figured it out, their footsteps purposely slow. She was embarrassed, but couldn’t stop until he joined her in bliss.
“I want your cum! I want it so bad. I don’t care who knows.” 
Her eyes met one of the stranger’s. One the girl’s mouth split into a sly grin. They definitely knew what was going on.
“I don’t care about anything when your dick is in me.” She mewled loudly, locking eyes with one of them. 
“I’ll fuck you anywhere you want, whenever you--” He bit down hard on her shoulder, an animalistic growl rumbling out of his chest. She winced at the sting, knowing he’d left yet another mark. The other girl tugged her along, clearly scandalized.
His dick pulsed inside her, massaging her insides. If she hadn’t already come, that sensation would have done it. She collapsed against him, lazy, and too fucked out to care anymore. 
He seemed to share that sentiment, assaulting her neck without a care in the world, sloppily tonguing it down as if it were her pussy. Each lash of his tongue was a promise for later. He would eat her alive when they were in the comfort of their hotel room. 
They both huffed and puffed, trying to catch their breath. Sweat and sand covered their skin, the smell of sex mingling with the night air. Neither of them knew how they would muster the energy to make it back to the car, let alone the hotel room.
“I love you.” He murmured softly, placing one final kiss against her neck.
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socialistsooner420 · 4 years ago
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lately i been seeing a lot of misinformation goin around regarding opositions to marijuana legislation as well as misconceptions of cancer that are just boiling my blood.
i think as both a cancer patient and as a marijuana consumer the most irritating arguments against weed are "THEY DONT REALLY CURE CANCER YA KNOW???"
yeah, i do know. if that were the case i wouldn't have cancer in the first place. but do you know what marijuana DOES do for us cancer patients? heres a little bit of perspective of what we have to struggle with
having cancer is not just "you have [x amount of time] left to live". thats only in the movies, its never as cut and dry as that. the sad truth is there's a LOT of uncertainty in the entire process, from discovering somethings wrong/finding the tumor, having the courage to go to the doctor and explain everything to them, having to endure many invasive, PAINFUL tests, waiting for the results (took 2 weeks to get mine back), then you have to figure out how tell your loved ones. Ya know what helped ease my panic during all that overwhelming shit? marijuana
fun fact: a lotta people leave when ya tell em ya got cancer! its an extremely depressing reality we have to face. a lot of people compare drug additcs to cancer patients, the joke usually being "you can yell at a person who got addicted to drugs, they chose that! but you cant make fun of a cancer patient, because they didnt!" well, unfortunately, people can and do "make fun" (more like bullying....) of us. people DO scream at us. for example: when i told my mom my diagnosis, she screamed at me, as if i chose to have cancer. she asked me "how could i do this to HER?". So not only is cancer a grueling painful process, its also stressful, confusing, heartbreaking, uncertain, overwhelming, and fucking DEPRESSING. Marijuana helps me get my mind off of all that. Instead of the constant thoughts such as "when will this cancer finally kill me so i can stop being such a huge burden on my family?" i can give my mind a rest and think happy thoughts instead.
a lot of cancers cause supressed appetites. thats why a lot of us are extremely underweight and gaunty. marijuana helps us regain our appetites and not have to starve and waste away! it also helps keep us at a consistent weight, another really dangerous problem for us.
In addition to having difficulty putting food down, its also hard for us to keep our food down. our supressed appetites come with the extra pain of extreme nausea and vomiting, which oh hey! personal experience i had today; i violently threw up 8 times in a row after only eating a bag of chips (supressed appetites make it VERY hard to eat actual meals), and i thought i was going to drown in my own vomit because i couldn't stop and breathe. i didnt smoke first 🤔 but i drank plenty o water and smoked some marijuana afterwards, and wouldnt ya know, no more nausea, and i was able to keep my next snack down.
cancerous tumors often become inflamed, randomly and for indefinite amounts of time. i cannot even begin to explain the unbearable pain it causes. it feels like there's a giant ball of itchy fire inside your body. Marijuana helps the inflammation go down and relaxes the body.
in addition to inflammations, tumors are just naturally painful. its a mass growing exponentially inside your body, compressing your internal organs, LITERALLY STRETCHING YOUR SKIN, and literally an extra weight to carry around. You know what can safely help take that pain away, without all the shitty side effects for pain medications such as oxys/percs (which is what they had me on before Oklahoma passed Medical Marijuana legislation)? Marijuana. Marijuana helped the pain better than oxy or percs, and Marijuana certainly didnt force me to become bedridden and sleep 20 hrs a day like oxys/percs did
Speaking of sleep, trying to sleep with cancer is also difficult. the pressure of anything even remotely close to your tumor area. I had a massive tumor in my breast that was almost 5 POUNDS, and even my shirt touching it hurt. imagine sleeping with a bowling ball extremely poorly ducktaped tightly to your chest. Thats what I had to do. you know what helped me sleep though?
you guessed it!
Medical Marijuana
there's so many more benefits that it has for different cancer types, as well as other ailments, but i wont go further because that would take forever to list. my point here though is that no medical marijuana advocate is saying its the end all cure all, just that there are many people that it could help who we're denying in favor of big pharmas opiod crisis.
its just plain ignorant and legitimately harmful to the people marijuana could benefit to deny that it helps sick people, especially cancer patients.
im so sick of hearing shit like "well pot ruined my sons life, now he's unemployed and plays video games all day" like bitch do you think i fucking care??
marijuana literally SAVED and continue to save my god damn life every day. its not pots fault you raised a shitty son with no rules or boundaries, i also know plenty of recreational smokers who hold down jobs and are well off, so its not weeds fault yr sons a loser.
im just glad oklahoma has pretty much the most liberal weed laws in the US. sq788 passed right after my surgery and i was so happy that finally i could legally and SAFELY get the medication that i had to do illegally for so long.
im ending my rant with this screencap of my favorite arch of archer when he had breast cancer which obviously hit close to home with me.
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me too, archer, me too.
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myglogic · 4 years ago
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Priceless | Bang Chan | 05
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Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Pairing: rich kid! Bang Chan (Stray Kids) x female reader
Genre: Crime, enemies to friends to lovers, angst, fluff
Word Count: 3,8k
Summary: After Chan found out who you are, he seeks advice from non other than you own father.
DISCLAIMER: Everything in this fanfic is fiction - that includes Chan’s fictional father who of course does not represent Chan’s real father! ♥
As you managed to get all of flour off your hair, you had no idea that Chan was snooping in your room. You were still feeling a little giddy from the little flour war and you found yourself wanting to spend more time with Bang Chan.
You finished cleaning up fast just so you can spend more time with him but when you left the bathroom and didn’t find him in the living room, you got an uneasy feeling. Then you saw your bedroom door, wide open. Maybe he just wanted to have a look, right? You then walked in the while drying your hair with your towel, hoping that he would just look at your decoration. But no.
He was looking at a dress. No. The dress, from the gala.
You dropped your towel in shock and the first thing that came to your mind was saying, “I can explain.”, with a shaky breath.
Chan stood there eerily calm, still staring at the dress. “You can?”, he said in a tone that was creeping you out.
You didn’t notice the tears flowing on your face. “I can! Chan, please. Let me explain this calmly to you.”
He then looked at you with glance full of disappointment and anger. “Oh, really?! What the hell do you want to explain, huh? Do you want to explain the fact that you have been basically stalking my father? Or the fact that you were the girl who exposed everything to the public at the gala and ruined my father's reputation?! Where do you want to start?”, Chan literally exploded and you felt burned by his words. Everything he said was true.
“I-I’m sorry. But I have an explanation!”, you said while crying and trying to calm him down as you were walking towards him.
“No. Y/N. I don’t want to hear it! You have been using me! And to think I fucking trusted you!”, he took a step back from you.
“Chan, please…”, you sniffed.
“Don’t cry ‘cause you brought this on yourself! Just… leave me alone. I need time to think.”, he said as he harshly brushed your shoulder to take his things. “Don’t call me.”, Chan then left with a loud slam of the door.
You sat down on your bed, now fully crying. This wasn’t normal. You should be crying because you lost Chan as an informant for your article. However, you were sadder about the fact that you lost Chan as your friend.
♥.
Chan was furious and he knew he didn’t give you a chance to explain yourself. But it was obvious that you wanted to harm his family. Otherwise it wouldn’t make sense why you would spend so much time with him. Chan sat in his car, running his hands through his hair, almost ripping them out.
He felt hurt. For the first time in forever it seemed like someone truly cared for him. He was wrong once again. Chan tried to get his act together and decided to go to a nearby restaurant. He was really hungry and couldn’t think straight at the moment.
It was a Korean BBQ restaurant and Chan sat down to drink some soju and eat to calm down. He felt horrible after what happened. It wasn’t like Chan to lash out on someone like that. Did he go too far? Did he hurt you? Thoughts like these were plaguing his mind. He knew that he had every right to be angry. But maybe he should have given you a chance to explain yourself.
“Oh…I know you!”, a man, who was Chan’s waiter, said and looked at him with a fond smile on his face. The older man who was serving him his food looked familiar.
Chan sighed, normally he isn’t that well-known but some of the older generations knew him and his family. He really didn’t want to be recognized now. “Do I know you?”, he asked politely, trying to be respectful.
“No, but I know your father. I recognized you immediately.”, he said while smiling at Chan. “You don’t look good, though. I should bring you some more meat!”
“You don’t need to do that, sir. I just ordered.”, he said, trying to convince the man.
“A young man like you needs to eat. I know that I need to eat a lot when I feel down.”, he said and quickly brought him more meat.
“How do you know that I feel down?”, Chan asked the man who looked very wise. He seemed to know what he was talking about.
“Can I sit down for a second?”, the man asked and got a nod in response. “The name is Byungho, by the way. You know, I see it in your face. I see a lot of young people here with that expression. My daughter often has that look on her face too. She is always so worried but still tries to be positive.”, he then took out his phone to show a picture of her. “This is my daughter Y/N. Despite the fact that I couldn’t give her the best life, she was still so grateful…”
Chan’s eyes widened. Now he remembered why he seemed so familiar. In your apartment he saw a framed picture of you and your family. Maybe this was what he needed. To talk to your father. “I guess you’re right. I got… some problems with a friend. She lied to me and I don’t know how to deal with it.”, Chan sighed.
Byungho gave Chan a warm smile. “Friends can give you a tough time, that’s true. But you know what? You can find a solution to be happy. Let me tell you about my friendship with your father. I bet he didn’t tell you about me.”
Chan turned to Byungho, giving him a look of curiosity. “You know my father personally? I thought you recognized me from the media or something.”
“Actually, your father and I were best friends back then; Chan.”
January 1993
“Hey, Byungho! Try to catch the ball!”, Kevin Bang said as he dribbled the basketball.
“Oh, you bet!”, Byungho said excitedly as he took the ball from him. “Loser needs to pay for the food.”
Kevin smirked at his best friend. “You think I’m gonna pay? I don’t even have money, man!”
“As if I have the money. Come on!”
“We would always play basketball together and went through thick and thin even in school. We would always help each other. Your father actually helped me to date my wife.”, your father said and remembered the fond memory.
“Come on, Byungho! She won’t wait forever. You need to ask her out. Otherwise Kyungsoo will and we don’t want that, do we?”, Kevin patted his best friend’s back and shoved him towards the girl he liked.
“Okay, Okay!”
“Wow, he did that?”, Chan said, not expecting his father to be so romantic.
“Yes. He did that. I do have to thank him for that.”, Byungho said.
“What happened? You both are obviously not talking to each other anymore. Why?”
Your father sighed. “I don’t know if you want to hear this. But a lot of things happened. This is not exactly the nice part of the story.”
March 1999
“Byungho! I invested in my first property!”, Kevin said excitedly as he sat down next to Byungho. “I will be rich in no time!”
“Congrats, mate! I hope that you will be successful. And I got accepted to culinary school. I will hopefully become the best chef in Seoul and serve the best food!”
“Dude, I will be your sponsor and you will cook me some nice meals!”, Kevin said and shook your hand. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
Chan looked at Byungho, confused. “This restaurant doesn’t belong to you, right?”
Your father shook his head with a sad expression on his face. “No. But I did have one back in 2004. I also had a lot of customers.”
Chan seemed overwhelmed by all this new information. “What happened?”
July 2004
“Kevin?”, Byungho asked the man in the expensive suit who just entered his restaurant. “I didn’t see you for a while. You must have been busy.”
Kevin took off his glasses. “Huh, you’re right. It’s been a while. Can I have a table for the two of us?”
Byungho nodded and quickly prepared a table to sit down and talk to his old friend. “I’ve seen you all over the news. Your business is really taking off, huh?”, Byungho smiled at Kevin as he poured him some soju.
“Yeah. The restaurant’s looking nice too. But it’s still a little small, don’t you think?”, Kevin said as he accepted the glass of soju. “You could have more. So much more.”
Byungho shook his head. “For the time being I am happy like this. I will hopefully expand more in the future.”
“How about now?”
Byungho sat up straight. “Is this a business proposal? Are you going to sponsor me?”
“Something like that. But think bigger. Not only 2 or 3 three restaurants. Think about franchises in the whole world! Korean food for the world.”, Kevin said with hand gestures that emphasized “think bigger”.
“You know I can’t afford that, Kevin. Are you insane?”, Byungho said, confused.
“I will not sponsor you. But I am doing something big right now and I want my best friend to be involved too. This is going to make both of us filthy rich.”, Kevin said and took a piece of meat in his mouth.
“Aren’t you already pretty well-off?”
“I am. But this will make everything better and bigger.”, Kevin leaned closer to his friend and started whispering, “This isn’t exactly legal. You see, I know a few guys who work very well with drugs. Heroine, ecstasy, molly. Anything you can think of. The money I get from that I will invest in more real estate.”
Byungho’s eyes widened and he immediately stood up in anger. “What the hell are you saying?! Since when do you deal with that shit?”
“Sit down! It’s been a short while but I want to share my method of earning money with you.”, Kevin said calmy as if this was a normal conversation.
“Kevin, you know this is highly illegal. I don’t want to be dragged into this. Leave me alone, I have a family. What if you get caught? I can’t go to jail and not see my wife and my daughter.”, Byungho said angrily.
Now it was Kevin’s turn to get angry. “Oh, really?! It was very selfish of me to think that you’d want to earn money! I thought we were friends.”
“Friends don’t do that to each other. Supporting each other doesn’t mean doing illegal things together! You have a child too, don’t you think about him? About what will happen if you get caught?”
“He has nannies who can take care of him. And I will not get caught.”
“This is stupid, Kevin! Leave me alone with this or I will report you to the police. I can’t believe that money and fame changed you this much. I can’t even recognize you.”, Byungho said, dead serious.
“I guess you aren’t the guy I used to be friends anymore. How can you threaten me right now? You will regret this, Byungho.”, Kevin spat and he got up. “I hope this restaurant goes to hell with you.”
Chan’s eyes widened in shock. “Drugs? My dad deals with drugs?”
Byungho shrugged. “I don’t know if he still does that but he wanted me to deal those drugs with him. I just couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to.”, he said, still thinking about the past. “I lost my friend then. I tried to find a solution but in this case the solution was to let him go. But he didn’t let go of me yet.”
June 2004
It was a normal workday at the restaurant. Byungho didn’t hear anything from Kevin after that day but he still had an uneasy feeling. He knew what Kevin was capable of so he was trying to be cautious.
On that day, the police came to his restaurant out of nowhere. Some of the policemen and women were regulars at his restaurant, so Byungho thought they came to eat. “Hello. Do you want to stay or take out?”
The policeman looked at him with a serious expression. “Mr. Y/L/N, we aren’t here to eat this time. We got a tip that you are hiding something in your restaurant.”
You were sitting at one of the booths, as you were a little child you didn’t understand a lot. You were drawing some pictures for your father as the police arrived.
Byungho was confused. “Hiding? What are you talking about?”
The policewoman looked at your father with a sad expression on her face because she knew your family well. “It’s serious, Mr. Byungho. We got a tip from an anonymous source. They said that you were hiding drugs.”
“This is ridiculous. Of course, I don’t have such a thing. Please, have a look at the restaurant, I can assure that this is a misunderstanding.”, Byungho said and assured them that everything was fine.
But it was not.
On that painful day, the police found drugs hidden in some cabinets of the kitchen and in the freezer. It was a big amount and nobody knew where the drugs came from. You clearly remember the day they took your father away, with big teardrops falling from your eyes.
“Mommy, where are they taking daddy?”, you asked while crying.
“Somewhere safe. Nothing will happen to him darling.”, your mother said, panicking on the inside as she watched her husband in handcuffs walk past her. Your mother was holding your closely, trying not to cry but miserably failing at doing so.
Your father was convicted of drug possession and was sentenced to 2 years in prison. The restaurant was closed shortly after that because no one wanted to go to a prisoner’s restaurant.
Chan couldn’t believe his ears. “…If I am connecting this right, the drugs didn’t belong to you?”
Byungho looked sadly at his surroundings. “No. I hired a new employee a few weeks before all that happened. Turns out he used to work for your father and that he was the one who hid the drugs and was hired by your father to do so.”
Chan started shaking again but this time it wasn’t because of you. “How do you know that?”
“I was released six months earlier for good behavior and because they found evidence that I wasn’t behind it. The employee got arrested but not your father. Nothing was linked to him but I know it was him. Because on the day of my release, I saw him. He was eyeing the whole situation.”
Chan was in shock. After all the thing his father did to him, your father still talked to him as if he was not the son of the man who destroyed his life. “Didn’t you get your restaurant back?”
Byungho shook his head. “No. It was hard for me to find a job, especially if you have a criminal record. I guess you could say that my best friend betrayed me the worst way possible. So, please. Talk to your friend. It cannot be worse than my situation.”
Chan wiped his eyes quickly. “I’m sorry. On behalf of my father. No one deserves that.”
“I don’t want your apology son. I want your father to be rational and to find his sanity. What he did to me is unforgivable. But son, you aren’t your father. Do something with your life.”
“How can you be so… civil with me? I am-“
Your father interrupted him. “You aren’t your father. I will not repeat myself.”
Chan understood now. Of course, you would hate his father. His father was the reason why your family lost everything. You just wanted justice. You wanted the world to be aware of what kind of person his father was. After all, Chan apparently didn’t know his father at all.
“Thank you, sir.”, Chan thanked the man. “You helped me a lot. I know what to do now.”
“Come back here if you need to talk to an old man. You know where to find me.”
“I will.”, Chan smiled gratefully at Byungho. “Thank you!”
♥.
As Jisung came home, he saw you crying. He immediately started hugging you and comforting you. You told him everything from the beginning. He listened to everything, then made you some tea to calm down.
“Do you like him?”, Jisung asked after taking a sip from your tea.
“No. It’s not like that.” At least that was what you thought. “I betrayed him. I don’t know.”
“It’s not about the article anymore.”, Jisung concluded on his own.
“I guess it is. You know what happened to my family, Ji. This feels like an opportunity to get justice for my family but at the same time I hurt someone who wasn’t involved at all.”, you said as you sipped on your tea.
“Y/N, you know what’s wrong and what’s right. You should sleep and get your mind off this whole situation for a bit.”, Jisung said and put an arm around you. “You don’t know what you’re doing, right now.”
“I know… Thank you for listening to me. You are the best roommate ever.”
Jisung chuckled. “I know.”
The next morning you woke up with a headache. As if you have drunken a whole bottle of vodka on your own. You then sloppily got ready for work, not really in the mood to go. And you had to take the bus because obviously Chan wouldn’t pick you up.
As you went outside, you saw a familiar car standing in front of your house. Your heartbeat quickened as you spotted the driver. Maybe, he was here on accident. As you approached the car hesitantly, you noticed Chan glancing at you. He then made a head gesture to tell you to get in.
You didn’t know what to do at first but you still got in the car. Chan started driving without saying a word. You were confused because you didn’t know why he was here.
Chan cleared his throat. “I still have to drive you to work. Since, you don’t have a car.”
You then turned to him, even more baffled than before. “What are you doing, Chan? Why are you here?”
Chan sighed. “I am here to make things right. I didn’t hear you out yesterday.”
“You… want me to explain?”, you said in shock.
“Yes, please.”, Chan insisted in a calm voice.
Your hands were fidgeting and you looked at the quiet boy. “Okay. I was the girl from the masquerade ball, that is true. I mean… you figured that out already.”
Chan stopped the car at a quiet place and fully turned to you. You took a shaky breath. “I also admit that I was behind the plan. I guess I have a personal vendetta against your father.”
Chan then stopped you and looked down. “I met your father yesterday. It wasn’t on purpose. He told me what my father did in the past.”
“So, you know. You know why I hate your father and what he did to us.”, you concluded. You tried to look in his eyes but Chan was looking away in shame. “My father lost his restaurant, his passion. He loved to cook for everyone and he was a walking sunshine. After his jail time, nobody wanted to talk to us. Nobody wanted to hire him. He had to do shitty jobs to make sure that we had something to eat and a warm place to stay. And it was your father’s fault. So, it’s true that I researched all that to show the world his true face. Because I know he has the media in his control.”
Chan took a deep breath and finally looked at you. “Is that the reason why you started spending time with me? Was all of this a set-up?”
You shook your head. “I didn’t plan on seeing you at all. When you crashed into my car, I took the chance. You have every right to be mad at me. Because I did continue seeing you because I wanted more information on your father. But I didn’t get any. At first, I didn’t like you because I thought you would be just like him.”, you said but then reached over to his hand to hold it. “But you are the sweetest person I have ever met. You are nothing like your father.”
Chan squeezed your hand. “I understand your anger. I really do. After talking to your father, I realized that I never really knew my dad at all. I would do the same if I were you. I would want justice.”, Chan said and gave you a concerned look. “If you want clarity, I can help you. This is the least I can do.”
“What do you mean?”, you asked him, confused.
“I want to know if there were more incidents like these. Especially if there were more illegal things involved. If I want to take over his company, I need to know if there is more dirty money involved. I want a clean company and I want justice for people who were hurt by my father.”
Your eyes widened. “You want to help me?”
You were shocked. What did this mean? Did Chan decide to turn his back on his father?
“Yes. I don’t want to get the media involved. At least for now. But I want to solve this. With you, Y/N. Because I know you have a lot of information about my father already and with my help, we can maybe find a way into his office and find more evidence.” Chan looked at you with determination in his eyes.
Right at that moment, you wanted to bring up the article and your job. But you couldn’t. Chan wanted justice for everyone his father hurt including your family. He wanted to do the right thing. If you brought up that you were journalist who wanted to publicly destroy his family, he would probably never talk to you again. Right now, however, you didn’t care about your job or the article. You found someone who was willing to help you and who cared about you.
You were questioning if you should even write that article. Minho would probably still let you write it because he knew how interested you were at writing the frontpage article. But for now, with the help of Chan, you could finally find out the truth behind Kevin Bang and his illegal businesses.
“You aren’t mad at me anymore?”, you said with a worried look on your face.
Chan sighed. “I was mad that you lied to me. But I understand why you did what you did. You were in a tough position and I honestly acted like huge dick yesterday.”
“No. I should have told you. So… everything is fine?”, you asked him for assurance.
Chan nodded. “Yes, Y/N. I am not mad at you, I am mad at my father. That is why I want to work with you on this. So, are we doing this? Like detective partners?”, Chan asked, once again squeezing your hand as if he was saying that everything is going to be alright.
“Like detective partners. Let’s do this.”, you nodded at him with a smile on your face.
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staliasjeronica · 3 years ago
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Riverdale S5 Ep11 Thoughts *Spoilers*
thoughts under cut to keep tag from being cluttered :)
- Oh yeah I forgot that Chad was blackmailing Veronica about the dirty dealings in her company even though it’s not her at all (unless it’s just been so long and I’ve forgotten but she’s my baby and I feel like I would’ve remembered but-
- Hiram and this dumb prison is one of the worst things for this show it’s a constant plot of people escaping and it’s so annoying like sure Hiram owns it and he was in the jail but no one has, like, taken him back to jail…??? Hiram is a fucking disease smh
- “back to remote learning” why didn’t you just stay that way though… like even right now in covid schools are opening back up and kids are complaining because it’s still not safe so like… just… go back to it??? I’m so not built for this world fasdhfkahf
- Veronica and Smithers 🥺🥺💞💞
- the way Veronica hugs Archie is so cute bc she’s so tiny but like she always gives her all and Archie is just 😐 never giving anything ahjfsdfsh it’s quite sad you can tell how done KJ is with Varchie lol
- “I really hate that I’m dragging you through this.” … what about constantly pulling him into your mob boss father mess that the writers refuse to allow you to escape from?
- “until you and Chad are officially done, I think we should keep our distance.” Varchie bones!!! you just KNOW that Archie has been looking forward to this because that man is whole heartedly in love with Betty and has been since forever and that while Chad prolongs the divorce papers, Archie will not be waiting for Veronica considering he doesn’t want her. Varchie = bones we love to see it!
- now who tf would join Penelope Blossom’s ministry… no one, realistically.
- can Cheryl stop being given the craziest and usually most boring plots ever please...
- Not someone holding a gun to Tabitha literally don’t hurt Riverdale’s best girl weirdo
- these bitches really haven’t aged huh…. poor Veronica though being robbed but like they stole some watches or something and the opal like that’s all you take..?? okay-
- Fangs 💞💞💞💞💞 also rip to him having to work with his ex tho
- STOP HAVING ARCHIE GO TO HIRAM WE’RE TIRED
- You know considering the whole reason why Hiram is still here as the villain and ruining Veronica’s life/growth to keep her in his plots al because Mark is a big soap opera celeb and apparently brings in money, you’d assume they would give him GOOD shit instead of everything he’s gotten. If they hadn’t of hired Mark can you imagine how much better off the show would be if they didn’t have to keep him around bc of his status????? God why-
- Reggie’s always there for Veronica muah…. oh fuck me I guess fjasjkdf
- “I work for one Lodge and it’s not you.” lmao okay??? you acting like that’s a flex, and that you’re working for the better Lodge who literally left you to die after the Serpents thought you shot Fangs so-
- MARTY BEING WHY REGGIE IS WORKING FOR HIRAM…….. YOUR DAD IS ABUSIVE LET HIM HANDLE HIS OWN DEBT??? God both Veronica and Reggie are always fucked over when it comes to their parents huh
- don’t you just love when they make characters act ooc for a plot ahhhhhh it’s totally fun to watch and totally not frustratingly annoying
- “FOR OLD TIMES SAKE.” 💞💞💞 we love Veggie even though they made Veronica act ooc and hurt him back then and they weren’t given an actual chance.
- “don’t be such a Betty” now why is Betty so surprised she only ever had fun when she was with Archie, when she’s with Jughead all she did was do what she wanted and order him around so likeefjhakdfh
- “he shouldn’t really be my problem anymore.” BUGHEAD BONES YASSSSS
- I know it was just a sound they used but like that squish sound when Darla kicked Tom’s face… did she like smash his face in damn what is this The Walking Dead?
- see the problem with them randomly bringing characters/parents in when they need them is that they’re never around so like no one really cares… like they could have utilized the parents so much (and Skeet and Marisol never would have left) and it would have been so much better than random appearances that make them look incompetent and awful parents because they’re never there during all the other times their kids need them. but we have to see the two toxic parents that won’t go away constantly??? literally what the fuck
- Betty calling Jughead’s writing cringey wbk she’s never liked his writing she was just stroking his ego bc she was his gf and had to be supportive lmaoo
- why are these 60+ year old men beating up Jughead like for why???
- so they just forgot that Tom was checking in on the convict huh gotta love dumbing down characters for plot!
- Fangs with his switchblade muah
- jealous Tabitha muahhh over a password
- “wait THE BETTY?"
- Cheryl looks so good
- Find meaning in his death… girl didn’t you not care that your husband killed your son over the illegal maple stuff I forgot the plot but it was something illegal and dumb
- “drain the vein” …...
- Reggie helping muah
- Why is Archie acting like an ass? like sure he doesn’t know that Chad is abusive and toxic but c’mon fucker you cheated on her and never apologized and you don’t even wanna be with her in the first place so why are you acting like you’re personally hurt sit down
- God Archie really hates Veronica huh… I don’t even blame him considering the shit she’s brought him into time and time again.
- Jughead was kicked like maybe five times yet he was fine falling out of a two story window and the serpent imitation but now he needs antibiotics..? plot convenience!
- literally don’t remember anything about Doc tbh or him talking to Donna and Bret like—
- ever since Negan people are obsessed with bats with barbed wire.
- also! yes please kill Hiram <3 I know they end up saving him bc of the opal but c'mon
- they searched basically nothing for five seconds wow such great detective work you guys!
- we know you just want his manuscript Jessica
- Cheryl with her rainbow skirt how cute!
- “daddykins” girl you’re like 25
- Veronica acting like she cares about Hiram fjsadhkfhas these guys thinking that they’d kill Hiram even though they need him lol
- bad bitch Ronnie we love her even though she’s gonna have to save her father to save others and get her opal </3
- not Veronica calling Archie first and not Kevin considering Kevin’s dad is there…. this is the pandering va fan service bs we have bc it makes no sense and it’s so forced
- Fangs knowing Archie rides with tools in his truck mmhm that’s a little sus idk how but archiefangs agenda coming through!
- no one would actually believe that Jessica ashkjdfsj and they take this bait…??? you gotta be joking lmao
- Jug got to help doc this time 🥺😭
- …. tell me why when he said boyfriend I immediately thought of Reggie I hate myself for wishing fahsdjkfsafj
- okay as cheesy and corny and awful the fight scene is since they posted a clip of it, them working together is so refreshing and nice we love leader!Veronica bc she’s so good at it. but the show only cares for Betty which is funny since she’s an awful detective fbahsdjfj
- my god enough with Jason’s body!!!!!!!!! you burned his body please let him stay dead let his body rest
- okay but the back and forth from Betty and Jessica is so good like I wish we could get that kind of rivalry drama type stuff all the time. too bad they refuse to let Veronica act like a normal person and get angry at being cheated on and such :/ when will Veronica slap the fuck out of Betty
- he’s not a blameless victim but Betty take responsibility for how awful a person you are PLEASE
- THE VOICEMAILLLLLLL Jughead only speaks the truth! it’s weird that he only realized what we all knew about Betty after but whatever, finally he gets upset like damn. also jeronica crumb he’s the only one to ever include Veronica smh ALSO Cole acted the fuck outta this voice mail muah
- the way Betty just sits there uncaring… she really is a freak huh god when will someone punch her in the face and take her ego down a million notches she’s so annoying
- “that’s darkness.” …?? what?
- the way bh’s relationship parallels jughead’s with Jessica though. the unhealthy habits, the bad energy, etc. except Jessica left it and Betty didn’t and it turned Betty into whatever the fuck this is. I miss s1 Betty :/
- so when will they sue Jessica for drugging them? mmhm probably never
- poor Tabitha being the only one who cares about jughead tho
- oh no I forgot there was a random musical number…
- you’re gonna have Betty and Tabitha act like THAT and not put them together so rude
- when will Cheryl be free from her mom. is was like turned on by abuse or something sigh why do the toxic (and most boring!) parents get plots and screen time and everyone else doesn’t...
- Veronica would be able to do Moree than pepper spray but whatever only Betty is allowed be “badass"
- fangs being fangs ugh so sexy my babyyyyy
- Trevor Stines is so attractive it’s a shame they only bring him back for five seconds to traumatize Cheryl over and over again though </3
- wow varchie in a pop’s booth what season is this again??
- god it’s so upsetting how amazing varchie would have been as just friends…
- the way he smiled at Veronica was so contradicting to the blank, “please don’t” expression when she was telling him she was gonna get divorced as fast as possible. why can’t he just admit he doesn’t want to be with her!!!!!! my god they’ve put off barchie long enough just let them be together so their characters can finally act in character and stop being so awful and annoying
- “this cause” what cause you fucking weirdo
- not Hiram threatening the mayor he could literally be your downfall if we had good writers fjasdkjfasf
- jughead how would you have killed him with a small wooden basket
- I like doc so much but I know we’ll never see him again until we randomly need him seasons from noow
- Betty wasn’t hit by the drugs until after the message though… how would she not remember? it didn’t seem to be doing anything to Betty until the bunker
- hopefully since they’re friends now Tabitha can make Betty act like a decent human being <3
- the way Tabitha looked at Betty please stop doing this to me...
- maybe we can finish that dance!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jabitha rising bughead dying we love to see it!
wow that episode felt like it was two hours long but thankfully I finally finished it… don’t have many actual thoughts but anyways hope you enjoyed my live blog of my thoughts!
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babbushka · 5 years ago
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Each Eye (8/8)
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Kylo was the most feared boss in the entirety of New York City. They said that the crime families were no more, that they had disappeared with the end of an era. You knew it wasn’t true, you saw first hand. The families didn’t disappear, they simply went underground, adapted.
Lucky for you, your man, and your family, no one could ever get rid of crime. Not really.
Mob Boss!Kylo Ren x Reader
13.6k, Warnings: NSFW, Violence, Murder, Blood, Character Death (Not Kylo or Reader)
                                                   ----------------------
The drive had him in a near frenzy. Kylo never noticed how good of a driver Dophled was, never paid much mind, until he was stuck behind the boy in traffic, until he followed the path Dopheld cut for him. He would have to give the boy a raise, he decided as they blew through a red light, barreling down the streets of midtown towards the apartment where he was desperate to arrive.
He can see you, just barely. Can see you through the tinted glass, tinted dark enough that it might as well be illegal. But he can see you, the back of your head, your pretty hair. His body is on fire for you; fuck you’re so sexy, he thought. You were sexy sitting in that little tea room, bringing up all of his shitty sister’s dirty laundry, and you’re sexy now.
He can’t wait to get his hands on you, to beg for you, to hear the praise that he knows he can coax forth – he just has to get home first.
A rat, he thought to himself with a white-knuckled grip on the fine leather of the steering wheel. His own sister following in the footsteps of his god-awful father. He had suspected, he had thought, had sensed some betrayal, and the confirmation of it all had his blood boiling.
Was it boiling, or was it singing?
Either way, you held the key to reigning him in, and he nearly held his breath in anxious anticipation of your lips on his, soothing his veins.
He felt like a boy again, when the cars pulled up outside the apartment. He didn’t bother turning off the car or parking it, letting one of the apartment valets do it for him, tossing the kid the car key.
He felt like a boy again, watching you step out of the shiny black Bentley, watching your elegant leg stick out of the car. He took long strides across the short strip of sidewalk, offered you a hand as he always did, as he always will do. Your well-manicured hand was practically drooling with gold, gold he had given you, and he cannot help himself as he brought the back of your hand up to his lips.
You smiled, ducked your head for a moment and pressed the palm of that hand to his cheek, his scarred cheek, the one you so lovingly caressed. There was a hint of something in your eye, something between hunger and anger, a dangerous fury, simmering just below the surface of your composure.
Kylo’s cock grew hard in his nice pressed trousers -- few had seen you so furious, even fewer had seen and lived. It was some delicious dark thing, one he wanted to revel in for the rest of his life.
And soon, soon he could. Soon he would have all the power all on his own, he wouldn’t have to vie for it, wouldn’t have to negotiate, wouldn’t have to compromise within his own fucking family. No, soon Rey would be gone and he could have everything he’d ever dreamed of.
Kylo opened the front door of the apartment lobby for you, let you light the button for the elevator.
Only when the elevator doors closed and the key to unlock the button for the penthouse had been pressed, did you embrace.
 All at once, the raging clawing desperate fire in him comes to life, and he backed you up against the wall of the elevator, hands all over you. He never felt more alive than when he had you in his arms, than when your lips were on his. And on his they were, tongue hot and coaxing, sighing against his mouth, pulling soft whines from the back of his throat.
He could taste the tea on your tongue, sucked off the last droplets of honey and pistachio, kissed and kissed and kissed you as the elevator soared.
“I fucking knew it.” He growled against your cheek as he took a small break to breathe, his hands already asking permission to cover your breasts, to grope you and squeeze the flesh which he so adored. “She sent the cops crawling, didn’t she?”
“Poe and Finn got to her, she defected, and it’s going to ruin everything if we don’t stop her.” You nodded, panted against him as you guided those shaking hands of his against your skin, under your bra.
“We’ll stop her.” Kylo almost didn’t know what he’s saying, he was so focused on the feel of your skin, hot hot hot in his hands, his big hands which nearly covered you completely. He willed the elevator to move faster, wanted you home so he can beg to fuck you. “I’ve been waiting a long time to shut her up.”
“I feel like this is my fault.” You sighed, and he paused his ministrations with a scowl.
“Don’t say that.” His anxiety rushed through him at your distress.
You were never at fault, ever. Never had you done one wrong thing in your life, as far as he was concerned. You could have killed the entire family, could have burned the businesses down to the ground, and he still would have thought you right.
But you were frowning, and it made his heart beat fast in a way that made him run cold. He didn’t like to see you frown, not like that.
“If I had killed her when I had the chance – if I had let you go after her the way you wanted...” You looked off into the reflection of yourselves in the polished walls of the elevator, genuinely introspective and lost in thought. “Maybe none of this would have happened.”
He shook his head, nudged your chin so that your face was tilted towards his.
“Rey was useful for a time, until she wasn’t.” He said softly, licking his lips and bending down to kiss you once more, to kiss you forever, kiss your frown away. “At least now we have reason to make a point of her, now no one can come after me for it.”
That had you smiling, and the relief flooded through him almost as quickly as the nerves had. It was amazing, he thought, just how the sight of your pretty lips stretched into a grin could flip such a switch in him. Sometimes he thinks about how lucky he is to have you, thinks about how you save him over and over again, every day, every moment of every day, with that smile.
But other times…other times he is enchanted by the cold callous cruelty in your eyes, never at his expense, but at the expense of your enemies. He relished the way you shared that cruelty with him, shared his enemies and adopted them as your own.
Fuck, he loved you.
And you, his savior wrapped in velvet, you loved him back.
“No one will come after you, they wouldn’t dare. But we need our hands clean of this crime, with the police on her side they’ll suspect us immediately.” You whispered, like the cops have bugged the elevator, like they’re listening in. You clasped one hand around his tie and gave it a firm squeeze, “We have to be careful about this, no rampant massacring.”
“I have a plan.” Kylo nodded, bit the inside of his cheek and felt the thrill of a murder yet to come bubbling up inside him, starting in his stomach and trickling through his arms to the tips of his fingers where they trembled with want against your skin. “One I’ve been sitting on for-fucking-ever.”
“Where does it start?” You kissed him, deliberately, slowly, in that measured way that Kylo knows he will never be able to achieve, not when it comes to you.
The elevator dinged, finally having arrived at the penthouse lobby, and he took your hand in his own, led you to the lavish front door of your apartment.
“With the rabbi.” He said eagerly, other hand turning the lock and pulling you inside with blood pounding in his ears.
“The rabbi?” You frowned, trying to remember this plan.
“Yeah but first – (Y/N), honey, I – ” The plan could wait, everything could wait. For now he needed you, needed your body pressed against his, and he wasted no time dragging you to the bedroom.
You go willingly, happily, already unzipping and unbuttoning yourself, already shedding your clothes as you follow him into the room. You’re naked by the time he picked you up and threw you onto the bed, your bright laugh ringing through the modern furnishings as you bounced on the mattress, gorgeous in the yellow sun of the afternoon.
The windows were all open, all the curtains wide apart, wide wide wide like your legs as they spread for him.
“I know, I know.” You reached for him, beckoned him close, “Take what you need, take me.”
He could come from just that, you both know. He could stand right there and come all over himself like some messy slut just from your sweet words, your words of encouragement and permission. But his eyes are zeroed in on your pussy, and he practically tripped over himself to rip his suit away from his overheated skin, so anxious to fuck you that it almost made him sick.
He knew you need to be taken care of, need to be prepared. His cock was big, he’s proud of it, he’s proud of the way it made you feel. But only when you’ve been stretched for him, only when you’re ready for him. So he climbed naked onto the bed, rolled you over onto your hands and knees so your back was arched and your ass was presented to him.
His chest burned burned burned with lust, and he had to grip the base of his cock because you hadn’t said he could fuck you yet, hadn’t given him permission for that. He reached around you to stick a couple fingers in your mouth, and you, the perfect fucking angel you were, sucked them in between your teeth. You drooled all over them, so much so that when he pulled away, spit hung like little strands in a spiders web of lube on his hand.
“Touch me Kylo.” You told him, and he had to shut his eyes so he wouldn’t completely lose himself.
He slid his coated fingers into your pussy and shuddered at the way you moaned. He knew he should go slowly, knew he should take his time, but there’s not much time to be had, not much time to be savored in the way he wanted. So he pushed three fingers into you right up to the hilt, shuffled behind you so so so close, draped his stomach all across your back so he could feel the shocks of pleasure through your body.
He head rested on your shoulder, as your body quivered for him.
“Oh, fuck that’s good.” Your sighs and gasps and pants and moans were delicious as he curled those three fingers inside you.
He wondered if he could, if you’d let him, put in a fourth. His hands were so fucking big, you always liked to compliment him on it, always liked to say so. You always told him how big his hands were, maybe you’d like to get fully fucked with them.
“Ah! Kylo, honey, more -- harder.” You ordered, and he was so happy, so willing to obey.
He worked you open until your thighs began to shake in earnest, until your arms had to be growing sore. He’d roll you over in a moment, he knew he would, he just was too obsessed with the feeling of your pussy soaking his hand. He leaned back to sit on his haunches, and his other hand which had been supporting his weight now came around to smooth up your stomach, sending the muscles and flesh twitching with excitement.
“I could…” He drooled all over your lower back where it’d arched for him, “I could fit my whole fist in here.”
You flinched lightly at the spit, tensed around his fingers, squeezed him tight. Fuck you’re tight, he thought, always somehow forever so tight, as if you were begging to be fucked in the way that he would beg to fuck you. You threw a glance over your shoulder as you rocked back on his hand, fucking yourself on his fingers because his brain had stopped momentarily from how good you fucking looked.
“Don’t you dare.” You teased, bringing him back to life.
“I won’t – but I could. I could and you’d take me, your pussy would take the whole thing.” He bent over again, pushed into your cunt with the heel of his palm, pushed you up the bed so your arms would give out and you’d collapse onto the mattress face-first.
“Your big cock is enough.” You muffled, moaned, as he found the little spot inside you that had you panting quickly into your pillow.
“It’s big?” Kylo asked, sweating sweating sweating, dick rock hard against your thigh.
“So big!” You nodded, voice high. The praise only made his dick leak, only made it ooze pre-come from the tip, only made him groan.
He pulled his fingers away from your sweet cunt, brought them up to his mouth to lick off the juices there, licked up every drop of your sweet pussy that he could, the slick making a mess of his goatee. He wanted it, wanted to bathe in it, would bathe in your blood if you’d let him.
“How big?” He asked, guiding his cock to rub between your folds, your pussy throbbing for him.
You teased him, made him growl with the way you shimmied your hips back and forth, back and forth. He wanted to sink his cock into you, wanted to fuck you hard with it, but you hadn’t said yes yet, hadn’t told him he could. Instead, the slippery hot lips of your pussy sucked him in and he had to restrain himself, had to make himself stay just there, just coating his cock in your wetness.
“Fucking huge. So big that I can feel it up in my throat when you fuck me, I can taste it like when you come in my mouth that’s how big it is.” You said, and he groaned, pre-come pulsing out of him, his balls already so tight, his stomach already so tense.
“Please, precious, (Y/N), I -- please let me, please – ” He couldn’t hold back any longer, he just couldn’t he might cry, might weep tears of arousal and desperation if you didn’t let him fuck you properly soon. But he could save his tears for another day, because as soon as he started to plead for your pussy, you found the strength to push back onto him.
You pushed your cunt only an inch onto his cock before he grabbed your hips and slammed himself the rest of the way, knocking the air out of you.
“Yes, yes! Oh, Kylo.” You moaned high and loud, biting the pillow hard, your pussy sopping wet and dripping all over his thighs. He wondered if you came, if you came already just from being fingered and having his big big big cock – you said so, you had said it was big, his fucked up sex drunk mind played on loop – all the way inside you.
He would never get tired of this, of this feeling. Of the way you consumed him so. You have inhabited every cell, every nerve, every fiber of his being; and when you gasped on his cock, he felt like he was on fire, like he could raze the entire planet down to the ground. You were everything, everything to him, everything he had ever wanted or needed, everything come together just for him.
He didn’t know how you do it, how you fit him so perfectly inside you – inside your heart, your soul, your mouth, your hands, your cunt, he didn’t know. But he was grateful, wanted to show that gratitude.
“Ah, ah,” He grunted, the loud smack of his skin against yours already intoxicating his obsessed brain. It was the only word for it, the only word really. Obsessed, he was obsessed with you. His hands gripped you tightly, gripped your thighs in a way that he knew would bruise. He’d bruise you all over if you’d let him, and he so desperately wanted you to let him, so he asked, “Please?”
You shimmied out of his hold for a moment, re-arranged yourself so that you could be on your back, and it was as if the gates of heaven above parted for him with the way you wound your calves around his hips.
He took the opportunity of seeing your face to kiss you, one palm on your jaw, tongue hot hot hot down your throat. He ground his cock into you, rolled his hips, rolled them as they were flush against your sweating body. He loved when you sweat, loved when the strands of your hair stuck to your cheek, your mouth bitten and kissed raw.
“You’re so good for me, so good.” You moaned and panted against his lips as he bent himself into whatever shape he needed to be able to kiss and fuck you at the same time. “The best, do you know that? You’re the best.”
His head went fuzzy from the praise, fuzzy and fucked up, god you’ve got him under such a spell, under such a tight grip. He’s not complaining, he’d never complain, he could only groan as he sped his hips up, dragged you down the bed with that tight grip of his, tight like your cunt on his cock.
He built up so much speed that he could almost hear the harsh squeaking of the bed underneath you, could almost hear the slam of the headboard against the wall. He sucked the air straight from your lips, carbon dioxide making him hazy, your hands and nails digging into the muscle of his shoulders, the meat of his back.
“Oh! Oh Kylo, yes!” Your voice is loud, fuck it’s loud, so loud in his ear and yet he felt a million miles away, swimming in the warm tight love comfort joy relief that is your pussy.
He took and took and took all his pleasure straight from the well of lust between your legs, rammed himself up up up into you, rammed himself so hard and fast that before he knew it, your gasps shifted from pleasure to pain.
“Ow -- Fuck!” You gripped his hair tight with your hand, winced sharply as his cock shoved itself up against your cervix in a way he suddenly realized wasn’t fun, wasn’t comfortable. His chest ached and pained immediately, and he slowed his hips down, less of a frenzy when you shook his head a little with a kiss and, “Kylo be careful with me honey.”
“Sorrysorry I’m sorry.” He rushed to apologize, desperate to make it up to you, frantic for it.
He kissed you, licked a stripe across your teeth, sucked your tongue into his mouth as he forced his hips to slow, forced himself to take his time so he didn’t accidentally hurt you again. He’d kill something if you ever made a shock of pain like that again.
“Say it.” You demanded, not unkindly but firmly, firm enough that his balls tightened and his pelvis ground against you almost in slow motion. The control you had over him, the power, was enough to make him keen, his hips stuttering inside you.
“M’sorry!” He groaned into the crook of your neck where he drooled and panted like some great beast, some monster with claws too sharp as they sunk into your soft flesh like putty.
You preened under the attention, under the gaze of his dark dark dark eyes, your mouth open, unable to close from the feeling of him on top of you, inside of you, all the way up into your throat like you had said.
“Again, like you mean it.” You bared your teeth – and that was the most delicious thing, wasn’t it?
He thought to himself. He was a monster, a beast, yes. But you were some wicked thing in your own right, a force to be reckoned with, a power to be obeyed. You had ambition in your eyes just the same, had that hunger for power simmering under your skin just as he did.
Kylo was willing, god he was more than willing, to offer everything to you, to give you anything you could ever ask for, could ever demand.
“I’m sorry!” He gasped, limbs shaking, trembling all over the way your thighs did, the way your face shook with pleasure as your eyes nearly blanked out.
“Alright, it’s alright. Make us come.” You nodded, let him groan and drag his dick through your body, speared himself in all the way.
“Thank you, precious.” He kissed every inch of your skin, every single inch.
He licked and bit marks into the valley between your breasts, latched his mouth onto a nipple and sucked hard. Your back arched into him, pushing your body closer closer closer to his, and his head was completely filled with the rush of blood in his ears, your whines and pants and moans caressing him like the soft warmth of a summer sun.
“K – fuck – Kylo,” Your voice grew higher and higher, until you were sobbing, until your throat hiccupped around your moans, and you came.
He loved it, the feeling of you coming underneath him. Your legs gripped his hips like a vice, your nails breaking his skin and the sick sting of pleasure broke him into goosebumps. Your body tensed and the sagged into the mattress, sinking deep into the soft world of blankets and pillows that Kylo worked so hard to keep plump and clean and fresh. He could practically taste the salt of your sweat as your body wracked with tremors of pleasure, could smell the sex on you. It was almost more than he could bare, being this close to you, being so wholly yours.
Your body went pliant for him, as he fucked you through it, so close, so fucking close to coming himself – and then he grunted out his own orgasm, bright white blinding hot hot hot coursing through him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up, making his toes curl into the sheets.  
Out of it, nearly blacked out, his hips still moved, milking his cock with the way your pussy gripped him. He was almost afraid that he’d never be able to pull out – and he found he didn’t want to.
You were smiling underneath him, that blissed out look on your face something that calmed Kylo’s frantically buzzing nerves. He felt good, so fucking good, felt over the moon. His cock throbbed with come, pouring it into you, filling you up. He fumbled around the bed with his eyes still shut, until his hand grasped around one of the plush pillows you had nearly torn into two with your teeth.
He shoved the pillow under your hips and kept going, kept grunting in your ear, groaning out deep sighs of pleasure as your body took every last drop he had to give, until you were practically overflowing with his come.
“Love you.” You whispered, your fingers carding through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp in that way that had him sighing happily, little noises in the back of his throat that he couldn’t really control.
Not that he had to, he never had to worry about that with you. He let himself rest on top of your body, cock beginning to go soft inside your beautiful perfect cunt. He let himself rest there, atop your skin, ear listening to the way your heart pounded well and alive underneath your flesh. He calmed his breathing down to the sound of your heartbeat, kissed and mouthed at the soft touch of your breasts.
“Tomorrow?” He pressed the word into your skin, smothered and smeared his reverence there.
Reverence, that was it. That’s what he felt for you, above all else, adoration. He wanted to hold you like some precious thing, wanted to cradle you close to his soul if he had one, if it wasn’t torn to pieces by now.
If it had, Kylo figured, if it had been shredded up into small bite sized chunks, well. You must have been the one to hold them.
“No honey, it has to happen tonight.” You whispered sympathetically, smoothing your hands over his shoulders, breathing deeply. A swell of pride surged through him at that, at how he was so able to make you lose it, make you come so hard that your hands still shook even after the glow of orgasm wore away.
“I want…” He didn’t know how to say it, how to express the way he wanted to lay at your feet like the attack dog he was once, some frothing at the mouth vicious thing that only you could heel. How he would rip the heads off of anyone who so much as looked at you wrong, how he would lay their bones in pretty arrangements before you. He didn’t know how to say it and that frustrated him, so instead he grunted out an, “Ugh.”
But you, you were so patient with him, so patient always. You smiled, because you knew, knew what he meant without him even having to say any of it.
Still, you wanted to hear it, you liked hearing him talk after he’d come, voice extra deep, baritone made you shiver.
“Use your words darling.” You encouraged, and he couldn’t think of anything else, so when he finally opened his eyes and took in the sight of you in the rich buttery afternoon sun, he feels like he’s on fire again.
“Can I bathe you?” He asked, because it was the one thing he could do to show you, to tell you without saying it.
                                                    ----------------------
His hands don’t shake, in the bathtub. You kept the lights off, so it’s pitch black in the bathroom, black as night though it’s only five in the afternoon. The two of you are crowded together in the tub, the water scalding hot and frothed with expensive soap that Kylo didn’t know the brand name of. He cupped his hands in the water and poured it over your head from where you’re leaning against his chest, his body wrapped around yours.
He couldn’t stop touching you, couldn’t stop passing his palms over your body, lightly scrubbing your flesh with the calloused heel of his palm, rinsing away the sweat and sex that clung to your inner thighs.
“So beautiful.” He murmured, his nose prodding at your soft cheek, making you hum out a little smile.
He kissed you there, traveled slow kisses down your neck, followed the curve of your shoulder. He kissed you, lips plush and swollen from the way he found himself unable to ever stop, unable to ever take himself away from you.
“I’m all yours, forever.” You slid your hands to cover his own, where they had wound tightly around your middle, fingers interlaced with his.
The possession flared up in his blood, and the kiss to your shoulder turned more into a bite, one that had you sighing back into his embrace.
“I’m excited.” He said, apropos of nothing, “To kill her.”
And he was, he was thrilled. For years he had stood by and let her run around, let her think she had some piece of control. He had tried to deal with her, had given her Midtown some years ago in an attempt to keep her under watch, but that had failed.
He wondered when she had defected, when she sold out to the cops. Was that before she tried to murder him? Before she cut his face open and left him in the streets to die? Or was it after the realization that it would take more than that to kill him, more than that to break him down.
“I know you are, I’m excited to let you.” You smiled, he could tell you were smiling, he could hear it in your voice. “We have to get dressed.”
He pinched at your thigh lightly, making you suck in a breath. He made no move to get out of the tub though, made no move to take you into the closet and watch you get clothed, watch you get so perfectly put together. You chuckled about that, about the stillness, about the way his muscles only tightened around you when you tried to make a notion to stand.
He wrapped his hands around your throat instead, brought your head back back back until it was tipped onto his shoulder. Those big hands of his then smoothed down the front of your body, doing their best to cover every inch, every piece of you that he could.
“I love you so much.” He said, envisioning the way you’d look when he brought you back your trophy, your prize, your gift.
The thought of it almost made him hard again.
“I love you too darling,” You twisted in his embrace, kissed him and straddled his thighs, water sloshing all over the place, “But we have to go meet with the rabbi.”
                                                        ----------------------
The look on Luke’s face when he opened the office door to see his nephew and his wife, was almost worth the schlep downtown.
Almost.
The traffic had been a bitch, had put Kylo in a sour fucking mood, a mood which wasn’t likely to let up at all, considering he was being faced with the man who arguably, could be blamed for much of his disastrous upbringing. But, while there was much anger still harbored in Kylo’s chest, he wasn’t there for a fight; in fact, quite the opposite.
Luke must have sensed that, must have used his bizarrely strong powers of intuition to conclude that you and Kylo were here for some other reason, because that look of shock quickly melted into one of quiet, although apprehensive, joy.
“Kylo! (Y/N), hello! I wasn’t so sure I’d be seeing you here any time soon.” The old man welcomed you into the office.
You held Kylo’s hand, and he was thankful for it, thankful because he wasn’t so sure what he’d do with himself if he didn’t have the tether of your touch to guide him, ground him, as he walked into the office and sat in the big leather chairs on the opposite side of a large mahogany desk.
Kylo felt like a kid again, being sent to talk to his Uncle when he wouldn’t cooperate during Hebrew school, when he would get into arguments with the teachers and classmates.
“We come often, don’t we?” You asked, cool as a cucumber. Kylo admired that about you, admired lots of things about you, but the way you always managed to stay so cool was definitely one of them.
“Yes, but I mean here, in my office.” Luke gestured to the grand bookshelves around him, dark wood holding secrets, holding the sacred texts.
“We can leave – ” Kylo started, already aggravated, already getting annoyed, feeling far too much like he was being scolded yet again, always scolded by someone.
“We want your blessing.” You said instead, looking at Kylo, looking at him expectantly.
You looked at Kylo, and Kylo looked at Luke, and Luke looked at you, the three of you in thick anticipation of what you had up your sleeves. They were very fine sleeves, expensive ones, satin that draped gorgeously over your body, cascading over your shoulders.
“(Y/N) and I are trying to have a baby.” Kylo admitted, because it wasn’t a lie.
It was better to stick to the truth, when it came to Luke. He wasn’t as good as you, not nearly as good, but he could always tell when Kylo was lying.
His uncle narrowed his eyes, mulled over the declaration for a moment or two before he too sat back in his big leather chair. His kippah got slightly pushed around from the way he let his head settle into the cushion, and he scratched at the beard which once may have been blonde, but now had faded to a salt and pepper grey.
“Are you really?” He stared at Kylo, as if this were some cruel joke Kylo might play.
“Yes, but don’t tell anyone.” Kylo’s hand drifted down from where it was intertwined with yours on the armrest of the chair, to your stomach. You weren’t pregnant yet, not to your knowledge anyway.
But soon, hopefully soon. He’d take you to Paris as soon as this was all done, had plane tickets tucked away in his jacket pocket to jet you off abroad where all the mess of the murder could be cleaned up and he’d fuck you all day every day, a celebration of your anniversary.
Hopefully, when you both came back to the states, you’d be eating for two.
Luke, despite the tenuous relationship between him and his nephew, smiled. He didn’t congratulate you, didn’t offer any words of encouragement, because that wasn’t done. It would be back luck, it would jinx the whole thing, if he had been overjoyed. Kylo appreciated that, and he knew you did too.
“Of course not.” Luke agreed, no need to tell anyone anything when there wasn’t anything to tell. “Leia will be overjoyed, having a grandchild.”
Kylo rolled his eyes, clenched his jaw in a steely attempt to walk out from the mention of his mother.
“You know that won’t change things.” Your hushed voice was a balm over Kylo’s aggravation, and he let his hand return to its spot against your palm, your fingers lacing through his in their usual way.
“Maybe not, but a baby does bring an insurmountable abundance of joy, and knowing you two, they’ll be the most loved and spoiled thing in the entire world.”
“Will you give it to us, then? Your blessing?” You were hopeful, eyes pleading.
Your charm was truly something to behold, because Luke was standing up from his hair and beckoning you forward in an instant. You smiled so wide at him and Kylo tried not to let his jealousy show too strongly.
“Yes, come here.” Luke reached for your hands, and you gave them to him.
Kylo turned his attention to the office around him, for a moment. It was a very nice office, all dark woods that had been carefully polished and treated well, taken care of lovingly. There was a big window which let light pour in in streams, it caught little flecks of fluff and bits of nothing in the air. If Kylo had been a better student, he thought to himself, maybe he could have one day worked in an office like this.
But, he smirked to himself, he had to admit, his own office was much nicer.
Much like his office though, Luke’s was full of secrets. And it was these secrets which had brought him and his most beautiful, perfect wife, to visit.
When Luke had finished reciting some prayers and Kylo was sure he wouldn’t be interrupting, he rose from his seat and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Can I talk to you privately for a minute?” He cleared his throat, getting the attention of his uncle who regarded him warily.
It was known that Kylo didn’t like to really do anything privately, anything without the comforting company of you. Luke’s apprehension was valid, as you sat down back in your chair and pulled out your phone, content to scroll through something while they spoke.
“I’ll wait here.” You smiled, that smile which put Luke at ease, which convinced him to lead Kylo through a back door, into a smaller, more secluded section of the office.
This was Luke’s private study, a place he didn’t very often let people visit.
Kylo walked around to the other side of Luke’s desk, presumptuous and annoying in the way he touched Luke’s shit, picked up a paperweight and rolled it around in his hand.
“Do you ever wish that you had children, Uncle Luke?” Kylo asked, not bothering to really look up at him.
He wasn’t actually interested in talking with the rabbi, he just needed to buy you time, that was all.
“Me?” Luke mused, face quirking into thought while he adjusted the tallit around his shoulders, “No not really. No offense Kylo but you really put a damper on the whole idea. Why do you ask?”
That almost made Kylo huff out a self-deprecating laugh, almost. He remembered the nightmare that he had been as a child, when his parents had given up on him and sent him away, when he’d spent too many of his days cooped up in the synagogue. He didn’t blame Luke for thinking so negatively of him – the feeling was mutual.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about it, about fatherhood.” He put the paperweight down, and Luke visibly relaxed now that a blunt instrument was no longer in the palm of his murderous nephew. “You know, with (Y/N) trying to conceive and all.”
“Have you been thinking about fatherhood in general, or about Han?” Luke asked, and Kylo felt his whole body go cold.
Han was a sore subject, for a lot of reasons. He had always been a sore subject, even from the time of Kylo’s youth. It almost felt like all the bullshit that happened in his life happened because of Han. And maybe that was being overly dramatic, but well. The Skywalker bloodline had never been known for their logic and reasoning.  
“Han.” Kylo said, eventually. Because it wasn’t a lie, he had been thinking about him. “How he failed me. How you failed me when they sent me away. How Snoke failed me. I feel like I’m cursed, I don’t want my child to feel the way I feel about all of you.”
He never knew what it was about the rabbi, how he could spill all his fears right there in the open, fears he was too afraid to acknowledge out loud because if he acknowledges them then they’re real.
“I’m sorry.” Is all Luke had to offer, and Kylo did huff out a laugh then.
“Yeah I’m sure you are.” He rolled his eyes, walked around the desk to look at some of the books Luke kept in the personal study. He wasn’t really reading them, didn’t care much for the names on the spines. He just wanted to appear interested, didn’t want to look like he was stalling.
“He shouldn’t have done what he did, shouldn’t have been so absent. Neither of them should have. But murder isn’t always the answer.” Luke placed a hand on Kylo’s shoulder, a comforting gesture that he tried his very best not to shake away.
“Maybe not, but it is the one that feels the most satisfying.” He checked his watch, worried about the time.
The timing of this whole fucking mess had to be perfect, had to go over just so, this more than anything.
“I’m very surprised to see you, all things considering.” Luke said, removing his hand when it became awkward and uncomfortable.
Kylo sighed, ran a hand through his hair. He wanted a cigarette, wanted to be close to you. You were just there, just on the other side of the door in the office, and it was all Kylo could do to not rush to your side.
“I wanted to start this off right. I wanted to give them the best chance of being the happiest they can be. That’s all.” He said truthfully, quietly.
“So they’ll go to Hebrew school then? Get Mitzvah’d?” Luke prompted, and Kylo did give a genuine smile then.
“God willing.” He replied, making the rabbi tsk and shake his head.
“You know you’re not supposed to say that.” He admonished, and Kylo only shrugged.
“Just like old times.” He mused, before deciding you had officially been given enough time, and turning to the old man who stood before him. “Thanks Uncle Luke.”
Luke only nodded, and opened the door for him.
You were sitting in your chair, seemingly not having had moved a muscle, still scrolling through your phone. If Kylo looked close enough, he’d see you were browsing through Pinterest for nursery ideas, and that made his chest warm.
“Sorry honey, let’s go.” Kylo broke the calm silence, and you pretended to be startled in a way that had him so in love with you, so in love with how fucking crafty and cunning you could be.
You stood at the arrival of the men and gathered your things in your arms for all of a moment before Kylo took them from you so you wouldn’t have to carry them.
“Everything alright?” You whispered to Kylo, mostly a show. Kylo nodded and bent down to kiss you, felt the life breathe back into his lungs from the way you hummed gently against his lips, before you broke the kiss and turned back to Luke with a small dose of embarrassment. “Thank you again.”
“Be careful, both of you.” Luke said, before sitting at the desk and tending to whatever paperwork and duties you had interrupted.
You bid him goodbye and walked in comfortable silence with Kylo until you were far enough away from the temple to be overheard by eager ears.
While the two of you waited for Dopheld to pull up in the Bentley, you rummaged through your purse and plucked out the small steel case you had stolen from Luke’s office. One of the many secrets hidden away in those bookshelves, were novels that had the pages cut away to leave small recesses for small objects like this.
Small, lethal objects.
“You’re terribly smart, you know that?” You bumped your hip against his playfully, a great big smile on your lips, looking entirely like the cat that got the cream.
“I do.” He teased right back, praise turning him warm and making him fill with pride. “He doesn’t know I know about it, they’re supposed to be kept there for safekeeping.”
You opened the case and admired the bullets, the way they shone. The glossy coating had an almost purple sheen to it, and Kylo could tell you almost wanted to pick one up, wanted to touch it. But you knew better, knew that once that poison stuck to your skin there was too high of a risk that it could do harm, too difficult for it to come off.  
“This is a nasty way for her to die.” You closed the case, put it safely back in your purse and slid your arms around his neck, kissing him right there on the sidewalk, as Dopheld pulled up.
“Well the way I see it, we can either poison or drown the rat.” He mused, opening the door to the car and offering a steadying hand for you as you climbed in.
“We have to trap her first.” You replied as you settled easily in your spot, pulled flush against Kylo’s side as he sat and closed the car door behind him.
“Yes.” He agreed, winding his arm around your waist and sighing happily as you pressed small kisses to his chin and cheek, “It’s a good thing you’re wearing black.”
 To say that he was stepping into a hornet’s nest was an understatement. At least, if the cold glares that were shot over the shoulders of the Hux family were anything to go by. Kylo readjusted his grip on your hand, and he could practically feel the hatred oozing out of the Irish mob that had come together to mourn one of their own.
You watched carefully, poised and ready to strike if the need should arise. Afterall, the last time you had come in contact with them, it had resulted with Roisin dead in a car on her way to the hospital. They watched back just as carefully, an illusion of peace in this time of great sorrow. Sorrow for them, anyway.
The funeral ceremony hadn’t yet begun, not officially. The place was packed, absolutely jam packed, to pay their respects to the poor unfortunate soul which laid at the front of the great big room. Kylo led you down the nave up to the open casket, careful to have the signet ring hidden, careful to have it tucked into your pocket, not on display in front of all of them.
It was deadly silent, in the church. That oppressive silence like lightning about to strike, thunder about to crack. You had not come to start trouble, Kylo knew this. No, the trouble had already been started, had been instigated by one of their own.
Kylo had only returned the favor.
Despite being so used to murder, so faced with it in his line of work, his lifestyle, it always was a sore sight to see. The man in the casket’s sharp features were somehow so soft, now that life had been whisked away from him. His orange hair somehow gained more vibrancy, more life, now that it had been properly washed and cleaned, not a mess of product.
“He was beautiful.” You had to admit, “In a severe kind of way.”
Kylo would much rather look at you, any day of the week.
“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve showing up here.” Hux materialized at Kylo’s side, nearly vibrating with restrained rage.
Kylo couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a brother killed – let alone a twin brother. He figured he would know the pain of losing a sister, but William truly was an unfortunate accident. If he were a kind man, he would have apologized then and there, would offer some sort of words of comfort.
But he was, in fact, not a kind man.
“If you still want Hell’s Kitchen, you’re more than welcome to have it.” You said softly, so softly, not taking your eyes off William, the much more gentle of the two Hux brothers.
William had always been an open secret, and you had never harbored any ill will over the man. You even shed a tear for the way his eyelashes brushed against his cheek, Kylo watched it slip down the side of your nose.
Hux looked at the two of you, and without releasing a breath he turned on his heel and snapped his finger for the two of you to follow him.
Kylo didn’t appreciate being beckoned like some animal, it brought him too many memories of the days where Snoke – he shook the thought from his head, steals a steadying squeeze of your hand, before holding open a door for you to pass through, out of the main room and down a dimly lit hallway which led to a small room that appeared to be the place where the children of the congregation were taught. Kylo didn’t know for sure, he wasn’t familiar with this layout.
“What do you want in exchange?” Hux asked, not facing either of you, not wanting you to see how affected he was by this death.
“My sister has gone out of control, she’s the one who murdered your brother.” Kylo spoke up, a lie which did its job in shocking the man into whipping his head around and taking two big strides to get entirely in Kylo’s personal space as he continued, “We need you to help us take her out. Avenge William’s death and get her out of our hair.”
Kylo had never noticed just how steely Hux’s eyes were, had never gotten close enough to look. They were red-rimmed, and that made the stormy blue-green-grey stand out even more, even in the low light of the empty classroom. He would agree with you, they were handsome brothers, if yes a little severe.
“A man who desires revenge should dig two graves.” Hux hissed, his teeth bared, face shaking.
“Will you do it?” Kylo really fucking hated repeating himself, but, if all went well, he won’t have to answer to Hux anymore, won’t have to answer to anyone anymore.
“Why all of a sudden?” Hux demanded, breathing hard, anger coursing through him. “What’s changed now?”
You were watching from Kylo’s side, watching to make sure Hux didn’t slide a dagger into Kylo’s ribs like he’s wont to do – always a fan of carving people up, that one was.
“She’s not one of us anymore, and she knows too much. She’s done too much. I’m more than happy to take care of her myself, but I thought as a sign of good faith, you might like to help since she’s been as much a thorn in your side as mine.” You said, taking over for Kylo, who, frankly, wanted to kill the weasel right there.
But just as Rey was useful for a time, so could Hux be.
“Where?” Hux asked, making Kylo’s plan only that much easier.
“The docks.” You replied, and then already anticipating his next questions, “Tonight, a quarter to nine.”
“That’s not enough time.” Hux shook his head, stepping back away from Kylo’s personal space finally. Kylo didn’t give him the satisfaction of making a show of how relieved he was.
“That’s all the time we have.” Kylo spoke up honestly.
“Quarter to nine.” You reiterated, “Be there, or consider Hell’s Kitchen off the table, permanently.”
The three of you stared down one another, stared and stared and stared, stared and waited for him to agree. Kylo could cut the tension with a knife, if he had one. Instead all he had were guns strapped to his chest ready to be fired at any moment.
“Quarter to nine.” Hux eventually agreed, a curt nod of his head.
The church bells chimed, and that was your cue to leave.
You held Kylo’s hand tightly and made your way out back into the hallway, pausing just before you were fully out to turn back and regard the mob boss with genuinely sad eyes.
“Mr. Hux?” You asked for his attention for just a moment more to say, “We’re very sorry for your loss.”
                                                     ----------------------
It was pouring rain, when Kylo snuck you out of the church through a side exit, where Dopheld was waiting with an open umbrella. He was close behind you as you rushed under the shelter of the downpour, the water freezing cold in the autumn wind.
The weather had taken a dramatic turn, but one that would be beneficial for the main event tonight, one that would aid in his plan. Because of Dopheld’s quick thinking and preparedness, you had not a drop of water on you, and you snuggled up to Kylo’s side happily, digging through your purse.
You always kept on your person a small film cannister, one of the dark plastic ones that protected film from the harmful rays of the sun. However, instead of 35mm negative, it rattled with small chips, little plastic cards that you poured onto your hand, leaved through with your nail.
Kylo watched in awe as you found the one you were looking for, and as Dopheld zipped through the streets, you popped it into the burner phone Kylo handed you. You both watched as the phone powered on, a blank thing that only was ever used for times like this, plans like these.
You scrolled through the list of contact on the sim card, stopped when you found the name you were looking for.
Kylo was always amazed with the speed that you could type at. He hated shit dealing with phones, hated it. He didn’t like calling, and while he preferred texting, he didn’t actually like texting. His fingers were too big for the buttons, he was convinced.
But he looked over your shoulder, rested his chin there, nuzzled his cheek against yours.
Shayna punim, can you do me a favor tonight?
Your finger was hovering over the keyboard, waiting to send a reply as soon as the text came through, ready to spring, ready to get this over with.
Rey was a notoriously fast texter as well, and it was only a matter of the traffic light turning green for a response to be sent.
Is everything okay Ima?
You smiled wide, and Kylo could feel the excitement bubbling up in him. It was really happening, he was really going to get the chance to do it, to do the one thing he had been waiting years for.
You typed back quickly, but no so quickly that it would be suspicious, Leia wasn’t exactly the world’s finest technology expert, and it usually took her a short moment to respond anyway.
Yes, sorry it’s so last minute, I’m expecting a delivery from the furrier we know, you know the nice Italian fellow?
Ma I didn’t know you were still running business ???
If anyone asks, I’m not.
When do you need me there?
8:55 sharp. Boat will show up at nine. Don’t tell Kylo. Delete these texts – we never had this conversation.
I love you.
I love you too.
 You deleted the text messages from the burner phone, and powered it off so the GPS wouldn’t be able to be tracked. Kylo watched as you popped the sim card out of the burner phone, and tucked everything back into its place inside your bag.
“Do you think she’ll do it?” He asked softly, reaching for you, hand grasping around your wrist, just feeling your pulse.
“She’ll do it.” You nodded, turning your body towards him, tugging on his earlobe playfully with your free hand before sighing, “But I have to go to the police before she does, we need alibis.”
Kylo groaned loudly in the backseat of the Bently, thudding his head on your shoulder. This was his least favorite part of the plan – the part where you two had to split up. You had to be bait, had to be a distraction, one convincing enough to stall for time.
“Honey can’t we literally do anything else?” He complained, voice deep deep deep and aggravated. He wanted a cigarette, and cursed the rain for not letting him open the car window without him getting soaked.
“No darling, I have to distract them so you can take care of the job.” You kissed his face sweetly, kissed him to calm him down. “You need to rough me up. I’ll go in saying I got robbed.” You announced, making him pull back.
“I love you but are you out of your mind?” He frowned, now desperately needing a fucking cigarette.
“Kylo, please?” You whined, pouted as if he were being mean for denying you this, “Just make it look like someone attacked me.”
“That would mean I have to attack you, and no.” Kylo was firmly resolute in this, and you knew it. He knew you knew it.
“Well I very well can’t punch myself in the face, that’s not very realistic.” You complained, before getting that look in your eye, a look of an idea that Kylo knew meant trouble. “Dopheld, pull over.”
“No, absolutely not.” Kylo shook his head at once, shooting daggers of a glare at the poor driver who was now glancing back with concern.
“Dopheld, please, pull over somewhere dark.” You said, and fuck, dammit all, the nice boy was doing as he was told, albeit it with shaking hands.
He pulled into an alleyway that he happened to know, another one of your little hiding spots that Kylo kept under control. There was just enough cover there that you didn’t get immediately drenched when you left the warm comfort of the car to go stand expectantly, Kylo clamoring out to meet you.
Dopheld got out of the car too, and waited for whatever insane order you were going to give next.
And insane it was, because you lifted your chin and squared your shoulders, looked your driver dead in the eye and asked, “Can you please attack me?”
Dopheld was shocked, stunned even. Kylo appreciated that about the boy.
“…Excuse me?” He squeaked out, swallowing a hard lump in his throat, clutching his little hat in his hands, trying to avoid getting rained on.
“Attack me, knock me to the ground, you know.” You gestured with your hands, presented yourself to him with open palms to show you wouldn’t retaliate. You needed to be injured convincingly, needed to have some reason to go to the police – but this was just out of the realm of possibility for what Kylo was willing to allow.
“Dopheld don’t you fucking dare.” Kylo growled, and now the poor boy was torn.
“Oh gosh I don’t – ” His hands rung the hat in front of him, but you sighed.
“This is a direct order Dopheld.” You reminded him, not unkindly.
“Dopheld if you lay one finger on her I’ll cut it off and I’m not kidding.” Kylo hissed, definitely unkindly.
“Fuck you’re both so scary I don’t know what to do!” He finally lamented, pacing back and forth, weighing his options.
“Kylo go back in the car.” You kissed your husband’s cheek, making him scoff.
“No!” He shook his head. He knew you only wanted him in the car so he wouldn’t immediately strangle the kid, wouldn’t immediately snap the bones in his hands for harming you. But it wouldn’t work, he wouldn’t --
“Ahh!” Dopheld shouted and lunged forward, fist swinging as he jumped at you, knocked you to the filthy pavement of the alley, already apologizing, shocked with his behavior. “I’m so sorry, oh my god I’m so sorry Mrs. Ren.”
Kylo grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and hoisted him up against the wall of the alley, fully prepared to choke the life out of him.
“Kylo put him down.” You ordered from the floor, voice firm but powerful, “Kylo, I mean it.”
He dropped the boy and immediately helped you up, brought you to your feet and brushed the wet gravel away from your beautiful body. Dopheld had gotten you pretty good, hit you in the nose hard enough to make it bleed even though it thankfully wasn’t broken.
Still, the sight of you in any state other than perfect bliss was like murder to Kylo’s own heart, and though you had demanded it, though you had explicitly asked for it, he can still feel the white hot pulse of rage creep up around his eyes.
“I don’t like seeing you like this.” Kylo’s body shakes, pent up rage, angry angry angry at the way your blood is dark and glinting in the streetlamps.
When had the sun set, he wonders? Had time really flown by so much between all the errands and the traffic that it was already time to part? His anxiety spiked, he didn’t want to be away from you, he didn’t want to have you sitting like a duck surrounded by those fucking cops.  
“I know honey, I know, but it’s going to be for the better, I promise.” You soothed him, sensing his distress with the way his breath was coming in short sharp pants.
He crushed you to his chest, wrapped his arms around you, that wild monstrous thing in him just wanting to kill, wanting to maim, wanting to coax forth blood on the streets. You knew, and you didn’t discourage it, only redirected it, reminded him that this energy could be used productively, could be used wisely.
“Thank you Dopheld, now take me to the station.” You said, ushering everyone back into the car.
                                                     ----------------------
Dopheld stopped the car about a block away from the precinct. It had been decided that you would walk, through the rain, without your purse, without anything, to give the illusion that you had had all your belongings stolen. Kylo had asked Dopheld to pull over so you could go through all the weapons on your person and removed them, that way if the cops searched you they wouldn’t find anything interesting.
Your nose was still bleeding, and Kylo was still seeing red.
“Listen to me.” You whispered, cupping his cheeks with your palms, kissing him and smearing your blood in his mustache, your lips smudging your words against his own, “I know you. I know how you are. Just kill her and come back to me, do you understand?”
“Okay.” He nodded, already thinking about when he’ll be able to be by your side again.
He wanted to get this over with quickly, efficiently. His part was only one small piece to this, the initial piece, he couldn’t take too much time with it, otherwise he’d be a suspect, he’d be suspicious.
“I know this means a lot to you, we can celebrate once the dust has settled, but I cannot under any circumstances have you put yourself in a position where you’ll get caught.” You read his mind, whispered as though no one in the whole world could hear but him.
“I know.” He nodded, a shuddering breath calming him enough to get the rush of blood to stop pounding in his ears for all of two minutes as he agreed, “I’ll kill her and come right to you.”
You kiss him passionately, strongly, your mouth a force to be reckoned with as it opened for you. He could taste the blood on your teeth, licked up in a frenzy, like some shark sensing its prey. But you were no prey, not by a long shot, and you kissed him like you owned him – because you did.
“I love you so much, I’m so in love with you.” You were almost in tears with emotion, real, true, genuine emotion, as your hands smoothed down his suit jacket and your eyes shone with pride as you laid it obvious to him with, “I’m so proud of you.”
“Don’t be proud of me yet.” Kylo only had the strength to let you go just this once, and he knew if he didn’t let you leave now, he never would, and you would both just have to flee the country and deal with these consequences another time. “Now go. I’ll be back soon.”
There could not be another time, the clock was ticking, Kylo knew. He checked his watch.
You give him one more kiss for reassurance, and then you’re out the door. Not taking an umbrella, not taking your purse – hell, not even taking your coat against the bitter frigid rain, you walked proudly and unflinchingly through the downpour, towards the station.
Kylo and Dopheld watched and waited until they could not see you anymore, until you were firmly so far out of their sight that the race really had begun.
“Mr. Ren?” Dopheld’s voice piped up from the driver’s seat, his eyes concerned in the rearview mirror.
“Yes?” Kylo ground out, his gaze steadily tracked on the way the water sleeted down against the windows of the bentley.
“For what it’s worth, it’s been an honor to be your driver, sir.” Dopheld said with a sigh, and Kylo frowned, wondering what the hell he could mean until – oh. Right.
“I’m not going to kill you, Dopheld.” He assured the boy, with more gentles than he would probably have given, were he not genuinely a nice and competent kid.
“Oh!” The relief in Dopheld’s voice was almost enough to make Kylo smile, that pure unadulterated joy at getting to live another day. It wasn’t something Kylo was used to hearing, wasn’t an experience those who dealt with him were used to having, but still that joy is there, and Dopheld puts the car in drive once more, pulls away from the side-street where you were no longer visible. “Thank you, sir.”
“To the docks, please.” Kylo said, hands curling around the empty space where your body should be.
Soon, he thought to himself, soon he’ll be back with you.
That’s all he wanted, was to be with you.
 They were silent in the car on the drive over. Kylo busied himself by loading up his guns, gloves on and careful to avoid getting the poison which coated the bullets anywhere near his skin. There wasn’t enough to fully load both his guns, so he filled the remainder with normal bullets. If he were in the mood to be dramatic, he’d make a game of it, a Russian roulette style death.
But there was no time to be dramatic, not tonight. He didn’t mind so much, he’d be celebrating for the rest of his life anyway.
He checks his watch in the dark, as Dopheld pulls up to a side entrance down near the river, the ships still, the place empty except for the pounding of the rain. The rain was good, it meant no one would be there, no one who shouldn’t be there, anyway. He didn’t need any witnesses fucking this up.
He gets out of the car without a word, hangs back underneath the shelter of a large storage shipping container. Hadn’t you once told him that rich people were converting those into tiny houses or something? He didn’t know, but he felt like it would be terribly fucking uncomfortable for him, he nearly was as tall as the damn thing.
He checked his watch again, and when the clock read exactly a quarter-til, Hux stepped out of the shadows, an umbrella over his head. Kylo wasn’t surprised, Hux was in the same suit he had seen him in earlier, no doubt having just come from the funeral.
“When?” Hux asked by way of greeting, wanting his revenge, wanting it now.
“Ten minutes.” Kylo replied, and Hux nodded.
Hux looked so eerie, standing there under a lamp post, the rain beating down on him. Kylo wondered if he painted such a picture, if he were so intimidating. If you were there you would have told him, he knew Hux would never give him the satisfaction.
“What are you going to do?” Hux asked, genuinely curious, from across the dock.
“I’m going to shoot her.” Kylo shrugged, and Hux’s face pinched up in anger.
“That’s not fucking fair.” He scoffed, but Kylo rolled his eyes, wondered if Hux could see.
“It won’t kill her, it’s only going to slow things down.” He explained, and Hux took a step forward, as if he were about to whisper a secret to Kylo and not shout it across the dock through the rain.
“She’s the rat, isn’t she?” He asked.
Kylo didn’t want to dignify that with a response. It was bad enough having a rat in the family like Han had been, openly blatantly selling his family out to the highest bidder. But it was even worse to have two rats, the second one much more secretive, stealthy, conniving. To have it happen under a cloak under your nose, to have it go on for years and years and be totally unaware.
“Make it painful.” He said instead, and even from across the dock, Kylo could see the fury in his eyes.
“After what she did to William?” Hux shook his head, “She’ll be unrecognizable.”
And with that, both men retreated to the shadows once more, only having to wait a few more minutes before this plan could come to fruition.
 Rey showed up at exact eight-fifty-five, as you had instructed her to. And, stupidly, it looked like she didn’t bring any backup. But why would she, when she was just meeting with a furrier her mother had arranged? She stood with her umbrella near the edge of the dock, watching water slosh up against the concrete barrier, the river tide rising from the rain. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough to capture her attention long enough for Kylo to take in a deep breath.
Without wasting any more time, he stepped out from behind the big shipping crate, walked across the dock to stand underneath a streetlamp. She didn’t hear him for a moment, the sound of the rain too heavy around her. It was only the sound of the gun trigger being cocked that caught her attention – that sound was impossible to miss.
She turned around, and held her breath. She had to have known that this was coming, you had done a good enough job of telling her she was caught. Maybe she had anticipated you waiting longer? Maybe she had thought you would have controlled Kylo?
On either account, she was wrong.
“What are you doing here?” She asked anyway, as if she didn’t know.
“Picking up some furs.” Kylo replied.
He fired all ten rounds in the glock straight into her. The silencer he had attached to the end of the gun was almost pointless, as thunder cracked and lightning split across the sky.
If he were a more religious man, Kylo thought that maybe this tempest would be a sign of his wrongdoing. But he was not, and it read far more like a celebration of his actions than anything else.
Rey fell to the ground immediately, clutching at her wounds. There was so much blood, it poured absolutely fucking everywhere, but the rain washed it away, washed it down the dock and into the river. The poison on the bullets paralyzed her enough that she couldn’t scream, something which Kylo was grateful for. He didn’t need the police being alerted early, didn’t need them being told ahead of schedule what was going on.
Kylo walked across the way to where his snake of a sister writhed on the floor, and crouched down next to her.
“You should have been smarter than this.” He shook his head.
He took his token from the kill, as he always did, and wrapped it neatly in a handkerchief before he stood again and turned towards the shipping container where he knew Hux was waiting, watching.
“All yours.” He said to the man, gave him a nod in his direction.
He could see the cleavers that Hux held, could see how they shone polished steel in the night.
And without another word, he made his way back to the car where Dopheld was ready with a clean pair of clothes and a cigarette.
                                                     ----------------------
He’s in a proper frenzy, by the time he made it to the precinct. The kill wasn’t one nearly as torturous as some of his others, not nearly as drawn out, as painful. But he was still flying high, his adrenaline pumping in his veins. He had done it, he had fucking done it. He was exhausted but exhilarated at the same time and he knew there would be a shitstorm ahead of him for it, he knew there would be consequences for it – but this one, this one thing, these fucking cops, wouldn’t be one of them.
He was in a clean suit when he barged into the station, and it wasn’t difficult for him to play the part of a concerned, angry husband. It wasn’t difficult for him to storm through the bullpen like he owned the place, wasn’t difficult for him to get foaming at the mouth furious at the thought that someone had ambushed you.
“Where the fuck is my wife?” He shouted, not giving a shit about anything, not caring about one bit.
The world needed to know that no one fucked with you, and though this was all staged, though this was all fake – that message was one thing he wanted absolutely crystal fucking clear.
“Mr. Ren! Please – sir you must – ” One of the cops he didn’t recognize tried to stop him, but Kylo shoved him away.
“(Y/N)? – You!” Kylo caught sight of one of the police officers, Poe, one of the ones he needed to keep occupied for a little while longer. Poe took stock of Kylo’s rage and decided that now was not the time to employ petty banter. “Where the fuck is she? What happened to her? Is she alright?”
With each step that he takes that isn’t closer to you, he begins to grow panicked for real, begins to worry for real. Poe just walked, walked and walked back through the station, leading Kylo to you, to where you were.
“She’s okay Kylo, where have you been? She’s been asking for you.” Poe sounded genuinely concerned, like he actually cared for once in his life.
That wasn’t fair, Kylo thought, many people cared about you. It was Kylo that Poe had a problem with, he never wanted you to know any harm.
“I was packing our bags, we’ve got tickets to fly to Paris tonight – take me to her?” Kylo lied.
It wasn’t entirely a lie, the bags were packed and the flight for Paris was in only a couple hours. Kylo wondered absentmindedly if there was blood underneath his fingernails.
Poe led him to an interrogation room where you were bundled up in blankets and given a mug of tea to keep warm, but the first sight of him, you abandon all of that and practically throw yourself into his arms. Finn was there with you, paperwork in front of him, no doubt going through the notions of filling out a police report.
When you and Kylo kissed, it was like the world slowed, like the orbit came to a halt, and nothing existed in time and space other than the way you shuddered against his lips, the way your arms wound around his shoulders.
“Honey, tell me everything, who did this to you?” Kylo asked, playing the part, keeping up the act.
You hiccupped and cried, cried and cried crocodile tears in front of the officers, in front of Finn and Poe who tried to avert their gaze to give you both some privacy as you made out.
“I think it was one of the Hux family, when they hit me their ring fell off, see?” You pointed to the ring that was wrapped up in an evidence bag on the table, asked for it. Finn gave it to you so you could hold it up to Kylo, so Kylo could see the ring that he had given you only the evening before, and you asked, “That’s their crest isn’t it?”
He pretends to not know for a moment or two, before groaning, before giving the ring back to Finn.
“It is, fuck (Y/N), you could have been killed.” He held your face between his hands, eyes searching yours.
He found nothing but perfect clarity there, and he tried to express nothing but the same.
If you could just get out of here, if you could just get on your private jet and fly off to Paris, then you would have won this game of cat and mouse, a game years in the playing.
“Can we go home?” You asked so sweetly, so softly, so sadly, that Kylo wanted nothing more than to whisk you away, especially as you gestured to the clothes which were now wrinkled in odd places from the drying rain. “I want to shower I feel disgusting.”
“Not yet, I’m sorry, we need to ask a few more questions.” Finn shook his head sympathetically, and you groaned.
“Can’t we answer them in the morning?” You asked, but this time Kylo shook his head.
“No honey, better do it now. We won’t be here in the morning.” He agreed with Finn, making you frown.
“What do you mean?” You asked, worried for a moment – worried that something had gone wrong, worried that the plan hadn’t worked.
But it had, and the look on your face, the pure shock, the real surprise of the evening when he pulled out the brochure and plane tickets for Paris, was the icing on the cake.
“Happy anniversary.” He said, kissing you, kissing you so softly that again Poe and Finn had to look away.
“Kylo! Shit, this flight is soon, darling you should have told me I would have packed – ” You were honestly so excited, nearly dropping the act, nearly forgetting yourself in front of the officers with the way you perked up.
“That’s what I was doing, I’m sorry I didn’t hear my phone.” Kylo said, which was a lie, but not really. The phone had been turned off so tracking wasn’t an issue, he still hadn’t turned it back on.
Just then, a random police officer stuck their head in the interrogation room, with a look of panic on her face.
“Officers Dameron, we need you right away.” She regarded Finn and Poe with a great deal of concern, and against their better judgement, they looked at one another and then back at you.
“Okay, you can go. Enjoy your flight and please, stay safe.” Finn said, placing a hand on your shoulder, collecting up the the paperwork and the ring that would lead them straight to Hux.
“Thank you Finn.” You said with watery eyes, grateful for his kindness.
And also maybe his naivety.
Kylo draped his coat over your shoulders to shield you from view, to shield you from the rain as he led you through the precinct. He wanted to tell you everything, wanted to show you, wanted to fuck you. He never felt this good after a killing, never felt this on fire after a murder.
But he waited, waited and waited and waited until Dopheld had the car door safely closed behind the two of you and you were barreling down the streets of Manhattan to the executive airport, where your private jet would whisk you away, and the troubles of life would be far behind – at least for a little while.
“Did you have fun?” You asked, eager, dropping all pretense of a damsel in distress, wiping your eyes with the back on your hand and letting a big grin split across your face.
“Let’s get you to Paris.” Kylo nodded, before he surged forward to kiss you.
As they drove down the rainy, ice covered streets, an entire team of police were heading the opposite direction, down towards the river, towards the docks.
                                                     ----------------------
It wasn’t until many many many hours later, when the connecting flights had been made on your private jets which had been prepared for a long sleep, when you had checked into the penthouse apartment in Paris, when you had fucked like rabbits and showered, changed into clean pajamas and crawled back into bed right when the sun was rising, did you bring it up.
The world around you bustled, people waking up and starting their day just as Kylo was content to sleep through it, jetlagged like he’d never been jetlagged before. It had been a long day, one of the longest days he’d had in a long fucking time. Hell, it’d been one of the longest weeks he’d ever had, he was sure.
But you smiled at him, you tucked yourself against his chest and smiled at him, and it was like the fatigue of it all felt a million miles away.
“How does it feel to win?” You asked, with the sunshine of the morning in Paris coming through the soft gauzy white curtains, making the entire room glow ethereal.
“Incredible.” He breathed out, because it did, it really really did.
“It’s the beginning of a new age for us, for all of us. You did that, you gave that to us.” You rolled him over, rolled the two of you onto your sides.
A beam of sunlight illuminated your face, and Kylo, the ever dutiful and loving husband he always had wanted to be, shifted so that his head would provide some shade for you. You grinned, grasped his hand and kissed his wedding ring, the only ring he wore.
“My entire life, all I’ve ever wanted…was to love you and make you proud.” Kylo whispered, an admission that he wasn’t one to make very often.
You sighed dreamily, nothing but pure love in your gaze as the soft sounds of bustling tourist traffic sounded outside the window on the streets below, people milling about the Eiffel Tower which you could see from your bed in the penthouse.
“There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not proud of you, Kylo.” You tell him truthfully, made Kylo’s heart beat that much quicker as you pulled him down for a kiss, kissed him again and again, over and over, “My handsome, strong, capable, intelligent, wonderful, Kylo Ren.”
You looked at the token on the night stand, the little round thing in a glass jar. Kylo followed your gaze, and felt the rush of victory surge through him all over again. He was too exhausted to be able to do anything other than kiss you, too tired to really have the celebration he wanted.
So instead, he kissed you, held your face in his hands and smothered you with his love.
“They say an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Kylo chuckled against your lips, a terrible pun at the expense of his sister. The attempt at humor made you beam, made you practically fucking fly over the moon, to hear him laugh.
“Yes,” You agreed, because they did say that. And it might have been true, it might have been, “But only if each eye is yours.” You winked.
 When the week was over, Kylo would bring you home. He’d bring you home and you’d face the storm of whatever was to come. But in that moment, with the sun shining and the birds chirping, with his dead traitor of a sister’s unblinking gaze put away in a drawer in a nightstand in Paris, Kylo found that he didn’t even need to check his watch.
Instead, he simply let himself be wrapped up in you, his best friend, his lover, his wife.
                                                   ----------------------
Epilogue will be up tomorrow!  @adamsnackdriver @dreamboatdriver @kyloxfem @heldcaptivebychaos​  @solotriplets @formerly-anonhamster @lookinsidemyhead @candycanes19​ @adamsnacc-kler​ @taylovren-types @whiskey-bumblebee​ @riseofkylo​ @magikevalynn​ @tinyplanet-explorers​ @chelsjnov​ @romancedeldiablo​ @helloimindelaware​ @elfieboxcat​ @laurenshit​ @autumnlovesadam​ @peterisparker​ @mp938368 @hidingp​ @goodboybensolo​ @intrestellarsarah @the-marvelatic​ @miasera​ @emily-strange @proxyfoxy​ @insanita​ @disaster-rose​ @hazydespair​ @yosoymuyloca​ @1-800-choke-that-snoke​ 
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