#i also got so damn confused as to of everything before the point where Doc came in.

[lady-grace-pens]

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time this morning and I can’t stop thinking about how much I hated it. I can’t figure out why. But I also watched the first part of Barry Lyndon and I’m really into it so there’s that too

Rant in tags because I have thoughts and opinions

[babyboibucky]

Elevate Thy Hate

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Not a day goes by that you and Bucky don’t argue.

Word Count: 4,642

Warnings: Cliché plot but slight angst, self-doubt and Bucky being a loveable idiot who sucks at communicating

A/N: Surprise one-shot because I just remembered I wrote this like...last year lmfao

MAIN MASTERLIST

-

You woke up feeling great and excited. The mission was finally finished, debriefings were done and reports have been submitted. Everyone was given an entire week to get some rest and since rest days were pretty rare, you truly looked forward to this day.

Before you could even saunter in the kitchen, you had already heard the chatters from your fellow Avengers. One particular voice irked you though but hell no, you weren’t going to let one Bucky Barnes ruin your day.

A chorus of good mornings greeted you as soon as you walked into the kitchen. Nat and Steve were on one side of the counter sipping their coffee while Sam and Wanda were finishing up their food. Tony and Bruce were out of sight, probably holed up in the lab doing experiments as usual. Bucky didn’t acknowledge you and quickly headed out of the kitchen, thankfully. You weren’t in the mood to pick a fight.

Walking up to the cupboards, you quickly grabbed you favorite cereal and proceeded to pour it out on your bowl. None came out though. You peeked inside bag and saw that only crumbs of it were left.

“Who the—“

Everyone was already pointing at Bucky when you turned around to ask. And of course, Bucky did it on purpose because he stood there at the end of the hallway, watching you with smug grin on his face.

“I hope your day sucks.” He said and flipped you the bird before turning around to walk away.

You groaned out loud, ignoring the amused chuckles from everyone else in the kitchen.

“I’m not stooping down to your level, asshole! I hope your day is average!”

The day was fortunately uneventful, except for your ruined breakfast care of Bucky. You were determined not to let that annoy you for the rest of the day. So far, so good. You could only wish it’d continue that way for the rest of the week.

-

“I told you not to rush!” Bucky snapped.

“I had him already! If you didn’t throw that goddamn smoke grenade I would’ve killed him!” You explained.

You could see Sam shaking his head in frustration. Bucky always had to blame something on you even though you weren’t the one at fault.

Bucky snorted, “He had a sniper for fuck’s sake! One shot and you’re dead.”

“Oh wow, says the one who got shot before I did.” You rolled your eyes at Bucky.

The two of you continued to bicker until Nat and Steve walked into the living room looking confused as you and Bucky exchanged insults while Sam remained sandwiched between the both of you on the couch.

“Who got shot?” Steve asked, glancing at you and Bucky alternately.

“Did we miss out on a mission or...?” Nat continued.

Sam chuckled, “We were playing Call of Duty and we lost.” He explained, taking the opportunity to get up from the sofa.

Steve still looked lost, something that Nat immediately picked up. “It’s a video game.” She explained.

“You two are fighting over a game?” He asked you and Bucky.

“They fight over everything.” Nat shrugged and walked out of the room with Sam tagging behind her.

“I’m outta here too, I’m so done babysitting the kids.” He muttered under his breath.

-

It was past midnight when you were in the living room alone, watching television while eating a Whopper. The lights were turned off and it was absolutely quiet in the compound, setting the perfect ambience for the crime documentary you were watching.

Not long after, you heard someone walk into the living room. It was only when your heard the familiar grunt that you realized who it was. Of course, it had to be Bucky.

“Are you eating a burger?” He asked incredulously.

“No, it’s popcorn. Of course it’s a fucking burger, are you blind or just dumb?” You snapped, your eyes still glued on the television.

“Dumbfounded that you’re eating that at this hour. No wonder you suck at cardio.” Bucky said as he sat down on the other end of the sofa.

“Are you body-shaming me?” You gasped.

Bucky snickered, “I didn’t say anything, I just said you suck at cardio.” He said, not looking at you.

You chose to ignore him and brought your attention back to the television. It was quiet for moment. You almost forgot about Bucky’s presence until of course, he decided to annoy you yet again.

“Can you pass the remote?” Bucky asked monotonously.

“No.”

Silence.

“This show sucks.” He commented.

You were focused on the show but noticed that Bucky was staring at you.

“Can you please pass the remote?” He asked again.

“In case you didn’t notice, I’m watching. I was here first. I hold the rights to control the remote.” You deadpanned, refusing to look at him.

There was a flash of black and gold right before your eyes. Everything happened quickly and the next thing you knew, Bucky was hovering above you, trapping you between his body and the arm rest of the sofa.

“The fuck, Barnes?! Get off of me!” You protested and started pushing him away.

“You gotta work on your reflexes, darling.” He said, finally leaning away from you, remote now in his hand.

He grinned triumphantly and switched the channel before placing the remote inside his sweatpants, “Want to switch the channel? Come and get it.” he taunted as he leaned back on the couch, opening his legs wide as he showed off how the remote created a tent in his sweatpants.

That was the remote...right? You mentally slapped yourself for actually thinking about what Bucky was packing beneath those pants and frowned.

“You’re an asshole and a disgusting one.” You told him.

“God, I hate you.” You muttered and crumpled the wrapper of your burger before throwing it at Bucky.

Deciding that you didn’t want to argue any further, you got up and left the living room, but not without telling Bucky again how much you hated him for making your life miserable.

“The feeling is mutual.” You heard him say.

-

The petty fights with Bucky went on and on during that entire week of rest. Despite the arguments, there were small moments of kindness shared between you and the soldier.

“Where are you going dressed up so nicely?” You asked Bucky upon seeing him walk into the kitchen wearing a leather jacket on top of a black shirt, dark, tight-fitting jeans and a pair of Doc Martens.

It was meant as an insult, of course. You took every opportunity to tease Bucky and his newfound sense of fashion. Said fashion meant his taste for very millennial outfits despite his old age.

“Grocery.” He replied as he went over to the fridge to pour himself a glass of water.

“Ooh, can you buy me Starbucks on your way back? I’ll pay.” You asked kindly.

Bucky just stared at you as he drank from his glass of water. He slammed it on the counter before walking past you.

“Not a damn chance.”

He did buy you Starbucks though. It didn’t shock you that much considering that the both of you didn’t hate on each other all the damn time. But what surprised you was that he brought you your usual drink and your favorite pastry too.

Steve must have forced him to do so, probably told his best friend your usual orders as well so you made a note to thank him as soon as they got back.

And thank Steve you did, but you didn’t expect the reply that you got.

“Oh was that the reason why Bucky kept bugging me about stopping by Starbucks?” Steve asked.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “What do you mean? I thought he told you I asked him to buy me Starbucks.”

Steve chuckled, “I guess now I know why he wouldn’t shut up about it.” he said, amusement laced in his tone.

“I don’t understand, Cap.” you said.

Steve just smiled at you in response before squeezing your shoulder, “Maybe you will understand soon.”

And with that, he left you feeling even more confused. You honestly didn’t understand the context of the conversation so you decided to just ignore it. Steve sometimes would say weird shit that none of the Avengers knew about. You dismissed it and thought that maybe it was Steve being a decade old, it was probably an old man thing.

You decided to make coffee for Bucky the following day, as a simple gesture to thank him for the Starbucks. He didn’t ask you to pay him back so you felt obligated to do a little something for him. You were an asshole to him sometimes, yes, but that didn’t mean you weren’t going to give credit where credit is due.

Okay, so maybe you didn’t really hate Bucky. If you did actually hate him, the entire team would probably do something about it. Maybe force the two of you to talk things out. The hatred was all fun and games, everyone seemed to be amused by it too.

You still considered Bucky your friend despite the constant bickering. You had to admit, the arguments were pretty fun.

Although, you were wondering whether Bucky felt the same about considering you as his friend. Sometimes, his attitude towards you confused the hell out of you.

One day he’d eat the chocolate you’ve been saving up for cheat day just to spite you. And it definitely did because you ended up cursing him out loud when you saw him munching on it. The next day he brought you a new one. You were watching Netflix when he waltzed into the living room and threw a bar of chocolate at your lap before walking out without saying a word.

These exchange of small yet kind (and confusing) gestures remained unacknowledged. You didn’t know why but you also didn’t feel the need to talk about them. You weren’t going to lie but Bucky’s random acts of kindness would always put a smile on your face.

-

The vacation unfortunately came to an end and everyone had to go back to saving the world. All of you were gathered in the conference room with Fury for a briefing about the next mission. It wasn’t as big as the last one but it still required a lot of planning.

After explaining the mission, Fury let Steve take over the meeting to strategize.

Some were assigned to do surveillance around the parameter while some were appointed to do all the groundwork. Steve of course, just had to partner you with Bucky to do the actual infiltration given that your skills complemented each other’s.

You grinned and was prepared to roast Bucky’s ass when you turned to him and was met with a scowl. He shook his head with what you assumed was disappointment and turned away from you.

It was the first time he ever dismissed you like that. Sure, you were rude to each other but the look that Bucky gave you wasn’t a teasing one. He wasn’t mocking you nor frustrated. Bucky seemed to really hate the idea of being partnered with you. It was the first time that the two of you had to work together without anyone else. Usually, Steve or Sam joined but for this mission, it was just you and Bucky. Concluding that he must have woken up at the wrong side of the bed, you chose to ignore your gut feeling and focused back to Steve.

After the meeting, everyone else exited the room and started with the preparations for the mission. As you walked down the hallway leading to your bedroom, you heard some soft chattering coming from Steve’s bedroom.

You were supposed to ignore it until you heard your name, making you stop in your tracks.

“I can’t be partnered with her, Steve.”

Bucky.

“Buck, just go with it. I can’t be changing assignments at the last minute.” Steve explained.

Bucky sighed, “You know I can’t function properly when she’s around, let alone be partnered with her. She distracts me, Steve. Her skills distract me and I swear on our friendship, I would end up dying on this assignment.”

“You’re being overly dramatic, Buck. Just suck it up, pal. Do the mission and get it over with.”

“Steve, you don’t understand. I really can’t deal with her. Especially if it’s just the two of us. You know how much I fucking—“

“Hate me?”

You couldn’t help but interject in their conversation. How could you not? Bucky was complaining about how he couldn’t deal with you. It really hurt hearing Bucky say all those things about you. Sure, you were somewhat new to the team and you didn’t have superpowers nor years of training like the rest. But you worked your ass off to be in this position. And for him to say that he couldn’t function with you being around struck a nerve. The last thing on your mind was to hold back your teammates, that’s why you train twice, thrice as hard.

Steve and Bucky stared at you as if they’ve seen a ghost. It’s as if all their blood was drained out of their body when they saw you step inside the room. Bucky was about to say something but you decided to cut him off, not wanting to hear more about how he doesn’t want to be partnered with you.

“We don’t get along that well, I get that. But I honestly thought that our arguments were harmless. Hell, I consider us friends. I didn’t think that you actually hated me.” Your voice quivered because you were truly, deeply hurt.

“That’s not what I meant.” Bucky insisted.

“You literally said that you might end up dying because of being partnered with me, Bucky! Look, I know that I don’t have a super serum running through my veins. I can’t move things with my mind and I can’t come up with life-changing tech. I wasn’t trained since childhood nor have the perfect aim. But I worked hard to be in this team. I trained hard not to be a burden to anyone and I’m sorry if my skills aren’t up to your standards.”

What did you even do to Bucky for him to hate you this much?

“Don’t worry, I won’t burden you. Once this mission is over, I won’t bother you anymore. Ever.” You said before walking out of the way, ignoring Bucky when he had repeatedly called your name.

-

The ride to the location was filled with tension. Although everyone else had no idea what happened, they somehow knew that the tension had something to do with you and Bucky.

Thankfully, the quinjet was big enough for you not to end up sitting beside Bucky.

“You okay?” Wanda asked, noticing how restless you were.

What you heard definitely affected you in more ways than one. You kept on double checking your weapons, your gadgets and you even ended up doubting yourself. Were you really equipped to be an Avenger? Steve said that Bucky was merely overacting but what if he was right? What if you weren’t skilled enough to protect him or your teammates?

“That’s not true.” Wanda said out of the blue. “I didn’t mean to read your mind, though. Your thoughts are coming off too strong, kinda hard to ignore.” She said apologetically.

You softly laughed, “I should really be staying away from you.” You joked.

Wanda smiled and placed her hand on top of yours, “I mean it though. You’re amazing at what you do. I don’t understand why you’re doubting yourself about being an Avenger.”

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you offered Wanda a grateful smile. You noticed that Bucky had been staring at you the entire time but simply ignored him. You weren’t going to let him snap you out of your focus.

-

Once on location, everyone started to split up and listened for Steve’s orders through the comms. You and Bucky managed to get inside the base, all thanks to Nat and the Hulk who handled all the guards.

The building was completely empty when the two of you walked around in search of the hidden quarters where all the intel were kept.

Bucky whistled to get your attention, you turned and saw that he was motioning towards what seemed to be a regular brick wall. However, there were a few bricks out of place and upon examining it, you realized it was some sort of a secret door. You managed to figure out which bricks to push and thankfully, it didn’t take you long enough to open the door which revealed an old, steel elevator.

“We found the entrance, Steve.” Bucky said into the comms.

“Careful in there, there were suspiciously a few guards within the parameters. They all might be in there.” Nat warned.

You heaved out a deep breath before stepping into the elevator with Bucky trailing behind you. There was only one button in the elevator, a red one.

“Can someone scan the elevator and make sure this button won’t set off any boobie trap or something?” You asked nervously as you inspected the elevator for any hidden traps.

The comms cracked with Sam’s voice. “Button is safe although...” he trailed.

“Although what?” Bucky asked, examining the elevator as well.

“You’re in for a long ride.”

You frowned, “How long?” You asked.

“Can’t see. It’s way too deep.”

Sam was able to scan the entire base and true enough, the elevator would lead deep down into the hidden laboratory. How deep into the ground it was, none could tell. Neither Sam nor Tony’s technology could see through due to the lack of signal. Steve said it might be dangerous to proceed given that there were no other ways into the lab except for the elevator.

The lack of signal down there meant no communication.

“Guys, I don’t think it’s a good idea to continue with this mission.” Steve said.

“But we’re so close, Steve.” You said.

“I think Steve is right. It’d be hard to call for back up when things go south.” Bucky interjected, not even sparing you a glance.

You snorted. Bucky sure wasn’t overacting when he was complaining about your skills. He definitely didn’t trust you. You weren’t going to settle for that.

“We won’t need any back up.”

And with that, you pressed the red button and completely ignored everyone’s warnings through the comms. Bucky looked at you with disbelief and tried to press the red button again in hopes of halting the elevator. However, the brick wall had closed and the elevator started its descent.

“Why the fuck did you do that?!” He yelled and tried to search the elevator for some sort of stop button.

“We’ll follow soon!” Steve’s voice was the last you heard before your comms completely lost its signal.

“Christ, we don’t even know whether it’s the lab that’s down there!” Bucky said, continuing his search for anything that would bring the both of you up to the ground floor.

“I’m not as stupid as you think I am. All secret doors lead to a top secret room and no, we won’t be needing any back up because I am totally capable of taking down anyone who gets in the way.” You stubbornly replied and leaned against the wall.

You wondered how long the elevator ride was going to be. At the speed that it’s going, it wasn’t impossible to take at least fifteen to twenty minutes if the lab was really far down into the ground. Bucky’s frustration was evident from the way he kept on inspecting the elevator walls. At first it was easy to ignore but Bucky was becoming more and more desperate to find a way to go back up.

“Your desperation to stay away from me is just...astounding.” You said with a bitter chuckle.

“I’m finding a way to get out of here, not away from you.” Bucky explained calmly.

You shook your head, “You don’t trust me to keep you alive, I get it. But can you tone it down even for just a bit?” You spat at him.

Bucky pressed the bridge of his nose and let out an exasperated sigh, “You don’t need to keep me alive.”

“Of course not, you don’t need me to do so ‘cause you’re so capable. How did I not think of that?” At this point, you couldn’t stop the word vomit.

You had tons of things to say to Bucky to prove to him that you were totally good at what you do, that he didn’t need to underestimate you just because you were a new addition to the team.

“That’s not what I mean.” Bucky explained again.

It was starting to annoy you that the more you were becoming agitated, the calmer he was becoming. And he kept on telling you that he meant differently with his statements but he never really attempted to further explain his side.

“Then what do you mean, Bucky?” You pressed. “What did I ever do to you for you to hate me this much? Did I say something offensive? Do I have to train 24/7 for you to think that I deserve to be working alongside the Avengers?” You kept on babbling on and on and on.

Bucky rubbed his face with his hand, “I don’t hate you, okay?” He doesn’t even spare you a look.

All this time, he was looking at anything but you and it was really getting on your nerves.

“See? You keep on telling me that you don’t hate me but you can’t even look at me! I mean, if you really loathe me then own up to it! It hurts me more that you keep on denying it when you can’t even explain a damn thing. At least tell me why!” You were never an emotional person and Bucky knew that, so when he finally turned to look at you, he was surprised to see you on the verge of tears.

“Hey, hey...” Bucky coaxed and tried to hold you but you stepped away from him.

“Just please tell me why, Buck. Tell me and I promise to stay away. If you think I suck at being an Avenger to the point of irritating you, tell me so I can train my fucking ass off until you deem me fit to be an Avenger. If my jokes offended you, I’m sorry. If I—“

“It’s because I like you.”

“...what?”

Bucky Barnes...likes you? It’s as if the silence went on forever inside the elevator that seemed to keep going. How long were the two of you inside it anyway? You couldn’t tell anymore and you didn’t know whether Bucky was simply fooling around with you.

“That’s not funny.” You said.

Bucky shook his head, “It’s not a joke.”

You stared at him doubtfully, “Explain.” You demanded.

Bucky licked his lips and let out a soft chuckle, “I’m an idiot.” He said.

“That doesn’t explain anything. If any, I’d think you’re simply fucking with me.” You pointed out and crossed your arms over your chest.

That seemed to urge Bucky to finally explain. “What you heard in Steve’s room was correct.”

“So you really hate me.”

Bucky groaned, “Let me finish, please?” He pleaded. When you remained silent, he continued to explain himself.

“You really do distract me during missions. Because you’re so amazing and I never doubted your skills. But I also get worried and I hate it when I see you in pain or wounded and it fucking distracts me. I didn’t want to be partnered with you because when I see you, I just...fuck. I like you that much. You kick someone’s ass and I’d end up watching you with awe that it’d cause me my own demise. That’s what I meant. That I’d probably end up dying because whenever you’re around, you have my full attention.”

The anger within you dissipated just like that. You could feel your face heat up from Bucky’s unexpected confession.

“But you’re an asshole to me.” You pointed out.

Bucky laughed, “Because that’s how I get your attention. You walk into a room with a kind-hearted super soldier, a witty bird brain and a few more intelligent men and yet I’d be the first one you’d acknowledge. With a snarky comment but still, attention is attention. It’s the only way I get to interact with you without feeling awkward. I suck at conversations, I mean, you heard me and though I was hating on you when I was merely blabbering to Steve about how much I like you.”

This time, you couldn’t hold back your laughter. All along, Bucky was finding a way to talk to you even though it meant constant arguments over the pettiest things. To be fair though, he really did suck at communicating.

“I’m sorry that it came across like that.” Bucky apologized sincerely. “I hope this doesn’t change anything between us.” He admitted.

You shrugged, “Oh but it does. In fact, it changes everything.”

Bucky’s face fell.

“Because I think I like you too and I kinda want for things to change. For the better of course.” You grinned.

Bucky chuckled and scratched his forehead bashfully, “You think, huh? Not sure?” He asked and turned to you just as the elevator doors opened.

Indeed, it led to the lab where almost all of the targets stayed. The man nearest the elevator had his gun pointed at Bucky but before he could even pull the trigger, Bucky had thrown his knife at him without even sparing a glance and choked the next guy to attack with his metal arm before throwing him towards a group of armed men. He was just gazing at you with a smittened smile.

“Still not sure about liking me back?”

Impressed at his gesture, you smirked.

“Now I am.”

-

By the time Steve, Nat and Sam walked out of the elevator, the mission had already been done. You walked towards the trio and handed Steve a USB.

“All their data is already saved there. Wiped out their entire system clean too.” You told him, voice chirpy and all.

Bucky was right behind you, a couple of folders in his hands before handing them to Sam, “Lotsa confidential info in there too which includes our next targets.” he said and walked past Sam with a certain jump in his steps.

The three exchanged glances before looking around the entire lab. Men were scattered on the floor, most were dead and others heavily injured.

“What the hell happened here?” Nat asked, avoiding the injured men on the ground as she walked around.

“The mission happened, Nat. All that matters now is that everything has been resolved. I mean, everything.” You said meaningfully and threw Bucky a flirty smile before walking into the elevator.

He followed suit and saluted at the three before pushing the red button. The doors weren’t even closed yet when Bucky couldn’t hold back and quickly leaned to press a soft kiss on your lips. An action that definitely didn’t go unnoticed by the three. You couldn’t help but chuckle when you noticed their reactions before the elevator closed.

Said trio stood there dumbfounded and confused as hell. Early on, the tension between you and Bucky was felt by everyone. The kind of tension then wasn’t even a sexual one. It was so intense that Nat was actually expecting to see you and Bucky at each other’s throats when they got down to the lab.

“Guess that the long ass elevator ride did something. Whatever was in that elevator seems interesting. Wanna go check it out, Nat?” Sam asked suggestively.

Steve chuckled and shook his head.

Nat simply smirked and walked past Sam, “In your dreams, Wilson.”

-

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[docockbrainrot]

i think i want you (to leave)

Summary: We’re all running from something. Sometimes, metaphorically. Sometimes, literally. Literally running, from the very strangely hypnotizing supervillain that seems hellbent on ruining every bit of your life he can get all eight of his limbs on.

Pairing: Doc Ock X Reader/ Otto Octavius X Reader

Content: Slow Burn, NSFW eventually, 18+

AO3 link here.

Previous Chapter

Chapter 5

anathema// former vandal

The next several days are an uneventful blur. You barely leave your apartment, except for brief dog walks and grabbing food from the bodega across the street.

It’s 9 pm on Saturday and you’re fresh out of the shower, tucked away in a very fuzzy robe, lounging on the couch and watching YouTube on your television. You almost miss the subtle taptaptaptap sound coming from your window, you're so engrossed in the cooking show you’ve been binging. Gotta fill the void somehow, right?

You can’t see anything outside from where you’re sitting. The lights are on and make it impossible to peer through the reflections on the glass. Maybe it’s a bird. Or a branch is caught on the fire escape. Either way, you certainly can’t be assed to check it out and you take another sip of your chamomile tea- you’ve been trying everything under the sun, just about short of literally snorting lines of melatonin, to try to sleep better at night. Nothing’s been working. But you have been making a very valiant effort.

A few moments go by and you forget all about the window disturbance until,

TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP.

It’s jarring. It’s loud. Above all else, it’s annoying. Chekov spares you a look, like you’re the one making a racket. Effectively exasperated, you make an effort to set, not slam, down your mug, feeling decidedly not Calm and Relaxed as the tea promised. Suppose it’s not miracle shit though, is it? You would not be a good candidate for a horror movie because you fearlessly storm over to the window and throw it open (it wasn’t locked in the first place; you’re quite terrible at remembering to). You stick your head out and glower at whatever irritating mischief is happening out here, ready to rip the fire escape off the side of the brick building.

You’re greeted by something cold and hard (and indubiously metal, judging by how it felt against your sternum) shoving you back into your apartment, sending you sprawling unceremoniously to the hardwood floor. A string of profanities ready to leave your tongue, you sit up and adjust your robe in an attempt to preserve a modicum of your modesty. The rant dies in your throat as red eyed claws grip the threshold of your pre-war window and it’s almost comical the way He maneuvers himself in, far too large to be making these sorts of entrances. Standing up to his full height before you while you’re still sitting dumbfounded on the floor reminds you of just how impressively built he is. You manage to pick your jaw up, but your ass remains firmly planted on the wood.

“Uh… you could have just used the buzzer, dude. I have a front door, you know,” you sputter out, brain blitzing in pretty much every way possible. Your thoughts are racing and eventually they settle on the most important thing you can think to ask in that moment: “... Why aren’t you wearing a shirt.” You can't help the way your eyes are drawn to his broad chest, gaze lingering on the vast scarring that spills out from the metal contraption clamped around his midsection.

Otto very graciously closes the window behind himself. Or at least his little robot accomplices do it for him. You still aren’t sure what’s going on with that- the whole AI thing. Not even a blip on your radar of concerns at this point. “Didn’t want anyone to see me come in. Your building has a camera on the front, facing the street.”

“That’s why you’re shirtless?” You ask dumbly. Interesting method of camouflage. “What? No- what? It doesn’t matter- listen to me. I need you to do something for me. A small favor.”

He doesn’t seem to notice the compromised position he put you in. Typical. Gathering up your broken pride, you get up and tighten the tie of your robe a bit. It isn’t until then that he has the decency to look a smidge embarrassed and you hope you didn't just give him a free show on your way to getting to your feet. “You literally just broke into my apartment and now you’re asking for a favor? We barely know each other!”

“Less complicated when there's nothing personal involved yet, plus- you let me in,” he corrects you. You wish he would stop doing that. You wish he would stop meeting with you like this, under weird and mysterious circumstances. Even though it's only been like twice. You're already over it.

“You threw me across the room!”

“Touche.”

Otto does not apologize and you did not sincerely expect him to. The look on his face reads more like the cat that got the canary than regretful. You feel as though you’ve come to recognize that expression on his face and you also feel as though you don’t much like the fact that you’ve enough encounters with this man that you can recognize a damn thing about him. “What… could you possibly need me to do for you? I am not robbing a bank.” You just want to get that out into the open as soon as possible.

“I don’t need your help robbing a bank,” he snorts as if the idea is preposterous and you take a moment to feel insulted. Wow. Okay. You could totally rob a bank if you wanted to. Deciding to not comment on your wounded ego, you let him get to the point. Otto pulls something out of his inner coat pocket. It's some kind of rolled up paper and you think at first maybe it's a newspaper or magazine. He unfurls it onto the coffee table and holds it open with two metal claws on either side so it doesn't ravel itself back up.

You realize it's a blueprint. "This is… Oscorp," you point out stupidly, brow furrowing in confusion. There's levels to what's happening here. Layers upon layers, melding together with rot and decay and you can all but smell it. But there's something missing, something that would tie all of the wackjob shit that's been happening to you and around you together. It feels like when you have a very particular thought and then walking into another room makes it dissolve from your head. You're trying to grasp for it, to fit the puzzle pieces together, but it's just out of reach.

"Yes. It is. I have a small task I need you to do," Otto starts off, metal phalanges pushing his glasses up onto the top of his head as he looks over at you. For the first time, you can see his eyes in the light. The warm amber feels like a mockery- you have seen his cruelty in action.

"Where did you get this?"

"Does it matter?" Of course he'd say that.

Your fingertips brush against the metaphorical wayward chain link. It's right there. You just have to grab it and pull it back to you, like the anchor of a ship before it can set sail.

He's talking. You aren't listening. He's tracing a finger over the schematics. You don't see it. Realization washes over you in a heart-dropping tsunami. The voicemail you got from Oscorp plays like a broken record in your mind. 'Hello, Y/N. We're calling in regards to your employment status here at Oscorp. Unfortunately, due to a breach of security, we are having to make staffing cuts and are going to have to let you go. We appreciate your time and effort and wish you the best of luck in your next endeavor.' It didn't make sense at the time. A lot of things didn't. You replay the scene of poor David, desperately pleading for his life at the hands of the man hunched over here, just in your living room. You mentally re-run it over and over like bad 80s sitcoms on late night television.

"Lab Coat Guy…"

You don't realize you whispered it out loud until Otto goes silent.

"What?"

You slowly look at him and take a single step backwards, shaking your head. The company embroidered on David's lab coat hadn't been clear to you in the moment- but it's crystal in hindsight. Oscorp. "You got me fired." Your tone is flat, until anger flashes through you, like a streak of lightning through a dark, moonless sky, illuminating all of things that didn’t make sense before.

"It doesn't matter. What I need you to do-" He's so nonchalant, so blasé that it only stokes the embers of frustration until there's a roaring blaze burning beneath your skin. It's all about him, what he needs, what he wants. He has the nerve, the audacity, to keep traipsing into your life, kicking you while you're down and then ask for favors? You want to say all of that to him but unfortunately for you, you're an angry crier. Your outburst of bravery at him the last time you saw each other had surprised even you- but now there's so much more emotion roiling around inside you.

"No. No, no. Fuck you. You got me fired! I can't- I can't not have a job, I have to pay rent! You could get me arrested for just talking to you!" Oscorp had you canned to tie up any potential loose ends before anymore Davids could slip through the cracks. You think about how scared the poor dude must have been, threatened into stealing blueprints from the biggest corporation in the city, for one of the most infamous criminals. You don't know how they found out you were even remotely involved and you don't want to know.

Tears are streaming down your cheeks and once the floodgates have opened you're very familiar with how long it's going to take to close them again. After all you've been bottling this up since you found out, too disappointed to even tell any of your friends or family.

Otto appears taken aback, to say the least. He even looks like he's at a loss for words; that's a first. You know he could kill you where you stand in the blink of an eye, but in that moment you don’t even care. You’ve been trying so hard for so long to get on your feet, to do things for yourself and get away from the past. You moved across the country, you left everything behind, you got a damn dog. It seems like every time you manage to take a step forward in life, you’re knocked flat on your ass, apparently literally sometimes. It isn’t fair. Things don’t come easily to you, you’ve always had to work for them. You aren’t wealthy, you aren’t a supergenius, you’re just… you. The job at Oscorp was good money and you really felt like you were getting your shit together for a while.

“They’re not who you think they are,” he says finally, so calmly, with such carefulness about his words, that you sniffle pathetically and look up at him. He doesn’t look nearly as pleased with himself as you thought he might. And here you’ve been, under the impression that he gets off on hurting people. “Oscorp. I’m not… I’m not just doing this for me. You have to understand that.”

The schematics are furled up and tucked away. You make the mistake of meeting his eyes. Maybe it’s just the tears that blur your vision, but you swear you see a softness there before they’re hidden away again by his glasses.

He lingers at the window.

“I hope you’ll reconsider.” And then he was making his exit, even taking care to gently close the window on the way out. But he raps on the glass with his knuckles from where he stands on the fire escape and you know the look of confusion on your tear-streaked face speaks for itself. Otto points to the latches on the window. ‘Lock it.’ He mouths before he’s gone, presumably to wreak havoc and harass other unsuspecting young women that don’t want anything to do with him.

You thought everything had come together- but the more sense you make of it, the less you seem sure of the bigger picture. You aren't even sure exactly what he wanted you to do.

You’re left with an endless bounty of questions, and not enough answers to satisfy any of them.

[heyyylittlemo]

Small details in 19 Days that keep me up at night

((That I feel rarely gets talked about))

-Mo Guan Shan & The Zodiac Magazine

This chapter was pretty early on in 19days—So that must mean Mo Guan Shan has done this a lot more since, right??😳 and he didn’t even rlly know HT that well at this point so...he must be in heat on the low for HT by now 🥵🥵

So it canonically confirms at least a base physical attraction from the start—and c’mon if this isn’t the most relatable thing ever. Soon as I get an attraction to someone I’m a bit piqued to find out their zodiac. Mo Guan Shan’s hidden curiosity for HT is lwk so cute.

It def suggests that MGS has an under the surface lvl (where he can’t even detect it) pull to understand and get closer to HT.

Mo Guan Shan dreaming of He Tian

I know it was passed off like a “joke” and a “nightmare” but cmon this gay as hawlll

Who DOESN’T dream of their crush?? Dreams usually are about things we heavily think about and/or what we thought about before bed—and I can’t help but to think OX was onto smth

Not to mention, this has high bottom-denial energy. Literally. Like he was soooo trying to avoid getting a shot at the docs bc it was in his ass, why??? Like sir...ur fragile masculinity that was created from ur inner homophobia towards ur own bottom reality was def crashing at that second

N Why he got pain in his tushy??? In this dream?? N ppl bullying him like that abt it lmaoo who irl be saying those things?? Things like “aren’t in the guy who got a shot in ur ass” and “haha I’d like to see you with ur ass in the air~” even tho the translation and the way it was written can be said to mean that these bullies are literally finding it funny that his ass was in the air I have a feeling it was censored and rephrased to hint at its actual implications,, I feel like these guys were actually trying to jokingly solicit Mo in gay acts thru him bottoming—in reaction to the needle butt-scenario. I feel like OX wants us to read between the lines.

And if you see it that way, it really makes it seem like Mo is having a sexuality crisis here. And I think it’s what OX was building up to around that time bcuz it was around after the kiss happened.

It rlly makes me believe MGS genuinely thinks getting a shot in his ass will somehow societally and with unspoken words “expose” him and miraculously express to others that he likes it up the ass—bcuz u cannot tell me that dream and what those bullies were saying weren’t his damn paranoia demons talking

I think a dream interpreter could stretch it enough to say that the bullies are a metaphor of his own insecurities towards his homosexuality and particularly towards his upcoming bottoming feelings. Like he’s legit scared of a hospital needle in his butt—this is not straight behavior. And then we have He Tian to the rescue—(and do you see his look and his flirtatious line) and omg he’s gripping the shit out of his ass in the dream. He’s both being bullied for his bottom-ness and guilty-pleasure getting one rubbed out by He Tian. Like ok, have ur cake and eat it then bitch.

Mo Guan Shan Staring at He Tian

This was a moment leading up to the kiss. MGS was staring (probably admiring while also judging and heating up over HT) He Tian while he was playing BSKTBall—and As a BL writer myself can’t help but to think HT noticed MGS very not-straightly stare at him with a sort of sexual attraction he had towards him on the field.

Like cmon?? I doubt OX writes lines like these for no reason.

I feel like...at least irl...The eyes usually give it away if someone is interested in you or not. you can always see if someone is checking you out and noticing you in a different light like it just has different vibe and feel to it. OX was def trying to show and not tell with this panel that MGS has noticed HT and stares at him in the way we all hope he does. We don’t really get to see and (and I guess it keeps us on our toes and keeps us wondering if the little redhead could actually be falling for HT)—so it’s very subtle, but it is there, and once you notice it you’re like d a m n this makes the kiss scene so much more hopeful (at least for me).

I think this was the push that gave HT hopes to kiss MGS in the first place and it gets overlooked. How do you think HT own curiosity peeked? I think as a community we often think abt Mo and how he developed feelings or will develop feelings for HT but rarely do we ever questions The Who what when where and how He Tian came to like Mo himself. I have my own feelings about them that I can’t explain in this post, least it gets off-topic, but I think it’s very important.

I think his comment “Do I really disgust you that much” makes more sense in this context, of MGS giving HT some reassurance through non-verbal ques. HT was already under the impression that MGS was egging him on with his staring so it can warrant some of He Tian’s confusion. HT probably is pursuing MGS bc he probably senses some lvl of homosexual tension from Mo, and it’s exciting to him. Not only that, but MGS is exciting in his character. So I think HT was also relatively new to this venture and kinda spontaneously kissed Mo out of his own curioustes to explore their attractions and to get a grasp of what Mo was feeling.

It also makes me think HT and MGS experienced some undeniable pleasure or unspoken moment that could not be denied within the kiss as attraction and when MGS then decided to go agaisnt that with violence it only further hit HT, who knew MGS was lying to himself. I mean, it’s a classic BL moment. The two kiss, obviously feel smth (probably couldn’t show much of that due to censorship so had to pass it along as a 100% unsatisfactory exchange) and then one, feeling too much all at once and isn’t comfortable with their confirmed suspensions abt their sexuality—denies everything to the other causing further tensions especially sense both know how eachother really feel despite the others denial. And then the rejected one downplays the kiss’ seriousness to soothe their ego knowing full well the kiss meant smth. So they both internalize what the other said and both feel rejected, but both actually liked it. It’s a classic.

I truly feel that if it wasn’t due to censorship, that the kissing scene would’ve looked a lot more consensual than so forceful and wrong. Like it would’ve been taken as an tension filled “experimentation” that we see a lot in BLs and it only further ties into why MGS would be so bashful whenever the kiss is mentioned, and why HT can use it As a leverage over Mo (“don’t make me kiss you again”) bcuz it brings them back to thy moment where HT experienced some “answer” between Mo and that answer was fulfilling even tho it cannot be fulfilled and probably HT is hoping that maybe one day if he teases him enough about it they can share another kiss one that is a lot less rushed and now that they are closer, will lead to a better result.

Anyways those are my speculations. And I actually have written a short story based on these assumptions(focused on the kiss—and it’s also leading up to a jealously fic) but ofc I haven’t written it in ahwile haha. Just thought it was worth sharing since I noticed 19 days has been updating pretty “eh” lately.

[nothing-but-dreamy]

ON THE EDGE ~ Pt. 1

Summary: YN is a Detective and the partner of Gavin Reed, number one douchebag of the Detroit City Police Department. After a forced break, she comes back. She’s looking forward to working with her partner again and to getting back into her ‘normal’ life between case files and criminals. But, of course, it doesn’t stay boring for too long: Gavin seemed to be more on the edge than usual, a Red Ice dealer might be a good lead to something bigger and then, there is Connor, the friendly, handsome android and Hank’s new partner.

Added to the fact that yn has to deal with the criminal world again, she also discovers feelings she hasn’t noticed before triggered by a person she hasn’t expected.

Her life always resembled a ride on a rollercoaster.

But now, it’s a whole damn circus parade.

Characters: Gavin Reed, YN (FEMALE!Reader), Hank Anderson, Connor

Words: 2.472

Warnings: signs of PTSD (flashbacks in italics), cursing (a lot), mention of blood

"He's totally crazy. He shoots at everything that moves. It's impossible to get close to him.", yn stated. "But we have to stop him somehow."

"Stay here. I have an idea. Over there, the left spot is free. He will barely notice me.", Gavin said and pointed in the direction.

"Gavin, no!", Yn cursed as he slipped through her grip, "Gavin!", she tried again to call him back but her partner was already too far away, "Fuck!"

Gavin ran to the left side like mentioned. Yn stayed behind the hide and watched the scene concerned. She was trying to cover Gavin whenever needed. What Gavin couldn't notice was that the crazy guy had seen him.

Even if she tried everything to get the guy's attention, Yn watched in horror how the suspect aimed at Gavin who sneaked through the room completely unaware that he was the target in the line of fire.

The suspect aimed his gun into Gavin's direction and waited til he would appear on the other side of the pillar where Gavin tried to hide.

There was no way that yn would be able to stop the guy. He was too far away and behind a half broken wall. But she was convinced that she could help Gavin. That was what she did without thinking twice: she ran towards Gavin. As she reached him to push him out of the way, the suspect fired his gun two times.

Of course Gavin was cursing as he hit the ground unexpectedly, not knowing what had pushed him. He hurried to get back on his feet and as he saw that the suspect's gun had been running out of bullets, Gavin shot to stop him.

Gavin made sure that the suspect was no threat anymore. Officers were running into the room to arrest the shooter. And only then, Gavin noticed yn lying on the ground and all the blood pouring from her body...

Gasping for air, Gavin started up from his sleep and sat straight in his bed, "Fuck...", he cursed breathlessly. He was dripping with sweat, his hair clutching to his face. Three o'clock in the morning. Just two hours of sleep but still more than the night before...or all the other nights during the past weeks.

Gavin pushed his blanket away, sat on the edge of his bed and rested his face in his hands to calm down himself. His fingers were digging into his hair violently as he desperately tried to get the memories out of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut until stars were dancing in front of his inner eyes.

A shudder was shaking him. Goosebumps were spreading over his naked chest. To sit around like this, covered in sweat, wouldn't do anything good. And because he was already awake, Gavin stood up, took his boxing gloves and started to train until the pictures in his head would disappear.

He knew this would never happen.

He should have been better.

He had failed yn.

**

To stay in front of this certain building after all these long weeks felt like coming home. At least, for yn. She was nervous but in a good way that shot adrenaline through her body. It was like the first day at school after the summer break. She didn't have to fear anything. Everyone would be happy to see her again. And yet, she extended the moment to go in. It was not an official visit. She just wanted to come back because...she feared to miss too many things.

Yn had heard the rumors of Hank's new partner. An android. Then, there were the happenings that got called 'War of Detroit', the successful android revolution. So many things had changed and yet, yn knew that there was still this one, certain absolute term. Her own rock in this ocean of craziness she could always depend on: Gavin Reed, her partner.

Yn was looking forward to seeing all the familiar faces again and without waiting any longer, she entered the DPD finally.

*

Gavin stood in the kitchen of the DPD at one of the tables, his back facing the office so he hadn't to see anyone. The last thing he wanted was to talk with someone. A cup of coffee stood in front of him. He watched the foam floating around on the dark liquid. It was his third cup. And it wouldn't be the last.

"Good morning, Detective Reed."

Gavin nodded without looking up. Even if Gavin had made his peace with Connor, the nice android from the neighborhood, he was still getting on his nerves from time to time. This morning was such a 'time'. His thoughts always drifted back to his recurring dreams of yn…

"Reed.", Hank greeted Gavin, who nodded quickly. Without asking, Hank and Connor joined Gavin at the table. An own cup of coffee in front of Hank. He sugared it and stirred the liquid that would start his day.

Connor was about to say something, maybe to light up the mood of these two grumpy guys, but Hank stopped him, "Shit! Look who's there.", he said and looked at someone behind Gavin's back.

Gavin looked up and saw Hank and Connor staring at the same spot so, he turned around, "No fucking way!", Gavin called out surprised and approached yn quickly who stood in the passage of the kitchen. A smirk was spreading on his lips as he saw her in the familiar environment.

Yn smiled and waved but as she saw Gavin's predatory glance and the smirk, she stepped back and raised her hands to stop him, "Gavin, no. Stop! Gavin!" The impact of her partner knocked all the air out of her lungs.

He snaked his arms around her waist and scooped her up, "I have missed you, shorty!", he cheered.

Yn chuckled until she got put back down on her feet a moment later, "I have missed you, too, idiot!", she said. Together, Gavin and yn went back to the table to Hank and Connor, "I'm- what? Away for six weeks and everything went south? Detroit fights a civil war against androids who started a revolution? Everything's a warzone, suddenly and I'm not a part of that? Boys, I thought you could handle it better without me.", she said smirking and crossed her arms.

"We did what we could but there were just too many of these things.", Gavin said serious.

As yn looked at Gavin with an amused expression, her eyes fell on the fourth person at the table, "Oh, and who are you?"

"My name is Connor.", the android answered.

"My new partner.", Hank added.

"Your new- bloody hell! I already heard the rumors but- Nice to meet you. I'm yn. Whenever you need help with the old man, come to me.", yn said with a wink.

"Very funny!" Hank grunted but yn saw the grin on his face.

As Gavin saw the glances between Connor and yn, he stepped between them. Gavin wasn't fond of the way the android looked at her.

"So, you're 'back' back?", Gavin asked hopefully.

"I'm still not fully recovered. I have to attend a few dates with the psycho-doc AND I have to pass the shooting test. Then I will be back. I guess one more week. I just have missed all this so much, I had to come over.", yn said grinning.

"I guess, there will be no problem for you to pass everything, kiddo.", Hank said encouragingly.

"Thanks Hank-"

"Of course, she will pass all this bullshit! And then, she will be back. The precinct was way too boring without you!", Gavin said excitedly.

Yn saw his eyes sparkling and the familiar grin. She considered saying something nice but she always loved to tease this douchebag. It was their thing, "No new recruits to torture, huh?"

Gavin's smile faltered and he squinted his eyes as he saw her smirking, "I never-"

Yn nodded understandingly, "Ohh...I see... No women to hunt either? You poor thing!", she patted his cheek to act playfully caring.

Gavin couldn't do anything else than just to laugh before he brought her into a bear hug, completely enveloping her, "Oh, how much I have missed you!", Gavin stepped back, ruffled her hair, and laid his arm around her shoulders before they walked to his desk.

Connor watched after them. Overwhelmed by her entrance, the way she was handling Gavin and how different the Detective was around her, "Where was she?", he asked Hank finally.

Confused, Hank looked at his partner, "What?"

"Where was yn? She said she was gone for several weeks. Where had she been? Vacation?"

"Oh .. uhmm, no. She... During their last case, she got injured. She had to recover. It's good that she will be back soon, tho.", Hank explained, smiling about the fact yn was coming home.

"Detective Reed seems different around her.", Connor stated, still confused about all the smiles and laughter coming from Reed.

"I guess it's her magical power. She's able to handle him where anyone else failed a long time ago."

Connor looked at her once again. Yn stood with Gavin, Chris and some other cops at the desk, talking and laughing. She was truly magical. Nice, funny, cheeky, beautiful. He was looking forward to working with her. Then, she came back to them.

"Hey, I got appetite for the best burger in town. Wanna join?", she called over to Hank who nodded with a grin. Gavin rolled his eyes but she just nudged him in his side. Connor got dragged out of his thoughts and followed his three colleagues. Yn already waited for him to join. Much to Gavin's dismay she linked her arm with the android's one but he swallowed down his annoyance for the greater good.

*

They drove to the Chicken Feed truck. The best burger in town, how Hank had titled them. While the three made their orders, Connor organized a table. All three went to the table with burgers and drinks. Simultaneously, they bit into their burgers.

"You know, this meal contains 1.4 times the recommended daily intake of calories. You shouldn't eat-"

"Shut up!", Gavin and Hank yelled at the same time. Connor silenced instantly.

Yn looked alternating at Hank and Gavin before she stopped at Connor, "Connor, honey, very important rule: don't fuck the boys up when it comes to their food. It's not a good idea."

"But it's unhealthy.", Connor argued innocently.

Yn nodded slowly, knowing what he meant before she looked at her burger closely, "Well, I’m spotting salad, tomato and even pickles on our burgers. These are three different types of vegetables. It's more healthier than everything else we're used to consuming. Don't forget that we usually got fueled by coffee and donuts. Only."

Connor nodded and let them eat. He had learnt that humans knew how to live the best way but some of them didn't just want to do it right. Maybe it wasn’t for him to change their behaviour.

"Hey, sweety. Want some bread?”, Yn asked and threw a small piece of bread on the ground.

Hank followed the way of her attention and rolled annoyed with his eyes, "Oh, these disgusting creatures!", Hank muttered. Yn looked questioningly up to Connor.

"Lieutenant Anderson doesn't like pigeons.", Connor explained.

"That sounds like a story. I wanna know it!", yn said amused with a big grin, waiting for Hank to speak up.

Hank grinned but shook his head, "Someday, I will tell you what I had to endure with this guy but not now.", Hank said and he and Connor said goodbye. Hank hugged yn before they left her and Gavin alone.

Gavin and yn started to walk around a bit, enjoying the sunny winter day, "You look tired. Have you been very busy the last few weeks?", yn asked.

"No, it was okay. Nothing much. The typical stuff, you know.", Gavin said, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket, playing with some coins.

"Oh, yeah... So, you just didn't want to see me then?", she asked, looking at him from the corner of her eyes, watching his reaction.

Gavin avoided her eyes, looking at the ground, "Yn…", he sighed, "I…", but he stopped. Unsure what he should say.

Yn nudged him with her shoulder, a soft smile on her lips as she saw his pained expression, "It's okay. I'm not mad. I was just… it was boring, you know. If you would have visited more often, maybe it would have been more fun to recover.", she said jokingly but it wasn't working, the painful expression stayed in his face.

"I really doubt that.", Gavin said low, still not able to look at her.

"What?", Yn asked surprised and stopped.

Gavin stopped as well, facing her with his back, "I- I… forget it.", Gavin said and was about to go but yn stopped him with her hand holding his arm and turning him around.

"Gavin, what is it?"

Gavin needed a moment before he looked at yn, as he did, it was with a serious expression, "It's my fault that you got injured in the first place."

Slightly taken aback that it was this topic that still bothered him, yn frowned and looked at him with big eyes and shaking her head, "No. It was the fault of this fucker-"

"No! You wouldn't have been shot if I hadn't been so stupid! I have failed you as a partner and as a friend!", Gavin called out angrily, torturing himself.

Yn intervened right away, "Stop that, Gavin! It's not your fault, okay? Your idea was good. This guy was simply just too crazy."

Gavin dropped his gaze, not able to look into her eyes any longer. For him it didn’t feel right to get forgiveness from her, "I should have been in your place instead. Two more scars on my body wouldn't make any difference to all the others I already have."

Yn stepped forward to search his glance, "You feel guilty, I get that. But ... you don't have to, okay? And beside, I know you and your luck. You would have been killed instead of just being injured.", a smirk playing on her lips.

Finally, Gavin looked at her again. He chuckled low by the face she made: a too overexcited grin to cheer him up. No matter how down he felt, yn was able to let him feel better. Always. Even just for a moment. He stepped forward and brought her into a bone crushing embrace, "It's so good to have you back.", he said softly into her hair.

Yn was surprised about the sudden outburst of emotions but she hugged him back, enjoying this moment to the fullest, "Yeah. And you know what? I can't wait to kick some asses with you again."

[ur-riddikulus]

You’re Worth It (Bucky Barnes)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You are the resident therapist for the Avengers and Steve asks you for a favor. He wants you to have a therapy session with Bucky. Then you find out that Bucky wasn’t exactly aware of this plan.

Warnings: some cursing, Bucky’s angsty past, a couple small sexual innuendo. Also like a ton of angst but I promise that it does get better lol.

A/N: This is my first fanfic on here. I posted some Harry Potter ones before this, but I reread them and thought I could do better. So, here we are! Thank you for reading and if you want this to turn into more parts, I can totally do that. <3

You had been in your office preparing for your next patient when Steve walked in.

“Hey, Dr. Y/L/N, can I ask you for a favor?” He asked, putting his hands in a praying motion.

“Yeah, absolutely! I do have a patient soon, though.” You replied. You were glad to help, Steve is a great patient and has been improving impressively. So well, in fact, you didn’t know if he would even need to see you much longer.

“Do you know Bucky Barnes? He’s an old pal of mine. He has been against going to therapy for a long time, but you’ve helped me so much and Bucky needs some help too I think. Plus, he saw you around the tower and thought you were cute.” Steve says.

You blushed at that last part, silently wishing you didn’t. You had a rule against dating any patient or anyone in the tower, since it would just be awkward when you inevitably break up. Every relationship you’ve ever been in hasn’t lasted long, considering you’ve never been able to find someone you truly liked.

“Yeah, of course I know Bucky. You don’t shut up about him during your therapy sessions and I’ve seen him sulking around the tower myself. I would love to help him, but like I said, I have another patient soon. I will only have therapy with him if it’s his choice though. And I think he’s absolutely gorgeous but I have a rule against dating anyone who lives or works in the Tower.” You explained.

You looked at the time, Tony Stark, your next patient, would be here any minute. You were the sole therapist for Avengers Tower. There maybe should have been another one, but Tony had one session with you and said that you were the best he’s ever had and no one would ever dare be a therapist and step into his tower again. He even gave you the title of ‘Chief of Mental Health’ despite being literally the only person in that department.

Steve must have noticed you checking your watch, because he said ,”Oh, and I bribed Tony to change his appointment and give it to Bucky, so you kind of have no choice.” 

You looked up, “What? Who knew that Mr. Captain America himself was a cunning little bitch.” You joked, shaking your head. You and Steve, hell, you and everyone in the tower had that kind of relationship. And, he knew you swore like a sailor, so he even ignored it sometimes.

At that moment, Bucky walked in. He looked so handsome with his shoulder-length hair and baby blue eyes. He even looked a little nervous. Well, that’s not surprising, you thought. Everyone, even you, was a tad nervous on the first session.

Steve put up one finger and said, “Let me talk to Buck alone for one moment.” You nodded and he walked Bucky out to the hallway and shut your door. You heard whispers being exchanged and was a little confused but whatever, you thought. You were sure he’s just giving Bucky encouragement. 

You went over and sat down on your grey seat and picked up your chamomile tea. That was probably your favorite part of being a therapist, getting to sit down in comfy chairs all day with your tea. Besides helping people of course.

The door opened once again, with Bucky and Steve reappearing. “Thanks for doing this again, Dr. Y/L/N! Bucky will love you.” Steve said, patting Bucky on the back. You smiled and he exited, leaving only a nervous-looking Bucky standing there.

“Why don’t you come over and sit on the comfortable couch across from me, Bucky?” You motion, pointing over to the couch across from your current chair. He nods and goes to the couch. Well, at least he looks a bit more comfortable, you think to yourself.

“So, what do you want to talk about? Anything is on the table.” You say. You’ve found that not going straight to the tough topics help patients build their trust with you more.

“Well, doll, how about you tell me about yourself first.” He says, getting a bit more confident now. Doll? That’s an odd name to call your therapist. But whatever, you’re sure they used it a lot in the old days. Letting it slide, you try to answer his question.

“Well, I was born and raised here in New York City. I got my PhD. in psychology from NYU and I have an apartment in Brooklyn. I got this job after only one session with Tony Stark and now I am the therapist for the Avengers.” Sure, it was a lot of work, but you absolutely loved your job. Helping the heroes who risk their life to save yours and everyone else’s was the least you could do, you thought.

Bucky nodded and said, “I’m from Brooklyn. Looks much different now than it did when I lived there though. A PhD.? Damn doll, you must be super smart.”

You smiled at his compliment. “Thank you. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely worth all the late nights studying.”

“So, anything else you want to know about me before we get started?” You asked, getting your notebook to prepare to write notes about Bucky and how to best help him. 

“Get started? Damn, doll. I was thinking we could grab a coffee before we ‘get started.’ But it’s good with me, I guess the girls roll a little different in this time than the 40′s.” Bucky says, chuckling to himself.

You were in the middle of getting to the correct page in the notebook but paused when you heard what he said. What did he think you meant when you said ‘get started’? It sounded very different from your meaning. And getting coffee? It almost sounded like he thought this was a date? You shook your head at that thought. No way could he possibly be that confused. And Steve said he thought you were cute, but you seriously doubted that the Bucky Barnes would even consider going on a date with you. So no, it definitely couldn’t be that. But whatever he thought this was, there was obviously a miscommunication that you had to clear up.

“Uh, Bucky? I think you must be confused. Steve told me that he convinced you to have a therapy session with me this afternoon. What did you think this was?” You ask, a little scared of the answer. 

At hearing this, Bucky seemed very confused. ���What do you mean, Steve told me that we were meeting here before going out on our date?”

Now it’s your turn to be confused. What does he mean by ‘our date’? 

“Uh, Steve never said to me that we were going on a date. He told me that he convinced you to have a therapy session with me...” You said, shaking your head in confusion. This made no sense, what was going on?

Apparently that was the conclusion Bucky just got to as well,  because he looked up, a little embarrassed and said, “I’m so sorry. Steve told me that you wanted to go on a date with me and that we were going to meet in your office before going out. I never would have agreed to this if I knew what he was really doing. I’m just going to leave, I’m so sorry for wasting your time.” Bucky raced his hand through his long hair and stood up, walking to the door.

At first, you were a little stunned. The Steve you knew, the world knew, would never pull a trick on anyone, especially his best friend. You knew him enough through your sessions to know that he would only do this if he absolutely had to. Which means he must be desperate for his friend to get the mental help he needed. Also, Bucky was just so damn cute and you have had the biggest crush on him ever since you went to the Captain America exhibit in the local museum for a school trip. You always saw him in the pictures with Steve, his heart-stopping smile still doing wonders on you despite the worn black and white photo.

So, you jumped up right when his hand touched the door handle to leave and probably never see you again. “W-Wait!” You said, hating your stutter but just cringed and kept going when you saw him turn around curiously. “While you’re here you might as well just talk to me. If you hate it, you never have to see me again and can just ignore me in the halls. But, if this session does help you, maybe we can schedule a bit more and see where it goes. I really think I can help you, Bucky.” After you finish your awkward speech, you just smiled and waited for his definite and irreversible no. Well, at least you got the chance to help him, you thought. 

He just sighed and shrugged saying, “Well, I’m already here I guess. But are you sure this could end at any time and that you even want to help me after my dumb friend tricked me into embarrassing myself?” 

You smiled and that last part and smiled, just grateful for the opportunity to help someone so burdened and has done so much for the world. 

Bucky walked back over the his chair and said, “So, Doc, how do we start this?”

You grabbed your notebook again and turned to the right page again. “This is your session, it can start with however you want. But it might help to start from the beginning. How did you feel when you got drafted into a World War when you were only 18?”

He looked deep in thought and said, “Wow, no one ever asked me that.” He sighed before adding, “Of course it was my duty to fight and all that, but I was angry at the world for forcing kids who just barely turned adults to fight their wars for them. I knew it was going to be an adventure, but honestly I was scared shitless, doll.”

You nod, your empathy for him skyrocketing even though you guys just started.

And that’s how your bi-weekly sessions with Bucky would usually go. You guys talked about a whole manner of things, like his past in the 1940′s, his brainwashing with HYDRA, Steve saving him, and his nightmares from everything included. You two were closer than you normally let yourself get to patients. You didn’t know if it was because of everything he had gone through, or maybe even that you finally got to talk and help the Avenger who needed you most, but you honestly didn’t care. Your sessions with him really seemed to help him and now he hasn’t had a nightmare in over 2 months. Bucky seemed a lot happier and waved and talked to you in the halls. Steve even said that he hasn’t seen Bucky like this since the 40′s. You thought that with all things considered, he had a ton of improvement. You two had only been meeting for about 6 months and his progress was truly great;

You tried to forget that in your first meeting he thought you were going on a date and even apparently called you pretty. You knew that nothing romantic should ever come out of your patient and therapist relationship since it was obviously wrong. Every therapist knew that under no circumstances should you date your patient. It would always hurt the patient’s mental health even more and that was the opposite of your job. You suppose it could technically happen if you stopped being his personal therapist but it wouldn’t be worth it. All of his hard work would have been for nothing. 

But you couldn’t help but think what if? What if it ended up working out? What if he got another therapist and you could date him? What if he was the one? But no, you were getting ahead of yourself, you thought. Bucky was great and handsome and so, so perfect. He was honestly everything you wanted in a partner. And still, you couldn’t take the leap. If it didn’t work out and you were possibly the reason his mental health got worse you could never forgive yourself. So every appointment with him you just smiled and tried to ignore that pressing need, even though you were beating yourself up for either being a coward or for being so selfish that you wanted to take that chance.

One day you were in the middle of researching new ways to help a client’s recent mental health issue and trying to (and failing) ignore a certain issue when Bucky walked in with a bouquet of your favorite flowers and a nervous look on his face. You stood up, very confused but nonetheless making yourself known. 

“Uh, Y/N? Could I maybe talk to you for a minute?” He asked. You’ve never seen him dressed so well. Normally he just wore either workout clothes or sweatpants. You two even often joked together that he owned no normal clothes. 

“Yeah of course. I’m sorry I didn’t know we had a session today.” You said, cursing yourself for making such a mistake. Usually you were pretty good with schedules, even though working with the entire compound was a bit much to remember. 

“Oh, we don’t. I just wanted to ask you a question.” Bucky said, biting his lip. A nervous tick that you soon discovered in one of your early sessions together.

“Sure, ask away.” You replied. You were getting a little worried. Surely he didn’t want to end your appointments together, right? Did you do something wrong?

“First of all, these are for you.” He said nervously as he handed you the flowers. You smiled, surprised that he remembered you telling him your that your favorite was y/f/f while complaining that the local florist didn’t have them during one of your bi-weekly meetings. “Thank you, these are absolutely beautiful. I love them.” You smiled and walked over to a window ledge with a vase on it and put them in, admiring how they looked in the sunlight.

When you were finished admiring them you walked back over to Bucky. “Thank you again, they really are beautiful. I don’t even remember the last time someone was so nice and got flowers for me.” You said and hugged him. You knew he wasn’t that great with personal touch but surprised you when he hugged you back pretty quickly. For a moment you just focused on being in his arms but then soon thought of how inappropriate it would look to an outsider and reluctantly pulled away. 

“So, what did you want to ask? Is everything okay?” You ask, quickly remembering that something could be wrong with him.

“Yeah, of course everything is fine. You truly are a great therapist, Y/N. You’ve got a gift.” Bucky said. You blushed at his words and hated that your color would give away your inappropriate feelings possibly. His words did calm you down though. But if it wasn’t about therapy, then what else could it be about?

Feeling your blush go down finally, you nodded and urged him to go on, now too curious to wait it felt like.

He sighed and nervously ran his hand through his hair. “You have to promise me that if this goes wrong, our relationship won’t be ruined. It’s too important for me to ruin by being an idiot.” You immediately promised. Normally you would be cautious about such a thing but you have never trusted anyone this quickly and this much with Bucky.

After he saw your quick agreement, he went on. “So, these past couple weeks, well since we’ve started meeting actually, I was interested in you. I was never going to act on it in a million years but you’ve helped me so much and I think we could really be great together. And Steve might have noticed me staring at you and telling me I should do something about it.” He chuckled. “So, want to go on a real date? I would go the whole 9 yards, nice restaurant and everything. But I don’t want to pressure you into anything you don’t want to do and know that our relationship isn’t necessarily the easiest to become romantic. I just think you're worth it, doll. You're worth all of it.” He stopped and bit his lip again, waiting for your response.

Your heart soared when you heard his speech. No one had every made you feel this way. You were about to say yes, so close in fact, but then you remembered the real truth. You are his therapist, his doctor, his advocate. That was special and meant something to you. You knew he wanted this but it was your responsibility to make the hard choice, to do what you honestly hated to do but thought was right.

“No, Buck. I’m sorry but I can’t. I just think it could ruin all your hard work and that’s the last thing that I want to do. It just shouldn’t be risked.” You said. Telling him that felt like vomit was coming up and you felt even worse when you saw him look dejected and lose his smile so quickly because of you.

You moved your arm to touch his and try to support him the best you could within your boundaries but he saw you trying to do it and moved before you could touch him. And that really hurt. 

You opened your mouth to try and say that you wanted to say yes, that it wasn’t him and just your job but he put up his hand to stop you and said,”No, I shouldn't have asked, I’m sorry.” before walking out.

After the door shut you just closed your mouth in surprise of how this could all go so wrong before falling on the ground and just sobbing. You were hyperventilating soon and snot was going everywhere but you just didn’t care. You were the therapist, the one who knew all the mental health tips and tricks but you were too broken to think logically and it felt good to just let yourself cry.

This stayed the same for two straight weeks. Bucky rescheduled every meeting and put himself into more missions, especially the more dangerous ones. You would cry yourself to sleep nearly every night and by the morning, your eyes were really puffy and swollen from the night before. Everyone in the tower knew something was going wrong and you could feel their stares of sympathy and worry. You felt terrible but what felt even worse was that you weren’t even speaking with Bucky anymore. And as bad as you felt, you couldn’t help but be even more worried for him. You were prepared to just wallow in your own self-pity and cry for the nth time when Steve knocked on the door and walked in when you were in your office, just drinking chamomile tea and looking at the flowers Bucky got you.

“Hey Doc, how’s it going?” He asked, sitting down and looking worried. You just looked up at him and decided to finally cut the shit and get right to what you were worried about. “Steve, how’s Bucky? And tell me the truth, I’ll find out eventually.” Steve sighed and said, “Honestly he’s not doing great. He looks like crap and is throws himself into missions. Bucky also keeps taking stupid risks that could leave him wounded or even worse. We’ve all spoken with him and he just ignores it. I think the only thing that would really fix him is talking with you. he’s never been like this before, I just don’t know what to do.”

You knew that he would probably tell you the last part, that he feels out of control. Control issues was what you most talked about with Steve during your sessions. Not that you could blame him, you would definitely have them too after everything he has gone through. But that could be discussed in your future sessions with him. Right now, you just wished everything was back to normal.

You nodded sadly, even more worried for him now. But Steve talking to you changed something. You needed to talk to Bucky. And right now. Your fear of rejection was high and you knew there was a fairly high chance that he was too hurt to trust you and that he would probably say no but you didn’t care. Even if he rejected you, you didn’t care. As long as he would be better and your relationship went back to normal, you could live with it. Even if it would take a long time to get better after this, he would be worth it.

So you just looked up, your mind set on what you had to do. “Where is he? I need to find him right now.”

Steve looked up surprised and said, “Uh, in his room I think. He just signed up for another hard mission and we asked him not to but he insisted. He’s probably getting ready since he will have to leave soon.”

After hearing this, you jumped up frantically while yelling “Thank you so much Steve!” as you ran out, not even caring to stop the door from slamming. 

Now, even though you worked in a tower full of superheroes, you were only the therapist and still haven’t ran in a while. So you ran and ignored all the stares of the workers and Avengers. When you finally got there, you were out of breath and breathing hard. But still, you worked through your mini heart attack and knock on the door, still frantic.

You heard some rustling behind the door and a few mumbled curse words when he began saying loudly, “Steve, I’m fine. I’m going on that mission whether you think I should or no-” Bucky opened the door and once he saw you, a probably sweaty, red, and gross you, finished with a confused “-not?”

You put up one finger to signal for him to give you a moment to catch your breath. After that, you joked, “Guess I need to workout more.”

“No, I think you look great. Uh, n-not that my opinion matters or anything. If you think you need to work out then that’s what you should do.” He said, nervously stuttering but nodding at his final sentence like by catching it he saved himself from saying something wrong.

He cleared his throat before continuing. “So, how can I help you? I do have to leave on a mission soon though.”

It broke your heart how formally he was speaking, almost like you were complete strangers.

Maybe you should go, you thought. But no, you had to. Bucky was worth the embarrassment you could possibly face, whether you two were going to date or not. Forcing yourself to remember that, you steeled yourself and said, “I’m sorry Bucky, about everything I said. That date sounded amazing, it really did. I wanted to go and I still do. I was just worried about how inappropriate it would be for a therapist to date their patient. I didn’t want your mental health to backtrack and I honestly thought that I was doing the right thing. But I miss you, Buck. I miss you terribly. And you're worth all of the risks to me, you outweigh them all. So please don’t go on that mission, let someone else take the dumb risks. From what I’ve heard you have taken enough for a while. Please, just stay with me and we can talk?” You looked up at him pleadingly and saw him pull out his phone before shutting the door in your face.

That shut door hurt you, but you were prepared for it and sighed. It was too good to be true, you guessed. The fairytale ending, the white picket fence, the handsome husband. You turned around, prepared to walk away with the  thought of going back to your apartment and drowning your sorrows in chamomile tea and tissues when you heard the door open behind you and felt a hand grab yours to turn you around.

And there was Bucky, smiling like an absolute idiot. And at first you thought that he was making fun of you, but even then you still thought he looked handsome with that smile. “Sam’s in. He’ll take the mission for me.” He said.

“What?” was all you could muster. You had no idea what he was talking about it sounded almost like... That’s when you heard Sam on speaker phone, “Yep, that’s right sweetheart. I’m gonna do the dumb mission. Kiss Bucky real good for me, sucks I can’t be there to do it myself.” Then you heard Sam make a bunch of kissy noises and that’s when Bucky said, “Enough of him.” And ended the call. Then he grabbed your hand once more and shut the door behind you. He backed you against his door with him so close to you that your chest was touching his. 

You were still in shock of your luck when Bucky leaned in and kissed you. You were a little shocked but soon kissed him back, and hard. It was like you were underwater and he was the oxygen. The kiss soon turned rougher and you did not mind at all.

A couple hours later you were both laying on the bed, snuggling and watching a dumb movie that both of you weren’t even paying attention to. You were both just too wrapped up in each other’s presence. “Hey, I think you got some of that exercise you mentioned needing. Maybe we could even do some more if you want.” Bucky said, looking down at you and laughing. 

You hit him lightly but couldn’t help from laughing hard as well. Only hours ago you thought that you wouldn’t get anything with Bucky. No happy ending, white picket fence, and with Bucky, the whole package. But no, you got much more than that. So much more.

[harveywritings92]

BNHA scenario: You can’t feel pain

You were born with a heightened reflex quirk but you were also born with a very rare birth defect called chromosome 6 deletion, that causes you to not feel pain, hunger or fatigue, and you have like zero sense of fear & self preservation , your boyfriend only knows about your Quirk, you've kept your medical history to yourself, until you have an accident and he notices something off and start asking questions!

=======================

Dabi: He hadn't see you in a couple days and got worried, he then got a call from you asking to take you to the slums walk-in clinic, (I like to think, that the villains have whole a network of black market doctors that sympathize with them and run pop-up clinics, you have to have a password to to know where and how get in.) He checked his burner phone for a pop-up clinic and found one near by. 

He got to your location and was stunned when he saw your right arm with a large knife jammed into it and a dead guy on the ground sporting a broken neck, He checked out your arm and winced realizing he couldn't pull it out without causing you anymore damage, He then examine your face, expecting tears, but... you seemed more annoyed by this whole situation then anything, Dabi was expecting you to be crying and whining at him to stop poking and moving your arm around... He thought you were in shock at first, but something was nagging at him that this wasn't normal.

Dabi was silent the entire way to the clinic, his eyes were burning holes into the back of your head, when you both arrived... and the first words the guard said to you was. "Y/n back again, for what? out of pills?" he sighed as you narrowed your eyes at the idiot and raised your injured arm up to show him, his jaw dropped and opened up immediately letting you both in. "What did he mean by that?" Dabi's voice was tense suddenly speaking up, "Why do you need pills?" You stiffened obviously hesitant to say anything, knowing full well Dabi doesn't like people keeping secrets from him! 

"Just wait for Dr. Yuhei to come..."

"You're on first name bases with the staff now too?" 

"...Dabi."

"..."

The cremator crossed his arms as a middle age man came in looking very happy to see her! "Y/n? what the damage today dislocation? burn damage, (cue Dabi flinching) road rash, broken bones..." His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas as he oh and awed at seeing the knife lodged in your arm. "Ha! you got knifed! I love it!" he exclaimed jubilantly while slapping his knee as he took out his tools. 

Dabi just looked at this man like he was mad as a March hare! "What fuck is wrong with you?!" he demanded out getting the doctor's attention, it took a moment for the man to respond.

"Oh! Are you the boyfriend I've been hearing so much about!" the cremator's brows furrowed as Yuhei shook his hand congratulating Dabi for finding a real diamond in the rough! "Not many doctors can say they've worked on a patient with Chromosome 6 deletion!" the raven haired man blinked incredulously. "Chromo what?" now it was the doctor's turn to be confused. "She didn't tell...You didn't tell him?" he watched your face and saw your fraught expression. 

"Huh...Well I'll be. That's certainly new!"

The doctor hummed before telling Dabi what was up about your condition, your boyfriend kept a neutral face but inside his emotions were churning. "Her reluctance to inform you of this...is probably to closes adduce to fear I've ever seen her display." Your face felt hot as you stared at Dabi expecting to him storm out instead, he just watched as the doctor pulled the knife out of your arm in fixed you with no anesthetic or pain-killers , Yuhei informed you that the knife had cracked the bone so you had wear a sling for a couple weeks, then reminded you to change your bandages properly, then handed you a refill of melatonin.  

The walk back home was awkward as hell Dabi had yet to say anything... Before you reached your safehouse you felt Dabi fingers grab your jacket sleeve while keeping his eyes on the ground. "Listen... this thing you have, did I ever hurt you?" You cocked a brow bemused before recalling Yuhei asking you about your injuries, he mentioned burns... and realized where Dabi was going with this, had he burnt you any given point and not known about it due to you not noticing or not telling him.

 You really wanted to say no... You really did! but accidents happen. "Not on purpose..." He winced hearing this as you continued. "sometimes during sex or when you're in a combat high." You reach up and patted him on the head making him flinch before relaxing into your touch. "If it'll keep you sane I'll tell you if I get hurt when we go on a run." Dabi hummed holding you close to him, needless to say the cremator became a tad more wary and protective of you during and after missions insisting he check your body over any injuries you hadn't noticed before leaving. 

===================== 

Hawks: "Can you feel that?" a Nurse asks baffled as You let out a bored sigh as she and the doctor reset your left leg. "No." you huffed for the umpteenth time, wanting to leave the damn hospital already! but Keigo insisted you needed the hospital, cos your leg was swollen and turning purple after really, rough fight with a villain who had gotten a hold of you by the leg and toss you off like a rag-doll as a snapped echoed through the battle field!

I didn't take long for you to figure out your femur was broken and you were a sitting duck! until Endeavor and Hawks showed up they beat the villain, then noticed you sitting in the road with your left leg in your hand hanging limply in your grasp like a wet noddle! 

Your lack of impulse reaction caused them to think you'd gone into shock! Keigo quickly gathered you up flew to the nearest hospital! Telling you not panic everything was gonna be fine, you were gonna be alright! If only he knew the whimpering you were making wasn't from crying, but from laughing at him! 

After the docs had reset your leg (with no meds.) and put it in a cast again without any medication, you rolled your wheelchair out into the hall in time to see the doctor telling your fiancée about your one a billion condition! You can see how nervous the blond was he almost seemed skeptical, Hawks asked the doctor if he was overexaggerating a bit? "...I don't think you get it Hawks! this condition so rare that only 40 cases have ever been recorded globally!" you felt your stomach twist... this was definitely not how you wanted Keigo to find out about this. Your original plan had been to sit him down some time next week and tell him about it!

You were brought out of your thoughts by a someone's gaze burning in to your head, you looked up and met Keigo's analyzing gaze as he observed your condition, not in a bed, not hook to an I.V. and certainly not under the influence of any sort of pain medicine... He seemed a little pale as he approached you. "Hey... can we talk?" he asked you nodded as the two of you got on the elevator to the roof. You could feel him still leering at you as you arrived at your stop. 

"So..wha- what are you doing?!" You asked watching Keigo pinching your arm hard! and realized he was trying to invoke a reaction, but it was useless task as all it did was annoy you, this was the first thing people do when they find out about your chromosome 6 deletion, checking and seeing if you were faking it, Keigo felt panic bubble in his belly as he observed your reaction... or rather your lack of reaction. "Keigo..." You yelped suddenly feeling something tickling you under you chin, causing you to squirm and whimper as you tried not to burst out giggling.

You looked and saw the feather necklace Keigo had given you to be the culprit. "St-stop Keigo! stop!" When he heard you laugh, the blond relaxed, when the doc said you couldn't feel pain... he started wondering if your other senses were numb too, *of course that would be dumb!* he thought thinking back on how you react during sex and how you were acting now, pretty told him that everything else running fine. "Why didn't you tell me about this Chromosome thing?" You pretty much explained how you were, well... scared wasn't the right word, as you have no sense of the feeling, it was more like you were nauseous that his reaction would be negative... 

Hawk looked at you wide eyed. "Wait, you...can't feel fear?" He asked curiously you nodded explaining that you lack of pain has pretty much dampened your instinctive sense of self preservation, which why you tend to go on for so long in a fight even when things get dicey... "So that whimpering on the way over." you nodded. "I was trying not to laugh..." You said bluntly Hawks went oh then curiously asked if he had accidently hurt you during intimate moments? 

You were straight with him, he may have gone a little overboard during ruts, but nothing serious. Keigo didn't seem to like this answer. "Hey look at me." you huffed making gold eyes met your [y/ec] eyes. "I know you'd never hurt me on purpose, and if it makes you feel better you can check me over personally and pull me off patrol if you think somethings not right, does that work for you?" you waited as Hawks thought this over before nodding, The next day neither You nor Keigo were prepared for the tabloids headline: #2 Hero Hawks engaged to Bionic woman! You both cringed at the tacky tile!

=====================

Bakugou: "Stop you idiot!" Katsuki shouted as he watched you get up after one his explosions had sent you flying and crashing into one of the simulation buildings on the training field, as you looked around bemused as everyone was panicking, Toshinori aka your dad and Aizawa came up to you worried, the black haired teacher used his scarf as a bandage on you profusely bleeding head... which you just noticed. "Get a stretcher!" the teacher ordered.

"I don't need one I can wal-" Bakugou cut you off. "Get on the fucking stretcher Y/n!" You robotically obeyed as the medical team carried you to Recovery-Girl, who just shook her head when she saw you come in, she knows about your condition. "Y/n back again today, I'm started to wonder if you and Midoriya are related?" she teased causing you sweat-drop as Bakugou listened intently, and was very confuse when the old lady said this wasn't your first visit today....

"Oi, what exactly was she talkin' about?" the blonde huffed eyeing you suspiciously and was put off by you lack of reaction over your injuries. It didn't take a doctor to know that the knockback from his explosion should've cracked your skull and may have also broken your back, when you hit that building. "Oh, I had a little fall earlier, nothing to worry about."  you said nonchalantly Your dad who was trying to keep himself from coughing up blood on the other hand spoke up. "I wouldn't call getting hit by a car a "Little fall" Y/n." Katsuki's eyes widened, oh if looks could kill. "YOU WERE HIT BY A CAR AND DIDN'T TELL ME?!" He bellowed as All-might jumped back in shock while You stared at your boyfriend with a blank expression. 

He was frothing at the mouth as you listened to the blond rage like a chihuahua on caffeine, you looked at you dad having a metal conversation with the honey blond skeleton who nodded giving you the okay! you were gonna tell your boyfriend about your condition...With a sigh you calmly reached up and pinched Katsuki's nose between your index and middle finger. "Breath damn you!" you hissed the ash blond stilled and looked at you with annoyance for being interrupted. 

"I get that you're angry... But you need to know something." Katsuki let out an inquisitive growl as you looked at him seriously. "I can't feel any of this... at all." You chortled his red eyes widened as you continued. "I was born with a rare Condition, Chromosome 6 deletion?" You looked at your dad, Toshinori nodded you let go of Bakugou's nose. as your dad continued. " In short Y/n can't feel pain, fatigue or hunger, so naturally she lacks a sense of fear." Recovery girl returned wiped the blood off your forehead, and kissed your cheek a few seconds later your head was healed, Katsuki stayed silent as he absorbed everything you and All-Might had told him the teen was really quiet which worried you.  

Your dad sensed the tension and suggested the two of you go for a walk and talk this out, it was silent as you and Katsuki walked to a different part of the school that was more private, You turned to face you and were met with a fist flying at you! then stopping a few inches from your face, You didn't even flinch just gave him the same impassive expression from earlier. "If that was supposed to get a scream out me of you failed...royally." you hummed as as the blond frowned putting his fist down you can’t feel fear, even Half-n- Half’s eyes twitch when Katsuki psych’s him out!

"Why didn't you say anything anything about this?" he asked voice hoarse from yelling, You hummed trying finds the right words. "Well let's just say back in middle school I had a bad fricken time, kids can be cruel! you hummed not going into details on how others would exploit your medical condition for their own twisted fun. "I was...Scared is not the word, Sick the thought of you reacting the same as them made me feel sick." you were surprise when Katsuki pulled you close resting you head against his chest. "I would never hurt you like those brats did." he huffed wrapping his arms around your waist.

"Don't shut me out like that again," he kisses you nose causing you to blush. "fucking tell me if you think somethings wrong so I don't have to worry about your ass!" he huffed keeping one of his arms around you as you two walked back to class. After that Katsuki was a tad more protective of you often asking where that scratch/bruise came from? and checking to make sure you haven't broken anything during class or missions he was like Toshinori 2.0...

[dancingthesambaa]

The Smell of Plum Blossom Tea Ch 12

Summary: Just like a butterfly wing, a single act of kindness can change the course of the future, it certainly did for MK as a black furred monkey put out a hand towards him.

Rating: Teen and up

Chapter 12: Communication is Key

A soft melodic noise was playing in the air as Yanyu and Bohai entered the open clearing. Both blinked for a moment and then a grim expression overtook them as they saw the rest of their friends with the same nervous looks.

“Okay, what the fuck happened with Makkie and whose head do I need to bust open?” Yanyu asked everyone as they watched him play the Dizi as he sat down crossed legged on a tree branch with his tail lazily hanging.

“I don’t know,” Minsheng whispered as they peaked out from behind the tree.

“He’s been like this since we got in an hour ago,” Ahmed continued as his tail swished behind him.

“He didn’t react once,” Mei hissed as her fingers clenched her arm.

“Really?” The jellyfish looked astonished.

“Other than the flicker of his ears when he arrived, nothing,” Daiyu commented as her feathers puffed up.

“He only play this sad shit when he’s feels absolutely terrible and no one knows what the fuck happened?” The bluenette looked at everyone, only to get shakes of heads and denial again. “Damn.”

“I do,” their heads snapped towards a wincing MK as he held a pair of headphones in hand. “But it’s kinda a long story.”

“Last time he got like this was when he blacked out cause a literal firework got shot right next to his ear,” the bunny demon deadpanned, “and that was after already coming close to a breakdown when he thought he lost the two of you when you guys set off that curse.”

“So what they're trying to say MK,” Mei dragged her brother by the shirt and brought him close, “is telling us whose ass do we need to kick?”

“Don’t think you can fight against an immortal,” he winced.

It was Ahmed who got it first as he too winced, “I take it that it went very badly.”

“So much yelling and fighting,” he groaned.

“Wait who-fuck,” Mei eyes narrowed, “Macaque and Monkey King met didn’t they.” At the clarification, everyone winced. They might not have been there to see the fight go down but they have known the black furred monkey long enough for him to trust them on telling the two relationships with each other.

“Yeahhh.”

“Tell us everything,” the bunny demon said.

“Everything?”

“Everything.” They all said together.

“Then you might want to sit down for this, it’s gonna be a long story.”

“That no good little-”

“Of course they're both idiots,” Bohai sighed as he rubbed his head.

“-how dare he even say that!”

“Two monkeys, both immortal, both friends for a long time, and yet neither of them have developed proper communication,” Yanyu groaned as she too felt a headache coming along.

“I swear I’m gonna grab that head and-”

“Should just be glad that the mountain is still standing,” the lion tried to look on the brighter side despite his claws slowly emerging and retreating.

“It’s kinda sad that this is the best side of all of this,” the vulture said.

“-then after I shave all the fur I will use that razor and-”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” MK wrung his hands together.

“I think bad is an understatement kiddy,” the rabbit demon then looked back at a fuming Mei. “You thinking of stopping anytime soon?”

“No!” The group can almost see the faintest of green in her eyes as it twitched. “There will be a skinned immortal monkey before the month ends!”

“Easy there breezy,” she felt her head forcibly, but gently, lowered by a warm fuzzy hand. “Don’t need to plot the demise of Wukong just yet.”

“Why nottt,” she whined as he looked up at Macaque. “He should learn that nobody messes with you without facing some consequences.”

“And I can do that myself,” he emphasized as he ruffled her hair, but she fondly slapped it away. “But do remember that I also said some things unwarranted too and I also didn’t try to deescalate the fight, so he's not at total fault here.”

“Still was part of the problem,” Minsheng pointed out.

“And also said some things he shouldn’t have said,” Yanyu couldn't help but say.

“True, but some of those things do hold some truth.”

“What part are you talking about?” MK blurted out in confusion.

“I know that I have changed, I can truthfully admit that, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still have a lot of issues in general.” Back then he would have never admitted this to anyone, not even on his deathbed, but as the years pass and as the seasons go on, he knows that he can comfortably say all this to them without fear.

“There are many times where I still question myself and whether or not if this is me or if I wear a facade for so long that I became it, especially if I even deserve to be called a father,” he said that last part lowly to himself, but everyone heard it. But he didn’t take any notice of it as he continued. “Regardless though, I do know one thing for certain, I appreciate you trying to look out for me.” He smirked as he ruffled his two kids' hair.

They begrudgingly let him with a small smile on their face.

“We always do,” Bohai grinned.

“You do the same for us doc,” the bluenette slapped his shoulder. “Like that one time where you forced us to rest after that little incident.”

“You mean the time where you all decided it was a good idea to have a little fight in a bunch of unknown plants and then you all got sick?” He raised his eyebrow.

“That’s the one!” Both rabbit and vulture said with matching grins.

“Why did I become friends with you guys again?” He uttered for the nth time since he met them.

“For our glowing personality,” the big cat gave a deep chuckle as he wrapped an arm around his shoulder and nuzzled his fur as he gave a few long licks to Macaque long mane.

The first time he had ever done this to the monkey, he had chucked him clean across the treetops before it was properly explained to him. This is apparently done with not just cubs, but other lions or demons in the pride to form a closer connection and to provide comfort and affection. After that he begrudgingly let him continue the process, though he couldn’t help but cringe at the first few times.

“Alright, alright I get it,” he gently pushed the muzzle away from him. “Imma whip up some food, didn’t even realize how hungry I was until now. Does a hotpot sound good to you all.”

“I can already feel myself drooling,” Yanyu licked her lips.

“You should probably get that checked out then,” Mei jokes.

“That’s why we have the old man here for.”

“I don’t get paid enough for that,” he deadpanned.

“You don’t get paid at all,” MK supplied.

“No I do not,” was the last thing he said before he climbed up a tree and headed over back to the oversized treehouse.

“So we are gonna take down the Monkey King or at least plan some vengeance upon him, yes,” Bohai mused as he slightly glowed.

“Ohohoho, like you wouldn’t believe it,” Daiyu puffed up her feathers. “Imma about to hurt a monkey.”

“Count me in,” Mei said with an eerie twitching smile.

“May not be the strongest, but I know a few ways to immobilize a simian,” Minsheng muttered.

“I’ll get the hot glue and tacks. Nobody fucks with my teacher and gets away with it alive,” Yanyu took out her phone and began furiously typing.

“At ease everyone, try not to let your anger fester. We’re here for Mac right now,” Ahmed said with a low growl.

“Says the one growling,” MK inputted as his own hands twitched violently as he clutched onto the staff.

“Touché.”

Both Tang and Pigsy were watching Mei moodily chomp down on her noodles as she was furiously typing something down. They look to the other side and see that MK, who was on break, was steadfastly ignoring his cooling noodles as he was drawing something down in his notebook.

“Did they get into a fight?” The historian asked as he slurped down his food.

“Not that I know of,” the chef shook his head, “all I know is that MK came in like this and a little later girlie came in with the same mood.”

“We aren’t fighting,” Mei grumbled as she stabbed the chopsticks down onto the counter. “There is just an…issue that has occured.”

“Issue, that’s one word,” MK muttered.

“Just be glad I’m putting it lightly.”

“So, no fight?” Tang asked.

“No,” they both replied.

“Well that’s good at least…does it have to do with Red Son? I know that both of you were worried about him when he didn’t show, he called back yet?”

This brought the two back from their anger filled mind as the two twenty year old looked at each other, then back to Pigsy and shook his head.

“Nothing,” he sighed as he looked through his phone.

“Not even a text back,” Mei included.

“That’s weird, the three of you have been basically stuck by the hip since you all knew each other, wonder what could have happened?” Tang went into a questioning pose.

Mei leaned over to MK as the two other adults talked and quietly whispered, “you think it has something to do with his parents?”

“No doubt in my mind,” he whispered back. The two of them knew some things about his home situation, but that was all they needed to know that his parents were absolute garbage. “I’ll give him two more weeks, if we still don’t get a reply back then we bust in there and grab him.”

“And we should definitely phone the old man about this, at least this would take his mind off…well that,” the Dragon heiress said.

“How about we put that idea on hold for now,” he winced as she shot him an incredulous expression, “I think we can handle it.”

“Okay, you are so spilling why you don’t want to ask Macaque for help,” this isn’t the first time he tried to avoid asking the monkey for help. It’s been a slow gradual thing, but she had just now begun to pick up that MK was hiding something.

“Uhhhh well look at the time,” he nervously swallowed down his food in one gulp, after choking for a bit, and grabbed his keys and a few orders that were just made. “My break is over, no time to talk!”

“MK!” She yelled out as he rushed out of the store. “You will talk one way or another!”

“Oh I can’t hear you! Call you later!” He yelled out as he dived into the car, with the food still safely placed, and quickly drove onto the street.

“You little-!”

“Byeee!”

“I’m back!” He announced as soon as he landed on the mountain. He had taken a few days away from training and while he was still upset at Monkey King, he didn’t truly hate him nor was he even held a grudge against him. Though it probably didn’t help that Mei would evilly chuckle whenever she was typing or scraping another plan, he still winced at her seventh one. That one looked almost painfully brutal and humiliating.

Small frustration and irritation, yes. But not the kind that would overwhelm him and let it take absolute control. Besides he knew that wasn’t who the monkey really was, arguments can bring out the worst in someone, whether it’s true or not. But he still optimistically believes that those two can become friends again.

“Monkey Ki-WHOA!” He managed to brace for impact as he was almost knocked over as a bunch of monkeys came barreling into him from above. “Hey! Hey! It's good to see you all too.” He laughed as he tried to carry as many as he could.

“They missed you kiddo,” he looked to the voice behind him and saw the Monkey King sporting a wide grin as he sat upon his cloud. “They wouldn’t stop talking about missing their playmate.”

“Awww,” he cooed as he hugged the ones in his arms, “I missed you guys too.”

“We all did kiddo,” he smirked, but it did soften when he saw that there was no hostility or resentment in his student eyes.

“Well I guess I missed you too,” he gave an exaggerated sigh.

“I’m just a bit surprised that you came back, not that I didn’t think that you wouldn’t, but more along the lines of not wanting to see me again. But I mean who wouldn’t want to train with the great Monkey King,” he let a bit of his nerves leak out unintentionally.

“Well Dad always advocates for my choice, so I just chose to be here. Besides I just needed to cool off for a few days after all that,” he grinned widely as he bared his teeth. “I’m not giving up just yet.”

Wukong, who can now clearly tell that MK did share the same grin as Mac, couldn’t help but share his enthusiasm. “Well let’s freshen up your knowledge of the basics, I’m afraid you might have forgotten it all these past days.”

“I did not just sit around and do nothing these past couple of days, for your information!”

“What’s the problem with being lazy?” He smirked as he jumped off his cloud. “Nothing is wrong with that.”

“Oh there isn’t, it’s just that when you have a whole entire forest to watch out for when Dad is taking care of his patients, it gets a little crazy. Especially since the one who usually keeps an eye on things had to focus on another problem entirely or was not even there, except for BaBa. She’s the only reason why I haven’t tied all those idiots together in a knot,” he grumbled in the last part. It does get more than a little hectic in the forest, especially when there are so many creatures and demons all living in that same area no matter how big the boundaries may be. There will always be some sort of dispute between the clans and it’s usually the more neutral group, like Macaque, Ní, BaBa, Kappa, and even some of the faeries, to keep the relative peace. Will true harmony ever be attained? Ha! No, but the way they are living now is just perfectly fine to all of them. Despite the chaos, fights, and craziness in general, no one is truly upset over their homes.

“Oh, so he has patients,” he curiously prodded, “I didn’t think moo-Macaque would willingly subject himself to interacting with people.”

Before MK could tell him that he is technically true, he can tolerate them at best, they both were startled when multitudes of loud screeches burst their ears wide open as all the monkeys were howling and jumping either on the Monkey King or back on MK.

“What the-” Wukong was fast enough to dodge their grapple, but he thought best if he just waited for now as they didn’t seem to be angry from what he could tell from all their voices talking at once, rather…surprised?

“Yeah, I know Macaque?” MK answered one of the monkeys, who managed to stuff fruit in her sibling's mouth to shut them up. “He’s my dad.”

It was silent for only a moment before they all went wild as the ones that were previously on Wukong jumped over to him and began to screech.

“AHHHH!”

“AHHHH?!” He confusedly screamed as well as he couldn’t understand them all when they yelled like this and, well, he was sorely unprepared for what was happening and just decided to copy them.

“Why are you screaming!” Wukong turned to him in confusion.

“I don’t know! Wait!” He looked down to the bunch that were still screeching wildly, “Are you the same ones that took in my Dad back then?!”

He received violent nodding of heads and/or a screech in afrimation.

“AWESOME!” His eyes sparkled as he gained a mischievous grin, “Then that must mean you know all types of embarrassing things he did back then.”

They all shared the same grin as him. It has been a long time since they have seen their missing tribe member, intellectually they knew that he wasn’t around because of a dispute with their King. But they instinctively knew that their King had missed their mate for a long time now, and while some are a bit miffed that he has left, they all have deeply missed a member of their own. And now they have confirmation that not only is he alive, but he has taken in a new infant of his own?! This is a cause for a celebration.

One of the monkeys does turn to Wukong and gives him the stink eye as she glared at him for not telling them.

“Okay to be fair, I didn’t really expect it to happen,” he held up his hands in apology.

The stink eye intensified.

“And I’m sorry.”

The stare remained.

“And I’ll give you some of the sweet peaches.”

She was satisfied as she went back to picking through the child's hair. Maybe that would teach their King twice before not saying anything again…though she highly doubts it.

“But I’m surprised MK,” he casually watched the cute scene of all of the monkeys snuggling, playing, or just hanging all over his student body. “I didn’t know you could understand them.”

“Well I do have a demon monkey for a dad and I frequently talk to the ones in the forest,” he deadpanned.

“Yeah that makes sense,” he stretched his arms as he casually sat down next to him. “Speaking of forest he-you guys really live in the Plum Blossom Forest?”

“Yep!” He grinned as most of the monkeys finally decided to get off him and play around the area, the only one left was the one who glared at Wukong.

“Can you tell me more about it? I never visited there despite it popping up a couple hundred years ago.”

“Well I can tell you some, but dad knows that place like the back of his hand. He made it after all,” he absentmindedly said as he scratched the back of the monkey's head.

“He made it?” He emphasized his last point, “Are you talking about the forest?”

“Yup!”

“Why?!” And just when he thought he couldn’t be more shocked about his friend, life apparently throws him in for another loop.

“Well Ping-,” he paused and decided otherwise, “actually it’s kinda personal, way above my level.You should just ask dad about it when you have the chance.”

“Ping again,” he couldn’t help but mutter the name, “he must have been real special to Mac if you keep bringing it up.”

“Well I don’t know about special, but dad always says that he is just a regular human that just somehow doesn’t even blink at the most abnormal things that come his way, no matter how bizarre and crazy it may be,” he summarized.

“Must be some human then if he became so interested in him,” the Monkey King casually said as his tail silently moved back and forth just a bit quicker.

“Yup! Dad may never say it, but he really looks up to him and really is grateful for taking him in when he needed it the most,” he unknowingly blurted out, because right after he began to curse himself in his head over this as he froze. But before he could stutter out a flimsy question to redirect the focus away from the mess up he just created, he stilled once more as he felt a furry hand ruffle his head.

“I’m glad,” Wukong let a small grin envelop his face and he said nothing more.

MK took a few moments to process this and just nodded his head.

“Well I think we sat down for long enough,” the sage commented as he began to stand up. “I think it’s time we get to training. Are you ready?”

MK smiled as he let go of the monkey on his lap and jumped up. “I always am!”

“Mmmm I don’t think so I mean,” he held out a purple headband in his grasp, “you obviously forgot to keep watch of your surroundings.”

“My headband! Why is it always my headband!” He fumed and readied his stance for the chase.

“Like I always say, you can’t let your guard down,” and with that he jumped up and began to rapidly climb the mountain. “No matter what the situation may be.”

“We were having a moment!” He yelled out as he quickly followed behind him.

“With emotions? Ew, I’m allergic to that.”

“That’s not a thing!”

“Says you, I for one have been alive for far longer and I can see some things and experienced just as many, so obviously this is totally a thing that can happen.”

“I am a literal physician in training, I am literally learning under the same monkey who has seen and done just as much shit as you have!”

“And he would agree,” he chirped.

“No he would not!”

“Thanks again for the meal,” Pigsy said as he took a sip of his drink as he gently scratched Tang's head on his lap, “I may love to cook, but it’s nice not having to cook once in a while.”

“I feel you there,” Macaque gave a grin as he laid a blanket on both Mei and MK, who were passed out asleep on the couch. “When I am just swamped with work, I would just order some takeout and have one of my clones bring it here.”

“Don’t forget the tea,” Sandy added as he sipped his cup. “Also, are you sure you don’t mind us staying the night?”

“Please, I have more than enough rooms for everyone here and then some,” he waved him off as he spotted another letter on the counter and promptly tore it up and threw it in the trash after he saw what it was, “it’s no problem.”

“Junk mail,” the blue giant absentmindedly said.

“Heh, yeah it is,” he snorted in amusement for some reason as he sat down on the couch.

“So you really just helped the travelers out of spite cause of who they were running from?” Tang couldn’t help but jump back to their previous conversation they had on some of the stories Macaque had shared during his travels.

“Yep.”

“And not out of some benevolent goodwill to them?”

“Not really, I know first hand just how annoying a Yuki-onna, especially that bitch in particular,” he couldn’t stop the disgust in his tone.

“You know her?” Sandy asked.

“Unfortunately, let’s just say I was in the area one time during a snowstorm, cold and starving, did I meet her. She lulled into a false sense of security until I realized that I didn’t hear and then saw that I was half frozen. I got out of there so fast that I didn’t even contemplate my revenge until I could finally feel my feet again.”

“And what happened when you did meet again?” Tang questioned then raised his brow at the monkey's malicious grin.

“Well let’s just say that she dares not to show her face for a long time.”

“Meaning?” Pigsy was almost afraid to ask.

“I made her bald and used a special type of paint to make her skin purple, permanently,” he bluntly stated.

That actually made Sandy choke on his tea as both Tang and Pigsy busted out laughing at the image, though the historian did seem to be leaning more on the hysterical side.

“It shouldn’t be possible to leave a mark on a spirit skin unless it has dealt with tools to banish them, let alone ridding someone of their hair unless they can shapeshift?!”

“Goes to show what you know, I’ve been around quite a bit longer than you and trust me, we are well past the stage of simple banishing.”

“When did that happen? Who even thought of the idea?!”

He opted to say nothing, he wasn’t about to tell anyone that both he and Wukong created this after this one river spirit was getting on both of their nerves. They didn’t want to outright kill them, but to humiliate them enough to make them regret even showing their faces to the sky.

“Back to the merchants,” Sandy redirected the attention, “I know you also briefly mentioned that you helped heal them, have you been a physician for that long?”

“Give or take a couple of years.”

“So you really did go around healing others,” the historian amusedly said as he had broken from his previous hysteria.

Macaque rolled his eyes, “Just when I feel like it.”

“Now I’m curious, how did you decide to become a doctor in the first place?” Pigsy asked.

“Is it cause I sometimes look like either a teenager in their emo phase or too feminine?” He curiously asked. He had been mistaken for both before, though he guess it sometimes doesn’t help that he likes to paint his nails black or keep his mane long and wear feminine style clothing. He’s not complaining though, he didn’t really care about anyone opinion in the way he dress, clothing should not be biased to one gender and he feels good when he can wear whatever the fuck he want.

“No? Just curious,” though that does bring up some more questions on why he asked that.

“Just happened to learn it off of a human a few centuries back and it just didn’t stop,” he shrugged.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Well that’s a bit anticlimactic,” Tang pouted.

“Sucks to suck, but I can truthfully say that I have no regrets learning medicine.”

“Really? Even when things go sideways?” The gentle giant gently prodded.

“Those times are hard, but no no regrets. Especially since it helped bring MK to me,” he nostalgically smiled.

“How so?”

“Well I was actually out of bandages one day and went to the city to pick up some more and I decided to take my time walking back and then I saw him and the rest is history.” He can still remember just how small starlight was and just how tired, both physically and mentally, he was. If he closes his eyes, he can still draw out every scar, bump, bruise or rib that looked too harsh on his bright child. “He really brought a new spark in my life.”

“And you to him as well,” Sandy smiled.

Mac snorted and shook his head, “He would have still been his same kind, bright and enthusiastic self even without me.”

“Maybe, but I’m glad that he didn’t have to suffer for it,” the pig demon added. It may not be obvious at first glance, but there is a spark in both, hell even Mei, eyes whenever they see the other. He couldn’t tell if it was from relief, safety, comfort or all of the above, but just when they are with each other, everything seems to fall into place. “And besides, I think you did a damn good job raising him.”

Both demon and human nodded in agreement.

The monkey demon couldn’t help the small smile forming on his lips. Pigsy words may have been brief, but for some reason, he felt his lingering doubts and dread, that has been flooding his mind since the confrontation, ease up.

They all continued to quietly talk to one another as the night continued on as one by one they all slowly let the night air drift them off to sleep.

“It seems rather slow today,” Tang mentioned as he looked around the empty shop.

“You're telling me,” Pigsy muttered as he wiped down the already clean counter. “Not a single person nor demon stepped in since the lunch rush.”

“Which means less work for me,” the MK clone said as he lounged on the booth.

“Why I outta,” he said before Tang continued.

“That is a bit strange, but it’s not quite so bad,” he said with a coy smile.

“What is that supposed to me-” he was once more cut off as the historian surprised him with a long kiss on the lips. “Oh, I guess that’s not so bad,” he muttered when they came back for air and leaned in once more.

Unfortunately they were rudely interrupted when Mei and Sandy burst through the doors and closed it with a loud bang.

“GUYS! HE’S BACK!”

“GHA!” Tang was startled enough to fall out of his chair.

“What the-what's the big idea you guys!” Pigsy gripped the counter as he glared at them, but then it turned to confusion as he saw that both human and demon were strangely in disarray with their clothes torn and scratched on their bodies.

“Are you guys okay?” The historian asked when he too saw a good look at them.

“We have a huge problem!” Mei paused as she quickly closed the blinds and glanced out the window.

“Big problem!”

“What happened?! What’s going on?”

“Demon Bull King is back,” the pigtailed girl continued.

“What!”

“And his clones have been terrorizing everyone and destroying the city!” The blue giant continued as he patted the frazzled cat on his shoulder.

“WHAT!”

“It’s mad chaos out there,” she dramatically said, “even Mac is out there blowing those machines to bits, and trying to get people to safety, but it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna stop. Wait-,” she eyed the relaxed clone and her eyes twitched. “Please don’t tell me-”

“Training with the Monkey King,” Tang and Pigsy simultaneously said.

“Damn it!” She facepalm, “well we’re just gonna have to hold them off until he gets here.”

Everyone, except the clone, nodded in determination as they got prepared for the coming battle.

“I think we need a little wardrobe change, some of us more than others,” Tang said as he eyed both Mei and Sandy clothes.

“Tang, do you really think we have time for this?” The pink demon questioned.

“Oh honey,” his glasses glinted as he held up a needle and thread, “there is always time for a wardrobe change.”

“Eh why not,” Sandy shrugged.

“I’m done for it,” she grinned, “but make sure it’s cool.”

“One apocalyptic style clothes coming right up,” he eagerly said as he made quick work of all their clothing.

“We’re gonna die,” clone MK boredly said as he flipped through the magazine.

Pigsy couldn’t say anything as he sighed and continued to get the weapons.

[mickmarstookmyheart]

More Espresso, Less Despresso

Part: 2/?

Pairing: Mick Mars X Reader

Summary: Mick tells you the truth about his job and you meet the band in their natural habitat.

Many days have passed, many cups of coffee were consumed, and fewer books were read as you have always had a company at the café. But you didn't mind. Mick was your best friend there, well, the only one, though you didn't even search for others.

"So, Mick, what are your plans for the next week?" You asked walking next to him in the park. Your scarf half covering your face which you were grateful for since you could feel the cold in your bones.

"Well..." This was the moment. This was the perfect timing to tell you that he was a musician. A guitarist who traveled from stadium to the other and never settled down for more than a few days. A rockstar whom chicks wanted but not in the way Mick would love to. "There is something I need to tell you, (Y/N)." He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Then, I will listen." You said glancing at him.

"Come, let's sit down." He gestured toward the bench nearby and you both sat down on the rather chilly bench. "So, I don't know how to say it."

"Honestly. What you truly think. Just say it." You placed your hand on his shoulder.

"I'm happy. I'm happy that I finally find someone with who I can talk, share my thoughts, and have a decent conversation. I would go to the café and spend time together for eternity but unfortunately, it's impossible." He sighed. "I'm a rockstar, (Y/N), and the band goes on the next stop tomorrow. I'm so sorry."

You shook your head and chuckled. "So, this was the reason you were so nervous about it? Come on, Mick. I've always known that you are an artist. You talk about music like I talk about books; with so much passion." You turned to him to be able to look in his eyes.

"What? Are you telling me that you knew from the beginning?" He asked arching a brow making you giggle.

"Yes, Sherlock. For fucks sake, have you looked in the mirror? Long black hair, leather jacket and pants, the way your fingers drum to the beat, and an unbelievable wide knowledge of music." You were hoping deep down that he wasn't a big star. You hid your disappointment and tried to cheer him as he was feeling blue and you just couldn't bear it. Seeing him like this just broke your heart, thus you behaved as if everything was cool, but it wasn't.

"Alright, Watson. I'm impressed." He snickered. He couldn't believe you paid so much attention to him, he was sure he didn't deserve it. After all the wrong decisions he made, all the wrong things he did, it seemed a miracle to have a good friend like you. "Then, you are not mad, right?"

"Of course not, you silly. Though I would've appreciated it to tell me, I thought it was your business. You would've told me at the right time." You were playing with the end of your scarf. You felt your heart ached, tears desperately wanted to come but you didn't let them. You needed to keep your happiness for him because if he would see you like a wreck, he wouldn't be able to leave you there without feeling guilty.

"I wanted to, truly, but I was afraid...I was scared that you would run away." He glanced up and tried to scan every detail of your face so later when he needed he would be able to recall it.

"Why would I do that? Believe it or not, I also like rock music. And the fact that I read books doesn't mean that I'm pure as a unicorn or something. I read books during the day and I'm a serial killer at the night. This is a good glamour you know." You said with the most serious face could.

"What?" Mick's eyes widened. He looked he believed the whole thing. It looked like you could lie pretty well.

"Why is it so hard to believe?" You huffed crossing your arms to make your story more believable.

"I don't know, maybe that the shine in your eyes or your calm temper." You couldn't hold it back anymore and you burst into laughter. Tears running down your cheek but this time from happiness. He was the reason for both your sadness and happiness. "Why are you laughing now? Oh, you liar..." He snapped playfully but then laughed along with you. After you could properly breathe again and calmed down you rose from the bench and kept walking.

"And how long will the tour be?" You asked, already feeling a knot in your stomach. You didn't want to lose him, you just got him.

"Months. Too much if you ask me. I don't know how I will bear my bandmates' stupidity. I will lose my sense if I can't talk with you." He said making you blush.

"I'm sure there are others who are a bit smarter than your friends." You shrugged. You hated the idea that he finds someone special. Someone with the same mind, taste, and thinking. You wanted to be the only one, even if it felt selfish.

"No, I don't think so." He snickered shaking his head. "You are my soulmate, (Y/N) and no one can replace you." He bumped into you playfully. You gasped internally. He spoke like he was reading your mind and it was creepy. Maybe, he was truly your soulmate. "By the way, the guys keep nagging me where I am all day, and since now you know about them...would you like to meet them? Also, I will understand if you don't want to." He rubbed the back of his head thinking it wasn't really a good idea after all.

"Hell yes. It would be a pleasure." You smiled and tugged a lock of hair behind your ear.

∆

"You can still run away. There is still a chance to have a better life without meeting those bastards. You wouldn't miss a thing."

"Mick, calm down. I totally want this." You were standing in front of the studio's entrance.

"Then don't blame me later." He murmured and opened the door for you. You stepped in and as you turned in the corner you just had to follow the voices. If you had to name the voices you would've called it chaos. Screaming, glass breaking. You took a deep breath and opened the door to see the chaos. You froze and were shocked from the sight. One of them was bumping his head on the drums, the other was doing drugs and the third man was throwing knives on the wall. Mick stood behind you and grabbed your wrist. "Let's go, (Y/N). They are not in their best shape."

"But we walked so damn much. Too much for nothing." You sighed.

"Alright then. Go grab something to eat or drink and I will scold them down until you come back, okay?"

"Deal." You nodded and headed towards the bistro next to the studio while Mick felt the urge to beat the shit out of his bandmates. While reading the menu you were wondering how he is able to get through the tours while keeping his sanity. Then pictures flooded your mind. Memories you desperately wanted to forget but it seemed they became core memories. You had experiences with both drugs and alcohol and you felt their effect on your own skin, though you weren't the one who consumed them. You thought if you move from that place, maybe the memories will fade.

"Ma'am, what can I get you?" A waitress asked standing behind the counter.

"Five from that one." You pointed at the table above her head and bit after she handed you the bag with your order. When you got back the building where you left the band, you grabbed the door handle it didn't turn. "Are you fucking kidding me?" You cursed still trying to open the door before kicking in it angrily.

"Hey, what that poor door did to you?" A man inquired searching in his pockets.

"Sorry. It just doesn't open and I really would like to go in." You said tilting your head toward the entrance.

"Then, try with this one." He winked and handed you the key which you took gladly and opened the door with it. "Thanks, man!"

"It's nothing, kid. By the way, who are you exactly and why do you want to go in?" He asked while he held the door for you letting you go first. You thanked with a nod and made your way to the studio.

"I'm (Y/N). Umm, Mick brought me here..." You raised a brow.

"Wait. The (Y/N)?" His eyes were wide and he was pointing at you.

"Yeah, I guess." You murmured now having a clue.

"Well then nice to finally meet you. I thought we would never meet you." He gave you the biggest smile you ever saw.

"Mick told you about me?" You were in shock. You didn't assume he told about you. Not that you minded. It felt good that you were important to him.

"He couldn't shut his mouth for a second! By the way, I'm Doc. Their manager." He held his hand to shake it.

"It's a pleasure." You smiled and opened the door cautiously. You didn't know what to expect after what you had seen earlier, but it wasn't this. All of them were reading a magazine?! And were sitting with crossed legs on the sofa.

"What the..." Doc peeked over your shoulder as you didn't move an inch. His mouth dropped and was speechless, which you could say about yourself, too. "Are you okay, guys?"

"Yeah, Doc, thanks for asking." The blondie said not glancing up from the magazine he was reading.

"Mick...what exactly did you do them?" You inquired in confusion, considering, the room was hell a few minutes earlier.

"Nothing." He simply said closing the magazine, placing it on the coffee table, and walked over to you. He stood beside you and cleared his throat. "Guys, this is (Y/N). (Y/N) this is Vince, Tommy, and Nikki." They smiled and nodded when they heard their names. "And I see you have already met with Doc."

"Nice to meet you guys." You waved your hand. "Umm, I brought some food..for you if you are interested..." You muttered swinging the bag in front of you. Tommy literally jumped up from the couch and took the bag from your hand opening and smelling it.

"It smells rad, dude." He yelled picking one of the boxes.

"I already love you, (Y/N)." Vince rose from the couch stealing the bag from the drummer.

After everyone chose their boxes, you all find a place to sit and were consuming the food in silence. You were sitting on the arm of the sofa balancing yourself. You leaned to Mick whispering in his ear.

"Seriously, what did you do?" You asked gesturing toward the guys.

"I have my own ways." He smirked making you curious as hell.∆

Taglist: @leatherandheels @littlemisscare-all @safari-karrot @crazyrockrlady 💕💕

(feel free to message me or comment if you wanted to be tagged 💕)

[walkerwords]

“The Savior Sessions” Part 17 of 33 - Negan x GN!Reader

IMAGE CREDIT: AMC

SERIES MASTERLIST

Summary: Following the fallout of their argument, the reader is still trying to deal with their thoughts about Negan. Meanwhile, Daryl, Connie, Lydia, and Henry arrive at Alexandria. With everything going on and the fair only a day away, there are decisions to be made.

Word Count: 4372

Warning: Swearing

Song I Wrote To: “First” by Cold War Kids

Note: Another filler before our big part which is up next...I am putting all the fair stuff in one part and I MEAN EVERYTHING. Part 19 will be the blizzard so Part 18 is going to be A LOT. *ALL ASL IN ITALICS*

---------

Something felt different when you woke up. 

Your mother always used to say that people could feel it in the air when something was to come. You never put much stock in her ramblings, but that particular quote was sticking in your mind as you sat up in your bed.

Sunlight was streaming in through the window and you could hear the faint sounds of Alexandrians starting their days. The nightmares had been worse than usual during the night before and after waking up for the second time, you had to nearly restrain yourself from venturing out of your house and towards another. 

The fact that Negan was the first person you thought of when fear entered your body made you feel even more confused. You were still furious with him, that much was clearly evident, but he was still there in the back of your mind. He was in your dreams, your everyday thoughts, and while you should have been focusing on Alpha and Daryl’s rescue plan, Negan was all you could think about. 

After getting ready for the day, you strapped on Paul’s sword and headed from your home and towards the meeting hall. It still felt odd to consider the sword yours even though Aaron had given it to you personally. You began to wonder if imposter syndrome extended towards melee weapons. 

Walking down the main road, you saw Judith with her brother heading towards the makeshift graveyard. You knew where she was going and you also knew that Judith loved to tell stories she heard from her mom about Carl. While Judith didn’t have many memories of her big brother, she could still remember what it felt like to be carried by him and how he cared for her. Carl had been there since the beginning to look after her and now it was Judith’s turn to do so for RJ.

Your gaze lingered on them for a bit before your eyes caught a commotion at the main gate. You could see Michonne standing on the watch post, looking down. With a furrowed brow, you began to walk forward when a movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention. 

Stopping in front of the Grimes’ house, you looked to see Negan leaning against the bars of his window. He looked at you with those same beautiful hazel eyes and determined set of his jaw. You stared back, remembering the last conversation you had had with the man. Negan had nearly begged you for forgiveness and you weren’t sure if you were actually willing to give it. At least, not yet. He went to say something when the gate slid open up ahead. Looking back, you were stunned at what you saw. 

Daryl, Lydia, Connie, and to your ultimate surprise, Henry, were walking towards you. Dog trotted in front of his master, his tail up as he noticed you. When they got closer, you finally saw the state that your friend was in.

“Daryl?” you asked, shocked to see blood, Living blood, on his face and clothes. “What the hell happened to you?” you asked as you left Negan behind and ran up to him. 

“Kids need some food,” was all Daryl said. You then noticed that Henry was limping.

“They also need medical attention,” you said and then waved down Siddiq who was walking alongside Rosita. “Come on,” you said and then reached for Lydia who was shaking slightly. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but you just shook your head. 

“Not your fault, kid,” you said, brushing the hair from her face. “Let’s get you looked at.” 

As Siddiq took a look at Henry and Lydia, Laura stood watch at Michonne’s request. You stood on the porch of the infirmary with Daryl, Michonne, and Connie. While your signing was still a bit rough, you could get by well enough for the time being. You had taught Deaf students when you were a teacher and you found that your knowledge of the language was slowly coming back to you. 

“Are you hurt?” you asked Connie. She shook her head and then made the “D” letter with her right hand and dragged it over her eye. You then realized that was the Name Sign she had given to Daryl, most likely due to his scar. You thought it was fitting. 

Connie was telling you that Daryl was hurt, but you knew that he wouldn’t even let you clean his wounds until he knew the kids were okay. 

“Someone wanna tell me what happened?” you asked as you leaned against the side of the house, your ankles crossed. 

“Beta happened,” Daryl said as he matched your position on the other side. 

“Alpha’s man,” Connie signed and you translated for Michonne and Laura, who was listening in the doorway. 

“So, it’s not just Alpha we have to worry about? Great,” you said with a deep sigh. 

“Asshole is massive,” Daryl said. “Threw me around like I was nothin’ and didn’t hesitate at all to try and kill us. Lydia says he’s the best fighter they got.” 

“Fantastic,” you groaned. 

“He’s the one that captured Henry,” Daryl explained. 

“Which brings me to my question,” Michonne said. “Why the hell was Carol’s son out there in the first place?”

“He went after her, didn’t he? After we traded her for Alden and Luke?” you asked and Daryl nodded. 

“Takes after his damn mother,” Daryl muttered, but you could hear a bit of admiration in his tone. Which was how he usually sounded when he spoke about Carol. 

“How’d you get her back?”

“Got into their camp,” Daryl said. “There’s a lot more of these assholes than we thought. We couldn’t see all of ‘em, but there are enough to make me nervous.” 

“You being nervous, makes me nervous,” you said pushing off the wall.

“Where’s he now?” Michonne asked. “Beta?”

“Threw his giant ass down an elevator shaft,” Daryl said. 

“So, he’s dead?” Daryl looked between you, Connie, and Michonne and you could see the fatigue weighing on him and also, the anger.

“For all our sakes,” he said. “He better be.”

------

Once the Doc had cleared both Lydia and Henry, you invited the teenagers as well as Connie and Daryl to stay in your house for the time being.

You knew that Daryl wanted to keep moving in case Alpha had sent out more scouts, but you also knew that they needed to take a breather, even if it was just until nightfall.

You could hear Connie sitting and playing with Dog outside while Daryl spoke with Henry. You knew how important Henry was to Carol and because of that, Daryl would do anything to protect the kid. 

However, right now, he seemed to be taking on the role of disappointed uncle. He was using his “parent voice” as you liked to call it. He used to use it a lot with Carl and then when Judith would cause trouble years before. Beth once joked that he had become the father of the group. Daryl had just rolled his eyes, but you knew that meant a lot to him. It told him that all of you, even Rick, relied on him. 

Lydia was sitting in the living room when you found her. Sitting next to her on the couch, you tried to see the resemblance between her and her mother. It was there slightly, but only in looks. You couldn’t see the hatred that you saw in Alpha. However, you did see a small bit of resilience and that only told you how much she had to adapt to live within the Dead. 

“I’m sorry,” you began. Lydia looked at you in confusion. “I said a lot of horrible things to you when we had you locked up. I made assumptions and it was unfair.”

“I didn’t really give you much of a chance to trust me,” Lydia said, turning her attention back to her hands in her lap. 

“Then I guess we both need fresh starts,” you said and then offered her your hand. “Hi, I’m (Y/N).” Lydia hesitantly took your hand and gave you a small smile. 

“I’m Lydia,” she said and you smiled at her. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Lydia.” When you dropped her hand, she glanced back towards where Daryl and Henry were. 

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Lydia said, talking about Jesus. “And because my mom took your other friends.”

“We got them back,” you reminded her. “I just wish we could have gotten them back without throwing you back to the wolves.”

“Yeah, then maybe Henry wouldn’t have gone after me and gotten hurt,” she said sadly. 

“Maybe not, but Henry is as stubborn as his mother and as loyal as his father. Trust me when I say that he doesn’t need an excuse to make dumbass decisions.”

“What’s his mom like?” Lydia asked and you paused, trying to figure out how to put Carol into words. 

“I’ve known his mom for a very long time. Actually since the beginning of all this,” you began. “Carol has been through a lot and she has lost a lot of people to get to the place she is right now. She has lost children, especially. Carol isn’t a person whom you need to be afraid of if you have good intentions.”

“And if you have bad intentions?” Lydia asked carefully.

“Let’s just say that when she wants to be, Carol can be even more terrifying than your mother. The difference is, is that Carol’s rage and her skills come from love and the need to protect her family.”

“You don’t think my mom is like that?” 

“I don’t know your mother,” you admitted. “Though I have known people like her and if I had to guess what she values most, I would say it’s power and survival. Alpha seems to be the person who would sacrifice her young to protect the pack and that is why I don’t want you to go back to her.”

“You don’t even know me,” Lydia said. “You only know what you’ve seen.”

“ ‘To perceive is to suffer’,” you quoted with a smile. Lydia’s brow furrowed. “Aristotle said that,” you explained. 

“Who?” 

“I’ll tell you about them later. Point is,” you said, taking her hand, “I only saw what I wanted to see because I thought that suffering was better than trying to see your side of everything.”

“So, what does this mean?” Lydia asked. 

“It means that I am not going to let anything happen to you. Especially at the hands of your mother.”

----------

Later that day, Michonne found you. 

Daryl was inside with the others when she came walking towards your house. She gestured you down off the porch as she got closer. “What’s up?” you asked as you approached. 

“We’re doin’ the fair,” Michonne explained. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Michonne nodded and then let out a heavy sigh. 

“Henry said that The Kingdom is failing. They need this. Judith recently reminded me that we need each other and that we need to start thinking about the others again.”

“Wise girl,” you complimented and she smiled.

“Just like her dad,” Michonne said. 

“Michonne, I want to help Kingdom, you know I do. I would do anything to help Carol and Ezekiel, but what if Alpha finds out that we have her kid? What then? Not to mention that Daryl attacked Beta and we don’t even know if he’s alive or not.”

“We’ll deal with it, just as we’ve dealt with everything else.”

“We’ve never seen anything like this before and you know it.”

“We can’t ignore them anymore, our friends,” she explained. “I know this is going to be rough, but we’ve won wars before.”

“So you do think this is going to end in a fight, then?” 

“It always does, (Y/N),” Michonne said. 

“I know you don’t trust her, Lydia, I mean,” you said. 

“You’re right, I don’t,” she said. 

“There is a lot of shit goin’ on right now, but we have to protect her just like we once protected Enid when she had nobody.”

“Enid isn’t the daughter of a killer,” Michonne reminded you. 

“No, she’s not, but she could have gone down a different path. Just because she found Alexandria, that doesn’t mean that she couldn’t have turned for the worse. If it wasn’t for Maggie and… and Carl, who knows what would have happened to her.” Michonne was quiet for a moment. 

“You’re saying that Henry is Lydia’s Carl?” 

“I’m saying that she’s a scared kid who needs everyone in her corner to keep her safe and help her make the right decision.”

“And that’s gonna be you?” 

“I’m gonna damn well try to be.”

---------

It was night when Daryl and the others were getting ready to leave. 

You met them at the gate as Connie helped Henry balance on his staff, trying to get a rhythm going for their travels. You figured they were going to be headed to Kingdom, but you didn’t know where Daryl would be going after that. Lydia stood by, watching the duo with a smile. 

When Daryl noticed you standing off to the side, he joined you. “We didn’t get a chance to talk. Not really,” he said. 

“There will be other times,” you said with a bump to his shoulder. 

“Judith talked to me,” he said.

“Yeah?” you asked, avoiding the look he was giving you. 

“You should know that she hears a lot more than ya think.”

“Meaning she heard the argument Negan and I had,” you realized. Daryl grunted in agreement. “Just great.”

“She’s worried about ya, thinks you’re not gonna forgive him,” Daryl said. 

“Judith should mind her own business,” you muttered.

“Are ya? Going to forgive him?”

“What would be the point? The situation is gonna still be the same. Negan is gonna be locked up and I’ll be out trying to fight another battle that we shouldn’t be in in the first place.”

“Self-pity don’t look good on ya,” Daryl said.

“That’s not—”

“Ya, it is,” he interrupted. “I already told ya my thoughts on you and him. I still stand by them, but ya gotta start usin’ your brain, Kid.” You smiled at the nickname. It was something he had called you when you first met, even though you were around the same age as Maggie.  

“I thought the heart was supposed to make these kinds of decisions?” 

“Nah, ya gotta use both. Don’t believe that poetic bullshit.” 

“Are you sure you weren’t a motivational speaker before all this?” you joked. 

“Not unless ya count me yellin’ at Merle to get his shit together when the son of a bitch was high and chasin’ birds through the streets.” 

“I do,” you decided. Daryl snorted but stayed quiet. “You’re leavin’ with Lydia after you get Henry home, aren’t you?”

“It’s for the best,” he said. 

“Is it?” 

“People don’t trust her,” Daryl said. 

“That’s not her fault.” 

“No, it ain’t,” he said, “but I’m not about to leave her vulnerable to people who don’t want her around. Maybe removing Lydia from the equation will make Alpha leave everyone else alone.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” you sighed. 

“I gotta try.”

“I know,” you said and then leaned into him. He put his arm around and you savored the small moment. “Please be careful.” 

“I will,” he said and then he pushed back to see your face. “Come with me.”

“What?”

“I know ya have been lost for a while. Judith mentioned you isolate yourself. Maybe you just need a break.”

“What happened to me needing to figure out my shit here?”

“Fuck that,” Daryl said. “I ain’t always right.”

“I’m needed here, D,” you said. 

“By who? Michonne? Or Negan?”

“Judith,” you said. “RJ, Laura, Scott, Gabriel, Siddiq, and Ro who are about to be parents,” you reminded him. “I can’t just run away.” He caught your double meaning. 

“Ya mean like I did?” he asked, but there was no venom in his voice. 

“I never blamed you for leaving after Rick, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think that you should have been around more.” He nodded, understanding where you were coming from. 

“So, that’s a no?”

“Yeah, D, it’s a no,” you said and then sighed, but pulled you back into him, gripping you tight. 

“Remember what I said, Kid, don’t try to fix him. We are the way we are and if you somehow found something you care about in a man like that, don’t try to find a reason to ruin it.”

“I thought people could change,” you said into the side of his neck. 

“They can, but deep down, there’s always that one thing that makes them, them,” he said. 

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” he whispered. “Yours is that you don’t give up. Never have, and I don’t think ya ever will. I’ll see ya soon, I ain’t gonna just disappear again.” 

“Promise?”

“Ya, I promise.”

“Good,” you said and then squeezed him once more before he shouldered his bow and with a quick whistle had Dog running after him. You actually believed him this time that you would see him soon and that was comforting. Connie waved to you as the gate slid closed and you were only hoping that whatever they had planned, they would get through it alive.

---------

The next day, it was early and Alexandria was saddling up to head out for The Kingdom. 

You found yourself heading to Aaron’s, trying to muster up the courage to speak to him. You missed him and you knew that whatever was going on between the two of you, you needed to deal with it before it got worse. 

Knocking on the door and Gracie answered. “Hey Gracie,” you greeted. “Is your dad home?”

“Daddy! (Y/N)’s here!” she shouted behind her and then turned back to you with a large grin on her face. “He’s getting things ready for the fair,” she explained. 

“Are you excited?” you asked as you heard Aaron’s footsteps approaching. 

“Yes!” she said, jumping up and down a bit. Aaron appeared behind her, his eyes narrowed at you on his front porch. 

“Hey,” you said. 

“Gracie, why don’t you go finish putting your bag together?” Aaron suggested. 

“Okay! Bye, (Y/N)!” she said, as exuberantly as always. You didn’t know where she got all her energy from. When she was out of sight, Aaron turned his attention back to you.

“Can we talk?” you asked and he hesitated. “Please.” With a sigh, he gestured to the bench on his porch and you quickly took a seat, eager to say your piece. Aaron was quiet as you took a breath. “Aaron, I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” he asked. 

“Being an asshole and not being a very good friend these past couple of months. I’ve been confused and angry and I have been taking it out on you instead of dealing with it.”

“I guess that’s one way to put it,” He said with a snort. He then turned his gaze towards the Grimes house and what was beneath it. “I just hate that you stick up for him.” 

“I know.”

“And what’s worse is that I can see that he makes you happy. I don’t know what to do with that, (Y/N).”

“I don’t know what to do with it either. To be honest, I don’t know what to do with any of it. The last thing I ever expected was to care about someone after the world ended, let alone someone like him.”

“Then why do you?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Why Negan?”

“I don’t know, Aaron. I guess maybe because I always felt misunderstood and like an outcast. I’ve done things I’m not proud of and I didn’t think I was worthy of forgiveness…”

“You think we should be forgiving him?” Aaron asked, raising his brows. 

“No, because I know none of you will. I don’t even know if I could ever forgive him for what he did to Glenn and Abraham. I don’t know if I could forgive a lot of the things he did.”

“What do you know?” he asked. 

“I know that whatever I feel for him is my business and something I need to figure out with him and only him. It’s something I would like to do without the entire town ready to pick up torches and pitchforks.” Aaron laughed at that. 

“I don’t think we’d go that far,” he said. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” you said. “Negan isn’t perfect, but he’s not evil. There is good in him and I’ve seen it, but I need you to know that I don’t expect you to see it too.” 

“Good, cause I won’t,” he said shortly. 

“I know you hate him,” you continued, “but I don’t and I need time to figure out why.”

“Are you asking for my permission?”

“No, absolutely not,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “I’m just telling you that I don’t plan to turn my back on him, at least, not just yet.” Aaron nodded, his eyes staring at his boots. His right hand fiddled with the straps on his prosthetic as he thought about your words.

“Why are you mad at him?” Aaron said and you paused, not expecting the question.

“Who says I’m mad at him?” 

“I know you,” he said. 

“God, I really wish people would stop saying that,” you said, rubbing at the back of your neck.

“I’ll tell you what,” Aaron said. “I’ll stop being an ass to you if you stop being an ass to me, deal? I think we’ve lost enough already to not have each other’s backs. I don’t need any more regrets.” You reached over and offered your hand. He took it and squeezed it in his own. The loss of Paul was still weighing on both of you as if it had happened only hours before rather than days. Aaron was trying and so, you decided you should too.

“Okay, I’ll take that deal.” 

“Maybe you just need to take a breather,” Aaron said. “And I mean a real break. One where you’re not dealing with Walkers, Whisperers, or missing friends.”

“Are you suggesting I take a vacation?” you asked with your brows raised. 

“Come with me to the fair,” he offered. “Help us with Kingdom. I know you turned Michonne down, but I am willing to convince you.”

“How are you planning to do that?” you asked. Aaron then smiled at you. 

“I think I overheard Enid say that Alden has been singing more often. How much do you wanna bet he’s gonna get roped into singing a verse or two?” Aaron sent you a wink and you knew that there was no point in arguing with him. 

“Fine, I’ll go,” you relented. “But first, I gotta talk to someone.”

--------

Before you headed out with the caravan, you made a final stop. 

“Here to yell at me some more?” Negan said as you opened the door.

“Do you want me to?” you asked, approaching the bar. 

“Not particularly,” he said as he sat up on his cot. 

“I’m going to the fair,” you announced. He stood up at that. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked, concerned. 

“Seems to be. Kingdom needs this and so do I,” you said. 

“I don’t like the thought of you going out there with those freaks running around,” he admitted. 

“I can handle it,” you assured him but then decided to reveal something else. Something you had been careful not to let anyone else know. 

“What is it?”

“They terrify me, Negan. These Whisperers are absolutely horrifying. You asked me not too long ago when the last time I was afraid and I said it was the day Rick died. Now? Now, it’s when I saw those...people walk with the Dead and look at us as if we were the ones who weren’t alive. It was when we were in that graveyard as they killed Jesus... I don’t know what to do with those feelings.” 

Negan thought for a moment, almost moved by the fact that you had decided to come to him with this. Especially considering how your last conversation had gone. All he wanted to do was reach for you and take you into his arms, but he knew had lost those privileges the second he snuck beyond the walls. Instead, he went back to the roots of your communication. He offered a quote. 

“‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it’,” he said quietly and you recognized it immediately.

“Nelson Mandela,” you whispered. 

“He was brave, just as you are. I don’t care what they think or what they see. You are stronger than them and the only way they win is if you let them,” Negan said. “Look at me,” he ordered and you did. There was a fire in his eyes, but not the one that was usually there. It wasn’t one of tenderness, but of steel resolve. “Don’t give her an inch. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. 

“I know you don’t trust me, but I trust you, (Y/N). Help your friends and then come back. We have a lot to talk about.” You nodded, trying to memorize the words that he said, letting them cement in your mind. 

Turning to go, you paused in the doorway. “Promise me something,” you said, looking back over at him. 

“Anything.”

“There’s a line, the one that separates us from becoming like them,” you said and he knew you meant Alpha and her people. “If you ever see me about to cross that line…”

“I’ll drag you back even it means I have to take down every last one of them to do it,” he swore, that fire lighting up his eyes even more. You nodded, grateful for his response. “(Y/N),” he said, stopping you one last time. 

“Yeah?”

“I promise I’ll be here when you come home,” he said and with those words, your heart felt an ounce lighter. 

“I know.”

TAGS:

@lucillethings @stark-dreams @amaroho​ @thanossexual​

@yes-sir-hotchner​ @boom-bunny​ @delusionalteenagewhispers​

@scootankle​ @ritajammer21​ @writteriguess​ @tea-atfive​ @jennydehavilland​ @waspyyy​ @yespleasejayhalstead​ @fmunegan @hoemadegrace​ @pulplorrd​ @writingdead0829

[onlysarah235678]

A Little Bit Part 8

Pairing: Billie Dean Howard x female reader

A/N: So here is a break from the death. Just a little dog fluff, annoying people, and flowers and lube as promised.  Thanks for reading 😊. Also special thank you to illuminated-blue for helping me figure out what gifs I wanted and then making them for me again (and for listening to me rant today). You’re the best ❤

Warnings: annoying people, brief mention of blood/wound cleaning, and slight dog aggression/distress. 

The next day at work you feel like you’re floating you’re so happy. Everything is going well so far with appointments, and you’ve seen at least three happy, healthy puppies today. Not even the reporter waiting for you outside your building this morning could bring your mood down. You and Milo had just waltzed right by them to your car because you were determined to make it through this day unscathed. At least up until you went to Billie’s house.

The two of you had decided that you should come over because then Billie wouldn’t have to worry about the cats being left with the sitter. You felt bad for Heather who always seemed to be watching them, and Billie most likely wouldn’t be able to see you until after dinner time. The teen probably had better things to do than watch kittens all night. Even though they were adorable.

Speaking of cats, you look to your schedule and see that it’s changed a little. You take a minute to review the new client’s information before running up to your desk to finish up some notes while you had the chance. They should be here soon if they were in fact on time.

Claire smiles as she arrives at the clinic with her cat. She shuts the door behind her after grabbing the meowing cat in the back seat. She had specifically taken the day off so she could get her cat’s vaccines updated. Fridays were ideal because they were usually the busiest at the pet store. That’s why she’d picked today. She didn’t want to work. She also had wanted to make sure you’d be here, and that she could schedule an appointment with you. That was the real reason why Claire had taken today off of work.

She hadn’t seen you since running into you and Milo at that bar and that was too long for her liking. That meeting hadn’t gone the way she’d wanted so she was going to try again. She also had never gotten the chance to see you in your element, and she was way too excited for this opportunity today.

As Claire walked in through the front door, she immediately looked around for you, but came up empty. She turned to the blonde at the front desk with a half-smile.

“Hi, I’m here with Jonesy. I have an appointment with Dr. Y/L/N.”

You had never bothered to learn Claire’s last name. However, after being harassed by the brunette numerous times, you’d think that you’d want to have that sort of information. Unfortunately, you realize your mistake too late, and you walk into the exam room with Claire and her cat only to be completely blindsided. Dammit.

You barely hold back the urge to groan as you allow your professional persona to take over. You stomp down your personal feelings toward the brunette for probably the umpteenth time since you’d met her.

“Hi, Claire. Good to see you.”

For fuck’s sake. You had to stop saying that to her.

The exam went pretty well. Claire’s cat was a little shit for some of it, but he wasn’t the worst you’ve had to deal with. You’re at the point where you just need to get samples on him, but you have a feeling that you’ll need a little help. At the end of the exam, Jonesy got a little feisty and not too keen with being poked. For this reason, you asked the assistant helping you, Maria to go get another person to lend a hand, but Claire spoke up before she could leave. They exchange an uncomfortable look before you manage to cut the tension by smiling and effectively shutting Claire down.

“Don’t think you can handle little old Jonesy, Dr. Y/L/N?”

Maria’s jaw drops and you remind yourself to be a professional as you just laugh slightly instead of rolling your eyes.

“Not at all. I just want to make sure that no one gets hurt and that Jonesy is as least stressed as possible.”

Jonesy was very stressed. He hadn’t wanted any of the baby food that was offered and it took two holders wrapping him in a towel to keep him still. You pulled his blood easily enough, despite him having old cat veins that were practically non-existent, but there was no way in hell you were going to be able to get pee on him with how he was squirming.

As you did your job, you pretended not to notice Claire’s eyes on you. It was unsettling to say the least, but you weren’t going to call her out on it and let your assistants know that you’re tense. Well, you were all tense because Jonesy was getting pissed off.

You finish up quickly and pull out the needle from Jonesy’s leg, but you have to hold it for a moment to make sure his blood clots. That’s when he claws you with the nails you hadn’t gotten around to trimming yet. Maria had lifted her hand off of his leg like she was supposed to, and Jonesy took that opportunity to claw the shit out of your hand.

“Oww, okay! Let. Go.”

You pull Jonesy’s nail out of the back of your hand as carefully as possible before dropping his foot back onto the table. You used the towel wrapped around him to wipe up the blood that was already pooling before you go to grab the nail trimmers.

“Are you okay?”

You nod before grabbing the first paw with dagger-like nails. Jonesy of course hates it, but you finish quickly enough and manage to get out of there before Claire says anything too inappropriate. First thing you do is go to treatment and grab some gauze and disinfectant to put on your cut. It was still bleeding and you hiss in pain as you scrub it clean. This one is going to hurt like a bitch for a while.

Once done you wave your hand to dry it off before returning to pharmacy. You are about to start writing up Jonesy’s note when Maria comes out of the room you’d just been in with an uncertain look.

“Dr. Y/L/N.  She has another question for you.”

You hold in your sigh before you nod and head back into the exam room. Hopefully this goes quickly.

Billie Dean was on lunch when you texted her about Claire. She had been working non-stop since she arrived to the studio at 6 this morning. She was ready for a break long enough to finish a cigarette because she was long overdue for one. She was grateful that Michelle had gotten her lunch and had it waiting for her once she finished her most recent episode. She only had one left to get to, and she was excited to be done. Even though it would definitely take the rest of the day.

After re-recording was done for the season, she was going back on television and radio to promote it. The thought made Billie exhausted, but she had to admit it would be nice to leave this studio for the next one. She had a television interview scheduled for next week, and she had already decided to talk to you about it beforehand.

There was no doubt in Billie Dean’s mind that the interviewer would ask her about her relationship with Y/N. She couldn’t just sit there and dodge it, well she could, but it would be too obvious. She needed to figure out where you both stood with your relationship. It was something she’d have to mention tonight when you came over.

Billie had to stop herself from smiling at the thought of what tonight would bring. You had agreed to come over, and you had even offered to cook. Billie wasn’t very good in the kitchen despite learning a couple of your favorite dishes, but she knew how much you loved cooking. You had practically begged her to let you make her dinner, and of course she’d said yes. How could she have said no to that?

She was eager to see what you made and was certain that the image of you cooking in her kitchen would be enough to get her through the rest of the day.

Billie sighed as she put out her cigarette before grabbing her phone out of her purse. She ignored the emails and immediately looked to your messages. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she reread the texts a couple of times.

Even after doing that, she still had no idea what you were talking about.

You were angrily texting Billie in your office when Erin came upstairs to give you your stethoscope.  You’d left it downstairs in your hurry to go vent to Billie and you hadn’t even realized it. You didn’t hear her because you were muttering darkly under your breath, and you nearly fell out of your chair when she spoke up.

“Damn, annoying persistent little--.”

“Uh…Dr. Y/L/N?”

Your feet hit the ground fast as you spun around in your chair to see Erin standing in your doorway with your stethoscope in hand. You smile before laughing awkwardly and reaching out for it. You see Erin look to your phone before shooting you a concerned look.

“Oh, thank you!”

“Everything okay, doc?”

You nod despite the fact that you’re lying. You are annoyed at Claire for reasons you can’t really work out, but it’s enough to tick you off. You were having such a good day, and then she had to come in here and trap you in a room with her. She didn’t really have any questions for you, at least ones related to Jonesy. You try not to think about those same annoying questions before you shrug and decide to tell a little bit of the truth.

“Yeah, I just saw a client who I’ve had not so fun encounters with before.”

This piques Erin’s curiosity and she can’t help but ask who you just saw. You mention her name and how she works at a pet store you go to, and Erin practically jumps at this.

“Wait, is she brunette and kind of lanky?”

You open your mouth to reply, but don’t want to be unnecessarily mean so you just shrug noncommittally.

“Possibly?”

Erin groans as she moves a little closer so she can whisper and not be overheard. You are a little surprised by what the brunette says but you figure you shouldn’t be. She has pets too after all, and she is the one who told you about the store in the first place.

“Oh my god. She is the worst. She’s always there when I go get something for Dex and she-.”

Erin trails off as she looks to you uncertainly before deciding that you should probably know. She was really hoping that what she had to tell you didn’t surprise you. If you were annoyed with her it was very likely that you were well aware of Claire’s creepy tendencies.

“She always asks about you, but I promise I don’t tell her anything!”

Despite the chill you feel travel up your spine at the thought of Claire being that creepy, you smile at Erin. You’re grateful that she can tell when someone’s being a creep, and that she’s smart enough to not give them anything they could use against her. It’s also nice to know that she has your back when it matters.

“Thank you for that. She’s always just a little too pushy.”

Erin frowns a this before nodding to herself and you. She decides that she was going to have to run interference if this Claire showed up again. She leaves you alone after that to go back to work, and you almost forgot that you’d texted Billie when your phone beeps. You jump slightly in surprise before looking to what she wrote.

Who is it that’s bothering you? One of your coworkers?

You look back to the messages you sent to her as if you’d forgotten and cringe at how you let Claire rile you up this much.

This bitch won’t leave me alone.

Her cat’s a little shit too.

Okay, so maybe this had been a little unnecessary. Sure Claire was kind of a bitch and annoying, but you probably shouldn’t have said this. She just wouldn’t leave you alone no matter what you did, and now she was showing up at your work? Next thing you knew she’d be showing up at your damn front door.

The part about her cat was true though. He was a little shit.

You type a response before returning to your records. You write up the last details for Claire’s cat, you’d been waiting until everything else was done before doing that, before heading downstairs. It’s almost 1:30, so you only have about half an hour until your next appointment. You take the steps two at a time going down on your way to the kennels. You see Milo sleeping and smile as he jumps up at the sound of the door opening.

“Hey, Milo. Want to go out?”

He nearly knocks you over in his excitement to get out. You curse before grabbing onto Milo’s harness to lead him outside. As soon as you reach the yard and make sure it is empty, you release Milo and watch him run away. He pees here and there before coming back to jump on the bench that you were sitting on. You sighed before standing up and grabbing a frisbee and holding it up with a smile.

“Ready?”

Milo runs after the frisbee until he’s exhausted and panting ten minutes later. He’s lying in the grass with the frisbee near his mouth because he still had to hold onto it so you wouldn’t take it from him. You walk over to him because you figure he needs to go inside for some water, but Milo grabs the frisbee when he sees you coming. He runs away despite still panting and you sigh as you watch your dog run around with his frisbee. You decide it’s a lost cause and leave him to play with it for a minute as you run inside really quickly to grab something.

You nearly run into Erin on your way inside, but you stop just in time before shooting her an apologetic look.

“Sorry, Erin.”

She waves you off before glancing outside. “Milo out there?”

You just nod and she asks if she can take the twins out there. The ‘twins’ are two golden retrievers that are boarding for about a month while their home is under construction. They’re super sweet like most goldens and Milo loves them. You smile before nodding and continuing on your way into the clinic. You don’t make it very far before you’re stopped again.

“Dr. Y/L/N!”

You turn at the sound of someone calling your name. One of the receptionists is holding a large arrangement of flowers that almost completely hides their face. You smile about to ask who they were for before she hands them to you.

“For you. Do you want me to put them in your office?”

You shoot her a confused look and it takes you a second to respond. You eventually shake you head before reaching out to take them from her. You thank her before watching as she heads back up front before you look to the flowers again.

They’re beautiful and bright and they smell wonderful. The arrangement is a mix of roses, lilies and a couple other flowers you didn’t know the name of. You were halfway up the stairs before you attempted to look for a card. It was hidden and you couldn’t pull it from the flowers easily. You set the vase down on your desk before freeing the card from the petals and flipping it over to read what was written.

Can’t wait to see you tonight.

Billie Dean.

You smile at the note before tucking it away somewhere safe. You were touched that Billie would surprise you like this and you couldn’t wait for tonight either.

It was going to be different from any of your previous dates. You were going to cook because you had been wanting to since you found out how much take-out Billie ate, and it was going to be at her house so you could see the kittens. You were only a little nervous about going over to Billie’s house again, but you were determined not to make it a big deal.

It had only been a few weeks since you met, but you hadn’t felt like how you did with Billie, with anyone else. Certainly not with your horrible exes. Billie Dean made you feel comfortable in a way that no one else ever had. She was different. Obviously because she was a medium, but honestly that wasn’t the difference that mattered to you. You hadn’t been lucky enough to be with someone that was as considerate and understanding as Billie. She never faulted you for your awkward and depressing past, and she was busier than you were so the sporadic texts and the even more sporadic dates didn’t upset her like you feared it would.

You’re pulled from your thoughts by the sound of yet someone else calling your name. This time however it was more frantic than you were expecting and you hurried out of your office. You’re met at the stairs by a slightly panicked Lindsey who must have been on lunch because she still had half of it in her hand.

“What’s is it? Is something wrong?”

Lindsey just hurries back down the stairs and opens the door to treatment. You follow her without question as she nods and fills you in on what’s going on.

“Milo was playing with the twins and he got stuck in the fence chasing the frisbee.”

You have to hold in your groan of disbelief because of course your overzealous and slightly impulsive dog would do this. You just mutter an okay under your breath before heading back out into the yard where you see Erin and Mina standing beside your screaming dog. He’s thrashing and trying to pull himself out, but he’s pretty stuck and really must have been running full speed.

You run over to the trio to try and calm Milo down because it seems like he really is stuck. You crouch down next to him on his right before reaching out for the panicked shepherd.

“Hey! Milo, hey, hi. It’s me, you’re okay. Shh, it’s okay, buddy.”

You reach through the bars of fence to pet Milo’s head and he calms enough for you not to be worried about him injuring himself further. You look him over quickly and don’t see any blood immediately, but then you reach his head and you see some dripping from his nose. You sigh in frustration as you try to figure out what the best thing to do is.

“Could you run inside and get a couple of towels and some lube?”

You figure that’s the best thing to get him out of this jam and you watch as both Erin and Mina leave, the latter leading the twins inside so they don’t get in the way. You turn back to your dog who is still panting in either exertion or stress, you’re not sure, and you do your best to keep him calm while you wait for your supplies.

“It’s okay Milo. You’re alright. We’re going to get you out, okay?”

Milo just whines before he turns to lick your hand that had been scratching his neck. You realize that you should probably take off his harness if you hope to slide him back through the fence, but you only get it halfway off before it becomes stuck.

“Dammit.”

Erin returns first and she stands back a little not sure if you want help before she speaks up.

“Anything I can do?”

You nod before motioning for the brunette to come closer so you can show her what you’re trying to do. If you pull on his harness while Erin pushes him away from the fence post a bit you might be able to get it off. You explain this and Erin just nods before moving to put her hands on Milo.

“Sorry buddy.”

It works but Milo yelps as you do it, so you decide to leave the other side be. Maybe you can slide him forward enough on the other side and figure it out from there. He was trapped from just behind his shoulders with most of his body still inside the yard, so maybe you could just pull him back in. When Mina arrives with the towels and what looks like all of the lube in the hospital, you relay the plan and put on the gloves that Mina luckily had the foresight to bring.

“Okay, Milo. We’re going to put this on you and try to slide you out alright?”

You know that he’s not going to respond or even really comprehend what you’re saying, but you know that hearing your voice will calm him down. He’s always been anxious when having things done to him and this was going to be worse due to the fact that he’s already highly stressed before anything has even begun.

You start to rub some of the lube on his right shoulder through the fence while Mina and Erin take his left side. Milo turns as they talk to him too, but is unable to see and growls as they touch him.

“Hey, Milo, stop that. They’re just trying to help you, okay?”

You try to keep going, you even move one of your hands to his left side but it doesn’t help. Milo just gets antsier and he’s growling louder before you realize it’s not working. You can’t be mad at him for being scared. He doesn’t know what’s going on and he can’t see them so he’s distrustful.

You make the decision to switch sides with them so he can see them and just hear you on his blind side. You berate yourself for not doing this initially because Milo immediately calms down and his tail starts to wag as you scratch him between his shoulder blades.

“Good boy, Milo. Almost done okay?”

Now that Mio is sufficiently lubed, you try and slide him back through the bars. You manipulate one of his legs forward to try and slide him backwards but he’s still too wide. You instruct Erin and Mina to do the same and Milo’s legs are stretched out as far forward as they can go before you try again. You have to readjust as Erin moves to pull him from behind, and you breathe a sigh of relief as Milo finally slides back into the yard. You hold onto him as his head whips around to see who’s at his rear end, and you look at his nose carefully before taking his harness off completely. You try to wipe off some of the lube with the towels, but it’s no use. Milo’s too excited about being freed and he’s already shaking it everywhere anyway.

“Look at you Milo. You’re a mess, huh? You need a bath.”

He just licks your face and you groan in annoyance before thanking both of your helpers. You scratch your dog behind his ears for another few seconds before you stand up and motion for him to follow you.

“No more frisbee for a while, okay?”

It turns out that Milo’s a little sorer than anticipated and after his bath he yelps when you reach underneath him to pick him up. You try again more carefully before just letting him jump up on you. You regret this immediately once all 70+ lbs of him is in your arms, but you put him down quickly as he shakes all of the water off of him. You groan in disgust before covering him with a towel and attempting to dry him off.

He whines when you put him in the kennel with the blow dryer, but you have to get to your appointment. You’ll check on him afterwards, but for now you have to go see a dog about some skin issues.

“I’ll be back Milo. Be good.”

It’s 4 before you are able to take the time to examine Milo again. You are in between appointments when you pull him out of his kennel and bring him into treatment. You brush him out because he looks like a mess and as you’re doing that you notice he’s a little sensitive along his ribs. Not that you’re shocked. He’d forced himself through a damn hole he shouldn’t have been able to fit through.

You listened to him and didn’t find anything else wrong and decided to just give him a little something for the pain that would be worse tomorrow. Your next appointment arrives as you are finishing up with him but it’s taking you a minute to get Milo to take his pill. He’s always been horrible about taking medication.

“Dr. Y/L/N. Billy’s here.”

You’re a little confused by this and you turn to Erin with a frown. You’re currently holding open Milo’s mouth to try and shove this pill down his throat when you realize what she means. Billy. The cat with arthritis.

“Right okay, what’s going on with him?”

Billie Dean checks her phone again once she’s done with work. She hasn’t heard from you yet which makes her think you’re still working. It’s nearly 6:30 which is a little late for you, but she decides to just head home and get things ready.

Other than taking care of the kittens and making sure there were clean dishes for you two to use, she didn’t have much she could do. You had refused to tell her what you were cooking and had insisted on shopping yourself. Billie was already in the car when her phone rang. She answers it without looking to see who it is because she’s driving, but she doesn’t have to wonder long.

“Hello?”

“Hi! Billie I’m so sorry for not calling you sooner! Things got crazy here. Milo got stuck in a fence, a dog came in after getting hit by a car, but thank you so much! The flowers are beautiful!”

Billie chuckles under her breath at your flustered state, but then she registers everything that you said and she frowns in concern.

“I’m glad you liked them, Y/N. Did you say that Milo got stuck in a fence? Is he okay?”

You turned around to glance in the back seat briefly to see him fast asleep. He was exhausted from his exciting day and probably would sleep the rest of the night.

“Yeah, he was having too much fun with some friends and a frisbee and ended up halfway through an iron fence.”

Billie shakes her head at the image this conjures up and she sighs as she turns into her driveway.

“Aw poor baby.”

You laugh at this before pulling up to your apartment building. You still had to go shopping to get groceries, but you had to make sure that Milo was situated first. You weren’t sure how long you would be gone and were a little stressed by this, but you would figure it out.

“Yeah, he had a rough day.”

You both were silent as you turn off your cars and consider what to say next. You were trying to figure out how much time you needed to take care of Milo and shop before you could head over to Billie’s. Billie was trying to figure out things for Milo as well, but you hadn’t even considered what she suggested.

“How was your day?”

“Do you want to bring him?”

You both speak at the same time and it takes you a second to realize what she’s said. You shake your head as you turn around to see Milo still out cold. You hoped you wouldn’t have to carry him. Again.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll just get him set up here before heading to the store.”

Billie’s already out of her car by the time she responds. She doesn’t mind either way, but she has a feeling she knows what you want to do. Not to mention, she supposes that the kittens need to be socialized and Bit possibly scared obedient. As if that would ever work.

“Would you feel better if you brought him?”                            

You don’t answer immediately which is honestly the only answer that Billie needs. You’re thinking about how you would love to bring him along because you’d be able to watch him and you could see how Milo would act around the kittens. You had always wanted a cat, and you supposed now was as good a time as any to see how it might work. Or not. As long as Billie didn’t mind.

Eventually you answer and Billie has to force herself not to smile smugly at how well she knew you already.

“I guess. I don’t want you to feel obligated though. I can’t exactly promise that he won’t get hair everywhere!”

You jump out of your car quickly before opening the back door startling Milo awake. He sits up quickly and you reach into the back seat and unbuckle him before grabbing his leash. He jumps to the ground a little more carefully than he usually would before you hear Billie reply.

“I want you to do whatever you need, Y/N. I’m fine either way. You know I adore Milo.”

You smile at this as you look to your dog who is yawning as you walk to the elevator. You suppose that you can take him with you. He might actually enjoy it. You just had to make sure he behaved and didn’t hurt any of the kittens. Billie said this before you got a chance to and you laugh as you nod in agreement.

“We’ll just have to see how he plays along with the kittens.”

You follow Milo into the elevator before leaning against the wall with a sigh. You suppose it’s decided then. You feel your excitement for tonight increasing again, now that you know Milo won’t be home alone. You just smile as the doors close and you take a deep breath.

“We will. I’ll feed him and then be over in about an hour. Does that work?”

Billie’s nodding before she greets Heather who is with Mickey in the living room.

“I’ll see you both then.”

Part 9

[thejolexgroupchat]

the one where they met in med school - part twenty-three

i think you all can tell by the gif what’s coming in this fic...

this one is one our favorites enjoy! - @iamtrebleclefstories​ @doc-pickles​ & Nat

if you haven’t read parts 1-22, you can find them here

Also... this has some M rated content. Read at your own discretion ;)

(March 2009 cont.)

Jo was exhausted, more so than she’d ever thought she had been before. Her day had been shitty, she’d been barfed on twice, and she hadn’t seen Alex since she rolled out of bed that morning. The moment that Shepherd came up to her and let her know that she could leave for the day, she jumped at the opportunity and rushed to change out of her scrubs as quickly as possible. All she wanted at the moment was to get into the loft, take off her shoes, and drink a bottle of wine while her and Alex snuggled on the couch. 

Of course, why would anything work out for her? The door was jammed, something that it had a habit of doing in the winter months that drove her insane. Despite her upper body strength, she was never quite able to pry the heavy metal door open without Alex’s help. A groan left her as she began to dig through her purse in search of her phone. She didn’t think Alex was home, meaning she would have to call him and then wait for him to get there before she could get in.

Frustrated tears welled in her eyes as she struggled to find her phone, the emotions she’d been holding back all day coming to a head when she realized she would be stuck in the hallway until Alex came home. The small inconvenience was the tipping point for her as she slid down the door and began to cry loudly.

“Jo? What are you doing?” the door opened suddenly, Jo falling backwards as Alex pulled it back. She looked up from her place on the floor, eyes staring up at Alex in confusion. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

“I couldn’t open the door,” Jo made no effort to move from her spot laid out on the floor as she cried. “And then I couldn’t find my phone and I got puked on today and I just want some wine.” Alex kneeled down next to her, a small smile on his lips as he brushed her hair out of her face, “I have wine inside, you gotta get up though.” Jo took Alex’s outstretched hand, standing up and following him into their apartment. The living room was dark, the lights off but the room illuminated by dozens of candles that laid out everywhere. Jo turned around to look at Alex, who wore a crooked grin on his face as she looked up at him, “Wh—how? How’d you do all this?” “Bailey let me go early,” Alex shrugged, wrapping his arms around Jo’s waist. “I wanted to surprise you.”

Jo blinked once, twice, a third time before a gasp escaped her and her brain caught up with what was happening. The candles, the button up shirt her boyfriend was wearing, the stupid grin on Alex’s face… It all made sense now, “You let me lay on the floor? You’re planning on proposing and you let me lay on the damn floor?!”

“I got you to stand up! If I had known you were gonna lay on the floor I would have stopped you,” Alex laughed, kissing Jo sweetly before pulling back. “Now there’s something I’ve gotta do. It’s a little cheesy, but…” Jo watched in shock and awe as Alex kneeled down in front of her, grasping her hands in his as he looked up at her with a stupid grin, “Before you, I was just some stupid selfish kid riding through life without a care in the world. And then I met you and something in my stupid brain told me that you were different, you were worth it. And for some reason I decided to listen to that little part of my brain and… it was the best decision I could’ve made. Before I met you I always wanted to run, but I couldn’t run from you, not when you feel so much like home. Not when you’re the only person who’s loved me for exactly who I am… You’re so screwed up that you make me make sense. You and me, we just fit. And I want it all with you, everything else that happens from here on out I want you there with me, Jo. So…” Alex reached into his pocket, Jo’s breath hitching in her throat as she watched in slow motion as he opened the velvet box in his hands. The stupid cheesy grin on his face seemed to grow tenfold as he stared up at her with teary, hopeful eyes, “Josephine Wilson, will you please do me the immense honor of becoming my wife?”

“Yes! Hell yes, a million times yes,” Jo leaned down and pressed her hands against Alex’s cheeks, kissing him soundly as she struggled to hold back her tears. “This makes up for all the barf and the laying on the floor.”

Alex laughed as he let a few tears escape his eyes. He stood up and slid the ring he’d spent the past two weeks obsessing over on Jo’s finger, marveling at the sight of it finally on her hand. He stared at her for a couple seconds, in awe of the woman in front of him. This was real. Jo had actually agreed to marry him. 

Jo must’ve noticed his amused expression because she looked at him weirdly, “What?” 

“Nothing,” Alex shrugged, a light chuckle escaping. “It’s just… out of everything in the history of my life, nothing has surprised me more than getting you to agree to marry me.” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” Jo brought her hand up to his face again. “I love you. I love you more than I ever thought possible. You make me feel safe and at home. You are my heart. Why wouldn’t I want to marry you?” 

At that moment, Alex didn’t really think there were words that could articulate everything he wanted to say to Jo. So, he did what he did best. He decided to show her. 

Leaning in for another kiss, Alex wrapped his arms around Jo, pulling her close to him. Jo buried her hands in his hair, kissing him back as if he was the very air she needed to breathe. When they finally parted, Alex allowed his lips to trail down the column of her throat. He let Jo’s soft gasps and whimpers be his guide as he led them over to the couch just a few feet away. 

Jo giggled as they fell back onto the couch cushions, “Really? The couch. We just got engaged and you want to have sex on the couch? The bed is right there.” 

“I’m impatient,” Alex’s hands found their way underneath her shirt and teased her exposed skin, causing Jo to shiver. “And I really don’t think you want me to stop, so I’m going to keep going. Besides, I told Shepherd we weren’t coming in tomorrow, so we’ve got all night to celebrate.” 

“All night?” Jo raised her eyebrows. “Is that a promise?” 

“Oh, definitely,” Alex’s lips curved into a smug grin. “You aren’t gonna know what hit you.” 

“Well then why are you still talking? Get to work,” Jo ordered as she stripped off her shirt and began to unbutton Alex’s. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Alex laughed as he helped her undress him and bent down to press light kisses along the edge of her bra. He played with the straps before reaching behind her to unhook it. He grinned as Jo’s breasts were finally exposed and leaned forward to kiss between her cleavage. “God, you are so beautiful. I love you so damn much.” 

“You just love my boobs,” Jo teased. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“I do. I really do love your boobs,” Alex confirmed, not even looking the slightest bit embarrassed at having said it. “But I don’t hear you complaining about the attention I give them.”

“Oh no, by all means, please continue,” Jo grinned brightly as she watched him excitedly return to kissing her breasts. 

Alex took his time giving each breast an equal amount of attention, taking each nipple in his mouth and swelling with pride as he saw Jo’s chest rise and fall and her back arch in response to his ministrations. Her chest and cheeks were flushed and her breaths were becoming more shallow, signaling that she was highly aroused and well on her way to what he was sure would be an intense climax. 

He loved that he could do this for her. He loved that he could make her feel this much pleasure. He loved that he could make her feel desired and cherished. It was humbling and thrilling all at the same time. The fact that they were engaged now, only made the thought that much more incredible. For the rest of their lives, he’d be the only one who would get to see her this way. 

“Alex,” Jo breathed out softly, pulling him from his thoughts. “No more teasing. I need you, right now.”

With an understanding nod, Alex let his hands slide down to Jo’s hips, unbuttoning her jeans and quickly pulling them off. He stood to remove his own pants, heart swelling at the look Jo fixed him with, “What's that look for?” 

“Nothing, I just really love you,” Jo grinned as she rose up on her knees and reached for Alex, bringing him down into a searing kiss. “And I really can’t wait to take your last name.”

Alex paused and looked at her strangely, “You want to take my last name?”

“I mean, yeah if it’s alright with you,” Jo shrugged shyly. “I know it isn’t common for female surgeons to do that anymore, but I just… I’d really like to take your last name, because I’ve never had the last name of anyone who’s ever loved me.”

“I love you so much, future Dr. Karev,” a chuckle left Alex as Jo pushed him down onto the couch, legs straddling his waist as she brought their lips together again. Her hot core was grinding down onto his throbbing erection, a groan coming from Alex as he wrapped his arms around Jo’s waist, “God, I’ve been thinking about this all damn day.”

“Well I’m glad I can finally give you what you want, Dr. Karev,” a smirk crossed Jo’s face as she sunk down onto Alex in one swift move, both of them letting a groan of relief out. Alex buried his face into Jo’s neck, his tongue darting out to tease at the hot skin as she began to move at a tortuously slow rate above him. “This makes my whole day worth it.”

The pace Jo set was good, she felt perfect around him, but Alex needed more. Watching her moan and writhe above him had set something off within him and he wanted to savor the moment. With a x quick flip in position, Alex laid Jo down on the couch, pressing his hips into hers and eliciting a loud moan from her as she adjusted to the new position.

Alex watched in fascination as Jo’s back arched off the couch with each long thrust he made, her mouth agape as she let her moans fill the hot air between them. Bracing his hands on both sides of her head, Alex leaned down to bite at Jo’s neck again, his teeth marking her skin as he let the pace of his thrusts quicken.

“Alex… oh my god,” Jo’s voice was impossibly high pitched as she let her nails dig into Alex’s back, spurring him on to keep his wild pace up as she began to move her hips in time with them. He’d wanted to take things slow, to cherish Jo and worship her body after she had agreed to become his wife, but she’d had other plans and he knew as soon as she’d sat astride his lap earlier that he’d be a goner, succumbing to whatever it was that she wanted from him. “More, please more.”

Wasting no time in heeding Jo’s request Alex grabbed one of her legs and brought it up to wrap around his hips, letting him hit her at a deeper angle as he increased the speed of his thrusts. He could feel the way that he bottomed out with each movement of his hips, disjointed moans coming from Jo as her nails raked down his arms and grasped at the burning skin. 

Alex and Jo had had sex hundreds of times before this, they’d used every available flat surface they could find to get in each other’s pants. But this, this desperate and hot session on their couch was something that Alex didn’t think he would ever be able to forget. Jo’s breathy moans and the way she called his name as she neared her release imprinted themselves into his brain, his mind tucking away the image of her letting out a slow and throaty moan as she came, her eyes flitting up to meet Alex’s in a love drunk haze.

“You look gorgeous,” his words were low, almost a growl as his thrusts began to turn sloppy. Pressing his forehead against Jo’s, Alex let their lips ghost over each other as his own orgasm crept up inside of him. “I love you… I love you so much.”

Alex dipped his head down to Jo’s neck as he finally let himself go, spilling inside of her as she let out a desperate moan. The two laid still for a moment as they came to, letting themselves catch their breath and relish in the moment. When he finally did move, Alex laid himself out on the couch and brought Jo into his chest.

“I can’t believe you proposed to me,” Jo giggled, holding her hand up to inspect the ring that now graced her left hand. “I mean I knew you would eventually, but I’m still shocked. I didn’t think I’d ever get a happy ending.”

“You deserve everything good in this life, Jo. And I will do everything in my power to make sure we have a very happy life together,” Alex said, while Jo cuddled into his chest, his arm around her body. 

“What is this? Are we exchanging vows now?” Jo chuckled. 

“No, but I wanted you to know that this is what I’ve been preparing for. I am ready to make sure we have a life full of all that crap we see on those stupid romantic movies you make me watch,” he grunted, pretending to be mad, but not being able to hide the sweetness and happiness in his voice. 

“I am sure we will have a very happy life together,” she smiled at him brightly and let out a dreamy sigh as she stared at her ring. “I can’t wait to be a Karev.”

“Jo Karev does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t?” Alex nodded and placed a kiss to her forehead.

“It sure does,” Jo grinned widely.

“I love you,” he pecked her lips. 

“I love you too, fiancé.”

AHHHHHH!! It finally happened. What did you guys think? What do you want to see next?

[riverthunder]

The Stars in Our Skies

For @thespacecryptid for the @ironstrangehaven Gift Exchange ❤️

Link to AO3 Post: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28625829

Notes:

Alrighty, so first I need to apologize to my giftee, TheSpaceCryptid. I tried to finish your gift early, and I want to say I had it done sometime between the 15th and the 20th? And after a lazy Christmas Day I went into my Google Drive to post this and it was just... gone. I have no idea what happened. So I had to redo the whole thing from scratch. In some ways I like this version a lot more, though- and in others I think the original was a little better? But overall I'm pleased with this.

You had a lot of ideas I absolutely adore- like Asexual Stephen (insert my heart eyes here), and stargazing dates, and these two being professors. Just. Mwah. Beautiful.

Also, I'm tagging this as Teen due to some discussions of sex- nothing graphic, though, obviously- since I headcanon ace Stephen as a sex-repulsed asexual like myself.

I hope you like the fic and your bonus artwork to make up for how late this ended up being! Apologies again!!

The Stars in Our Skies

Tony stared just a little bit as the new astronomy teacher strolled into the break room and began fixing himself a cup of oolong tea. He had a beautiful face, with sharp cheekbones and a well-defined jaw, as well as piercing, beautiful eyes. Tony also had a funny feeling that he’d met the astronomy teacher many times before, but he couldn’t put a finger on where.

He knew Professor Strange had been a surgeon back in the day, and he was sure he’d seen him at some of the galas he’d attended in his youth. But it felt like he’d seen Strange more recently than that.

He was very obviously distracted during his class, and he gave up on whatever physics explanation he’d been trying to give the poor engineering class he was clearly confusing, and told them to just go ahead and work on homework, giving them a bonus extra two days on his latest paper as well to top it off while he sat back down at his desk to think.

At the end of the period, two of his best students came to sit next to him.

“Everything okay, Professor Stark?” Peter asked while Harley gave him a knowing smile.

“Fine, boys, just a little off my rhythm is all,” Tony said, trying to look unconcerned.

“You sure?” Harley asked innocently. “Sure it’s not something else? A certain someone, maybe? Like… I dunno… the hot new astronomy professor?”

Tony had been taking a drink of coffee and choked on it at Harley’s words, which was decidedly not good, since the coffee was still piping hot thanks to his specially designed insulated mug. “I- you- what?” Tony spluttered.

“What?” Harley asked innocently. “He’s kinda like you, Professor. A silver fox. He’s smokin’.”

“Harley!” Peter said indignantly. “You can’t say that about a professor!”

Harley shrugged. “Too bad, it’s true, Pete. ‘Sides, Professor Stark should come to terms with the idea.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at Harley’s tone. “Oh really?” He asked. “Why?”

Harley shrugged innocently. “Because I wrote Professor Strange a note in your handwriting and hid it in his desk drawer asking him to go on a date with you tonight at 8:00.”

Tony stood up so quickly his coffee mug almost spilled all over the papers he’d collected from his first period, but before he could shout at Harley at the top of his lungs, a certain handsome professor was standing in his doorway.

“Oh,” Stephen said, looking from Tony to their students. “I’m sorry, are you busy? I could come back another time.”

He was holding a piece of paper that had obviously been folded a few times in one of his trembling hands.

“No, we were just leaving,” Harley said sweetly.

Peter felt himself blushing for some reason as he passed Professor Stark a quick note of his own. “Um, I just wanted to know if you’d please check my work on these chemistry notes,” he said.

Tony glanced down at them. A new web-fluid design. He nodded to Peter. “Yes. Yes. I’ll look them over and e-mail you with any necessary changes.”

“Thanks!”

Without another word, Peter seized Harley’s upper arm and dashed out of the room, while Harley laughed and tried to protest, clearly thrilled with watching Tony flounder in the presence of his crush. You could hardly blame him. Seeing Tony Stark, Iron Man, who was a professor for fun, flounder, was a rare and almost unheard of sight.

“Hello, Professor Stark,” Strange said politely, and Tony felt his face heating up. “Um- hi- I-”

“I am very sorry,” Stephen said, setting the note in his hand down on Tony’s desk. Tony caught a glimpse of the handwriting- fucking identical to his own. That damn Keener brat. When Tony got his hands on him-

“But I am afraid I must decline your invitation.”

Oh.

Tony hadn’t even known he was asking Stephen on a date a few minutes ago, but somehow Stephen’s words still stung.

“Oh,” he said out loud. “Uh… busy?”

“No,” Stephen replied.

Yeah, that definitely hurt.

“Oh.” Tony glanced at the note and quickly plucked it off the desk. “Okay. That’s fine, I understand. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable with this.”

“You didn’t,” Stephen told him. “It was actually very flattering. But I don’t think you would like to be in a relationship with me, so I am afraid I must decline.”

Wait, what?

“Uh… sorry, you lost me,” Tony said awkwardly.

Stephen chuckled. “I identify as asexual,” he explained. “Specifically, a sex-repulsed asexual. And from what I know of your past...er, love life, I think it’s better if I decline the invitation altogether. I don’t want to upset you because you want to have sex and I don’t.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “So it is an ace ring!” He said, pointing at the black ring on Stephen’s middle finger on his right hand. “Rhodey called me crazy and said it was a swinger’s ring!”

Stephen blinked in surprise and glanced down at his ring. “Er- yes, it is,” he agreed.

“Cool! Okay.” Tony shot him a smirk. “In that case- are you an ace of spades?”

Stephen looked shocked. “You- you know about the card suits?”

“Sure do,” Tony said proudly.

Stephen narrowed his eyes. “Okay then- who uses the ace of diamonds?”

“Demisexuals and demiromantic asexuals,” Tony said. “Ace of clubs is for graysexual and grayromantic, ace of spades is for aromantic asexuals, and ace of hearts is for romantic asexuals.”

He grinned, and Stephen had to crack a smile. “Very impressive.”

“So, what’s your suit, Doc?” Tony asked, grinning at him, and Stephen had to resist the urge to let that smile widen.

“Ace of hearts. I’m a romantic asexual.”

Tony grinned. “I can work with that.”

Stephen allowed his face to fall into a small frown. “Tony, I-”

“Look, Doc, I don’t need sex to be happy,” Tony said. “I’ve had loads in my day, yeah, but I’m a big boy and frankly, I think it’s about time I had a relationship that wasn’t so focused on it. If you’re good with a romantic relationship, I can be happy with one, too.”

Stephen chuckled despite himself. “Persistent, aren’t you?”

“Very,” Tony said, a bit smugly.

Stephen chuckled. “Very well.” He wrote something on a small scrap of paper and offered it to Tony, taking back the note Harley had written. “You can pick me up there, at 8:00.”

“I’ll be there,” Tony said, snatching the fake letter back. “And I’ll give you something actually written by me then.”

~(*)~

Tony pulled up to the house on Bleecker Street. Huh… looked kinda like a museum, to be honest.

The elegant Professor Strange was already walking to meet the car. “Right on time,” he teased, climbing in. He looked like he was putting on a brave face as he entered, and Tony took note of the way Stephen’s hand reached for the cabinet handle on the inside of the door.

Tony bit his lip. “I just like to be on time to things,” he said casually, placing his right hand on the console if Stephen wanted to hold it too, or instead.

Stephen nodded. “Well, I appreciate it. So, what’s the plan for our date?”

“I think you told Professor Verity that you like ramen from Samurai Noodle, right?”

Stephen smiled. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Great! Then we’re getting take-out,” Tony told him, grinning to himself. “And I have a great idea of where we can eat it.”

“Oh? And where is that, exactly?”

“It’s a secret,” Tony said, smirking. “Are you ready to go?”

Stephen nodded, looking amused as he took Tony’s free hand on the console. “That I am. Let’s go, Professor Stark.”

Tony snorted as he started the car. “Alright.”

He tried to sound cool, but he knew that he had started blushing.

~(*)~

“So what exactly are we doing in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night?” Stephen asked as Tony laid a large blanket out in one of the large fields near the Avengers Compound.

“Why?” Tony asked, smirking at him. “Don’t you trust me?”

Stephen chuckled. “Is that your way of saying you’re secretly an ax murderer about to eviscerate me in the middle of this field, free of any witnesses?”

“Ouch,” Tony complained. “You’re really good at wounding someone’s ego, you know that, Strange?”

“So what’s the real reason we’re out here, then?” Stephen asked, amused.

“Lay down,” Tony ordered, pointing to the blanket. “And look up.”

Stephen did so, and gasped in surprise. “The stars….” He breathed, sounding mesmerized.

“That’s right,” Tony said, smiling at him. “Not to easy to see them in the city. But I figured you’re the Astronomy Professor… maybe you’d like to see them more clearly? Maybe teach me something I don’t know?”

“Lay down,” Stephen ordered quietly. “There… Orion the Hunter. Can you see his belt? The three stars, just here.”

“Oh… right,” Tony said. “Isn’t he that dude everyone says Artemis loved?”

“A common misconception these days,” Stephen murmured. “In many of the myths, Artemis was actually the one to kill him, on purpose, for harassing her friends, the Pleiades, or she would encourage someone else to kill him for her, such as Apollo. He’d summon a giant scorpion to kill Orion, which many believe is Scorpio, as the two constellations aren’t around at the same time. When Scorpio rises, Orion vanishes.”

“Cool,” Tony said softly, staring up at the night sky with Stephen. “What else can you see?”

“Sirius, the Dog Star, Orion’s hunting dog,” Stephen said, pointing to the bright star. You can see the constellation Taurus there. Gemini there. Monoceros is there, very faint. You see? Look closely.”

“Beautiful,” Tony murmured, resting his head on Stephen’s chest as he gazed up at the sky.

Stephen smiled to himself and wrapped an arm around him. “Hmm. Not as beautiful as you,” he murmured in a thoughtful voice, making Tony blush.

~(*)~

“Was that an okay date?” Tony wondered as he drove Stephen back to Bleecker Street.

Stephen smiled at him. “You don’t know?”

“Not really,” Tony admitted. “And I kinda wanna… you know. Do this again.”

Stephen chuckled as they reached the museum door. Wait… how come even the building looked sort of familiar? And the street…?

“Well, in that case… it was a perfect date, Professor Stark.” Stephen leaned over, kissing his lips gently. “And I expect to go on another one with you very soon.”

“Sure,” Tony said, a little breathlessly, his eyes wide as he stared at Stephen. “Whatever you want….”

“Perfect.” Stephen smiled at him, and suddenly something long, red, and fluttering was at his throat, gently tugging him out of the car. “Alright, Levi, alright. I’m coming,” Stephen murmured, reaching out to stroke the red fabric.

Tony stared at it. A sentient cloak….

Wait- was he-?

Stephen was already disappearing inside the door when Tony found his voice, so he couldn’t ask him directly. He sat in the dark of his car, dumbfounded, and feeling his heart pounding. Was that the kiss, his sudden epiphany, or both?

“FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Boss?” Chirped the cool Irish accent.

“Am… am I dating the Sorcerer Supreme?”

Extra Notes:

To clarify the "Stephen is the Sorcerer Supreme but Tony doesn't recognize him but is sure he's met him before" thing- I headcanon that Stephen's magic acts as a sort of "barrier" to his identity- and just protects his identity for him. I got the idea from Cute High Earth Defense Club actually- where the villains and heroes can't really recognize each other as specific students when they meet due to "radio interference" almost- but in my Stephen headcanon, it's more that the magic puts a sort of veil over Stephen, so Tony is sure he's met him before, but he can't put his finger on where until he recognizes Cloakie and goes "oh shit, Stephen's the Sorcerer Supreme I've been battling monsters with???"

[yourmidnightlover]

SSA Hotchner: chapter 4 - romantic love

TW - threatening letter, a bit of combat, flirting, alluding to sexual themes but not really? let me know if i missed something :)

WC - 2,898

series masterlist

————————————————————————

walking into the frat house you scanned the room for spencer immediately, finding him in the corner where he could keep an eye on everything in the living room area and then some. you gave him a subtle nod when he made eye contact with you to signal you knowing his presence.

"alright, y/n. i need you to scope the place for the guy in the picture we showed you," morgan's voice rang out from your earpiece. "he'll be somewhere near the entrance looking for his next victim."

you gave two taps on your earring to let them know you understood. you began walking further into the living room, making eye contact with spencer again who nodded his head to your right. you looked over your shoulder and found the suspect.

you grabbed a cup of some unknown substance, not wanting to take a sip of it anyway. you traced your finger along the edges as you saw lucas stillwater eyeing you. you bit the bottom of your lip gently, noticing how he began walking towards you almost immediately.

"hi, pretty lady," he greeted you, his hand coming to find your waist.

"hi," you smiled softly, repressing your gag reflex from his touch.

"this dress is... something else, sweetcheeks," already two pet names. got it, dick.

"this ol' thing? i've had it for ages," you started, before moving to fix the collar of his shirt. "now you... look great in this shirt. only..." you pulled him in so you could whisper, "i think it might look better off."

"damn, junior hotch," morgan laughed. "you've really got some game."

"you don't waste any time, do ya?" he smiled as he tucked a stray hair behind your ear.

"hmm... what can i say?" you pulled back to look him in the eyes, removing your hands from him completely. "i know what i want."

"morgan, how about we don't mention my sister like that. got it?" aaron announced.

"you and me both, sugar. you and me both," he growled as he eyed you up and down.

"sir, yes sir," morgan laughed once again.

"i'm hoping that something is me?" you bat your eyelashes innocently, tilting your head in curiousity.

"that something is most definitely you," he agreed. "what do ya say we get out of here, head back to my place?" he placed his hands on your waist, pulling you closer to his body.

"hmm," you traced his chest with your index finger. "i would love to... but i can't," you immediately pulled back and out of his grip, walking across the living room closer to spencer.

"great. now flirt with spencer to entice him more," morgan announced. "you have to get him really riled up, whatever it takes."

spencer had seen how you acted with lucas. as much as he hated to admit, it got underneath his skin. he wanted to be the only one you talked to like that, even if it was just for a case.

you walked over to spencer, biting your lip once again as you approached him. once you got to him, you turned him to face the direction the unsub was once in.

"is he watching?" you whispered in his ear.

"uh, mmhmm. he uh, he's watching," he nodded.

"i'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable," you swallowed.

you noticed the way his breathing picked up. the way his body nearly trembled at your touch. you were clearly making him uncomfortable.

"just act like it's someone else, alright?" you asked before pulling back, playing with a few strands of his hair.

"he looks angry, keep doing that," spencer announced.

"that's good," you swallowed, feeling a bit nervous about what was supposed to go down later that night. "so you're going back with me, right?" you asked with a grin.

"uhm, yea. i am," he nodded. "doing so would entice the unsub even further, ensuring that he'd follow you back."

"okay, sounds good," it was your turn to nod with a smile. "i can't wait to get out of these heels," you giggled as you brought your other hand to his shoulder. "they're rather uncomfortable."

"they look amazing," he grinned with his puppy dog eyes. "i uh- i know i wasn't really able to s-say anything before," he swallowed. "you look re-really beautiful."

"thank you, spence," you blushed. "do you think we're good to leave now?" he nodded. "great, i'm so glad i can change out of this," you laughed as you pulled his hand out the door and towards a car the fbi had gotten just for this case.

you drove to your 'house,' noticing a dark blue sedan following close behind as you pulled into the driveway. you quickly got out, and made your way inside while holding spencer unbelievably close.

once you got inside you went into the bedroom to grab the change of clothes so you could get out of the dress. it was a pair of sweatpants and a short tank top. you were also able to take out the earpiece since the unsub couldn't directly see you.

walking out of the bathroom, you met spencer in the bedroom once again. you noticed him looking at you in a weird way.

"what is it?" you squinted your eyebrows as you looked over your appearance. "i don't think there's a stain on these clothes, i just bought them a month ago."

"th-there's not," you furrowed your brows even more in confusion. "it's just... you look amazing in both a party dress and while dressed in what some would call their 'lazy day clothes,' i just don't see how that's fair," he chuckled as you went to sit down beside him on the bed.

"well i would say you look great in 'lazy day clothes' and in your work clothes and in a tuxedo and in practically anything," you moved a strand of hair behind his ear. "be sure to give yourself credit where it's due, doc."

"thank you, y/n," he said in a tone so genuine it sounded as though you had given him the greatest gift in the world, not just a kind compliment.

"of course," you smiled as you went to the head of the bed, ensuring that there was a gun in the drawer beside it.

"morgan just texted and said the unsub's car is parked outside. he's going to come in about 5 minutes from now," spencer announced.

"i have my gun, you?" you looked at him, he nodded. "great," you felt your breathing pick up.

"hey," spencer placed a hand on your lower thigh. "i'm here, alright? i'll go to the back door, that's where he enters the house," he rubbed his thumb soothingly. "he won't hurt you."

"right. he won't hurt me. but what about you?" you asked, placing your hand over his.

"don't worry about me," he took your hand and pressed his lips to it. "i'll be okay."

"if you aren't okay by the end of the night i'm gonna kill you," you warned him as he placed your hand in his lap, still covered by his.

"alright, i'll hold you to that," he chuckled quietly. "i'll be back, alright?" you nodded as he got up and made his way to the back door.

you walked up to the front door, looking out the peephole and seeing nothing but darkness which was odd. there was a porch light on, and streetlights on the street that lit it up. so why was there no light?

you moved to flip the light switch on, finding it didn't work at all. you went to the kitchen, it didn't work. then once you made your way to the back door where spencer was supposed to be, he wasn't there.

you began panicking. he was gone. he was dead. he was hurt. gone. hurt. dead? you ran back to the living room, finding spencer passed out you placed your gun beside his body to examine him. with what seemed to be a tranquilizing dart in his neck.

you felt arms around your neck and torso, then another pair by your feet. you immediately started kicking as the arm around your neck began squeezing harder than before. you tilted your chin down, bringing your hands up to gouge at the person's eyes that was behind you. he went down wailing

using your core, you kept yourself up as the person holding your torso fell back, you wrapped your legs around his body. you jabbed his gut before putting arms around his neck as you used all your strength to choke his neck, twisting your body around to the back of his body. once you were on his back, you were able to unwrap your legs from his body and use that leverage to induce more pain, he passed out within seconds.

you quickly dropped his body and pointed your gun at the guy who was still screaming, recognizing him as lucas. the door busted down, morgan rushing through with aaron, guns raised.

the heaving in your chest didn't stop or slow down, still having that rush of adrenaline from what just went down.

"you're alright," aaron breathed a sigh of relief as he went to engulf you in his arms.

"i told you i would be," you breathed in the comforting scent of your brother, home.

"damn, y/n," morgan came to clap you on the back. "i didn't know you had that in you. taking down two grown men? remind me to never mess with you,"

"spencer, he-he got hit with a tranquilizer," you announced, motioning to where his body lay on the couch.

"don't worry about him, it's a normal valium tranquilizer. it'll ware off soon," morgan informed you, a wave of relief washing over you.

"so how'd this happen?" aaron asked, you turned to face him.

"spence went to the back door to wait for them to enter since that's where he was supposed to come in. then i went to the front door just to be safe, but i couldn't see anything. it was totally dark. they had cut off power for the block," you turned to face morgan. "that's what we missed. once i figured that out i went to check on spencer, he wasn't by the back door so i went back to the living room and found him here like that," you motioned to him on the couch. "then i felt someone's arms around my neck and feet. i gouged his eyes out, held my body up and choked the other one. ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom! you guys come in," you summarized.

"i don't think i've ever been this impressed by you, y/n," aaron smiled, proud of his little sister.

"well i have been taking self defense lessons since i left home," you shrugged.

"really?" he asked, surprised by the news.

"mhmm. i thought that since dad was..." you cut yourself off. "yea, i've just wanted to know how to protect myself and others," you corrected.

aaron's eyes softened as you stumbled over your words, engulfing you in a hug to comfort you. he rested his chin on your head.

"i love you, aaron," you whispered so only he could hear.

"i love you," he replied, placing a kiss on your hairline.

back on the plane, you sat beside spencer who was still passed out from the tranquilizer. he was supposed to wake up sometime before you land, but with his quick metabolism it would probably be much sooner. you kept your gaze on his peaceful sleeping demeaner. moving your hand around his face, you brushed his hair back once more.

basically everyone else was asleep on the jet aside from you and emily. she noticed the way you looked at him. wistfully. worried. loving.

"he's alright," emily spoke up, sitting in the chair closest to the couch. you rose your eyes to meet hers.

"i-i know," you nodded. "i just... i thought he was-" you cut yourself off.

"but he's not," she titled her head as you looked back at him sleeping. "he's breathing. he'll wake up soon."

"there was a moment when i saw he wasn't there, by the back door, and i just-i didn't know..." you sighed as you traced his cheekbone with the side of your finger.

"you know, he's pretty smitten by you, too?" emily asked with a smirk.

"please," you rolled your eyes. "he's a genius."

"after he first met you, he asked me all about you. he wanted to know where you went to college, your hobbies, interests, whether or not you had a boyfriend," she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"that doesn't mean anything, em. it just means he's curious of a new person," you finally refocused your eyes on her. "besides, how do you know i like him?"

"come on, y/n. i've known you for how long?" she whisper-yelled. "i know when you have a little crush on someone."

"who said it was little?" you laughed "no, i just haven't ever had a real relationship before. i don't think i'm meant to be in one," you shrugged.

"why not?" she furrowed her brows

"i've just never been lucky in the dating aspect. i've learned to be happy with myself... by myself," you proudly announced. "and you know what happened with my parents, it just doesn't seem like many relationships these days are actually happy. they all end in divorce or someone stays because they're too afraid to leave or... or it's just not a good idea."

"if this is because of your dad..." she trailed off.

"it's not just because of my dad, it's because i don't think relationships are necessary. i don't think romantic love is... real," you brought your hands to spencer's, fiddling with his fingers to calm yourself down.

"you don't believe in love?" she asked incredulously.

"i don't believe in romantic love," you corrected.

"how did i never know this about you? i mean not believing in love is kind of a big thing..." she rose her eyebrows comically.

"it's never really been brought up," you dropped his hand and shrugged your shoulders.

spencer began stirring in his spot, he leaned up and squinted his eyes at you. he took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around you, bringing you as close to him as possible.

"you're alright," he sighed into your hair. "i thought they were going to hurt you."

"they didn't. i'm alright, spence. i promise," you stroked his hair gently, trying your best to calm him. "i'm okay," you tried to pull back, only to find his grip on you tighten slightly.

"just... just let me hold you for a little longer?" he pleaded as he placed a kiss to your forehead.

"if you're gonna do that then i wanna take a nap," you giggled as you moved the two of you to lay down together, his arms under yours as you curled into his chest.

"whatever you'd like," he sighed.

he heard what you said about love not being real. he heard about how you liked him, but how it couldn't go anywhere. and he was determined to change that for you, no matter what it took.

and he didn't know much about yours or aaron's childhood. from what happened in his own, he understood why someone would want to keep it under wraps. he just wanted you to know that it was alright to confide in him as he has you.

he wants to be that person you went to when you had nightmares about your past. he wants to be the one to chase away the bad guys from your past. he wants to be your future, as well. he wants to be the one you come home with. he wants to be with you. he wants to love you. he wants to be loved by you.

as much as you hated to admit, he's already starting to break down your walls. and that scared you more than your childhood ever did...

the next couple of weeks went by quicker than expected. you quickly found your place within the team, no surprise there since you already knew them. after penelope found out how you had taken the two men down she began calling you her 'little dynamite.'

spencer and you had hung out a couple more times outside of work. he had come over to your place and watched another movie, you went to his so he could give you a lesson on chess, and the two of you went out to eat after a hard case, finishing it with an ice cream with one another.

aaron had been a bit less protective of you after he found out how you had taken self defense classes. he knew you had training with the bureau, but knowing you had training outside of work just eased his mind a bit more.

emily hadn't pressed you on the whole 'romantic love' topic, but she had pressed you on you crush on spencer. she was convinced you and he would be the power couple of the bau.

the rest of the team had gone out together a total of two times after cases. you went out, didn't drink because you needed to drive yourself home, and then went back home.

there was one more letter. one more threat.

i can't believe people actually look up to you. why do they think you're so perfect?

you don't even know how to do your job right and you have men falling at your feet.

you should rot in hell. maybe i should send you there.

no big deal. yet.

[bthump]

How have you come to read Berserk? Do you remember what your thoughts and impressions were while reading this story for the first time?

ty for your interest!

I actually watched the 97 anime first. I watched it with a friend like a decade ago and I don’t remember those first impressions very well because a lot of weed was involved lol. But I do know I thought I’d be bored by it and ended up surprisingly invested and engaged. I of course shipped griffguts and I was definitely shocked at how close to canon it was, with scenes like Casca’s cave monologue and Griff’s torture chamber monologue.

Then I found the Band of the Hawk scanlation and read that bc I wanted more, though I often found it confusing. I actually just checked and realized I still have a little wordpad doc I wrote notes in back then while I was reading it. So here’s some highlights:

- I adored both Guts and Griffith, and I called Guts “Gatts,” thanks to the scanlation.

- I found their trauma backstories really fascinating since I’d never rly seen that with male characters before.

- I hated Puck a lot lol :(

- From around the Lost Children arc: Hell, he's doing the same as Griffith did - building a mountain of bodies. I predict that he will eventually use the Behelit, and his sacrifice will be... Griffith! Because enemies can also be the most important person to you. But then he will turn it down. Also if he takes Jill, she'll be the Casca to his Griffith. Waaaiiit... if they explicitly state that it's a possibility Gatts'll use the Behelit and get all demon-y... well, obviously the temptation will be soon, and he'll say no. Not a climax as such. Just an event. Damn. Well, unless a central theme of the rest of this is Gatts' temptation to monsterize himself.

well hey I called Guts getting his own Casca parallel follower, I just didn’t know it would be Farnese.

- I was seeing Casca and Griffith parallels apparently, but I was being vague so I don’t know what parallels exactly. Maybe just the ‘shell of former self’ thing.

- very exasperated by how no man can interact with Casca without trying to rape her.

- went ham during hill of swords ofc but surprisingly not at Guts forgetting his urge to kill lol: OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS CHAPTER IS CALLED REUNION ON THE HILL OF SWORDS OMFG REUNION OMG OMG OMGOMGOMGOMGOMOMGOMGOMOGMOGMOGMOMGOD OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

- bb me still knew what was up re: Griff: He's not sociopathic, he's just so singleminded that he'll do anything for his goal. I was going to say that he's so single minded that he doesn't care what he does for his goal, but that's not true - he DOES care, he just does it anyway.

- I was getting bored with the Millenium Falcon arc and didn’t care about any of the new characters aside from kind of liking Serpico and absolutely hating Isidro. I didn’t say anything about Farnese but I do have a vague memory of getting excited that there was another female soldier character followed immediately by disappointment that she can’t actually fight. So if I didn’t like her back then that’s probably why.

- I was a little disappointed when Guts got the berserk armour because fight scenes aren’t as cool when the protag has a magic power up. I was right tbh.

- I seem to have quit writing around the beach chapters. I think I did actually drop it around there probably, I’d already taken one break and I was forgetting stuff and generally losing the thread of the story iirc.

also I believed Griffith was very likely to get redeemed at the end? Here’s my “reasoning” lol:

Consise, laid-out reasoning why Griffith will be redeemed. He'll probably die right afterwards, but he will certainly sacrifice himself in an act of redemption. 1. The slug-dude did so for his daughter in an act of foreshadowy self-sacrifice. 2. Skull-knight dude tells Gatts that he perhaps has the power to stop fate or whatever. 3. Griffith's whole friendship speech that throws everything in motion. It's super important, but one aspect that is truly important is that for him to call someone a friend, he has to be an equal - following his own dream, etc. When he becomes Femto, this gives Gatts the motivation he needs to get real. If Femto/Griffith eventually sees Gatts as his equal, this metaphorically equals friendship. Of course this will manifest in a respectful arch-enemy thing, once Femto learns to truly fear Gatts, but the metaphor is still there and it will come out when he eventually DOES sacrifice himself because he can't bear to lose his one equal/bff/etc. It will be very Final Gameish. 4. The only man who made Griffith forget his dream is Gatts. Gatts has a huge amount of power over Griffith in regards to his desire to rule everything. 5. Portions of the story are still seen from Griffith's point of view - indeed, a humanized Femto - and this gives me great hope that during these bits we'll see more greyscale characterization. 6. Also in a weird way they kind of have a child together apparently. Idk. 7. Based on the whole sequence before The Golden Age, Gatts gets dark. And ruthless. Mirroring Griffith's transformation, just a bit. 8. Also the fact that Gatts has a freaking

I didn’t fail to copypaste it properly, I just never finished that sentence. But it was probably “behelit” if I gotta guess. Final Game def references the never-made 70s Doctor Who episode where the Master was going to sacrifice himself to save the Doctor, fyi, not the Sherlock Holmes story. Me lowkey comparing every hero/villain dynamic to Doctor/Master when I was 20 is presumably why I assumed they’d get to a respectful arch nemeses vibe lmao.

I guess tbf I wasn’t talking about a redemption arc so much as a humanizing death lol, I just wouldn’t call that a redemption now. I don’t completely disagree with my past self, though I def had some dumb ideas.

It sucks that I dropped it before all the good parts of the MF arc tbh, Griffith vs Ganishka and Guts and Zodd teaming up etc. I wonder what I would’ve thought of it.

Anyway yeah lol, ty for asking and prompting me to find this lol, it was fun to reminisce!

Oh also if you want to see my more recent and technically third impressions lol I did start this blog just to liveblog my more meta-y re-read of Berserk. Here’s the tag for that in chronological order.

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Sunset Swerve - Part 3

Pairing: Luke x OC

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: none(?)

A/N: Me publishing back to back updates? More likely than you think. We’re finally through with episode 2! As always, let me know what you think and send me a message or ask if you want to be tagged in future chapters! Also, thank you to all who have left kind messages on the last few parts, I really appreciate it! Now back to your (ir)regularly scheduled fanfic. 

Part 2  Masterlist

___

“Let’s go, Moss,” Luke yelled and Jordan groaned, “Rise and shine.”

For what felt like the last few hours, Jordan had been curled up on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket. They were all pretty certain that ghosts couldn’t sleep but Jordan felt exhausted from the day and she didn’t feel like exploring all night with the guys so she did her best to emulate the experience. At some point, she had reached a dream-like stupor, which she assumed was as close as she’d get to real sleep.

“Where exactly are we going?” She asked, rolling over to face the inside of the room and slowly opening her eyes.

She was met with the three boys much too close to comfort and staring at her. She screamed on instinct, sitting up quickly and pulling the blanket with her, holding it tightly to her chest. The guys started screaming too, the four ghosts momentarily thrown into chaos.

“You can’t do that to a girl!” Jordan admonished, standing up to slap each of their shoulders. “Give a girl some privacy!”

“You were sleeping on the couch,” Reggie pointed out and Jordan scowled.

“And you guys could’ve stood a respectful distance away!”

Reggie nodded, stepping back and raising his hands in surrender.

“C’mon, we don’t have time to keep arguing,” Luke complained, “We’re gonna be late!”

“Late for what?” Jordan asked, still having no clue what was going on.

“Julie’s gonna play for her teacher to get back into her music program!”

The guys had filled her in on the drama of Julie’s life the night before but she’d hadn’t heard anything about her playing today.

“That’s new,” she remarked and Luke grinned.

“It was my idea,” he seemed so proud of himself. “I convinced her last night.”

“So she’s going to ambush her music teacher?” Jordan asked, remembering Luke’s solution to everything when they were alive.

“The Sunset Curve way.” He grinned proudly and Jordan rolled her eyes.

“Teachers usually aren’t big fans of Ambush Mode,” she sighed but started to get ready anyway, gathering up a new outfit from the bag of her clothes she had found and making her way to the bathroom.

It was nothing too special, she was mostly just happy to be out of the clothes she had died in. The pair of high waisted mom jeans paired with her worn Rolling Stones t-shirt and her Doc Martens were much more comfortable. She kept the simple black choker she’d been wearing the day before and cuffed her jeans, deciding at the last minute to tie her hair back in a half up-do with a scrunchie. She was in and out of the bathroom in less than five minutes, though when she opened the door Luke looked like he had been about ready to start yelling for her to hurry up.

“So are we going to support Julie or what?” She asked, pulling her bag across her body while the guys just stood in place.

“Right, yeah, okay,” Alex said softly while Luke rolled his eyes, probably thinking up some snide comment about how she had been the one they were waiting on.

Surprisingly, he kept whatever he was thinking to himself as the four of them converged, all poofing out of the garage together.

___

Jordan didn’t know what she expected to see when she arrived at Julie’s high school but a collection of girls in brightly colored wigs and matching outfits singing and dancing in the gym was not it.

“Man, I miss high school,” she heard Reggie sigh and rolled her eyes. Boys.

Jordan turned to Alex, hoping the boy would have a similar reaction as her but as she looked to the blond she found him mimicking the choreography.

“Oh my gosh, yes Alex!” She cheered him on and he grinned before Luke elbowed him, shaking his hand in front of his neck to say ‘cut it out.’

They turned to see Julie, looking clearly disheartened and Jordan gave her an apologetic look.

“Julie!” She gasped excitedly, finally getting a good look at the girl. “That jumpsuit is so fly!”

She knew from their introduction yesterday that the young Latina had a great sense of style and the camo jumpsuit she was wearing today only served to further prove that.

Julie gave her a confused smile, like she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, and Jordan furrowed her brows trying to figure out why her compliment hadn’t been properly received.

“People don’t say ‘fly’ in 2020, do they?” She asked dejectedly and Julie shook her head.

“Okay well then that jumpsuit is so cool,” she modified and Julie smiled graciously.

Their attentions were drawn back to the gym floor as the girl group finished their performance.

“Thank you, thank you,” Jordan mocked the leader’s overly preppy voice and attitude and Julie laughed.

“What’re you waiting for?” Reggie asked after Julie’s friend had walked away and two women who Jordan assumed to be the principal and music teacher began speaking to the crowd. “This is your time!”

“Yeah. I mean, you look really nervous,” Alex observed concernedly, “Like yak-in-a-bowl nervous.”

“I just don’t think I had enough time to work on the song.” Julie addressed Luke.

“I wouldn’t have given you the song if I didn’t think you were gonna rock it!” Luke reassured her enthusiastically. “Now, there’s a piano on that stage with your name on it.”

The four watched as Julie nodded before running out of the gym to get to the stage door.

“You gave her one of your songs?” Jordan asked the guitarist curiously.

“Yeah, we never got a chance to record it but it’s perfect for her voice.”

“Which song?” Jordan asked. She may have hated the band but there was no denying that their music was good and she had heard plenty of it over the years.

“Bright.”

“Oh, I love that one,” Jordan gushed before she realized what she was saying and who she was talking too. “I mean, it’s not as good as any of Apollo 81’s stuff but,” she tried to brush it off though she knew she had failed.

Thankfully, the boys decided to let it go as Julie had just stepped up to the piano.

“You got this!” Luke called out and Julie smiled, taking a breath to steel her nerves before starting the song.

“Damn, you should’ve added a piano part to this years ago,” Jordan noted quietly as they listened to Julie play. Luke nodded, watching the girl with awe.

“We should play with her,” he said turning to look excitedly at the other boys before raising a brow at Jordan, silently inviting her to join them.

“I don’t know the song.”

“Please, a talented musician like you can figure it out.” He spoke like he was teasing her however his eyes held a sincerity that had her chest swelling with pride.

She rolled her eyes but nodded, the four of them exchanging grins before poofing to the stage just in time for the chorus.

“And rise through the night, you and I. we will fight to shine together, bright forever,” A surprised grin took over Julie’s face as they materialized with their instruments, Jordan deciding on filing the rhythm guitar part. Julie jumped up from the piano, immediately taking center stage. For someone who, as far as Jordan knew, had never been in a band, the girl sure knew how to rock a stage. She had a major stage presence. “And rise, through the night, you and I. We will fight to shine together, bright forever.”

It felt so good to be back on a stage performing that it took them all a minute to realize that Julie’s classmates could see them. They all shared looks of shock, Luke instructing them to ‘just go with it’ as he jumped in for the second verse.

“In times that I doubted myself, I felt like I needed some help. Stuck in my head, with nothing left.” Luke turned to look at Jordan, gesturing the girl over to his mic with a head nod and Jordan grinned. Her voice joined his vocals as Julie continued to rock out with Reggie and Alex. “I feel something around me now. So unclear, lifting me out. I found the ground, I’m marching on.”

Jordan stepped back in time for Reggie to take over for the pre-chorus, grinning as she watched the two boys perform together for the first time in twenty-five years. It felt like magic to be up on that stage with them, her own styles mixing with that of Sunset Curve and Julie. Luke wasn’t kidding when he said she was a powerhouse. The two had immediate chemistry as well, Julie walking him to center stage as he started the bridge, the two rocking out together before the rest of them joined in for the chorus once more. Jordan had never been happier to sing backup, the girl’s vocals were killer.

The song was over much too soon for Jordan’s tastes. She was still buzzing with adrenaline as she slung her guitar to the side, taking a bow with the group. However, before they could finish soaking up the applause they vanished, reappearing at the side of the stage.

“Oh god, how is she gonna explain that?” Jordan groaned, looking anxiously between the three guys who looked about as clueless as she did.

“Wait, were those holograms?” A girl called out from the crowd and Julie let out the breath she was holding, quickly affirming the girl’s suspicions.

“Holograms? Like in Star Wars?” Reggie questioned, eyes wide, “Those are real now?”

“Apparently,” Luke answered, seemingly also in disbelief. “That’s wild, that they could see us when we were playing but not when the music stopped.”

“Ooh, we should double-check!” Reggie said, climbing up the stairs before wiggling his butt in front of the unfazed crowd. “Yeah, I don’t think they can see us.”

“I wish I couldn’t see you.” Alex deadpanned and Jordan snorted.

The guys were swept away with the crowd of students as they were dismissed from the gym, Reggie eagerly attempting to get one of the multi-colored girl’s number. Jordan stuck back as Julie spoke to her teacher, wanting to know if the girl got back into her program. However, she too was sidetracked as a small boy walked off the stage with a string bass, dragging it carelessly down the stairs.

“Oh, hell no.” She gasped, aggressively lecturing the boy as she followed him out of the gym despite knowing he couldn’t hear her. “That is no way to treat such a gorgeous instrument!”

She only stopped her passionate rant when she hit the hallway and noticed the guys there staring at her like she was crazy.

“You know he can’t hear you, right?” Luke asked slowly, like if he spoke too aggressively she would become more unhinged.

“You should’ve seen him drag that bass down the stairs! It was criminal,” she explained, before shouting down the hall at the boy, “Criminal!”

“O-kay,” Luke said, dramatically looking away from her and making circles with his finger near his head to signal her craziness to the guys.

“You’re a real comedian, Patterson,” she responded dryly and Luke laughed.

“Anyway, let’s go find Julie and talk about what just happened!”

They wandered around the school trying to locate their living friend. It felt weird to be back in a high school, especially one that had been so different from her own. Unlike the guys, none of Apollo 81 had dropped out of school for the band. This meant that they’d had to continuously bust their asses to get gigs and stay on top of their schoolwork; they didn’t have all afternoon to practice like Sunset Curve but Jordan always felt like they were better for it. Still, high school seemed to have changed considerably in the twenty-five years since her death. For starters, they definitely didn’t have a music program like Julie’s, sure there was band class but Jordan learned most of her musical skills outside of the school building.

“There weren’t this many people dressed like animals when we were in high school, right?” Jordan asked after accidentally walking through one of said students.

“Definitely not.” Alex answered, looking just as confused as she felt.

She knew they were dressed up like the school’s mascot, a blue bobcat, but she just couldn’t figure out why.

“Julie!” She called out once they finally located the girl, “What’s with all girls dressed like bobcats?”

Luke elbowed her in the side, stepping in front of her.

“Who cares!” He exclaimed, as if the words were bursting out of him uncontrolled, “Are we not gonna talk about what happened?!”

“Yeah, the whole school saw you. It’s kinda freaking me out,” Julie said, sounding like she still hadn’t quite come to terms with it.

“Okay good, cause it’s kinda freaking me out too,” Alex started, talking and moving with a manic energy. “Y’know, you could see us, and now people can see us whenever we play music. And my clothes are made of air, but for some reason I’m still getting a wedgie.”

Luke patted the blond on the back sympathetically while Jordan leaned passed the boy to stare at Alex concernedly.

“Dude, are you okay?”  

“Nah,” Alex said airily, but waved off her concern.

“The important thing is that we rocked that place!” Luke interjected, rerouting the conversation. “They loved you!”

“Are you kidding?” Julie said excitedly, “They loved us!”

The group all shared proud smiles.

“That was a great song, Luke. Thanks,” Julie said sincerely and Luke grinned, blushing slightly.

“Did you see the cheerleaders looking at me? I think they were looking at me!” Reggie added excitedly and Luke grinned, matching his energy as the dark haired boy grabbed his face. “Please tell me they were looking at me.”

“Bro, they were looking at you!”

“Oh, I knew it!”

“I’m so- I’m so confused, y’know?” Alex spoke, taking the conversation back to his anxieties. “The afterlife should come with instructions, or a quick-start quite or something.”

“Seriously man, are you good?” Jordan asked again and Alex shrugged.

“Well, the good news is everyone thought you were holograms and I got back into the program.”

Julie’s announcement was met with a chorus of congratulations but the girl didn’t look very excited herself.

“Why do you look so bummed?” Reggie asked.

“Yeah, dude, you’re making this face,” Luke proceeded to do a poor reenactment of Julie’s expression.

“That is not my face,” Julie said pointedly and Jordan nodded in agreement while the guys all made noises of dissent, “And things just got weird between me and Flynn. She asked about you guys and I couldn’t say.”

“Sweet, girls are already talking about us,” Reggie said lowly and Luke high fived him.

“Stop it assholes,” Jordan sighed, smacking them both on the chest from her position between them. “This is serious!’

“Thanks Jordan,” Julie smiled sadly, “I can’t tell her about you guys for the same reason I can’t tell my dad; she’ll think I’ve gone off the deep end!”

“Well this dude definitely thinks you’ve gone off the deep-end,” Reggie said, pointing to the janitor who had just walked through Jordan. She shivered, still not used to the feeling of being made of air.

“I need to get to class,” Julie finally spoke once the disgruntled janitor had walked away.

“Later Julie,” Reggie called. “Ooh, and tell those cheerleaders I’m single!”

“Oh, and that he’s dead.” Alex quipped, earning a high five from Jordan.

“Nonono, leave that part out!” Reggie panicked. “Leave that- she’s gone.”

The rest of the group merely shook their heads at the boy’s antics before they all poofed home to the garage.

Part 4

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Taglist: @oopsiedoopsie23