#i am so so grateful for him. never thought a fifty year old man would change my life but he so did

[thoughtfulseason]

when you realise you know that person for a year and a half and it is the kindest gift from the universe

[theresawritesstuff]

9

Something in the way she moves - James Taylor

And I feel fine anytime she's around me now

She's around me now

Almost all the time

And if I'm well you can tell she's been with me now

She's been with me now quite a long, long time

And I feel fine

October 2015

Stephen Colbert tapped his notecards against the desk as the cameras came back from commercial. "Hey everyone, welcome back to The Late Show. My first guess tonight is a Grammy and Pulitzer prize winning activist and a living legend in the comedy world. Please welcome… Lenny Bruce!"

The band struck up a jaunty take on an old jazz standard as Lenny shuffled out onto the stage to a standing ovation.

The older comedian looked around, waving to the balcony as if to say Aw shucks, knock it off, before making his way up the small steps to his seat.

He settled in with a grateful nod to the crowd before turning to his host. "I like what you've done with the place."

"Thank you very much," Stephen replied. "You'd been here before on the old set a few times back in the day."

"A few," Lenny chuckled, taking a sip of his water.

"So Lenny, can I call you Lenny?"

"Sure. I've learned to respond to it."

The audience chuckled at his underplayed shrug.

Colbert covered a smile before continuing, "Lenny, I want to talk about your latest memoir in just a moment, but before we get to that I want to wish you a happy early birthday."

"Oh, well thank you very much."

"You're going to be ninety next week!" his host stated, clearly impressed.

Lenny smiled. "So they keep telling me."

"How do you feel?"

Another shrug to the crowd. "I feel fine."

"You look good," Colbert offered kindly. "Very spry for a man of your age."

"Why thank you. So are you."

Colbert broke a bit with that along with the crowd.

Recovering,  he said, "You've lived a rather impressive life Lenny. If you don't mind my asking…What's your secret to longevity?"

"My wife," Lenny answered almost immediately. "Now she's spry for a man of her age!"

He smiled as the crowd laughed, continuing, "Honestly I can't take much credit. She keeps me young. I hate to think where I would have ended up without her."

Colbert acknowledged the audience briefly, "For those who might not be aware, you're famously married to the very funny and talented Midge Maisel."

The mention of his wife was met with applause, much to his satisfaction.

"Yes I am," he confirmed. "She'll be happy to hear you said she was funny first. When she first started out as a comic, you know women weren't allowed to be funny. They still were of course, but they never got enough credit for it. A lot of the old boys couldn't handle the idea. So it's a sticking point with her. She even wrote it into our vows that I never forget she's funny, as if I ever could."

"How long have you two been married?" Colbert asked.

"We just celebrated fifty three years."

Another round of applause from the audience.

His host's eyes grew wide. "Fifty three! Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"Forget turning ninety. Tell us your secrets to a happy marriage!"

"Maybe when the cameras turn off. I don't think the censors would appreciate my answer."

Colbert smirked at Lenny's coy response. "That dirty, huh?"

"Well…" Lenny shrugged innocently, earning a smattering of cheers and wolf whistles from the crowd.

He grinned a little sheepishly at his host.

"I'm sorry. I promise I will give you a straight answer or two in the time I'm here. You've been very kind having an old timer like me on. It's an old reflex you know, to deflect with a joke."

"We're very glad to have you," Colbert assured him.

"Thank you." Lenny gave the question some genuine thought. "I think the secret, if there is one really, is that Midge and I enjoy each other's company. We always have. And we're always the other's strongest supporter. Now, when we first met we were both in a bit of a dark place. Back of a cop car to be specific."

The audience chuckled at his quip.

Colbert nodded intently. "I remember reading that in her book a few years ago."

"That was a good one, wasn't it?" Lenny beamed proudly, thinking back. "I still remember that nightgown...She must have really gone for my smooth opener of hey because she bailed me out the next morning. Then I returned the favor a few days later– we were a couple of rabble-rousers back in our day– and we sort of just hit it off after that. It was a few years before we got together but I was pretty gone for her from the beginning. She offered me her umbrella once when I was caught in a proverbial *censor* storm. I talk about it a little in the book. I remember it was this small moment of unconditional kindness. She didn't think much of it at the time but that was it for me. She's always had a way of quietly bringing me out of the dark like that."

He chuckled self deprecatingly. "I've been known to be a bit of a cantankerous sort, especially in my younger days, but my buddies could always tell when I'd been around Midge. I smiled more I guess."

Colbert smiled, genuinely touched. "That's very sweet."

"Some say I've mellowed a bit as I've gotten older. I think it's just that Midge has been with me pretty regularly now for quite a long, long time. Turns out having someone who loves you around is good for your health."

"Is she here today? We could bring her out," his host suggested.

Lenny smirked, covering a laugh with his finger. "You'd get even fewer serious answers from this interview, Stephen."

Colbert shrugged. "Yeah but I'm a fan so it'd be fun for me."

Lenny grinned. "As much as she'd love to take this interview even more off the rails, she's next door having fun with the founding fathers fan club outside. What's it called? Ham for Ham?"

Colbert nodded. "That sounds right. They're doing a Hamilton lottery event. Ten bucks for a chance at front row seats."

"Oh that's nice! I like that. Give the average Joe a shot at the jewelry seats." Lenny nodded approvingly. "We'll be coming home with at least twelve more full grown adopted grandchildren by the time she's done, just so you know."

Colbert laughed. "And how many do you two already have?"

"Of our own? Let's see…" Lenny took a moment to count. "Four kids between the sum of our marriages, ten grandkids of a discernible blood relation, and our first great grandchild on the way. She's always mentoring the younger set though. That's another big thing with Midge. Giving a hand up to the next generation. Kenan Thompson calls me Zeyde Lenny, you know."

"I did not," Colbert chuckled.

Lenny nodded. "Takes great pleasure in it. Mixes it up with different voices. I'll come down from my office and hear Zeyde Lenny! at least once or twice a month. He and Midge really hit it off when she hosted SNL. He's a good egg. Funny kid."

"That's fantastic."

Colbert tapped his note card, turning to the audience. "Well folks, I'm getting the signal that we need to go to commercial. Please stick around for more Lenny Bruce as we discuss his latest memoir To is a Preposition, Love is a Verb. We'll be right back."

[metanightnyan]

Don’t be indifferent to the horrors in Palestine.

I thank my English class for showing me this speech, I just wish that the events in Gaza were discussed as a part of it. Don’t be indifferent, say something.

“Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends: 

Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe's beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald. He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never would be again. Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw. And even if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also for their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what he needed to know -- that they, too, would remember, and bear witness. 

And now, I stand before you, Mr. President -- Commander-in-Chief of the army that freed me, and tens of thousands of others -- and I am filled with a profound and abiding gratitude to the American people. "Gratitude" is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being. And I am grateful to you, Hillary, or Mrs. Clinton, for what you said, and for what you are doing for children in the world, for the homeless, for the victims of injustice, the victims of destiny and society. And I thank all of you for being here. 

We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations (Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin), bloodbaths in Cambodia and Algeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence; so much indifference. 

What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals? 

Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction. 

Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the "Muselmanner," as they were called. Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were -- strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it. 

Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment than to be a victim of His anger. Man can live far from God -- not outside God. God is wherever we are. Even in suffering? Even in suffering. 

In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. 

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own. 

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.

And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil. 

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps -- and I'm glad that Mrs. Clinton mentioned that we are now commemorating that event, that period, that we are now in the Days of Remembrance -- but then, we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did. 

And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that Hitler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies. If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction. They would have bombed the railways leading to Birkenau, just the railways, just once. 

And now we knew, we learned, we discovered that the Pentagon knew, the State Department knew. And the illustrious occupant of the White House then, who was a great leader -- and I say it with some anguish and pain, because, today is exactly 54 years marking his death -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April the 12th, 1945. So he is very much present to me and to us. No doubt, he was a great leader. He mobilized the American people and the world, going into battle, bringing hundreds and thousands of valiant and brave soldiers in America to fight fascism, to fight dictatorship, to fight Hitler. And so many of the young people fell in battle. And, nevertheless, his image in Jewish history -- I must say it -- his image in Jewish history is flawed.

The depressing tale of the St. Louis is a case in point. Sixty years ago, its human cargo -- nearly 1,000 Jews -- was turned back to Nazi Germany. And that happened after theKristallnacht, after the first state sponsored pogrom, with hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned, thousands of people put in concentration camps. And that ship, which was already in the shores of the United States, was sent back. I don't understand. Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart. He understood those who needed help.

Why didn't he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people -- in America, the great country, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. What happened? I don't understand. Why the indifference, on the highest level, to the suffering of the victims?

But then, there were human beings who were sensitive to our tragedy. Those non-Jews, those Christians, that we call the "Righteous Gentiles," whose selfless acts of heroism saved the honor of their faith. Why were they so few? Why was there a greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war? Why did some of America's largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler's Germany until 1942? It has been suggested, and it was documented, that the Wehrmacht could not have conducted its invasion of France without oil obtained from American sources. How is one to explain their indifference? 

And yet, my friends, good things have also happened in this traumatic century: the defeat of Nazism, the collapse of communism, the rebirth of Israel on its ancestral soil, the demise of apartheid, Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, the peace accord in Ireland. And let us remember the meeting, filled with drama and emotion, between Rabin and Arafat that you, Mr. President, convened in this very place. I was here and I will never forget it. 

And then, of course, the joint decision of the United States and NATO to intervene in Kosovo and save those victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man, whom I believe that because of his crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity. 

But this time, the world was not silent. This time, we do respond. This time, we intervene. 

Does it mean that we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far? Is today's justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr. President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents, be allowed anywhere in the world? Will it discourage other dictators in other lands to do the same? 

What about the children? Oh, we see them on television, we read about them in the papers, and we do so with a broken heart. Their fate is always the most tragic, inevitably. When adults wage war, children perish. We see their faces, their eyes. Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony? Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine. 

Some of them -- so many of them -- could be saved. 

And so, once again, I think of the young Jewish boy from the Carpathian Mountains. He has accompanied the old man I have become throughout these years of quest and struggle. And together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.”

Say something. That’s all, it’s more than enough. Saying something is doing something. This is the genocide of our time, do not turn your back on them, do not pretend it’s not there and it will solve itself.

If you feel like you can’t do anything, by yourself maybe not. But we are speaking together. That gets attention, that gives power.

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[burnedbyshoto]

the bodyguard

— Kirishima gets assigned to be the bodyguard to one of the worlds greatest idols: you. —

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pairing: bodyguard!kirishima eijirou x idol!reader

warnings: nsfw, 18+, brat taming, authority kink, spanking, blowjob, slapping, choking, brat taming, brat!reader, modern!au, no quirks, bodyguard!kirishima, idol!reader, PTSD portrayal, anxiety, war flashbacks, implied minor character death, drugging, alcohol consumption, size difference: kirishima is 2 feet taller than you, regardless of the reader’s original height. If you’re 6 ft congrats he’s 8 ft.

word count: 20,500

a/n: this is for the bnharem collab.... im so sorry, it’s 4:30 am and I have a plane to catch in 2 hours to get back to school. thank you jo for proofreading this for me because lol I am a mess. if the paragraph spacing did not work as I wish it does, please let me know so I can go in and edit in visible paragraph spacers!

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“I’ll be okay.”

The smell of dirt, sweat, and blood clung to the air.

The sun was setting, its blood-red shine illuminating against the destroyed earth, making the already bloodied soil even bloodier. 

There was no telling if the land was quiet, if the reason why the world's silence was because the world just for this moment had gone silent, or if the earlier explosions were still ringing in his ears.

Kirishima sat wounded, his back pressed to the wall, his eyes wide, breathing erratic. He can’t move, can’t bother picking up the gun that lays abandoned by his knee as warm, sticky liquid spills onto his clothed knees and continues to soak the fabric of his jeans.

What had he done?

What in the fucking world had he done?!

BOOM!

Kirishima stills, his eyes stilling on the floor and looking at the clear moisture. He doesn’t need to touch his face to know it’s a combination of both sweat and tears. 

His ears sing with white noise, the erratic beat of his heart, and his pained breathing.

“I’ll be okay,” the ghost taunts his mind.

But I’m not okay, Kirishima tries to speak, but knows with how his tongue is sitting like a thick dried sponge in his mouth, he won’t be able to speak. Pushing off the cold floor, flops onto his back, his arm flinging over his closed, shaken eyes until the ringing in his ear disappears into his alarm clock. 

05:30.

Kirishima lays there for a bit more, his chest still heaving heavily with the weight of lead.

Inhale.

Hold.

Exhale.

Better?

No, not yet.

Kirishima runs through breathing exercises, his chest never stopping in it’s hiccuped, broken pants as his memories continue to haunt his mind. If only he was smarter, more observant, better.

“Time to get up, time to get up, time to get up,” his phone screams with his second alarm set at 06:45. The sound does what it’s intended, jolting Kirishima out of his own head. His labored breathing shallowing just enough for his lungs to finally grasp ahold of its required function.

Today was an important day for him; he needed to be on his tiptop game, according to what Toshinori said yesterday.

I’m okay, he convinced himself as he does every morning after having this dream. Kirishima flings his arm off his eyes, the morning purple sun shining softly through his blinds. I’m okay.

Date: 4/2 Time: 08:00 Location: UA Services

“And in other news, music industries princess Y/n has been attacked by yet another round of masked perpetrators. Fortunately for the music idol, she was left unhurt but was clearly rattled. This is but the fourth attack on Y/n since three weeks ago. It’s leaving many of us fans, spectators, and civilians wondering just what is being done to ensure her safety? Y/n is reported to not have a single bodyguard to her name, wanting to quote-on-quote ‘experience her fans to the fullest’, but with these recent attacks, we can’t help but hope something is done. At least until something is done about these attackers—”

Kirishima’s eyes tore away from the screen, his lips pressed into a deep frown as he took in the story. There was deep worry about it, not only because he hated the idea of people getting hurt, but because he was a big fan of yours.

Your debut album had come out during his training camp for the military. Not only was it an instant billboard smasher breaking every standing record, but his commanding officers were obsessed with the album and played it continuously until they graduated. Most of Kirishima’s comrades came to dislike your music solely because they remember throwing up, bleeding, and suffering while you sang about love and whatnot, but Kirishima? Kirishima fell in love.

It was a bright spot in his life, and he was grateful for your music, even if it has been ten years and six albums since the training camp.

“Yo, Kiri!” a voice cheered out happily as a hand clasped onto his shoulder from behind. Kirishima held the flinch that threatened to rip through his bones. Kirishima turned to find Kaminari grinning up at him, a cup of steaming tea in one hand as he grinned brightly at his coworker. “I heard you’re finally getting a good case today!”

Kirishima found himself relaxing at the sight of his rather spontaneous friend, a warm smile easing onto his face as he raised his fist for a greeting fist bump.

“We’ll see, I know Toshi’ said it was going to be important, but he also said escorting the paranoid old lady was important,” Kirishima sighed, his smile softening a bit.

Kaminari laughed, his arm slinging around Kirishima’s shoulders as he remembered that.

The little old lady was sure that the government was out to kill her and wanted protection until her son returned from his vacation. Needless to say, Kirishima had thoroughly enjoyed his time with her, even if she was a bit scary. It was a low-risk job, and he only was paranoid by her cane, which she used to thwack his back many times as she talked about how plums extended your life.

“God, I remember subbing in for you for one hour because of your family emergency, and she was so scary! She still haunts my nightmares!” Kaminari shudders, placing the cup of his tea to his lip and taking a long, slow drink. His eyes shift over to the TV, which is still broadcasting the story of your attack. “What a bunch of bastards,” he growls, eyebrows scrunching as the news reporter ends the segment. “Thinking they can go after such a beautiful and talented idol… I’ll kill them.”

Kirishima was more than well aware of Kaminari’s plentiful budding romances. The blond man fell in love with just about any smiling woman who happened to waltz in front of him. Still, unlike most times, he found himself agreeing with him.

“It sounds really serious. I hope that she really considers some type of security team,” Kirishima inputs too, taking the teacup in his fingers with a nod of thanks. “There’re too many weirdos in Japan and in the world, I wouldn’t want to hear the news the day something bad happens.”

Kaminari hums, his face nearing Kirishima’s as he takes a small sip of the apparently black tea. His eyes scrunch, and Kirishima smiles awkwardly as the blond studies him intently.

“W-Wha—”

“You like Y/n!” Kaminari exclaims (accuses, maybe?), his arm leaving Kirishima’s shoulders as he points a finger accusingly at him. “I thought I was the only one in this department who did!”

“Don’t be an idiot, Denki,” the familiar voice of Sero responds for Kirishima. “Everyone in the world is in love with Y/n; she was voted the favorite artist of the year in our company. Everyone but Bakugou voted for her if I remember correctly.”

Kirishima looks over at his black-haired friend who is rummaging through his locker, his mouth curved into an easy, teasing smile as he looks between the bashful Kaminari and sneering Bakugou, who also seemed to just walk in.

“Her shit is basic and overrated,” Bakugou defended himself. “Nothing special and bad for your brain and ears.”

“Your go-to music playlist is fifty percent death metal and alt. rock. I don’t think you have ground to say that it’s bad for your brain and ears,” Midoriya’s snicker sounded from behind Kirishima, and he looked around to see the freckled man grinning at the snarling ash blond.

“And how does your stalker ass know that, shitnerd?!”

“‘Cause I’m a stalker, duh.”

“Oh, Bakugou-kun, Midoriya-kun! You’re both here! Todoroki-kun is looking for you!”

“I’m just saying that Y/n’s dates to all the award shows and premieres have been blond. She’s into blonds, so she would totally be into me!”

“Deku, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill you myself.”

“You wouldn’t even be able to protect Y/n, bro. The only thing you performed well on in the application process was the tasing part. You can’t even tase people repetitively! She’d be dead in a second.”

“Can you believe my client dropped me because I couldn’t cook a five-star meal correctly? Hello, I can make 7-11 into a five-star course; it’s not my fault they’re not refined.”

“Kirishima-kun, are you okay?”

“I deadass got into a dance competition on the way to work. That’s why I’m late, why would I lie? Of course, I had to compete; my reputation was on the line!”

“Kirishima-kun?”

“Yo, he’s not looking too hot?”

“Kirishima?!”

“Can you hear us?!”

Silence.

Kirishima found himself opening his eyes — when had he closed them? For a moment, the air turned coppery, his body feeling weak, and he thought he felt something heavy on his lap. But that wasn’t right; he was standing up, he wasn’t sitting down. Most importantly, he was in Tokyo, Japan. He was alright. He was safe.

The sweat that clung to the back of his neck was cold, clammy, and intrusive. His chest felt tight again, his hands shaking so harshly the tea's warm, dark liquid was sloshing onto the floor.

There were seven pairs of eyes on him, each a different color, each swimming with concern and other emotions. Kirishima knew his ears weren’t working right now, his face unable to meet his brain's screaming demands to smile, and he watched as their mouths moved as they questioned his sanity.

He was okay.

He was okay.

He was okay.

“Kirishima?”

Kirishima looked up, his neck craning to the side to see a tall, skinny man standing at the doorway. 

Toshinori Yagi was an esteemed bodyguard, one of the best in the industry, which was saying something considering that most bodyguards went unknown and unnamed. According to Google, Toshinori gained the nickname All Might after saving multiple political and celebrity lives when the government could not. It was long after his prime, and the man had retired but has since filled as the company’s head — thus why this job was near impossible to get.

Kirishima heaved a breath, realizing that he hadn’t taken a single breath when Toshinori’s bruised eyes narrowed in his concern.

“C-Coming,” Kirishima smiled, the blood rushing to his ears mostly ignorable now, but the scorching concerned gazes of his friends feel like cinders on his shoulder.

He straightens his tie, fingers curling when he feels the cold sweat penetrating through his clothes, but Kirishima doesn’t let it show. Smiling like he does, Kirishima pushed through his friends and followed Toshinori out the door.

They walked down towards the conference rooms, rooms that held their contractors, in complete silence.

“This is an important case,” Toshinori began, his voice gentle and poorly hiding his concern. “I chose you because you are a great asset to have, Kirishima. You are strong and smart, and most importantly, are personable.”

Kirishima looked at the man, his face contorting with his anxiety. He didn’t want to be treated like glass.

“Honestly, you being so personable is why I chose you for this assignment. Todoroki-shounen was a contender at first, but he’s not much of a talker; the same goes for Bakugou-shounen. Midoriya-shounen was probably the best choice, but there’s a new assignment that asked for three, so I gave up those three,” Toshinori explained the current assignments. It both delighted Kirishima to hear that he could keep up with arguably the three most qualified workers here as it did, at times, make him feel lesser. 

“Oh.”

But he was obviously not the first choice still.

“The only reason why you weren’t the first choice is because of what I walked into just now,” Toshinori interrupts Kirishima’s thoughts and words. Kirishima finds his eyes tearing away from the smooth, polished wood floor to see Toshinori stopping in front of Conference Room A, his gaze intense on him. “To be frank, I wasn’t too sure if we should have hired you all that time ago. You are excellent on the field, your skills are phenomenal. Something to be proud of, truly, but you are clearly not completely healed from your time on the force.”

“Toshinori—”

“Kirishima-shonen, I’m not saying that there’s shame in your current struggles,” Toshinori once again interrupts, his hand a soothing warmth on Kirishima’s shoulder. “I’m still not healed from my past injuries, and as many people have undoubtedly told you, it’s okay to not be okay. But you barely passed the psych evaluation and only passed your field training because you scored so phenomenally on the other things your lack of a shooting score passed you.”

Kirishima felt unable to look away from the piercing blue eyes, and the lump in his throat never tasted as bitter, as sad.

He had barely passed the admittance test.

“I just need to know, are you ready to take on this assignment?” Toshinori asks in complete seriousness. “It’s a high stake, big-name client. We do not expect anything untoward to happen, but we never know in these cases. I think highly of you, Kirishima-shonen, and if you are ready to take this on, I’ll believe you, but likewise, if you’re not, I will gladly give this to someone else.”

Kirishima swallowed, his dry tongue passing through his equally dry lips.

Without question, he was not okay, not when he nearly broke down twice in a matter of hours, but it was just a bad day. He wasn’t as shaken as he was two months ago; he was going to his mandated therapy, talking to people who could assist him. Kirishima just didn’t want to be treated like glass anymore; he wasn’t glass; he was an unbreakable force.

Steeling over his nerves and ignoring how his stomach twisted and turned, Kirishima raised his gaze to Toshinori.

“I can do it.”

A smile.

“Good.”

If Kirishima was sweating because he was on a mental slip earlier, he was now sweating because he was beyond petrified and embarrassed. His hands raised up to brush against his red spikey hair, praying to God that it didn’t look dumb. His legs bounced at a speed that was bordering insanity, but he could only hear the sound of his racing heart as he stared at your frowning form from across the table.

It was you — the Y/n, the world's biggest music idol, an absolute legend in the making.

“This is our very own Kirishima Eijirou, age twenty-eight. He has been with U.A.Services for approximately six months now and is without a doubt one of our most capable and well-serviced men,” Toshinori began the introduction to the three people on the other side of the table. Kirishima could feel a blush rising up his neck and settling into his cheeks as what he presumed to be you, your manager, and your lawyer shuffling through paperwork that was very thorough on his background. “He was enlisted in the military before joining our ranks and was honorably discharged at the age of twenty-six as First Sergeant Kirishima Eijirou due to extreme injury. He excels in negotiating, scouting, and is, as you know, a skilled close combatant and was skilled in handguns—”

“I don’t think he’ll need firearms,” you interrupt, a frown on your face in contrast to the bright smile Kirishima was so used to seeing on your face. He tensed in worry.

“Y/l/n!” your manager, Sato Kimiko, scolded.

“What? It’s true! We’ll be around my fans for the majority, if not all the time! How is that right? For him to have a firearm around defenseless, and may I add, harmless individuals?!” you argued, your eyebrows scrunching in your fury.

Kirishima felt frozen in his chair, his eyes seeking Toshinori for guidance, but found himself unable to look away from you. He knew nearly everything about you, he could admit with a proud grin that he was a super mega fan of you, and he might have, at one point, looked your height up to imagine how you would appear beside him. Kirishima had known this entire time that you were two feet shorter than him, but it hadn’t hit what that meant until he was shaking your hand when he first entered.

You were tiny.

His dick and mind really liked that, and seeing your own passion spilling out for your fans was making him fall deeper into this hole he had for you.

“You don’t have a say anymore? Do you understand? You were nearly assaulted yesterday, and we are all done waiting around for something serious to happen!” Kimiko yelled, her face contorted into a look of both frustration and fear. “Either you take this, or we all leave you. I won’t have you murdered in front of me! You’re twenty-six now, stop acting like a damn brat and grow the hell up!”

The words scorched the table, blistering heat filling the conference room as you met Kimiko’s glare.

Kirishima watched with a dropped jaw as your nostrils flared, your lips pursing, and your eyebrows furrowing with unspoken distaste and anger.

“Six months tops.”

“Uh, yes,” Toshinori interjected. “Our contracts only last up to six months for new clients, but if you find yourself wanting to extend your contract after those six months, we are very much open to negotiations.”

You nodded your head, your eyes falling back onto the booklet in your hands that exposed all the information available on Kirishima. From his likes, dislikes, to his allergies and the reason why he was discharged. Each in disturbingly deep detail to make sure all things were up on the table.

“So, you can’t shoot your gun, Kirishima-san?” you speak, your voice tight, a pleased, almost taunting tone.

Kirishima stills, embarrassment bubbling in his chest as you drop the booklet onto the table, exposing his military history to him and you. 

“...no,” Kirishima answers truthfully.

The lawyer shifts from the other side of you, his eyebrows scrunching as he too comes across that piece of information. 

“He won’t use firearms?” the lawyer scoffs, his semi-permanent frown deepening. “How will we know that he will keep Y/n completely safe from any sort of danger that may come her way? We’ll be paying six months for a glorified security guard? We want a bodyguard.”

“And we clearly have one,” you snap back, your eyes narrowing. “If my bodyguard isn’t Kirishima-san, I’m not getting one. I mean, isn’t that what you said earlier?”

“When we were assuming that the person Toshinori was assigning to your case was a well-rounded bodyguard. Not one that was still clearly haunted by his past.”

Fuck, that one hurt.

You scowled, your head tilting as you bared your teeth slightly, “And what? He managed to get into the best agency in all of Japan in spite of that. Sounds like he’s competent. I already told you I won’t take on a team, just one individual. I trust in Toshinori-san’s guidance and his choice in picking Kirishima-san. If you disagree, that’s too bad for you.”

“Y/n! Please stop this! You’re being ridiculous!” Kimiko huffed, slamming her own booklet down, her eyes drowning with her exhaustion. “I’m so sorry, Toshinori-san, Kirishima-san.”

“H-Hey, it’s okay!” Kirishima immediately imputed, his hands raising in a sign of retreat. “I know that Y/n has always enjoyed her independence as a solo star, and how me being involved now is imposing, especially after multiple attacks.”

Kirishima felt that his smile was a bit strained, a bit too forced, especially as your eyes hawked onto him. He felt like you were examining him, like a lab rat going through its initial trial and not knowing just what was to be expected.

“Six months?” you spoke, your gaze not leaving Kirishima’s own.

“Six months,” Kirishima agreed.

You hum, your head nodding. “Fine, six months tops unless the Lieutenant Colonel can apprehend these assholes faster.”

It had been ages since Kirishima had been called by his title, and for some reason, he found himself blushing. His mouth, for the first time this entire meeting, curled into a wolfish grin.

“You got it.”

The lawyer groaned, entirely aggravated and insulted. He stood up, “You’re asking to be murdered, Y/n. Don’t come haunting me when you end up dead and mutilated. You deserve all the shit you’re getting.”

Kirishima watched with his lips parted in a bewildered expression as the lawyer walked out of the room with a loud slam of the door.

You were unfazed, and Kimiko groaned, exhausted and embarrassed as she mumbled a weak, sullen, “I am so, so sorry, Toshinori-kun.”

“Ah, Kimiko-chan, it’s okay!” Toshinori shook his head and smiled knowingly. It wasn’t as if the long time famous bodyguard hadn’t seen his fair share of childish fights between clients. “Thank you for coming as always, and we’ll do our best to make sure that Y/n is in the best of hands.”

“Thank you… and so, the rest of the contract?”

“Ah, yes, let’s continue.”

So, the contract was discussed to full detail.

For six months, Kirishima would be attached to your side. He must always remain at most three meters away from you when there is no one around, and during fan interactions no more than one meter. He had a full say about your safety. If things got rough, you were to follow his every command. Your agency would pay for his room and lodging. He was to wear black pants and a black long-sleeved cotton tee. He would be working with every venue, every hotel, every conventions security team. He would lead them and never leave your side. He was to be awake an hour before you, rest when you were asleep so long as it was safe to do so. He was your guardian angel of sorts, and you would do nothing but adhere to him. 

Most importantly, according to Kimiko, there was one thing they were hoping for: Kirishima's help and discretion. For the next six months, they would be relying on Kirishima’s support to figure out who the group behind the assault was and who the mastermind was behind it all is.

Or so the contract said.

“Y/n!” Kirishima called when the papers were signed, and the day he was set to start was printed. He will begin tomorrow. “Wait!”

You stopped at the door, Kimiko and Toshinori chatting merrily between them as they exited the conference room, Toshinori’s booming voice asking if it was true that Kimiko was attending to a near forty clients to which she bashfully admitted to. You were dressed in a creme knit long-sleeved shirt, faded ripped jeans, and a pair of nude heels. The heels were big, undoubtedly giving you inches, but you still barely got to his shoulder.

“I-I’m looking forward to looking — I mean working with you!”

You looked at him closely, your eyes dragging to the top of his toes to the tallest spike in his hair before your lips pulled into a contemplative pout. You looked back to his eyes, and you steeled over, your head tilting to the side.

“I mean no offense, Sergeant, I thank you for doing your job, but I have no intention of looking forward to working with you. I don’t want you here, so do your best to ignore the contract and realize that I am the most important person, so you will follow my demands.”

Kirishima can do nothing but stare as you turn on your heel and leave.

Well, so much for a good case.

Date: 5/2 Time: 14:00 Location: Tokyo Music Stadium

If you would have told Kirishima Eijirou that he had been working for the grand, the perfect, the fantastic music idol Y/n for a month now, two months ago, he would have laughed so hard he’d cry. Not only would he have not believed it, but he would only think of a million and two scenarios where he would go the entire day flirting.

Now a month into knowing you, of being your bodyguard on a contract for six months, Kirishima could say that of that entire thought, the only thing he had been right about was that he was, in fact, crying. Not only has he never managed to speak an entire conversation with you despite being attached to your hip seven days a week, but despite your much shorter stature, you had managed to get away from him.

You always managed to sneak away from him.

Kirishima could admit that the no more than five meters rule had been wholly and utterly demolished.

And now, Kirishima was crying, not out of joy, but of pure manly fear as he raced through the backstages of the stadium, desperate to find your short-ass anywhere.

“Go, Kirishima!” someone yelled as Kirishima whizzed past him, “Find Y/n!”

“T-Thank you!” Kirishima screamed as he continued onward, the yellow-lit concrete hallway seemingly haunting the further he went into it. The earpiece in his left ear shrilled, the telling sign he was getting a call. Putting a finger to the circle in his ear, he answered the car. “Hello?!”

“Ah, Kirishima-san!” Kimiko’s voice chirped on the other side of the line. “Wonderful to hear your voice again! I’m calling to let you know that the tour bus is parked outside of the venue now. The concert was a smashing success, and she’s come out unharmed for the past month! To make matters even better, since your arrival, there have been no more assault attempts! Oh, um, sorry, where are you guys?”

“We’re just, um!” Kirishima tried not to pant into the microphone; he was still racing ahead, his head peeking into every door and room he passed. “Y/n needed to use the restroom?!”

“Oh, wonderful. Okay! Let me know when you two are on your way over!”

“Ya, okay, bye!”

“By—”

Kirishima hung up as he crashed through the doors at the end of the hallway.

It was night out right now, the full moon reflecting down on the dirty concrete with the same intensity as the streetlamps overhead. And in the middle of a crowd of around twenty people was the person Kirishima was trying to find: you.

You were still dressed in the final costume change of your concert. Even from a distance, Kirishima could see the glitter and highlight on the tip of your nose and the curve of your cheekbones. The crowd around you was clearly not hostile. Each face was bright with broad smiles and sparkling with fresh tears, each voice high and pitchy as if they were talking with some goddess and not you. 

There was a slight longing in Kirishima’s chest at the sight of you interacting with your fans, your smile was so beautiful, and he wished just for a moment that he was the one that it was directed towards. If he had met you as a fan, and only a fan, he wonders if you would look at him as you did the others. Would he see the pure joy in the depths in your eyes, the love, wonder, and pride as they asked you questions and answered your own?

He wanted to be just a fan.

“Y/n, the tour bus is here,” Kirishima finally found his voice, the tenor of his voice spreading through the narrow alleyway. “Say your goodbyes.”

He had to ignore the way you stiffened immediately, the unsolicited joy in your face breaking and becoming bleak as you met his gaze. Kirishima absolutely did not feel pressure behind his eyes when you rolled your eyes and began to say your goodbyes; he did not!

The group of fans waved goodbye as you walked backward toward Kirishima; you didn’t stop waving and continuing your parting conversations with the group until the metal doors of the stadium doors closed behind the two of you. Kirishima let out a sigh, his eyes closing for a brief moment before looking down at you. You were expressionless, eyes cold as you looked dead ahead.

“You’re not supposed to run away like that.”

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t tell me what to do, Sergeant.”

“You know I can’t do that it’s not—”

“Part of your contract. Yeah, I know, but that’s your contract, not mine.”

“Oh, okay. Um, Kimiko? ...yeah, we’re heading out now. Five minutes, till.”

And then there’s only silence.

Neither Kirishima nor you bother talking the entire walk towards the tour bus, and you ignore Kimiko’s call that your lawyer would be meeting briefly before tomorrow's fan signing event. You walk into the bus and go directly to the beds, throwing yourself into the terribly padded bunk and passing out without so much as a sound.

Kirishima sinks into his own bed, it’s too small for him, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Sleep overcomes him easily these days; he’s always way too exhausted in chasing you down like some spoiled toddler you’re behaving like to dream. But that’s okay, he thinks as the comfort of sleep begins to dig its skeleton fingers into his side, at least the exhaustion stops the night terrors.

Date: 5/3 Time: 10:00 Location: Tokyo Music Tower

Now, Kirishima knew that it was a common belief and a nearly proven theory that when you met your idols, you should never ever have your expectations high on who they are as a person. Celebrities were out of touch, cruel, rude, nearly jaded. They weren’t exactly the common folk. With people willing to forget things like them being human beings themselves or the common thread of celebrities being too rich to care, any type of famous person was cold, rude, and ruthless.

He knew that.

He also knew that you weren’t like the nearly proven theory.

You were kind, sweet, a practical angel to anyone who dared to approach you. You were the exception to the rule, an outlier to them all. You spoke politely to all your fans, domestic and foreign, and you treated each fan like the most special person in the world.

You were a good person.

But Kirishima knew, just as you reacted to any cruel person you encountered, you had an edge. Your words were as vicious as your name was known. He genuinely enjoyed watching you put assholes into place, but he sulked, knowing he was always at the receiving end of the sharp, bitter tongue of yours.

For a month and a day now, he had been the number target of your bitter words and scorching hate, but he admitted that he enjoyed it when it wasn’t directed at him, if but a little bit.

“I’m not renegotiating my contract!” you groan, your palms slamming into the depths of your eyes. “I already told you that I don’t need all that money!”

“And I’m telling you that you need to increase the wages that you pay the rest of your team instead of all those charities or else people will begin dropping you!” the lawyer countered with similar fire, his scowl angry enough that Kirishima felt like he had to tear his gaze away from this horrible battle. “You won’t be the best of the best forever, y/n, get over your stupid savior act and look over the changes!”

Kirishima looked over at you, his eyebrows pinching as he watched you fold your arms, your cheeks pushed out to a puff as you looked at the stack of papers with the title page fully covered with the word Contract of Y/n and Co. on it. Well, it seemed that the rumor of you spending your paycheck on things that weren’t you was right, how entirely manly.

“Oh fuck off,” you growl, pushing out of the chair and storming away.

Kirishima glanced over at Kimiko, who was looking pale and exhausted, undoubtedly exhausted from the past thirty-minute battle between the lawyer and the idol that neither made a single step forward nor a step back. How you had the energy to fight so passionately was beyond him. Kimiko nodded minimally, her lips parting in a sigh as Kirishima stood up and followed after her.

“The only way that brat is going to listen is by force,” the lawyer sneered, his voice fading into the room that Kirishima exited. “If that’s how she wants to play, so be it.”

Fortunately for Kirishima, he catches up to you. There are tears of fury dripping down your cheeks, and he feels unable to speak as he discovers a new layer to you.

...how interesting.

“It’s my money,” you speak, but Kirishima is unsure if those words are meant for him or for the void, the earth that you would much rather converse with than him. “I already pay them all a much greater paycheck than they should be getting considering their client pool. Why do I have to bend to their stupid will when I’m the one making the money.”

Kirishima blinks, wondering just what people might want to raise with their contracts. But, he knew you were right. By her account, Kimiko had a client list of many successful individuals, and he may not know anything about the lawyer, but if he worked with Y/n, his name must be good. Guess they weren’t like you.

“People are selfish assholes,” was the only thing that Kirishima could think of, and was something he spoke before he could stop himself.

But you stop in your storm, the anger that clouded you somewhat dissipating, clearing just enough for you to turn to him, your sharp, beautiful eyes for the first time filled with rage that was not pointed at him, and an emotion that made him think of… amusement?

“Yeah,” you agree, a half-smile cracking onto your face, and Kirishima feels his soul begin leaving his very body. “People are selfish assholes, huh?”

“Very much.”

There’s a calm, a snorted chuckle, and Kirishima finds himself stumbling further into the abyss of his feelings for you.

The next ten hours seem to pass in a blur, Kirishima feeling like he was on Cloud Nine as he stood behind you, three meters as he watched fan after fan approach you. Signatures were made, pictures were taken, and Kirishima found that he never once had to approach.

Maybe, he thinks, just perhaps, the two of you can overcome this.

Ten minutes after the official signing is done, Kirishima can’t find you, and he curses loudly into the echoing floor.

So much for change.

Date: 5/17 Time: 23:00 Location: The Parking Lot - Mt. Lady Studios

Kirishima was, for the lack of better words, completely fucking done with you.

Don’t get it wrong, he still was a complete and massive fan of yours. He would never once betray his loyalty to you and your musical career, but he was slowly starting to realize just why the lawyer was set to dying of a heart attack any time soon. Despite your early entrance to stardom and the stuff of legends, you had kept your fiery, stubborn individualism.

Kirishima thought it was absolutely hot and sexy at times, especially the times where you strut around in revealing clothes because ‘this is your body,’ or the lingerie campaign you completed two days ago as part of some fundraising event. There were significant perks to your strong handle and claim to keeping your indestructible personality, but it came back to rub them all back in the worst of ways when once again, you escaped from Kirishima’s side.

To be fair, most of the time, Kirishima was a very level headed individual; he was near impossible to rile up despite popular initial belief. I mean, he was good friends with Bakugou Katsuki, who riled up just about anyone he talked to! He needed to have steel calm emotions, or at the very least portray that he does. But even the unbreakable after tireless attempts can, at times, be broken.

It had been a hard morning.

Kirishima had woken up in a panic, the sweat of his night terror soaking through the sheets of his bed, and his head felt like lead. They had been in the tour bus for the entire day because you were going from the tip of Japan to the bottom of it, thus meaning that you couldn’t run away from him, concluding that when he went to bed that night, he was merely tired, not exhausted.

“K...Kiri...shima?” the voice whispered in his ears when he bolted from his bed and tumbled to the ground, his chest heaving in his panic as he cried.

He only slept for four hours that night, the ghost of his comrade haunting him too much for him to ever drift back to sleep. The only thing he was grateful for when he stumbled down to the hotel lobby for breakfast was that he had an attack while in his own room and not in a tour bus with ten others.

But the lack of sleep and the twisting of his guts from his still unburied memories meant that his exhaustion was dialed up larger than he thought was capable. Today was an interview day plus a miniconcert at said interview.

That meant that for an hour before your interview and two hours afterward, Kirishima lost you and had to hunt you down. You weren’t making it easy on him and had started moving with the crowd you gathered to evade him.

But today, Kirishima was exhausted.

Today, Kirishima wanted to sleep.

Today… Kirishima broke.

“Let’s go,” Kirishima spoke in a low, commanding voice. His eyes were hooded as he looked down at you, the crowd of fans parting like the red sea as he stands behind you, larger than life, imposing.

You ignore him.

“We’re leaving, now.”

“Aw, did you make that just for me?! This beading is gorgeous!”

To be fair, Kirishima isn’t really sure if he’s crying right now or if steam is protruding from his ears like some stupid cartoon. The only thing he knows is that it's been a bit longer than a month, and his client is the most perfect person in the world except to him and some lawyer. All he knows is that he has been continuously mocked, shamed, and disrespected by his client, and at this moment, with his mind and body aching with the memories of the morning, he can no longer stop the tsunami of emotions and thoughts that shove out of him.

He grabs your wrist and begins pulling you away.

“We’re leaving now, sorry to disrupt your time. Come see Y/n another day.”

Kirishima isn’t even aware of your screams, the banging of your small fist against his back as his hand encompasses your bicep easily. He walks and walks and walks until he stops, his mind slightly put back into place.

“—FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?! LET GO OF ME, SERGEANT!”

Oh, right.

He lets go of you immediately and nearly snorts at how you stumble into his back. So small, so delicate, and so completely weak.

“You want to know my problem, y/l/n?” he asks, voice eerily calm, much calmer than he actually is. “My fucking problem is that I signed onto this case with a single rule: keep you in sight and protect you. It’s simple, almost too easy, isn’t it? But easy and simple is everything that this assignment is!”

Your face contorted into a flash of anger and embarrassment, your nose scrunching as you found your footing, “And I told you that I don’t give a crap about that contract! I didn’t want it in the first place, but no one listens to me!”

Kirishima snorts, his body shifting so that he can look at you properly; your face is seething, your teeth bared and eyes wild, but Kirishima has faced worse.

“It’s not in my contract to listen to you, unfortunately,” Kirishima points out, his eyes narrowing. “I would have a better time listening to you, trying to find an agreement that worked if you used that brain of yours and figured out a way to compromise with me.”

“Compromises aren’t—”

“You think I wouldn’t?” Kirishima almost whines, his voice tight with emotions, fingers fisting in his hair, “You really fucking think that after a month and how many days of me spending stupid hours trying to find your ass, most of the time never knowing if you’re dead or not, I wouldn’t want a better solution?!”

“Like hell they’ll kill me! And if they do, I don’t fucking care!” you stubbornly insist, finger buried against the swell of your chest.

“Oh my god,” Kirishima can’t stop the bitter laugh from escaping, “you’re ridiculous.”

“I’m ridiculous?! I’m not the ridiculous one here!” you cry, your eyes bursting with unshed, bitter tears. “So what that I run away from you? Can you imagine living the past ten years of your life trying to be something that the media wants you to be? No! You can’t, Sergeant! Those times where I’m running away isn’t to be some dick, but to give me time to be me!”

“You’re a goddamn idiot!” Kirishima barks, his anger curdling in his chest like a raging fire. “If you had looked at my damn file correctly, instead of focusing on the stupid shit like me not being able to fire my gun correctly, you would be more than aware of the fact that you are one of my favorite artists!”

“Wh-”

“I am one of the best in my company! I am easy to get along with, personal, manageable, flexible even, but from the very first moment you laid eyes on me, you’ve hated me! You talk down on me, you shit on me, my job, the reason I’m here! Listen, I would fucking love to be anywhere but here right now. I have literally never hated my job before, but you just made that a reality. But the worst part of this all is the fact that you seem to think I would have kept you away, prohibited you from doing things that I already know you love! You stand there and tell me that I would try to force you to do shit you don’t want when I have merely been asking for you to take me there with you! I don’t care if I have to stand away and watch, but I want to be there! I’m supposed to be protecting you, but you’re being nothing more than a stubborn brat who refuses to see the efforts I’m trying to make, and frankly, I’m done.”

Kirishima’s chest is burning with the lack of oxygen, his eyes narrowed and filled with raging fire as he stares down at you, his neck craned so that he could be closer, more daunting, intimidating.

“Fuck o-off,” you snap suddenly, a lone tear, your voice tight and shoulders tense as you storm off.

“So predictable,” Kirishima calls after you, but it’s not filled with the previous anger he had but the sinking misery and regret.

And for a moment, it’s quiet.

Until a single name is screamed.

“SERGEANT!”

And then the all too familiar sound of a fist colliding with skin.

The anger in Kirishima’s blood evaporates immediately, and horror sinks in as he turns towards where you had stormed off. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

The parking lot is filled with an ugly yellow light that seems to set the stage for what was to come down. His footsteps crashing down against the black pavement were mute in his ears, and his eyes were focused on your limp body slung over somebody's shoulder. There was one person behind him, the other one already hopping into a van; Kirishima was the devil on their heels.

“Come on! Let’s go!” the one in the van screamed, his voice full of gruff apprehension and fear.

The van turns on.

Kirishima grunts, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he sidesteps the man who was lingering behind the one carrying you and quickly slams his shoulder into the man's sternum, knocking him out the moment he collapses onto the ground. 

He lets out a roar of such, his eyes glowing with anger and a single mind track to take down the person who held you, ready to throw your unconscious body into the back of the van.

Kirishima doesn’t even know when he manages to get to the man's side, one hand on his shoulder, the other on you, and with the strength and anger of a million fighting warriors, he ripped you from his hold and sent him stumbling into the trunk. Your shallow breathing brushes against his neck, and Kirishima is hyper-aware of the cursing men who chose to abandon their unconscious comrade on the floor. 

With his arms filled by your unconscious body, Kirishima can only watch the van scurry out of the lot, the license plate immediately burning into his mind.

T082-23

When the man on the floor finally wakes up, he’s in police custody, and you’re just waking up. There's a bruise on your cheek, and you begin crying immediately.

Kirishima watches from the distance, his heart aching and guilt climbing up his throat as he watches Kimiko hold you close, her arms warm and tight.

Well, shit.

So much for the month of no attacks.

Kirishima sits in a waiting room, his head relaxed against the wall as he waits for your discharge from the hospital. They suspect a concussion, and they’re running some tests right now. The police are there too, trying to get information from you on the failed kidnapping attempt as well as beginning the initial trials of interrogation of the abandoned kidnapper with a broken sternum, ruptured spleen, and three cracked ribs.

He was not surprised when the police officers came to talk to him, and he gave them the license plate.

But they also gave him an essential piece of information.

(“Well, when we asked for a motive, it seemed that it wasn’t his idea,” the detective admitted, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “His boss said that, and I quote, Y/n will end up dead and mutilated as is deserved. She deserves all the shit she has coming her way, end quote. Any ideas of who it could be”

Kirishima rubbed a hand across his face, the words striking a bit too familiarly to him, but from where. He shook his head, his eyes focusing on his bouncing knee.

“Thank you,” Kirishima said, his tone pointed in a clear indicator that this conversation was now over. The detective nodded, his frown slight as he left. The moment he was gone, Kirishima pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Kimiko? Yeah, I think we might have our first suspect.”)

For now, he was waiting for you.

An hour passed before you shuffled into the waiting room. There was a bandage on your swollen cheek, but besides the obvious attack, your eyes looked strong, and it seemed like there was no concussion.

“I should be fine,” you speak first, your jaw tensing as if it physically pained you to speak (whether it was because you hated talking to him or because of the injury, Kirishima had no idea). “I will be fine; I just need some sleep.”

Kirishima nodded, his body completely exhausted, and his mind filled with nothing but regrets on how he handled his anger earlier. He needed to apologize. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but he had definitely crossed a few too many lines.

“Should we go?”

You chewed on your lip, your eyes looking down at the white tiled floors of the hospital — so bleak, so anxiety driving.

“I actually wanted to talk before we left.”

Oh?

“Of what, if I may ask?”

Your eyes raise back up before looking away again, “the contract.”

Kirishima finds himself nodding, his hand gesturing towards the empty seat in front of him.

“Sure.”

And with a heaving sigh that sounds like you were on the verge of tears, you sit before him.

The contract was then discussed.

It was decided that you could continue to interact with fans as you wish, so long as you took Kirishima with you. He didn’t care about the long hours, the manic fans, or the impending doom of a group of people who meant business. He needed to be there.

Everything else stayed the same, but Kirishima looked at you one last time that night in the hospital, his body leaning towards you as he did his best to keep his face void of emotion and any lingering teasing.

“I’ll only accept this new negotiation on one term.”

“W-What?!” you pause, thinking. “Fine, say it.”

“From here on out, I think we should be friends, yeah? I’m on your side, after all, it’s a bit weird if we stay just acquaintances.”

The tension and horror leave your body, and Kirishima, for the first time ever, bears witness to the most relaxed, meaningful smile he has ever seen you give. It had been one hell of a shitty night, but at that very moment when the seventh turned into the eighth, Kirishima felt a new warmth flood through his chest, his heart racing at the sight of your glorious smile.

“Of course, Kirishima.”

“Oh, and y/n?” 

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry about all that I said. It was unmanly of me and out of line.”

“It’s okay. To be fair, I was a bit of a self-absorbed brat, too.”

The next day, a picture of Kirishima holding you bridal style is trending.

Date: 6/12 Time: 19:00 Location: Hime Onsen

An Interview with Y/n | Vogue Japan 4.5 million views • Premiered 2 hours ago 874k [liked this] 12.3k [disliked this] Timestamp: 05:32 / 10:33

[Interviewer]: Now, Y/n, we must congratulate you on your latest achievement! Your latest self-titled album, ‘Y/N,’ has been nominated for a record high of twelve awards for the upcoming Japan Record Awards, which will be coming up in about a month! Tell us how you feel about this?

[You]: It was quite a surprise actually! I didn’t realize that it would have done so well in the critic's eyes to get this type of award. I am proud of myself and am excited to see all the other amazing artists and musicians who were nominated as well.

[Interviewer]: Now, your album is all about staying true to yourself, whether that be in love or war. It depicts your own highs and lows while also highlighting beautifully universal things many of us face. Without question, you have always been adamant on staying connected with your fans and keeping a simple rule: no bodyguards.

[Y/n]: Oh, (laughs) yes! That is definitely a new thing, huh?

[Interviewer]: A new thing and a beautiful thing at that, too! Look here!

[captioner notes: interviewer displays many photos of Y/n’s bodyguard, including the most famous one where he’s holding y/n after the failed kidnapped attempt]

[Interviewer]: This is a beautiful — don’t giggle! — a beautiful man, Y/n! What do you have to say for yourself?! Did you finally succumb to keeping untrue to yourself for this beautiful man?! If so, it is perfectly acceptable. By chance, is your contract with him done? I would personally love to have this man on my team.

[Y/n]: (laughing) By all means, take him! (Y/n looks behind her, her bodyguard is there) I’m kidding, I’m kidding! (pauses) No, actually, sorry. Kirishima is an outstanding bodyguard, and I have no intentions of leaving him so soon. Uh, while I did say I had no wish or intentions to have a bodyguard, obviously that was not the best solution, so I hired Kirishima. He is a wonderful addition to my team and still allows me to be authentically me, so it’s still all good.

[Interviewer]: Ah, okay, well, Kirishima-kun, if you ever need a new client, call me. But moving on, yes! Would you like to discuss the series of increasingly concerning attacks?

Kirishima stood in the softly lit hallways of a sauna.

Today was one of the last remaining days you had off, and in celebration of your upcoming award season, you had decided that it was mandatory to visit the hot springs. Everyone on your team — the backup dancers, band, and hair and makeup — were ecstatic to learn that they were being involved with it too.

This high-end resort had accommodated your entire team to receive their own private spring with an all-inclusive menu too. 

It was thanks from the owner for the free PR and, of course, because they were some of your biggest fans. So, in thanks, everyone got to enjoy the springs.

Well, everyone but Kirishima, that was.

As of the past month, things between Kirishima and you had improved a lot.

With Kirishima no longer needing to run a marathon daily to find where you were, he would find himself walking at your side. He no longer felt like you hated him. There was respect and actual friendship between the two of you. You joked with him, showed him memes and TikTok, sent him snapchat streaks, and invited him to watch weird shows with you. You even complained to him about the things that annoyed you, namely Kimiko’s attention being stolen by other clients and the rude conversations you would have with the lawyer.

It made Kirishima’s chest warm up knowing that you were friends now.

A stressful month had passed into a friendlier one.

But there were some things that Kirishima would not have expected to… arise.

Namely you growing to be comfortable enough to walk around with nothing but a thin pair of panties and a large shirt. You curling into his side whenever you watched a show together in the bus, the way your lips brushed against his neck when he leaned down to hug you, or the very so not obvious teasing you would do when you changed in front of him. It was as if you were watching his every reaction, enjoying the way that his eyes horribly tore away, or the silent hitch in his throat whenever you speed his heart up.

The biggest surprise arose the night after the failed kidnapping attempt:

You had come to his room, hours after you were supposed to have fallen asleep.

Your eyes were sunken, still a bit tired, and the bruise on your cheek was looking bad. In your arms was a white binder undoubtedly filled with the introductory packet you had received at your initial meeting. Kirishima had opened the door in his sleepy state in nothing but gym shorts. He had barely started dozing off, his mind wouldn’t stop thinking of what could have happened if you hadn’t managed to scream, and so he kept tossing and turning.

Seeing you outside of his room, his head dropped down to look at you properly, and his fist rubbing at his eye fell, “Y/n?”

“Did I wake you?” you asked, your face filled with a shocked, near uncomfortable, and embarrassed expression he doesn’t recall ever seeing on you. “I’m so sorry! I’ll wait until—”

“No,” Kirishima grunts while he shakes his head, his voice raspy and dry from his lack of use. “I’ve been tossing and turning, um, what is it? Do you want to come in?”

“I-If that’s okay?”

Kirishima breathes out a bit, his shoulders relaxing as he smiles softly, “Come on, let’s talk about what’s on your mind.”

The door clicked behind your tentative steps with an echo, and Kirishima watched as you walked into the hotel room with wariness and caution.

“Would you like some tea?” Kirishima offered, picking up a shirt from his dresser and pulling it over his body. The fabric was tight against his chest and shoulders, but felt more appropriate to wear around you.

“No, I’m okay,” you politely decline.

You stood in the center of the room, unsure of where to sit, stand, or lay.

“Go ahead and make the bed,” Kirishima offered, taking the chair by the desk. “I promise it’s still clean.”

You laugh slightly, smile strained but grateful as you sit at the edge of the bed, binder resting on your lap.

“Thanks, I wouldn’t want to sit on a dirty bed,” you joke, but it sounds weak to Kirishima’s ears.

“So, what questions do you have?”

“Hm?”

“You have my portfolio,” he shrugs, leaning forward so that his forearms rest on his knees. “I have a feeling you have some questions.”

“Oh, right,” you whisper, your eyebrows scrunching as you open the binder to the first page, but your eyes are focused on the desk. “What’s the medication for?”

Kirishima turns his head to follow your gaze and comes across the yellow tinted medicine containers.

“My PTSD,” Kirishima answers honestly, his voice soft with emotion, but there was no shame in it. “My service had a difficult end.”

“That’s actually… that’s what I came to talk about,” you rush, your hands slamming the binder closed. “If you don’t want to talk about it, obviously I won’t push it! God, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have—”

“No, it’s okay,” Kirishima interrupted, his smile sad, but he stood up, his body a tower in front of yours as he urged you to sit back down. “It’s okay; I don’t mind talking about it.”

“B-But what if I say something that makes it all worse?”

A pause.

“Then I’ll tell you that it’s too much.”

A nod.

“Are you… are you still experiencing a lot of symptoms?” you ask, your fingers tightening and untightening around the binder.

“Some days are worse than others,” Kirishima admits, his shoulders shrugging. “I don’t experience much anxiety while in crowds anymore; I don’t have many flashbacks to those days anymore, not since February at least. I do still get… I still get night terrors and dream of that day. It’s nowhere near as bad as the first few months after the accident, but it’s still here.”

“What happened?” you asked after a bit, morbidly curious.

The file had all the details that proved Kirishima to be a master of firearms during his entire time on the force. He was a powerful combatist, and his ranking was a clear indicator of the respect and skills he had. Still, it was the quick honorable discharge, the near year-long hospitalization, and the current inability to use a firearm that concerned you.

What had happened?

“I was involved in a grenade explosion on my last day on tour. I was the only one who managed to survive the blast,” Kirishima easily stated, his voice quiet.

“Oh my god, I… holy shit, I’m so sorry.”

“Nah, it’s all good. There were only two others around, and one of them was already dead.”

“Was that um, Major—”

“We called him Crimson Riot, actually,” Kirishima smiled, a chuckle light on his tongue as he leaned back onto the chair, nodding. “Yeah, that was him.”

“Crimson Riot,” you repeat, nodding. “Did you watch him… watch him die?”

Kirishima presses his lips tightly together, and for a moment, you’re unsure if he’s going to cry, answer you, or tell you to leave. There’s a whirlwind of emotions on your optimistic and typically jubilant bodyguard despite your asshole tendencies that make your stomach twist.

“Yes,” Kirishima finally answers, and you nod.

It’s hours into the morning before you finally depart back to your room, the horrors of Kirishima’s past still pounding into your ears. Kirishima wouldn’t notice, and neither would you, but on his shirt and yours, there’s a few drops of tears the both of you shed when you said goodnight.

Sergeant Kirishima Eijirou, while on an active warzone, had accidentally struck and killed his superior officer, his friend, his role model Crimson Riot, thinking that he was nothing more than an enemy target as he sat wounded behind a wall. He died on his lap, and as someone came to help, a grenade landed two meters away before detonating.

“K...Kiri...shima?” Crimson Riot had whispered as he fell to his knees, blood gushing and seeping through his clothes, spilling onto Kirishima’s lap. “I’ll be okay.”

For whatever reason, since that night, Kirishima felt something in him shift. He still took his medication, still had his virtual therapy sessions when he could fit them in, and even had painful night terrors of that moment, but it was becoming less frequent.

He wasn’t made of glass.

There had been more instances after the kidnapping attempt, but unlike the last times, Kirishima was prepared. He had stopped each one, keeping you safe and sound. As of one week ago, he had officially been given a firearm to keep strapped to his thigh at all times now.

It was an unfamiliar weight, one that still twisted his stomach and made him nervous, but he knew the reason why it was needed. Since the gun had been added to his gear, the attacks stopped. He was definitely not ready to be firing it anytime soon, but it had deterred the attackers for the time being.

Kirishima paused when he heard his earpiece ring, and he dropped his phone where he had been watching your interview despite being there himself.

“Talk to me,” Kirishima answered, his finger pressing the accept button.

“Kirishima!” came the distressed voice of Kimiko, “We just got a tip!”

Kirishima stilled, his eyes scanning the empty hallways that stretched throughout the private hot springs.

“I don’t know, but a person with connections with this mastermind said something about how there were two more events he was staging. Today is one of them!”

Kirishima’s eyes widened, his lips parting to answer Kimiko when instead there was a large, loud crash in the water from inside your room. He assumed the worst.

“Y/n!” Kirishima shouted, hands throwing open the sliding door and racing through the storage room, the shower, and exited out into the hot spring.

Steam curled through the wind, the white wisps of steam feeling warm and light against Kirishima’s skin, and Kirishima panicked when he couldn’t see your shadow or figure in the hot springs.

“Where is she?! Is she alright?!” Kimiko panicked, her voice panicking already. “I’ll call the—”

Kirishima turned on his heel, ready to complete a full sweep of the outdoor hot spring when he crashed into something smaller than he was… smaller, softer, and definitely the shape of a woman. Kirishima felt his entire body stiffen when his rough palms felt the undeniable feeling of wet, warm skin.

“Oh my god,” he heard you shriek. “KIRISHIMA!”

“She’s all good, Kimiko,” Kirishima stifled out, his voice tight, his head slamming backward so that his eyes were concentrated on the starry night sky.

“...sorry… uh aha! Another client of mine is calling, goodbye!” Kimiko’s apology was meek and small before she hung up.

Kirishima’s mind was racing a mile a minute, but his body was frozen, unmoving like a rock when he realized that pressing to his stomach was, without a doubt, your breasts.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“What are you doing in here, pervert?!” you splutter, your hands pressing to his stomach as you step away. “Are you a pervert or something?!”

“I, no! No! Of course not! Fuck, shit, I’m so sorry! I’ll go! There was a tip that something was going to happen right now, and there was a crash and—”

“What are you looking at?” you exclaim, squeaky frustration heavy on your tongue. “There’s nothing wrong with the sky! Look me in the eyes? Have you never been to a co-ed hot spring before?!”

“Y-Yes, sorry!” Kirishima apologized, bowing slightly in apology before he peered down. Still, his face bursted in a flame as he watched the way your jaw dropped in disbelief, the dewy wetness of the hot spring clinging to your body. You were, obviously, soaked, and Kirishima bit his tongue as hard as he could to keep the whimper from expelling past his lips when he saw the light gleaming off your breasts. But he watched your face shift between a million emotions, each one appearing too fast for him to read, too fast to register, but he saw the way a single-arm wrap around your breast and the other shoving into his stomach.

“PERVERT!”

“What?!”

“That was a test! This is my private room! I have the right to not be willing to be looked at right now!” you shrieked as Kirishima spun around, allowing you the complete privacy of his gaze.

“You told me to look at you!” he squawked. “Y-You told me, and I listened because of our contract!”

Kirishima could feel his body trembling, his mind reeling in disbelief that he definitely saw you in your entire nakedness, and if the swirling heat in his stomach had anything to say about it, he liked it. Fuck.

There was a soft laugh and the sound of sloshing water as you probably (he wouldn’t know because he wasn’t looking) reentered the spring.

“I know, I was teasing,” you sing, and he can tell the water is gliding around your body. “Turn around, Kiri, let’s talk.”

“Haha, um, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Kirishima admits, although sitting in this steam-filled space with just you sounds so very nice. 

“Why not?” you asked, voice sounding a bit upset.

“I’m supposed to be outside, doing my job?”

“Augh, but these private springs are so boring alone,” your voice whines; the water sloshes, and Kirishima winces at the slight throb on his tongue as he continues to look at not your direction. “Turn around, Kiri.”

Not too long ago, you had taken to calling him Kiri, a subtle change, a not unusual nickname people gave him. But just because it was you, his stomach flipped and twisted, and now with the image of your tits in mind, his dick throbbed. 

Gulping, Kirishima turned, his gaze bashfully looking down at you before glancing away. You were chest-deep in the hot springs, tendrils of your wet hair sticking to your neck. Was he dead? Maybe dreaming?

No, his dreams were never like this.

“Do you want to come in?” you continued to ask, your body moving towards him in the water until you reached the edge of the pool, arms testing into the black rocks. “You’re the only one not in one, and since I hate being in these alone, I figured you’d like to join.”

Kirishima wanted to join. More than anything, he wanted to take his clothes off and jump into the springs with you, for you, but that would be unprofessional. Entirely and utterly unprofessional.

“Please?” you ask softly, pleadingly, and Kirishima makes the mistake of locking his gaze with yours. 

“...fine, but I’ll be on the other side of the spring,” he concedes, his steps near clumsy and oafish as he stumbles backward to the shower and closet.

“Such a gentleman pervert,” you tease, fingers curling as you wave at him until Kirishima finally closes the door behind him.

The empty room is nearly deafening in its silence and the future as Kirishima slumps against the sliding door, excited apprehension rippling through every cell of his skin as a smile spreads across his face. He walks to the storage room, and despite it being a private room, there were two closets. The closet not already occupying your clothes had the things needed for him, and thankfully, it fit. 

He undressed slowly, folding his clothes and placing them into the cubbies. Fully naked, he approached the showers, and under the lukewarm showerhead, he cleaned his body of any grime, dirt, and sweat. 

Feeling refreshed and clean, Kirishima began his descent to the hot spring, his heart hammering when his fingers grabbed the handle of the door.

“I’m coming in,” he announced, a healthy amount of fear, excitement, and heat drumming through him.

“I’ll keep my virgin eyes away from your body, don’t worry,” came your slow tease, and Kirishima snorted softly.

Kirishima stepped back out to the hot spring.

Just like the first time, the entrance to the spring was warm, the steam seeming thicker than last time, clouding the outdoor room and his sight. You were at the furthest out part of the pool, your back towards them as you worked your fingers through your scalp.

Discarding his slippers at the edge, Kirishima climbed into the pool.

The pool only went as far as his thigh, and he sank into the warm water. It felt wonderful on his body, relaxing his muscles just enough for him to wonder when was the last time he had managed to visit a hot spring.

“I’m in,” Kirishima said, his arms rising up out of the water, resting onto the black stone. “You can turn around now.”

“God, took you long enough,” you tease, your body twisting so that you were facing him again.

To Kirishima’s complete and utter surprise, you stilled, eyes dragging up and down his exposed chest, eyes locked on the series of tattoos all over his right pectoral, and trailed down his right arm. His lips felt dry as your eyes shifted back to his face, to his arm, and back to him. The smile on your face felt weak, but it sent a spiral of dizzying heat through Kirishima when he noticed the hushed lust.

For a while, the two of you remained at opposite ends of the hot spring. Eyes closed, hummed melodies passing through the song. You asked Kirishima about how he felt, if his medication was due for refills, if therapy was okay (he was doing better, a refill was due in two weeks, and therapy was going the same). He asked you about your relationship with Kimiko, with the lawyer, and if you had any real friends within the music industry (Kimiko was like an older cousin to you, the lawyer was a pain to deal with at times, and surprisingly, you did meet some genuine friends). You questioned how his friends were doing, if he had any contact with them despite their busy schedules. 

So Kirishima found himself retelling stories of his coworkers turned close friends. Each story he told left both of you with sore stomachs from laughter, and tears at the corner of your eyes from laughing too hard. 

“Was the tip story true?” you asked once the quiet overcame and grew old. You shift through the water, getting a bit closer to Kirishima.

Kirishima coughed, suddenly feeling a tad bit shy about his posture, but decided to keep from moving.

“You honestly think I would have barged into here just because I wanted to see you?”

Truthfully, had Kirishima been a man without morals, chivalry, or disrespect for you, he would have. Definitely would have.

“Let a girl dream,” you smile, like a luring siren as you wander closer by just a step. “It would go against everything I know about you, but it’s fun to tease.”

“You’re a bigger brat than I thought you would be,” Kirishima smiles back, trying his best to not show the way goosebumps were bursting against his skin, his eyes locked on yours, trying to not get distracted by the way your wet skin made his mind spin.

“I don’t think I’m a brat,” you counter, getting close enough that he could feel the currents of the water with your movement. But you were far enough that Kirishima felt like pointing out the fact you disregarded his keep apart rule would be a mistake. “How am I a brat?”

The sound of the water rippling through the springs along with the growing noises of the bugs began a melody around the two of you, and all Kirishima could do was stare at the way you blinked your eyes slowly — like a feline stalking a prey.

“A lot of ways, really,” Kirishima breathes, his heart rising up to his throat as he felt your hands gingerly place themselves on his knees.

“Yeah?” you ask, parting through his naked legs, and Kirishima felt his breathing stop when your exposed chest pressed against his. Your lips were ghosting so far from his but tantalizingly close enough that he felt drunk off your sweet breath. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Kirishima sucked in air, his arms resisting movement, and his eyes glanced down at the way your mouth was millimeters from his. His dick was very much interested in what he could do about it, and when your hands grazed up his thigh and onto his chest, Kirishima could feel something rumble in his chest.

He moved to eliminate the space, but there was a crash in the following spring, pushing you away from him long before he could claim your mouth.

“FUCK!” the person in the opposite spring screamed, and Kirishima’s eyes closed in his muted annoyance as you sighed.

His eyes dropped to the water, giving you the privacy to rise out of the water and make your way over to the wall.

“Jenny, are you okay?” you called.

“Give me a warning the next time you try fucking your hot bodyguard in the middle of a private onsen!”

“We weren’t fucking you prude!”

And with that, Kirishima took this as his embarrassed cue to leave.

He stood at the entrance of your private spring for about twenty minutes, entirely uncomfortable with the still hard dick in his pants, rubbing and chaffing against his jeans as he stood there. Eventually, you exited the hot spring, face glowing from the steam and eyes avoiding his gaze as you walked back to your room. Your robe was tight on your body, the hair on the nape of your neck pressed to your skin.

Kirishima sighed as he watched you enter your room, your smile short as you nodded a simple goodnight before letting the door slam shut behind you.

Rubbing his face, Kirishima listened to the voices in his intercom talk about how nothing had happened tonight. An attempted unwelcome visitor tried to get into your room, but they had stopped him. They didn’t fight, but they had run away the moment they caught on to the fact that they weren’t exactly authentic.

Kirishima sighed as he slumped into his room, collapsing on the too small bed as he found himself looking at the ceiling in deep concentration.

What was he going to do now?

That was undeniably sexual, his still semi-hard dick damning evidence to the known fact that he wanted you. By god did he want you. Wanted you beneath him, over him, splitting yourself down onto his cock while you gripped your arms and legs around him, fucking down onto his driving cock. 

Kirishima groaned low in his chest, guilt blooming in the back of his throat as his palm rubbed his pulsing cock.

Bad, Kirishima, bad.

“Kirishima-san?” a voice broke through his earpiece, and Kirishima nearly jumped out of his skin. “Are you there?”

“Hi Kimiko,” Kirishima sighed, his dick deflating instantly. “Everything all right?”

“Ah, yes! Sorry about earlier, the false tip and the sudden abandonment!” Kimiko embarrassingly apologized. “My client was ringing for the fourth time, and while I care deeply for y/n, I had to take it!”

“Mm, no worries, Kimiko,” Kirishima smiled politely despite the lack of visual contact. “How can I help you?”

“Ah, yes,” Kimiko asserted, her tone changing from apology to one of formality. “So, about the visitor incident I’m sure you were brought attention to, it seems that the vehicle they came in was with the driver's plate: T082-23. Does that sound familiar?”

“Not currently,” Kirishima sighed, his body stretching into a sitting up position. “Does it to you?”

“No…” Kimiko admitted, and Kirishima could feel the worried frown on her face. “Well, I just wanted to call and give you that information. It was passed along to me, and they mentioned they hadn’t told you. And since I was going to give you the schedule for the upcoming JRA’s award day, I figured I’d let you know!”

“No problem! Let’s go over the schedule now?”

“Yes! I have a client meeting in America right after this! Can you believe it? An American celebrity wants my help?!”

“That sounds amazing, Kimiko!”

“Okay, so this is how the day’s going to go!”

Date: 7/10 Time: 18:00 Location: Tokyo Hotel Room 101

Kirishima watched as an entire team was getting you dressed up.

Two people were doing your hair, three people doing your nails, one person doing your makeup, and five getting one of your three outfits for the night ready.

According to you, as you had strutted around in these outfits nearly two weeks ago were your red carpet and beginning of the award show outfit, your performance outfit, and of course, the after-party outfit. Each one was different, yet when adorned on your body was a perfect replica of who you were.

Most importantly, the two of you had decided to ignore every single instance of tremendous sexual energy and desire that basically leaked from both of your pores. It was for the best to ignore it. There was no point in pursuing it, especially when there was a known hunt for you, and Kirishima was the last line of defense between you and whoever it was.

Whoever it was, pfft.

Kirishima was willing to bet on who it was already.

Since the night of the initial kidnapping that finally closed the gap between you and Kirishima, there was something that the caught criminal said that stuck with him.

Everything you had coming your way, you deserved, he had said in bitter spite.

The interesting thing was that it was the lawyer who had said that, multiple times at that. The lawyer seemed to have everything to fuel him to rage against you. Everything you said or tried, the lawyer was on your heel, barking at you that it was wrong. Kirishima had also seen the contracts between you and the lawyer, and the amount that he was paid to be your attorney was not large at all.

The mass majority of the funds you earned were always funneled towards charities and organizations you trusted to help people in need — in fact, it was almost 80% of your total earnings. A meek, barely larger than 20% was split between you, your lawyer, Kimiko, your music crew, and any other unforeseen expenses. The lawyer was also in a situation where he was not in demand with clients, and if you weren’t heeding his expensive tag, he needed a new contract with you.

A contract he was always demanding to discuss with you that you denied to change.

Attacks tended to happen days after you and the lawyer tumbled, not enough to rouse suspicion if you weren’t looking, but Kirishima was. He just needed damning evidence now.

Something.

Anything.

And for some reason, his gut was screaming at him that something big was going to happen tonight, that tonight was going to be the last attack—the one to end everything.

So he had told everyone about it. Kimiko, the security at the JRA’s, even you. It made him nervous.

It made his hand sweat, the gun strapped to his thigh feeling like hot iron as he stood about as you laughed with your makeup crew.

Kirishima swore, promised, and vowed he would protect you.

He was going to.

And when the gold dress was tied to your body, fitting you beautifully, Kirishima found himself unable to look away like strands of your hair framed your temples.

“What do you think, Kiri? Will I be on the Best Dressed List?” you asked, tearing Kirishima’s attention away from the bodice and skirt of the dress. Your eyes were bright, hopeful, yearning for a positive reaction from him.

“How could you not be?” Kirishima admitted, his grin toothy, and he shifted against the wall.

“You’ll make me blush,” you grin back, eyes batting just a bit as you clasp your hands together. It takes everything in Kirishima to keep from striding across the space between the two of you and kissing you silly. “Are we ready to go?”

Kirishima wet his lips, unwillingly tearing his gaze from you, and whispers into the intercom.

“Ready to move out?”

“We’re all clear.”

Straightening back up, Kirishima smiled at you, his head motioning towards the door.

“Alright, y/n, let’s see you make some history?”

“Damn right I will.”

Kirishima smiled as he exited first, carving the path for you. 

Paparazzi were on you immediately, the lights flashing and terribly bright as he helped you through the throngs of them. His hand pressed to your back as they screamed demands, most of which you complied with until Kirishima stated that you would be late. You, unfortunately, couldn’t be late to the awards show.

Ushering you into the limousine, Kirishima follows in shortly after you, scrunching up in his seat as he sits opposite of you. However, your typical light and bright demeanor are gone; instead, you seem almost anxious as you open your handbag.

“You okay there?” Kirishima asks as he realizes you pulled out a distinctly obvious metal flask.

“Awards make me nervous,” you painfully admit; you're weakly smiling as you knock back a shot of the drink. “I hate winning and losing; the alcohol makes me less… of a wreck. Do you want some? I think it’s apple soju, I don’t know, a good luck gift from Kimiko.”

Kirishima grins, his eyes rolling as he decides to decline the drink. “Sorry, love, I think that I need to be completely sober for today.”

You scrunch your nose, obviously displeased, “Lame, who shows up to these awards sober?”

“Me,” Kirishima laughed, his head tilting back and scraping against the ceiling of the limousine. 

“Such a prude, sober, pervert,” you sigh, taking yet another swig before putting the flask back into your bag. 

“Such a brat.”

Just like every previous instance, your eyes seem to glow in glee at that name, your lips curling into a pleased smirk as you shrug. It's a sight that makes Kirishima’s mouth dry and heart racing. Fuck, he should not be thinking about fucking you in the limousine right now.

But before the heat in the limousine could simmer to one of undeniable boiling, you had arrived.

Kirishima cleared his throat, sending a quick wink your way as he exited the car first. The first stop was for him to join the lineup to guide you through all the different photo and interview sessions. No one wanted pictures of him emerging from the limo after all. 

There's a moment where after Kirishima closes the door, your eyes filled with worry and excitement as he winked goodbye, that things changed. He stood up, his eyes already scanning the area for anything suspicious, when he saw the all too familiar van.

T082-23.

His eyes widened, his head looking around for anyone else, but there was no one to help. No one could do anything as the car continued to drive away, disappearing from Kirishima’s line of sight. His heart hammered in his chest, and his hands instinctively went to his thigh. He had his firearm… he had it.

With nothing but a quick report to the head of security via his com, Kirishima pushed on ahead, waiting for your descent down the red carpet.

When you eventually emerged from the limousine, Kirishima found that at this moment, the entire world faded away as a gloved hand assisted you out of the vehicle. You were elegant, stunning, a realistic vibrant portrait within his world of greys. As you took photos for the cameras, he was by your side a few strides away as you talked to reporters.

You really came to life right now.

You were beautiful.

“For all the pain in the world that she is, she’s quite charming from a distance, huh?” a voice spoke to his side, and Kirishima froze. His eyes widened completely when he noticed that standing beside him was none other than the lawyer.

The lawyer was dressed in a nice suit, glasses perched on his nose, and for the first time Kirishima had seen, the scowl was not quite so hard.

He was here.

Every warning bell sounded in Kirishima’s head.

This was the man he was so sure was the reason behind your every attack. A man fueled by insufficient funding, a need for a new contract that would never be approved without your signature.

“What are you doing here?” Kirishima asked, subtlety never being something he was ever good with. “I’ve never seen you anywhere except to argue with Y/n about contracts. This doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to be discussing it.”

“Kimiko wanted me to give her a new contract proposal to give to y/n. However, to be fair, it’s quite easy for anything to come down to an argument with y/n,” he shrugs, and Kirishima watches a cloud of emotions pass between the man’s eyes. “At least between her and me, we’ve never gotten along, but I suppose that’s how it is for any type of family who works together.”

Wait.

“What?! Family member?!”

“Yes, I know it’s strange to believe. I am quite ugly, and she is not, but we’re family.”

Kirishima’s mind was racing now. It didn’t make sense. If he was family, why would he be in such pursuit of potentially murdering you? If you were family, he was sure that you would help out? If he needed a raise like he thought, wouldn’t you have helped?

There was no way you wouldn’t.

Was he wrong?

Who was it?

“Kiri!” your voice broke into his mind and tore him back to reality. You waved at him, then passed a stuck-out tongue to the lawyer in a teasing fashion. “Let’s go in?”

Kirishima looked over at the lawyer who greeted a woman, who was also walking down the red carpet, a celebrity he could name no less, with a warm kiss. 

Oh fuck.

He needed to call Kimiko; he was so very wrong.

You had won two awards so far, and at this very moment, Kirishima was being ushered back to his seat in the audience as you were being escorted to the main stage to perform your latest song. You had removed your gold dress for a black, sleek gown. Your lipstick changed to a dark red, and your hands trembled in the white lace gloves you wore.

“Oh, Kiri,” you wheezed almost, your hands shaking as the announcers on stage were announcing the last awards before your performance. “I’m getting nervous. What if I mess up or sing off-key? I’d be the laughing stock!”

Kirishima laughed gently, his hands easily encompassing your waist as he stilled your frantic moves. “Y/l/n y/n, if there is anything I know for sure about you is that you are one hell of a singer and a performer. The awards you’re nominated for tonight speak for themselves! You never fail at your performances, and even if you somehow manage to sing off-key, I’m sure that no one would notice! Your biggest fan in the world won’t notice, at least.”

Not more than seven days ago, when you had cried about the impending nerves of being an artist, Kirishima had come to claim the title of being your biggest fan in the world. It had made you chuckle through your tears before coming near a hysterical laugh as the two of you held each other close.

“You’re a nut, Kirishima Eijirou,” you laugh, hands resting on his lower ribs, but your smile was bright, warm. You paused a bit, fingers pulling at the fabric of his shirt. “I’ll sing just for you then, but I think I should take another swig of that soju.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Could you tell that Takeyama is completely drunk off her ass?”

“...she’s drunk?!”

“Exactly, I’ll be fine,” you breathe, taking a new smaller flask from the purse Kirishima was holding for you and taking the final swig. Your face contorts at the bitter liquid. “Ew, Kimiko really fucked me over with this one. Why is it blue?! Have you ever seen blue apple soju?!”

“No?” Kirishima startled, his eyes looking at the indeed splash of blue liquid tainting a small part of your gloves. “Who gave you that one? What happened with the other flask of yours?”

“Oh, Kimiko sent it along after I lost my other one; it’s her own flask,” you said before the backstage crew whisked you away to begin your set, and without you, Kirishima was sent to the audience.

Kirishima felt trapped as he was ushered into his seat, his eyes scanning the entire audience for something suspicious, a familiar face perhaps. His broad shoulders continued to bump into his neighbors, their disgruntled noises doing nothing to stop his worry.

“And now, Y/n,” came the strong voice of the male announcer, and the light dimmed.

Kirishima watched as the spotlight came down upon you, a golden halo of colors against your darkened gown as the instrumentals began to play in the background. And he saw you take a step forward, the building motifs suddenly silencing when you finally sang the first note.

Despite the panic arising in Kirishima, the unknown of who was behind it all, what was going to happen, he stilled at the unmatched strength and ambiance of your voice.

You sang as you did at every stage, to every audience.

There was a reason why you were considered a legend.

And then, with one last sound, one last melody, and your hand holding your microphone dropped. Your chest heaving, tears falling down your face, and the roar of the audience was silent. You looked through the audience, unable to see, but for some reason, you just knew where Kirishima was.

You smile.

But as the looming sounds begin to fill your ear again, you find that the world is hazy.

You swallow, eyes unfocused as you bowed, hurrying to leave the stage.

Kirishima watched as you took a final stumbling step off the stage, something he felt was going to be written off as you stepped on your dress. But his mind whirled.

The lawyer felt like a setup; the contracts made no sense, the blue soju.

How were they related?

What connected them?

“Oh, fuck,” Kirishima whispered, horrified, and immediately his finger pressed to his earpiece. “Find Y/n! Now!”

Kirishima was racing through the back of the venue, the announcers' voices still ringing through the dirty, bleak hallways. You had just won but was written off as being somewhere backstage; after all, the show must go on.

Voices screamed in his earpiece, each declining to have found you. No one had seen you after you stepped off the stage. No one knew who had taken you.

Kirishima noticed the doors closing at the end of the hallway, and with a dreading sense of doom, Kirishima removed the gun from his harness. And with the devil on his heels, he ran.

Kirishima panted as he looked before him.

You were passed out, draped limp, confused, and woozy against Kimiko’s body, and two men knocked unconscious beside them. To anyone else, it looked as if Kimiko had saved you, some guardian angel within this world, but if Kirishima’s gut meant anything, he knew better.

“Kirishima-san!’ Kimiko squeaked as Kirishima raised his gun, his body tense, unwilling to take a chance on her. “I don’t know what those two were doing! I was saving her, I swear!”

“Don’t do this, Kimiko,” Kirishima whispered, his head shaking. “I figured it out.”

There was a shift in Kimiko’s face at that; the scared unknowing hero melted into one of anger, resentment, one of someone who knew they had been outed.

“So, you figured it out,” she bitterly spoke, her arms that were supporting you from behind revealing to be a firearm of your own. “I didn’t expect you to.”

“I can’t say I figured out your reasoning; honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I felt like it was you,” Kirishima carefully states, his heart roaring at the implied danger of the firearm against your chin. “Don’t do anything stupid, Kimiko.”

Kimiko stares, her lips forming a small o before changing into one of a large, near unattached grin.

“Anything stupid? If anyone is doing anything stupid, it's this selfish prick!” Kimiko spits, her arms tightening around you, making you whimper ever so gently in pain. “She thinks she’s so great, so rich, so smart! Just because she wastes most of her money on stupid shit like charity! Everyone thinks working for her is a dream, but they’re all blind idiots!”

Kirishima’s eyes widen as he notices the glazed, unfocused of your eyes as you shift your attention over to him. Were you listening?

“What’s wrong with the contract?” he asks, a small attempt to diffuse the situation.

“The fact she pays me next to nothing, and yet she works me half to death!”

“You have multiple clients, don’t you?” Kirishima splutters, unsure as to what was wrong. “Why is this one contract so important you wanted to frame her lawyer?!”

Kimiko laughs; it’s pitchy, almost hysterical as she bends over, your body slumping further onto the floor. “That was a lie! All a fucking lie! Do you know that I knew no one when I first started? Y/n is a name everyone wants. I don’t need to do anything to get her things! The world wants her! But the other clients? None of them stayed, none of them wanted me past a month! The salary was okay when she was a snot-nosed brat, but ten years later?! NO! She won’t fucking listen. She never fucking listens to anything but herself! So she has the option to give me the eighty percent, or fucking die here!”

Suddenly the gun in Kirishima’s hand feels like a ton, the skin on the back of his neck crawling and slicking with sweat.

“You know how much those charities mean to her,” Kirishima whispers. “She won’t do it.”

Kimiko trembles for a second, her arm holding the firearm lowering as she looks at the wall, shaking.

“Oh my god… you’re right,” Kimiko realizes, horror and uncertainty flashing across her face. “I guess… she has to die, oh my god, she has to die.”

At that moment, the world slowed down, and Kirishima swore he could see the atoms, the electricity flowing through the space between them. Kimiko’s arm holding the gun raising back up to your temple, her smile detached, horrific yet gleeful.

His body trembled as he doubted himself, his mind unsure if the finger on the trigger was going to be strong enough to fire away. Could he do it?

Was he ready?

Actually ready?

Save her, his past whispered.

Save her, his nightmares screamed.

Save her, his heart yelled.

Kirishima raised his arm, his focus blaring, his past just for a moment, forgotten.

BANG!

“The effects of the rohypnol have already worn out. Thankfully she wasn’t given a whole pill. If she experiences any nausea or throws up, please bring her back, should anything else happen, she’ll be okay.”

The words of the doctor rang in Kirishima’s ears. For tonight, they were going to be discharging you to him. Thankfully, it was all happening in Tokyo, so Kirishima’s apartment was near, and if Bakugou was true to his word, it was clean.

With the help of hospital security, he had managed to get your tuxedo concealed body into a car, and the two of you rode off to his apartment. You’ve been silent the entire time, eyes downcasted as you sit pressed to his side, feeling like a small child compared to him. You knew that he was much larger than you, a near two feet taller, but this felt unmatched. 

Kirishima’s jacket was warm around you, it’s sheer largeness another dress on your body, and despite the horrific turn of events, you were feeling warm. You couldn’t remember much of what transpired after stumbling off stage, but you did remember Kirishima bursting through the doors, a look of anger and fear blistering off his person in such a way that made you whimper when you remembered.

You remembered the onsen basically every night, cursing your stupid makeup team for interrupting a night that definitely would have ended with you fucking Kirishima. You cursed yourself for being a coward and not just saying fuck it and fucking him afterward despite the brief awkwardness.

He wanted you, it was clear as day, and you wanted him as well.

Tonight.

“Sorry about how small my apartment is, or if it’s messy, I don’t actually know if my friends have been keeping up with it,” Kirishima apologized, guiding you into the apartment by the small of your back. “You’ll be safe here tonight, and I promise we can get back to your own place tomorrow!”

“Oh, don’t apologize, it’s okay,” you smile, feeling flushed as you cross the entryway to the apartment. His apartment, despite not being home in so long, is clean. The halls aren’t messy, and a hint of lavender is saturated to the air. The dim hallway lights were barely bright enough to cause you to squint as it was dark out. “Thank you for having me tonight, especially after everything.”

At the hospital, you had been given a pair of sweats and a cotton t-shirt. The change in outfit from your event dress was definitely needed, and even though you were sure your makeup was streaked down your face, you felt good hidden in the depths of Kirishima’s jacket.

“Are you hungry?” Kirishima asked, handing over his guest slippers, which you gratefully accepted. “I might have some microwaveable food leftover.”

“Ramen doesn’t sound too bad,” you admit as Kirishima unbuttons the first few buttons on his white dress shirt. You were instantly captivated by the movement, your eyes shifting back to his face when he began to walk off towards the kitchen.

Kirishima talked warmly, keeping the conversation going merrily and bright throughout the entire time in the kitchen. He undoubtedly knew you weren’t entirely okay, and at moments like this, you were entirely grateful for his sweet personality. 

To be fair, you knew that you had been quite unfair to Kirishima in the beginning. Looking back at the first entire month of knowing him, you were horrified and impressed that Kirishima didn’t demand to be dropped. You had been selfish, stubborn, a bottom line brat, and he took it day after day. It wasn’t that you disliked him back then; hell, you had been in a near state of delirium when he entered the door during your first meeting because you had no idea such huge men existed to the caliber of his hotness.

But you resisted and might have been harsher than needed.

It was okay now; after all, if he was genuinely bitter about that entire month still, the onsen said otherwise.

It didn’t take long for your stomach to be filled with warm broth, soft boiled eggs, and ramen noodles. Kirishima did, in fact, have ramen, fresh eggs, and some vegetables. In a grand act of preparing you the most sufficient dinner he could, Kirishima presented this under budget ramen and laughed when you said it was terrific.

But it was growing late.

The two of you still sat at his table that was full of a card game, your empty ramen bowls, and cups of water. The clock on the oven read 23:38, and the city lights were slowly dying.

“Are you ready for bed?” Kirishima eventually asked you. 

You looked up from your joined hands; your fingers had been playing with his thick and long fingers for some time now. The apartment grew steadily quieter as you studied and attempted to memorize each callous and scar on his hands. They were definitely marked and nicked, the sign of the warrior he once was.

“Depends on the bed,” you tease, lips rising into a small smile as you compare your much tinier hands than his. Your fingertips barely passed the edge of his palm. “What does a big guy like you sleep in? A twin? Tatami mat?”

Kirishima laughed, his hands twisting in yours, wrapping it around so that he raised your hands up to press a kiss to the center of your palms. 

“A futon, brat,” Kirishima explained, his smile small but sharp with his humor. “Let’s get you to bed?”

You frown. 

“Where will you be sleeping then?”

“My couch is just fine.”

“I’m sure your stuffing in a trash bag had holes in it.”

“That’s okay,” Kirishima laughed, standing up and quickly taking you to your feet as well. “It’s just for a night, I’ll live.”

Your face warmed immediately as he guided you down the hallway of his apartment before finally coming into what was definitely his room.

Kirishima’s scent was faint in this room, cinnamon, wood, and warm spices. It made your eyes flutter as you observed his room from the entryway as he began to set up the room. 

His eye for interior decoration was quite… different. You smiled brightly as you glanced around; the diverse and rather boyish decorations around the room warmed your heart. It seemed exactly like what you would think of for Kirishima. 

“Well, that’s all!” Kirishima exclaimed, his hands landing on his hips in triumph as he looked around. “The bathroom is the next door over, and I’ll leave a toothbrush out for you. I also left out a new t-shirt of mine if you want to change!”

You nod some more, watching as Kirishima seems unsure of what to do next. He looks around, coughs a bit before nodding.

“Okay, I’ll be leaving—”

“Um, can we talk?” you interrupt, arms wrapping around your body. “I have some things I want to say.”

“Oh, sure!”

“You can sit,” you say, motioning toward the bed. “I have a few things to get off my chest.”

Kirishima pauses for a bit, his eyes looking you over before he eventually nods, and he sits down. The bed slightly creaks under his weight, and you feel your body warm-up at the sound. You want to hear the bed creak more, to rock under the weight of you and him pressed against the sheets as you cried his name.

“What is it?” he asks gently, observing you.

“I just…” you huff, words failing you, your tongue feeling heavy. “I wanted to say thank you for saving me.”

“It was my job to do that,” Kirishima smiled warmly, his arms crossing again.

He was relaxed.

“I mean, I can’t even begin to believe that it was Kimiko who was behind all that, even though we know it was… I know it was,” you trail off, shivering slightly as you remember your ex-managers demented laugh in your ear. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“Nothing would’ve happened to you,” Kirishima spoke with finality. “I promised to myself at the first meeting I was going to protect you, hell the entire world would. You’re not going to be taken down by pathetic people like that, not you.”

“Really?”

“One hundred percent.”

“I feel like I should repay you in some way, though,” you rub the back of your neck, eyes fluttering just the slightest bit flirtatious. Kirishima looked at you with full mooned eyes, his arms unfolding and his palms resting onto the bedspread.

“You repay me plenty already,” came his whispered answer, so quiet, so pure you almost smiled. “You don’t have to do anything.”

Your tongue pushes past your lip, wetting the drying skin as you take a step toward him. The shoulders of the jacket slowly fall from your own shoulders, pooling just above your elbows as you stop before him, hands resting daintily on his broad shoulders.

“And what if I want something?” you ask, finding yourself stemming with energy as his legs part, allowing you closer access to him. 

You step in closer and closer until your outer thighs are ghosting against the inner part of his.

“I think it’s in our contract for me to do everything that you request if I remember correctly,” Kirishima whispers, his bright clear red eyes turning a burnt shade: dark and ever consuming. 

“And if I want you to finish what you started over at the onsen?” you press, fingers curling against the muscles of his shoulders before locking behind his neck.

His nose was brushing against yours, cold yet burning against your own skin.

“I’ll gladly show you what I wanted to do that night,” he grunts, eyes deadly, and for the first time, his hands held your waist.

You took a second to recover, your skin sparking with the electricity of his touch, and you suppressed a shiver as you opened your eyes.

“Do it,” you cement your fates, “coward.”

And just like that, in a movement so euphoric, Kirishima’s mouth crashed against yours.

His mouth was hot, dangerous against yours -- a live wire sparking with uncontrollable energy and heat as your mouths danced. Hot puffs of air were passed between your mouths, your fingers shaking with an undeniable release of tension and want. 

The kiss was sloppy, desperate, so needy with unspoken frantic determination to fuck each other until the other could no longer move. 

Kirishima’s hand removed the jacket from your arms, letting the expensive material fall onto the floor with a heavy thud. Despite the lack of warmth the clothing provided, the feeling of Kirishima’s hands rubbing against your bare arms sent your mind spiraling.

“Get on the bed,” Kirishima commands against your mouth. “Let me fuck you.”

The words were nearly embarrassingly desperate, but the tone of his voice spoke of the absolute domination he wished to assert on you. He wanted you in one exact way, and you had a feeling you knew what it was. But if he had been paying attention, Kirishima should already know that getting you to listen was not easy.

“No,” you grin against his mouth.

Kirishima pulls away instantly, his lips red and swollen as he replays your word in his head. He looks frazzled, absolutely delirious already at the simple, passion-filled makeout. As soon as his eyes clear away the fog, your grin drops, and instead, you look at him with fierce determination and defiance. 

“No?” he repeats.

“No,” you confirm.

Your chest feels light, your head spinning as the hands on your waist tighten, and his eyes flash dangerously. The tip of his tongue pushes past his lips before quickly disappearing again. 

“Of course, you’re a brat in bed too, such a fucking princess,” Kirishima shakes his head, but his mouth curving into a shark-like grin. 

Menacing, promising, sending chilling shivers down your spine.

The world spins faster than you can keep up, your mouth opening to shriek as Kirishima easily lifts you up, and has you lying against his lap. 

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret, princess,” Kirishima begins, his large fingers hooking into the waistband of the sweats you have on and the panties you’re wearing. “My princess gets rewards for being good. If she can behave properly, she gets to be fucked with dick, her pussy gets to be fucked just the way she pleases.”

You can’t help but stifle a moan that threatens to spill out with his words and the way his hands move down the curve of your ass, exposing the naked skin to him. The waistband of both your panties and sweats stay high up your thighs, and it’s almost embarrassing to know you’re still so clothed despite what’s to come.

“And just what does the Sergeant do to bad girls?” you ask, unable to keep your tongue down, your hips rolling against his lap in undeserved friction.

Unexpectedly, abruptly, a hand comes down harshly onto your bare ass.

The contact is rough, stinging against your ass as you cry out in slight pain.

The hand not currently rubbing a warning circle into your ass twists the hair at the top of your head, lifting your head up so that your ear could near his mouth.

“Bad girls get punishments. They get what I want to give them. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Holy shit,” you whimper, heat flaring between your thighs at the thought of Kirishima doing anything to you regardless of if you were good or bad. You rut your ass back against his hand, longing for a heavier touch, a plea for something more.

“What does the princess want?”

“Nothing,” you bite, and the crashing smack of another spank has you moaning loudly at the stinging pleasure-filled pain. 

“You moaning like a whore at a simple spank says otherwise,” Kirishima chuckles darkly, his fingers pinching your stinging ass as your body bucks against him. He spanks you again, again, and again. Each slap is intentful, powerful, wanting to get you to admit what you want, and you cry against your hands each time, your eyes fluttering as the pain feels good. 

“Of course, a slut like you would be getting off on this,” Kirishima seems amused, his thick finger pressing to the slit of your cunt, spreading your dripping essence against your cunt. He presses against your entrance with just the tip of his finger, and you shriek in a sound for more, your hips jerking backward to get his finger into you, to fuck you with those thick fingers to do something about the growing desperate heat. 

“Kirishima!” you scream, your body sweating and twisting on his lap, desperate to find some way to get him to finger fuck you. 

“Ah, there we go,” he sighs in delight as his fingers swirl at your entrance, increasing the teasing and making your mind spin. “Tell me what you want, brat.”

“You!” you wail, two of his fingers carting between your wet, sloppy heated lips. They graze your clit, stimulating you further as you can do nothing but instinctively jerk against his hold, trying to get him to give you the needed pleasure to build up to an orgasm. “I want you to fuck me so good! Please, Sergeant, please, I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember anything but your name.”

“But you haven’t proven to be a good princess,” Kirishima tuts, his hands disappearing from your pussy despite your crying pleas. His hand grabs your ass, though, massaging the abused skin, grasping it tightly.

You moan, embarrassed at the sensation of his massive hand easily cupping your ass cheek, your fingers fisting into the fabric of his pants as you shake your head.

“Are you going to prove that you’re good?” he asks you, his tone like that of a parent chastising a child. “Gonna prove to me that you can be good?”

You shake pathetically against his legs, but you can’t keep yourself from shaking your head. You can’t prove to him that you would be.

“I can’t!” you whimper loudly, your body twisting on his lap to look up at him, your eyes filled with tears and pleading need. Kirishima looked down at you with lust filled eyes and an undeniable need to be followed.

“You can’t?” he repeats, his head tilting, eyes narrowing, and his fingers dug into your ass. “Or you won’t?”

You tremble on top of him, unable to answer because you weren’t ready to hand over the reins just yet. You didn’t want to submit so fast, you wanted to make his own head dizzy with need but the stubbornness to continue punishing you the way he was promising.

“I won’t,” you gasp, eyes fluttering at the way he finally drops your head.

You gasp loudly as you find him shoving you off his lap, and with your panties and sweats sitting so awkwardly high on your legs, you find yourself tumbling off his lap and onto the floor.

“Guess if you don’t want to behave, I’ll treat you like some fucking pussy pocket and dispose of you once I’m done,” Kirishima easily breathes, and you look up at the now standing man as he tears his shirt off.

Your mouth waters, your cunt throbbing at the sight of the rippling muscles and dark lines of his tattoos on his upper body. You watch fascinated, like one does to a masterpiece, as he undresses until he’s in nothing but his socks. And at the sight of his dick, you can feel at once all the blood in your flushed face drop directly into your throbbing cunt.

He was fucking enormous, his girth barely fitting into his hand, and the angry red head spilled its precum against his abs. A black happy trail connecting Kirishima’s abs to his vein throbbing cock.

Holy fuck, he could quickly kill you with that.

Kirishima doesn’t ask any questions as he watches your awkwardly dressed state of a body on the floor. His head is tilted upwards, a small pleased smile on his face as he looks down on you, his hand slowly, leisurely fisting his cock as you can do nothing but stare.

You make some insane noise at the back of your throat at this sight, your thighs trembling with need, and you're pushing off your side, your ass burning, and your balance off as you open your mouth, offering all you could to him.

And thankfully, Kirishima allows it.

He’s much too tall for you to suck him off on your knees, so he sits back down onto the bed, letting you scamper between his legs, mouth open wide like some needy pet.

“Such a good little slut,” Kirishima sighs, sinking his cock into your wet, hot mouth. “Such a fucking cockwhore, all it took was a single glance for you to lose your will.”

You whine against his dick, your jaw tight with the stretch, your tongue lapping so desperately around the cock that was no more than halfway in yet couldn’t go in any further.

“Suck me right, and I’ll reward you by fucking that pretty little pussy of yours,” Kirishima grunts, his fingers pressing into the side of your neck as he ruts his hips up into your mouth, shoving his cock even further into your mouth. “And don’t you dare look away from me while you suck me off.”

It feels like fire.

His cock driving down your throat hurts, the taste of his salty pre-cum slathering all over your tongue and dripping out of your mouth with the saliva you can’t control. His cock hits the back of your throat, and you continue to bob your head, continue to fuck him with your throat as animalistic, praiseworthy noises begin spilling from Kirishima’s mouth.

You whimper at the sight of his head dipping back, and you nearly whine when he shoves the fingers he had gathered your juices on into his mouth. He moans at the contact and with his pleasure with your actions so obvious as you choke against his girth. That was hot, holy fuck, you wanted him to fuck you, please fuck you. 

Your eyes close as he begins to fuck faster into your mouth, his delight in hearing you choke around him his driving force. Tears start pouring from your eyes despite your best efforts, your throat and inner thighs burning with lust and need as Kirishima groans, his cock twitching deep in your throat.

Slap!

“Hey!”

Slap!

You gag harshly as your cheeks sting with his heavy slap, your teeth grazing underneath his cock, right against a thick, twisting vein.

“Did I tell you to close your eyes?” Kirishima practically growls, his hands grasping the back of your neck, the other one slapping you across the face yet again. “No. I said… fuck… I said, keep your eyes on me!”

Tears weep down your face, your eyes struggling to keep focus on him as he continued to fuck deep and intensely into your mouth, shoving himself further into you until you could feel his thighs grazing your chin. Oxygen wasn’t flowing anymore; your gags and chokes the only time the burning element could manage to flow through you, but Kirishima doesn’t seem to care. He seems to delight in the way you are, despite it all, are moaning and looking at him in a pleading way for more.

More, you plead.

And he delivers. 

Kirishima pulls his still hard, not yet cummed, dick out of your mouth and stands. 

You splutter with the sudden intake of oxygen to your lungs, burning you from the inside out as you splutter on the ground.

“W-What’s going on?” you hoarsely stammer, your jaw and throat aching from its prolonged abuse. “E-Ei?”

However, Kirishima seems dead set on getting you naked, and you squeal in flustered excitement as he rips the shirt off of you and his mouth pressing against yours again. His mouth crashes against yours, and you moan into his mouth immediately.

His tongue curls into your mouth and your tongues press and rub against each other. Each passing second growing more desperate, needier, more intense as your clothes are ripped one by one off your body.

“Holy fuck, I’ve wanted you for so long,” Kirishima nearly whines, his mouth trailing down your neck, biting and sucking against every centimeter of skin he passed. “Wanted to fuck you against the wall, in my bed, and now I get to do that.”

“Please, please, fuck me, please,” you beg, your voice bordering a wail as your arms wrap around his neck, letting him lift you up off the floor. Despite you being so much smaller than him that when he held you to him, your cunt wasn’t pressed to his angry leaking cock, you continued to desperately roll your hips against his abs, the friction welcomed and easing the building pressure. It was an action conveying just what you wanted. “I need you in me, Sergeant!”

“Just cuz… holy fuck,” Kirishima breathes ragged, his body twisting around, and you cried when the cold sheets pressed into your back. “Imma fuck you, Imma… god, just fucking watch.”

Your head thrashed back onto the pillow as Kirishima’s teeth sunk into your collarbone, then captured your sensitive nipples, his fingers dancing against your clit and teasing your center. 

“Now!” you cry, fingers digging into his shoulder. “Put it in!”

This time, Kirishima didn’t need to be told twice.

His larger body was suddenly pressed entirely against yours, dwarfing you immediately as your arms wrapped around his back as his cock slammed into you. You screamed at the sudden intrusion, your pussy stretched beyond its typical limits by his girth, his size, his power.

Your cunt throbbed around him, your face buried within his pecs as you, despite the searing pain, shove your hips up towards him. Fucking into him, sucking him further into you.

“Holy shit,” Kirishima groans, “you’re amazing.”

“Talk less, fuck me more!” you screech, your body spasming, twitching so hard from the splitting pleasure and the lava pit in your stomach, and Kirishima does that exactly.

His hips begin to meet yours in equaled power, slamming into you so that the bed creaked beneath you. He fucked you until he had to hold a hand on your hip so you could stay there, and you kept a hand on the wall to continue to push yourself down onto his cock.

You screamed with pleasure, cried for more, Kirishima’s shark-like smirk getting bolder, darker, hotter with every slam of his hips until his tattooed right arm shot down. His hand wrapped around your throat, choking you.

“You’re so loud, princess,” Kirishima moans, clearly liking your loud noises, “but you’re going to wake everyone in Tokyo.”

His hand around your throat is enough to have your legs trembling around his waist, your choked and muffled moans and splutters drowning out even more as he pressed a kiss onto you. He kissed you, licking your mouth, and devouring your every word and thought. Your core twisted, tightened, and burned. It throbbed and clenched with it’s impending orgasm, and your body began to tense to the heavens as his cock throbbed deep within you.

“Who saved you?”

“E-Ei did,” you garble.

“Who’s fucking you?”

“E-Ei is!”

“Who’s going to fucking cum when I tell her to?”

“Me! Fuck, me!”

Kirishima laughs, his arms wrapping around your waist, and in one final, fleeting burst of strength, fucks into you with his own power, needs, and desire, and you can only take it. “Cum, princess,” he whispered almost sweetly against the top of your head, and it was all over. Your teeth sink into his chest as you scream, a blinding white light erupting through your vision as you cum around his cock.

Kirishima whimpers, his cock still pushing deep into your cunt, until you can feel the warm spill of his seed in your womb.

He collapses to the side of you, taking you with him so that you were resting on his sweaty chest.

“Holy shit,” Kirishima whispered after a bit, your body already warm and too lethargic to notice the star-like tone to his voice. “That was fucking… holy shit.”

“Does this mean you like me?” you half tease, half wonder.

There’s a pause, a silence, and you wonder if maybe he had fallen asleep.

But he didn’t.

“I’ve been in love with you for some time now, I think,” he admits, his hand beginning to rub small circles into your back.

You find that despite the exhaustion, warmth floods your cheeks.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess we’re going to have to discuss a more… permanent and maybe different contract tomorrow morning, huh?”

Kirishima chuckles, and you find yourself smiling into his chest.

“I think we do.”

[spacedikut]

exam help ; spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid x gn!reader

summary: a self-indulgent blurb about spencer helping with exams :) 1.7k

a/n: first fic of the year :D happy 2021!

masterlist

Another anguish-filled screech reverberates from your and Spencer’s shared office, bringing even your pet fish in the tank to attention.

It’s the third one this hour. Spencer tries to ignore it, just like you told him to, but God you sound like you’re in pain and Spencer can’t exactly ignore that, can he? He loves you and cares for you and- oh. A thump reaches his ears. A textbook, maybe? Did you punch your textbook?

He considers for a moment that the neighbours will be alarmed, perhaps call the police or tentatively knock with a, “Is everything okay in there?”

It wouldn’t be the first time.

What would he tell them? Oh, my apologies, my partner has exams coming up and just told me they get why unsubs do that now. I am also terrified.

There are many instances where Spencer feels useless. During his job, when his mother would have an episode, when his friends have problems he just wouldn’t understand. But, somehow, and maybe controversially, this is the worst type of uselessness. The type that leaves him staring at the wall, questioning everything, the type that makes his stomach drop because all he can do is watch.

He’s been watching you for the last two weeks. He’s sick of watching, of being no help, and he needs to do something before he breaks and does something illegal.

(The illegal thing is doing your exams for you - not illegal as in, perhaps, murder)

Your frazzled head pops out from the office, one hand rubbing your eyes and a permanent frown etched on your face, and with a fragile voice you ask, “Can you make me a coffee, please?”

Now, Spencer feels hypocritical, but he has to say it. “Another? Are you sure?”

He sees the internal battle within you, how you try your hardest not to snap. It’s not his fault you’re stressed. He’s just trying to help. “Yes, I’m sure. Please, Spence,”

“Of course. I’ll bring it in.”

“Thank you.” With a pained smile, you’re gone again into the dark abyss of where you’re studying.

With quick, ingrained movements, Spencer makes your coffee with too much creamer and marshmallows. Unusual, yes, but your current diet consists of coffee and whatever he can force you to consume – like marshmallows.

But then, hello, he spots a chocolate bar haphazardly close to the bin, grabs it, and hopes you let him watch you eat it.

Stepping into the room as quietly as possible, he’s smacked in the face by the smell of lavender. It makes him nauseous, the intensity of it, quickly followed by a lurch of his heart because you poor thing, you’re being crushed by the weight of your degree – literally. The other day you purchased an insanely heavy weighted blanket and you’re drowning in it.

Now, if you were to ask Spencer who the most beautiful person on the planet is, he’d say you in a heartbeat. He’s thought that since you first met and, years later, still stands by that. But now, right now, glowering at him in the dimly lit, lavender drenched study that you used to love oh-so-much? You have the face of a French bulldog, all grumpy and furrowed and too many creases on your face to make Spencer feel like he’s actually helping when he places the coffee and snack on your desk.

Despite the crabby expression, your words are filled with love and appreciation – which happens to be Spencer’s favourite mix. “Thank you, my love.” You take a sip of the coffee, hum in delight, and for the first time in days there’s a spark of something other than torment. “You’re the best.”

Spencer’s hand holds the back of your neck and he places a series of soft kisses to your temple, mumbling, “I love you. Very much. Is there anything else you need?”

“Death.”

“Okay. I’ll work on it.”

At that, you grace Spencer with a weak half-smile. It’s enough to overwhelm Spencer, overflowing and only able to be shown through a chaste, encouraging peck on your lips and a half-hug, Spencer bent at the waist to hold you in your desk chair. He noses your hair, hoping his closeness will alleviate some stress, before stepping back and praying his eyes tell you everything he wants to say but know will elicit annoyance from you.

I love you. Take care of yourself. Rest, please. You can do this, but not if you over exert yourself. I love you.

Your eyes tell him, I’ll try. I love you. And that’s all he can ask for.

But when he leaves, shuffles past his bookshelf, his eyes catch sight of an old file that reminds him of when he was preparing for his own exams.

He gets an idea.

+++

It takes another two days, full of late nights involving work that isn’t staying up and distracting himself with books to avoid worrying over you and how late you go to sleep, and reading that leaves Spencer in awe of you and everyone in your field.

A part of him is amazed by how he wheelbarrowed the resources behind you without you noticing, another is worried about that fact, and the rest of him is excited that he can finally do something that will actually help. At least, he hopes.

(When everything is said and done, despite being endlessly grateful, you also inform Spencer that simply being there and being him and getting you coffee every time you ask is more than enough, really)

With pride, he leans back on the couch, observing his creations on the coffee table. There’s plenty of different colours, all representing a different topic, and he presses the thumbs up to like the Youtube video he was using to ensure his handwriting is easy to read.

Flashcards. Hundreds, if Spencer counted correctly. The textbooks he stole – borrowed – from under your nose lie next to his feet, the weight of them combined more of a workout than he’s (voluntarily) done in eons.

He only hopes you don’t think it’s too late, think he’s overstepping or-or that he’s doing those things that he’s been accused of before – thinking he knows best (he does, but whatever), overbearing arrogance, an unwillingness to hear and accept other people’s way of doing things.

He just wants to help. He wants you to know he’s here for you, no matter what you need. This is the thing that lets him believe he’s doing something, something good and useful. Spencer just wants to be useful.

He’s convinced you to eat a proper breakfast – fruit, oats, bread, meat, a whole buffet – and you sense something is amiss when you hear slow, tentative footsteps creeping from your bedroom.

Spencer, still in his pyjamas, glasses perched on his nose, approaches with a shallow box in his grasp. You swallow your bite, turn to face him. “What’ve you got there?”

The box is slid onto the counter next to your plate hesitantly, as if he regrets his actions as he’s doing them. Peering in, you see a blur of colour, stacks on stacks of rectangular paper filled with writing and questions and even a tips! section.

You pick up the first batch, all light blue, and flick through them, heart getting bigger and bigger with every word you read. And when you realise what they are, what Spencer’s done ­– for you – your heartrate has skyrocketed and the watch on your wrist is asking you if you’re okay.

“You made me flashcards?” You ask, in awe, again looking at the love of your life to find he’s already staring at you.

“I did,” He tells you, apprehensive and scared, already backtracking, “But, if you don’t think they’re useful, or-or you think I’m overstepping – I’m not trying to, I promise, I just thought…” He starts nervously shuffling and reshuffling some of his creation. “Flashcards are known to engage active recall and metacognition. Research consistently finds that applying metacognitive strategies tends to ingrain memories deeper into your knowledge, and that this kind of active recall retrieval practice leads to one-hundred and fifty percent better retention than passive studying, so…”

Your hands have a mind of their own, pulling what feels like an endless amount of cards out and turning them in your hands, from the questions on the front to the answers on the back, the ones with hints and advice and there’s several with doodles that are so Spencer you hold them to your chest. You’re so enamoured by this man that is still rambling and bumbling because he takes your silence as distaste.

“I just- I hate seeing you so stressed, so I made these. You don’t have to use them, of course. They’re not even that great. It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable, you’re beyond capable, or that your methods don’t work- Just, personally, I love flashcards. I used them all the time when studying, even though I didn’t really need them, so perhaps a change of medium would do you good-“

A warm hand on his own that keep fidgeting stops him mid-stream of consciousness.

“Thank you,” You say, earnestly, “Really. These are lovely.” You leap from your seat, wrapping Spencer in warmth and love and care, and he shivers when he feels your hot breath on his ear when you repeat your thanks again and again.

When he pulls you even closer, so your torso curves into his own, you feel the lightest you have in weeks. You’re in the arms of the man you love, who knows you love him too and you know loves you so much – enough to spend several nights reading your cursed textbooks so he could create something that might help – and now you’re confident that you can do it. With the help of Spencer and his lovingly hand-made flashcards, you can do it.

And if, somehow, it goes awry, that’s okay too. Because you’ll still have Spencer, your number one fan, who will be there to comfort you and advise you in any way he can. He’ll never let you doubt yourself, never allow a self-deprecating joke if he can help it, because if he has to, he’ll love and support you enough for the both of you until you can do it yourself.

The world feels a little brighter, your breaths feel a little lighter, all because of Spencer. So you kiss him, murmur love against his lips, and get ready to take on whatever dares to come your way.

+++

tags: @pinkdiamond1016 @bluerose512 @andreasworlsboring101 @roses-and-grasses @ta-ka-shi-ma @ogmilkis @chiffonchronicles @rexorangecouny @unmistakablyunknown @goofygubler14 @gublertoon @averyhotchner @wheeledup @shadyladyperfection @joodeduarte @calm-and-doctor @

[wonderlustlucas]

home - hwang hyunjin

⇢ prompt “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure.” ⇢ pairing hyunjin x female reader ⇢ word count 2.7k ⇢ genre fluff, kind of angsty? ⇢ warnings insinuated that this takes place during covid & that reader has some case of depression/anxiety i literally wrote her as me so like ⇢ summary In which Hyunjin shows you just how special you are.—college!au ⇢ a/n happy birthday to my love, my comfort, my home

What am I doing here?

Unfortunately, there is no one else to blame but herself for being left without plans on this Friday night. Regretfully so, she instead finds herself alone on the upper level of the business building. Scratch that, the whole building, probably – she’s been here since four, and the few students that were once alongside her left hours ago. Initially here to work on an essay, she now occupies her time bouncing between YouTube, Twitch, and Crunchyroll, watching whatever she is feeling at the moment despite Monday’s deadline looming over her.

Sighing, she looks away from a boring page of YouTube recommendations, stretches her neck, and reaches for her hot chocolate. Well, not hot anymore, she realizes with a wince after taking a sip, struggling to swallow the now cold drink. Gaze flicking to the time on the corner of her laptop, she frowns. 9:43. She considers walking home once it hits ten, the unstirred silence of the building starting to prick up her spine like needles. Home, she thinks with an amused exhale from her nose. A too small, overheated double dorm room that technically is a single now that her roommate has gone online for the rest of the semester. Home.

She wonders, briefly, if anyone were to miss her if she were to go home home. If anyone would even notice, anyway.

She wouldn’t expect them to, honestly. It’s not as if she goes out of her way to hang out with anyone, usually opting to cozy up in her room and pretend she does not see the groupchat blowing up with plans to meet at the dining hall, a study session at the library, a trip to the mall. She loves her friends, really, but can rarely find it in herself to actually participate in said friend activities. Sure, there are some nights she actually leaves the confines of her room to join them, but to be quite frank, she’s glad they have learned to simply stop inviting her. Makes the whole looking for an excuse problem a lot easier.

Besides, who would want to go out on a night like this, anyway?

Just as she has flipped to page fifty-three of The Old Man and the Sea, she looks away in boredom, instead opting to gaze out the window. Focusing past her reflection on the tall glass pane, a warm feeling she can only describe as peace seems to settle over her, watching the snow fall like moonlit glitter across campus. The snowstorm had started light when she first arrived, soft enough she could manage with her hood down, dotting her with only miniature droplets of water. Now, though, the flakes are so large she can focus on one at a time as they fly past, covering the ground with a solid two or three inches at this point. In the distance, she can spot snowplows making their rounds to clear the pathways, the route to the business building already turned slushy blue as salt melts the continuous snow.

She sighs, eyes wide like a child as she represses the urge to go outside and grab a handful of it, maybe fall onto one of the lawns and make a snow angel, stick her tongue out and try to catch one of the large flakes. Tomorrow, maybe, she thinks, looking at her grey sweatpants and deciding walking back with soaked pants in this weather would not be the best idea.

So late into March, she cannot help but chuckle at the number of students complaining about the snow and cold temperature on SnapChat, even her friends having to change their plans. She, on the other hand, finds such last chance snowstorm beautiful; sure, she was ready for spring and eventually a break from school, but watching the snow dancing under the streetlights, choreographed by the gentle wind, she thinks it’s something to hold on to, keep her grounded to reality that albeit the stress and monotony of college, such moments like these still exist.

She jumps at the sound of the front entrance slamming closed.

Who the hell? She frowns, annoyed at whoever decided now was a good time to come inside, subsequently ruining her little moment of serenity. Turning red at the thought of some raunchy couple thinking to spice things up in the presumably empty building, she considers packing her bag and heading out. But no matter which exit, they would still see her, and that would be painstakingly awkward. Maybe she could escape into one of the smaller reservation rooms, or at least make some exaggerated noise so they at least know they’re not alone.

Could just be a janitor, or maybe someone else deciding to shelter somewhere other than their dorm to buckle down and do some work, she thinks. No matter who it is and what their intentions are, her leg is already bouncing a mile a minute having gotten used to having the space to herself.

So caught up on how or when she should take her leave, she does not hear the footsteps coming up the stairs until they’re right behind her. Tensing up, she watches in the window’s reflection as the business building’s second occupant steps up onto the platform and… heads towards her. Panic setting in, she tries to decipher who it is through the blurry reflection but to no avail, heart racing at the thought of a stranger approaching her, one of her friends finding her here on a Friday night, a janitor going to ask her to leave.

She turns her head as soon as they stop beside her.

“Hyunjin?” She blurts, taken aback. This was the last person she expected to be here. Somewhat relieved but heart still beating in her throat, she blinks up at the tall boy to make sure it’s really him, brows furrowed in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you the same thing,” he returns, pulling his mask down below his chin and smiling cheekily at her. “I went to go pick up my food and saw you in the window,” Hyunjin explains, tugging the beanie off his head and shaking his hair out, showering her in the tiny droplets. Wrinkling her nose, she takes notice of the Chipotle bag in his hand and how soaked his coat is.

“Here,” she offers, reaching for the bag. Passing it to her with a grateful smile, Hyunjin unzips his coat and sets it over a chair beside her alongside his beanie, wipes the melted snow and sweat from his eyes, and tries to fix his now mused bangs. “So, what are you doing here?” He asks while doing this, regarding her with an amused glint in his eyes.

“Work,” she sighs. Then, glancing to the screen of her laptop and realizing it’s still the home page of YouTube, she grimaces. “Trying to do work. Not really. Just watching the snow.”

“It’s a lot prettier when you’re inside,” Hyunjin comments, following her gaze to watch the frenzy of snow before taking the bag from her and offering a quiet thanks. “But I meant more why are you here?”

She isn’t quite sure what her relationship with Hyunjin is. Having been one of the many acquaintances she barely made at freshman orientation, he did not seem like the kind of person she expected to still be in her life. She wouldn’t exactly say they were close, but she considers Hyunjin a friend, she thinks. After a good month or two forgetting he existed, she randomly bumped into him at the dining hall, recognizing that unfairly attractive face of his in line for chicken nuggets and immediately falling into conversation. Turns out, he was mutual friends with her lab partner, Kim Seungmin.

She does not see Hyunjin as much as she wishes she did. She had not shared any classes with him in the past three years, and even if her friend group and his overlapped in the slightest, it was not always a given that they both would be able to hang out as much as their closer friends do. Still, there always seems to be a random occasion, such as now, where they bump into one another. Each time is a pleasant surprise, of course, and not just because of his pretty face and wide shoulders, but because he has always seemed to care for her in a way no one else does, and that in itself is enough to have her heart racing every time he comes close.

Not that she has a crush on him or anything, but it definitely is hard trying not to fall in love every time he even so much as smiles at her.

Face heating up in embarrassment at his question, she avoids looking him in the eyes and randomly minimizes the Chrome tab on her laptop. “You know,” she drones on, “just taking it easy for the night.”

Hyunjin hums in agreement, opening the lid of his burrito bowl and stabbing a fork into the layers. Even her mouth waters. “I feel like I never see you,” he contemplates, finally taking a bite. His words surprise her. “Uh, yeah,” she coughs, forcing herself to look away before she gets too enraptured over how beautiful he looks even after trekking through a snowstorm, long hair messy but falling over his face in a way that has her fingers twitching to tuck away. “I usually don’t go out with everyone. Not my scene.”

“Aw,” he coos, “I get that. Sometimes I’m the same way, I just want to relax on the weekends after working so much all week.”

Thank you!, she almost shouts, but bites her tongue. She agrees, but even she does not know why she can’t find it in herself to go out and party with everyone else. She’s just lazy, to put it simply. Nevertheless, his words put her at ease, no longer worried that he might think she’s a loser for staying in every weekend.

“Exactly,” she agrees, “parties are fun, sometimes. But I just prefer laying low. I don’t think my friends like that, though.”

Gaze finding his, her heart does somersaults at the smile he offers. “Nah,” Hyunjin says, confident, “no one thinks that. Everyone has their way of having fun. Honestly, all I’ve ever heard is your friends complaining how they miss you and that you would make going out more fun since you’re so funny.”

“Which is true, by the way,” he adds.

She feels as if she is going to combust. “Oh,” she croaks, throat dry, “um, thank you. That’s sweet of them. And you. I guess I didn’t consider that they miss me when they go out.”

Hyunjin scoffs, raising a brow but finishes chewing before speaking again. “Are you nuts? You’re so fun to be around, of course they’re going to miss you.”

“Okay, stop that,” she laughs, burning from the inside out at his compliments. “Just being honest,” he laughs, opening the bag of his tortilla chips. “Want any?”

She looks at him with wide eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure.”

“Okay,” she huffs out an airy laugh, rolling her chair closer to his. Miscalculating that he was going to move, too, she quite literally feels her blood pressure skyrocket as her knees bump into his. And he doesn’t move. “Here,” moving the bag closer to the edge of the table, Hyunjin glances at her for only a split second before focusing on his bowl again.

Reaching into the bag, she feels emboldened not only by his previous flattery, but his proximity as well, and scrambles to continue the conversation. “Why are you eating Chipotle so late?”

“Pre-birthday celebration. Also, DoorDash took forever,” Hyunjin laughs.

“When’s your birthday?” She asks, munching on a chip.

“In,” he pauses, tapping his phone, “two hours.”

Oh. “What?” She gasps, blinking at him. “What? Why aren’t you out? It’s your birthday weekend and you’re here eating Chipotle?”

“Woah, okay Miss I-Prefer-Laying-Low. Maybe I wanted to chill tonight, since tomorrow I’m going out? Hm?” Hyunjin chuckles at her scowl, pursing his lips. “Okay, yeah, I guess but—”

“No but’s,” he interrupts, the amused glint in his eyes disappearing, “I’m here now, and that’s what matters, right? I’m lucky I saw you in the window.”

“I guess,” she mutters, realizing her heart has not stopped its staccato frenzy since moving closer, “you scared me, by the way. I’ve been here alone for hours and suddenly someone is walking up to me, I think I shit my pants.”

Hyunjin bellows out a laugh, and such an airy sound momentarily leaves her awestruck. Oh, god, she’s in deep. It’s over.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he giggles, battling her hand to reach for a chip. Even the touch of his long fingers against hers has the entire butterfly population roaring to life in her gut. “Look, I made up for it by gifting you chips.”

“True,” she hums, licking residue salt off her fingers before leaning back in her chair to catch a breather. Too much physical contact and emotion for one night.

“What are you doing next weekend?” Hyunjin asks, taking her by surprise. Again. She thinks she is going to faint if she isn’t able to wrap herself around him within the next fifteen seconds.

“Um,” she starts, then remembers her previous idea of going home after this week was over. “I was probably going to go home next Friday.”

“Oh,” is all Hyunjin says, seemingly disappointed. “Why?”

She grits her teeth. Why? Really? “I don’t know,” she shrugs, not even convinced herself, “I’m bored and lonely here. I love everyone here but I miss my friends at home. I might as well be slightly less bored at home.” Hyunjin frowns.

“Okay, what about this,” he starts, leaning close enough she can count his individual eyelashes and nearly smell the flavor of his lip balm, “you go out with us tomorrow night and if you have fun, you hang out with us next weekend, too. Oh, and whenever you want some company, you text me and we’ll come here or somewhere else and do homework together or just chill. How does that sound?”

All she can do is blink at him. Her initial thought is how dare he try negotiating whether I go home or not? But, there it is, again, she realizes. That extra step he takes, the genuine care he shows her, acting like her well-being is his responsibility. “You don’t have to do that, Hyunjin. I don’t want to bother you every time I feel lonely. I’ll be fine.”

“Christ, you’re dense,” rolling his eyes, Hyunjin sets his fork down, wipes his hands on his thighs, and suddenly leans in to hold her face with both hands, “I wouldn’t offer to sit around and do homework with you when you’re in need of a friend if I didn’t want to.”

Her heart is racing so fast she fears he may be able to hear the thud of it against her chest. What he’s saying is starting to sound a lot more than some friend-to-friend comfort, and it’s making her head hurt, especially with his thumbs ever so slightly swiping against her cheeks. At her silence, he starts again.

“Y/N,” he says, voice dropping an octave, “don’t go home. This is your home, too, you just don’t want it to be.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she thinks she is going to say something, but nothing comes out. There is nothing to say. Hyunjin is right, he has read her like an open book, and he’s here to offer his shoulder to lean on. “Okay,” she whispers, “I’ll go out with everyone tomorrow. And I’ll try and stay here for the rest of the semester.”

“That’s my girl,” Hyunjin smiles, leaning closer and pressing a featherlight kiss to her lips. At first, it takes her by surprise. But then it all starts to make sense. The snow makes sense. Her essay makes sense. Being here makes sense. Hyunjin makes sense. His birthday makes sense. She makes sense.

Outside the glass windows, the wind starts to howl, blowing the composed ballet of snow to its final act, covering the pathways and the streetlights and the roof of the business building in perfect white glitter. Inside these windows, she realizes they would notice if she were to go home.

Why would she ever do that when her second home is right here in front of her?

[like-a-bag-of-potatoes]

Our Story - Prologue

theA/N: My first Chris Evans series. This is just a fluffy little series that has been floating around in my brain for a while, and because I've recently fallen head first into the Chris trashcan, I figured he’d be the perfect person for this little love story AU. I mean absolutely no disrespect with this, it's just a work of fiction. I also want to give a huge thank you to @percywinchester27​ and @girl-next-door-writes​ for being my betas for this story. You are both amazing and I'm so grateful for your help on this. 

Chapter: One

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader (unfortunately no Chris in this part) 

Warnings: Absolutely none. 

Wordcount: 1850

Four weeks after my twentieth birthday, I left my childhood home in Savannah, Georgia, and pointed my nose towards New York. It was hard to believe that eight years had passed already, but my twenty-eighth birthday approached in large strides to remind me of how much time had passed, and how much had changed. New York City was a stark contrast to Savannah, the city that never sleeps VS the most charming city in America. When I first moved here, it was my intention to stay for only a year, then I would be back in Savannah with my family and the man that I loved so deeply, Josh. 

However, life never really turns out how you intend it to, no matter how much you plan for your future. Josh and I used to talk at length about our future together, and I honestly couldn't wait to get started on it all, house, careers, and then a family of our own at some point. Then, after eight or so months of long-distance we finally broke and admitted to ourselves that it was just too hard. I know you might think that since we had stuck it out for that long, we surely could manage a few more months, but by then I had been asked to stay on in what was supposed to be a temporary position, and I had fallen in love, not only with the city, but with my work. I asked Josh to come to me, told him we could find ourselves a little apartment in Queens, or the East Village, something we could afford, and we could spend a few years together here before moving back home to start a family. I guess you’ve already figured it didn't turn out that way, and it ended, as long-distance relationships often do, in heartbreak. It was my first real heartbreak- amicable, civil, and soul-crushing. It was also then I realized, as we all, unfortunately, do at some point in our lives, that love does not, in fact, conquer all. 

If I'm being completely honest, I knew within my first month in this magical city that I would never want to leave, and after things ended with Josh, I felt as though I had deceived him in some cruel, unintentional way. Every conversation we had, had after that had been filled with lies and promises I never intended to keep. I had fooled myself as much as I had fooled him. After our break up, although completely heartbroken, I felt free and unburdened, which strangely made me feel even worse about the whole thing. Our love didn't end in some big blowout argument, or because we didn't want to be with one another. It ended because of the thousands of miles that separated us, and because in the months we spent apart, I changed in a way that could not have been foreseen. Never did I imagine myself in a big and busy city, but as I said, New York and me, it was love at first sight. 

You might be wondering what job took me from my safe and comfortable life in Georgia, thinking that it must have been some grand, once in a lifetime thing. It was not. It was a temporary job as a personal assistant. I found it as I sat by my computer one night, daydreaming about what kind of life I would live if I had all the money in the world, what life Josh and I could create for ourselves. That's when I came across the ad. A woman, Mrs. Wallace, needed an assistant. She was a very wealthy woman in need of someone to keep track of her very busy social calendar, amongst other things. I knew she was wealthy because she lived on Fifth Avenue, not that I had ever been to New York and really knew what that entailed, but I had seen movies and read books placed in the city and knew very well that Fifth Avenue was a very expensive street. There was little to no description of the job or what Mrs. Wallace was looking for in an assistant, other than that they had to be organized and were able to juggle multiple things at once. Beyond that it really came down to compatibility. I was nothing if not organized, so before I knew it, I had compiled an application letter and sent to her email. I told no one about this, because it was ridiculous for me to think I'd even get a reply back. In all honesty, it had all been forgotten by the next morning, and I didn't think of it again until three days later when, at dinner with Josh I might add, I got an answer. She would like for us to meet. We sent a couple of emails back and forth where I tried to, as politely as possible, explain that I did not have the means to travel to New York just for an interview. I stated that I appreciated her interest, and apologized profusely for not being able to make it out there. It was then she asked for my details, and about fifteen minutes later I got a confirmation from American Airlines that my ticket had been booked and paid for. Two days later I was sitting opposite Mrs. Wallace at a restaurant that I would never be able to afford, listening to her talk about the job I had applied for and what she expected of me. 

The very first thing that struck me about Mrs. Wallace was her age. For some reason, I had imagined someone in their fifties, full of botox, fillers, and whatever else middle-aged women put into their faces to look younger, but Mrs. Wallace was not that much older than me. At the time we met, she was twenty-seven, so younger than I am now, and strikingly beautiful. Thick, black hair that looked professionally blow-dried and sculpted so that not a single strand was out of place. It draped over her shoulders in loose Hollywood style waves and stood in sharp contrast to the white blazer she wore. Her skin was olive, her eyes deep brown, and her cheekbones could probably cut glass. When you put that together with her long, model-like legs, an hourglass waistline, and a very ample bosom, the woman looked like a greek goddess. To top it all off she had a warm and kind smile, and a kick-ass sense of humor. Kate, as she insisted I call her, was far from the stuck up, nose in the sky, botox filled woman that I had imagined in my head. We hit it off, and before dessert was served, I had a job offer. 

It's hard to explain, but I felt as though I needed to take this opportunity, that this was an experience I was meant to have in some inexplicable way, and I accepted right then and there without a second thought, or even a conversation with my family or boyfriend. Josh was angry with me at first, but supportive, so two weeks later I stood in front of 1040 Fifth Avenue and looked up at the towering building with its limestone and intricate carvings here and there. Kate greeted me at the front door as I stepped out of the car that she had sent to pick me up from the airport. This place even had a porte-cochere to protect the residents from rain as they walked from the door to their private chauffeur-driven vehicles. I would be staying here with the Wallace family, in the staff quarters with the rest of the staff of course, so that I could be available to Kate at all times. And that's how my New York adventure started. 

Eight years later, I am still working for Kate, still living in my little room in the staff quarters, but I love it. I have a little bathroom and everything I need. Food is prepared for us all by the cook, Rosalia. She is a little, plump woman in her mid-fifties, kind and compassionate, not to mention deeply passionate about the food she prepared for the whole household. Along with me and Rosalia, the other staff in our quarters are Magdalena, the housekeeper, and Mitch, who is Mr Wallace’s assistant. There was more staff, of course, like the private chauffeur’s, who didn't live on-site and throughout any given day, people would be in and out of the place like it was a busy office space as opposed to the home that it actually is. 

Now, Mr Wallace was a very busy man, working non-stop whether it be at his office, or at his home office. It seemed as whenever I saw him, he was walking in fast strides, either on the phone, or confirming things with Mitch who half sprinted behind him with his I-pad, trying not to trip over anything as he tried to keep up and take down notes at the same time. Henry, that was Mr Wallace’s first name, was a little older than Kate, not so much that you could accuse her of being a gold digger, but he was approaching his fifties now. He didn't look it though, he was a very handsome man, and kind. Imagine George Clooney, a man that just seems to get more gorgeous with every passing year. Kate and Henry were busy, always had their hands full with whatever it was, but somehow they always found time to share a meal together every day. Even if it meant having Rosalia heat up some leftovers for them at midnight. They were very much in love, and it was clear in the way they looked at one another, and how they always made sure to have that little moment to themselves every day. A couple of years ago, Kate had confided in me that she could not have children of her own, it was something that had weighed on her since she was only sixteen years old, but with Henry, she said, ‘I have all I need with that man, all the love I could ever wish for.’ It was a shame really, because I knew that Kate would have made an amazing mother, and Henry a great dad. ‘I'm alright,’ she had assured me. ‘I've come to peace with it, and learned not to dwell on something that will never be.’ 

So, that's the short version of how I ended up here, doing a job I adored in a city I loved with all my heart, so I think it's about time we move forward. Jump to the part where my real story starts. Spoiler alert; it involves a warm summer day in Central Park, a ruined dress, and an extremely handsome man named Chris. 

******

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Tags: @thesecretlifeofdaydreamss

[stanknotstark]

Easy Aim (Is Only Exciting Once or Twice) Pt. 5 (Loki x Reader)

Loki’s turn to be a woman in every sense. Guys normally react pretty badly to our level of cramping but I don’t make Loki react too badly because he’s a warrior and probably has felt worse pain. If anything it’s more uncomfortable for him but not enough to warrant much reaction! 

Finally. 

It’s Loki’s turn to suffer. 

You hadn’t come up with a way to get back at the god but karma was a bitch. 

Loki walked into the kitchen and because of his obvious mood the team became quiet. You’re pretty sure the temperature dropped like five degrees too. 

“Who pushed you out the wrong side of bed, seeing as you haven’t had your cereal yet?” Tony asked. 

You snorted into your bite of eggs. 

Loki scathingly looked at you and Tony.

“I will piss on your mother’s grave, Stark.” Loki bites at the man. 

“Loki!” You yelled at the man. Going for Tony’s mother was off limits. Kind of like how the team didn’t ask questions about Loki’s true parentage. 

Tony waved you off with a smile. 

“Oh, you didn’t get pushed out of bed. You woke up with a big red spot on the sheets, didn’t you?” Tony says with a light voice. 

Realization dawns on you. Loki drops the bagel he had picked up and looks to you with squinted eyes. 

Loki had obviously never dealt with this when he shapeshifted. 

You quickly stand, gather Loki’s breakfast and push him out of the kitchen, with little resistance, and towards the direction of your room. Ignoring the Avengers questions and concerns. You were so worried you left your own breakfast.

When you both reach your floor. You make him set his breakfast down in the living room, then push Loki to your bathroom and have him sit on the toilet. 

It’s too silent so you start talking to fill it.

“Usually when I’m about to start I get extremely horny the week before. Then when the actual day hits I’m cramping like crazy, mostly in my lower back.” You explain as you pull out a bunch of pads from under your sink. 

Loki looks at you with something akin to fear but it’s not quite fear, when you glance at him.

“That explains the pain...” Loki whispers with realization.

“The second day is the heaviest so you’ll need to check your pad more so than usual and keep a bottle of Midol nearby because the cramping is terrible. Wait, do Earth medicines even work on you?” You ask the god, freezing your looking to look at him but continue when he shrugs at you. 

“The second day you’re also going to deal with mood swings, like, bad so maybe stay away from people?” You tell Loki as you realize you didn’t give him night pads so you search under your sink again.

“The third day it lightens up and usually my hormones balance out. The fourth day you’ll still need to wear a pad, it’ll only be spotting but it’ll spot enough to bleed through your clothes. If you feel like randomly crying at the smallest things, or even something as random as someone sneezing that is normal.” You explain to Loki. 

“Wait, I have read about periods, to an extent, but why am I having one exactly?” Loki asks.

You leave the room to find a plastic bag for all the stuff you’re giving Loki, when you come back you explain to Loki who sits there patiently. “Your uterus is shedding it’s walls because you’re not pregnant.” 

Loki squints at you. 

“How many times does this occur in your lifetime?” 

“Once a month till you hit menopause.” You tell him flippantly. 

You smile as Loki looks bewildered. 

“When do you experience menopause and when do periods generally begin?” 

“Usually around fifty and they start around twelve but can start as early as eight years old.” You shrug down at him. 

Loki closes his eyes, rubs a hand over his face with a sigh. When his hand drops he shakes his head. “And males have the gall to call presenting females weak.” 

You actually laugh at that causing Loki to softly smile up at you. 

“I uh, suggest buying some panties that you don’t care about, comfortable too, because you’re going to get blood on them whether you like it or not. I would offer you my panties but that is...gross, for some reason, even if you are in my body.” You babble out to Loki who nods at you as he stands. 

You throw the pads he holds into the plastic bag you hold, throw the nightly pads in, throw in a new bottle of Midol then hand it to him. 

“Eat with me, I’ll answer all your questions after you put a pad on of course.” You tell Loki, leaving the bathroom. You’re pretty sure he can figure out the pad. 

You sit waiting in the living room on the big couch. 

Loki comes out of your room not long after and sits next to you, pulling his plate from the coffee table and getting comfy. 

You’re shocked but Loki decided to sit pushed up against you. You wrap an arm around his shoulders which causes him make a happy noise while he chews and leans into your arm. 

“I guess this explains last night.” You say randomly thinking about the way Loki reacted to you yesterday. 

Loki chews through his honey bagel and nods. 

“It also explains why I’ve been getting wet for the past few days.” He admits without thought. 

You look down at him with a raised brow. “Oh?”

“Yes. There was a time where Steve was lifting something heavy and seeing his muscles bulge made me wet.” Loki explains, eating away, not looking at you but speaking as if he has no care about what he’s sharing. Another milestone you figure.

“There was a moment where you were laughing at something Tony said and that made me wet, I could not fathom why.” 

You laugh a little shocked Loki is sharing this with you. 

“Also, when you were hard that made me wet.” Loki finishes starting to pick at some grapes you had grabbed for him. 

“You’ll tell me you got wet but refuse to tell me you have feelings?” You ask teasingly.

Loki glares at you. 

You smile. 

Loki goes back to his food and you settle further into the couch causing Loki to further settle into your arm. 

“I thought periods last for seven days, did I read false information? Why do yours only last four?” Loki asks after he’s chewed through some of his food.

You hum. “Well everyone is different. Some people last three days, some last the usual seven, some people don’t have them monthly, some do.” You explain. “However if they don’t have them monthly that’s because of a disorder or because they’re young and haven’t balanced out yet.” You thoughtlessly explain better.

Loki is quiet for a bit but then asks. “And you did not know this period was coming?” 

You laugh lightly as your hand around Loki’s shoulders plays with your hair. It’s soft and silky. “Well, I don’t take birth control, I had a bad reaction to the one’s they gave me so I can’t really predict when they’re going to hit me. I can generalize between a few weeks but that’s it.” 

Loki hums, licking honey off his fingers. It’s just as cute as it sounds.

It’s only four hours later when Loki starts. 

You had both moved back into the general public of the tower. You had needed to eat more since you didn’t finish your breakfast then settled in the common area.

You were sitting on the couch with Natasha wrapped in your arms and Clint trying to burrow into your side when Loki made an exclamation crossed with a groan, an arm wrapping along his stomach from across the room where he was reading. 

You perk up and look at him as he looks at you with wide eyes. 

Natasha knowing what’s going on says, “It’s normal if you feel like you’re pissing yourself, you’re fine.” 

Loki relaxes and nods. 

“That’s nasty, Nat.” Clint huffs. 

“It is a natural event for a woman’s body, something they cannot control and you dare call it nasty?” Loki hisses at Clint. 

“There’s blood man!” 

“You see more blood on missions, is there a difference?” Loki points out.

You’re smiling with Natasha, looking between Loki and Clint like it’s a tennis match. 

“Well, it comes out of their vagina.” Clint weakly argues back.

“I have no doubt you’ve put your mouth on a vagina and that failed to gross you out, your arguments are irrelevant.” Loki says going back to his book.

Clint lets a pitiful noise out of his mouth and looks to you and Nat. 

“Don’t look at us, we’re on his side.” Nat says with a shrug, settling back into you. You laugh as Clint rolls his eyes. 

You watch Loki out of the corner of your eye as you converse with Nat and Clint. Loki has an uncomfortable look on his face and his arm is still wrapped around his stomach. 

You tell Nat you need to get up and she groans but allows you to. Then, she climbs onto Clint. 

Out of everyone in the tower you did not expect Natasha to be the most affectionate. 

You grab Loki’s attention and get him to follow you back to your floor, again. When you have him laying on your bed you search in your bathroom for what you seek. 

Coming out of the bathroom a few minutes later you show Loki what you have by holding it up in both hands with a satisfied smile. It’s old fashioned, you probably should just buy a heating pad, but this was given to you by your mother and you can’t let go of it because of sentiment.

“What is that?” Loki asks with confusion etching his face, propped up on his elbow. He stares at the orange, rubber bag you hold. It’s the size of a decorative pillow.

“A water bottle.”

“Are you expecting me to drink it?” He asks slowly.

“No.” You laugh and make your way over to him. 

When you’ve climbed into the bed and cuddled up to Loki you place the warm bottle on his lower stomach and Loki actually groans. 

“I understand the intended use now.” He says in a grateful voice as the heat of the bottle penetrates his aching stomach. 

You smile at him but turn your attention to putting on a movie so Loki may rest here for awhile. 

See, thing is, it doesn’t stop. The cuddling, that is.

The next day Loki comes to you and asks if he may use your water bottle. When you tell him yes and go to give it to him he holds it, looking at it like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. 

“Would you mind.....holding me as I use this?” Loki says in a soft voice, as if afraid he’s going to be rejected.

You can see tears welling up in his eyes when he looks up at you, which you blame on the period. You smile at Loki and nod. 

“Of course.” 

As you lay there with Loki wrapped in your arms, a movie playing in the background, he says, “While I am trying to keep an open mind about this whole situation, the blood clots are disgusting.” 

You laugh, causing Loki to smile up at you. 

“Have you bled through yet?” You ask him after awhile, curious. 

Loki scoffs. “Yes. I was wearing a nice pair of pants at the time. Natasha promised to get the blood out though.” He says with a frown. 

“If anyone here knows how to get blood out of clothes, Natasha would be the expert.” You chuckle out. 

“I must apologize to her. I was a bit snappy at the time because of the frustration of ruining a perfectly good pair of pants. She was close and received the brunt of my frustration.” Loki says, his fingers trailing down the side of your chest as he spoke, his eyes trained on the movie though.

Loki must not be ticklish, you absently think as his fingers drag over your sides and you don’t react. 

It happens again the next day. The day after that too, you both cuddle with the bottle and watch movies. 

When the period ends Loki still comes to your room and cuddles with you. It’s a routine now. Every evening, if there is nothing going on, Loki comes and you both relax into each other and watch movies and tv shows, casually talking or teasing the people in the movies. You refrain from teasing Loki personally until after the period has passed because you’d feel bad if you made him cry.

It’s nice, to say the least. 

What you don’t expect is Loki almost kissing you one day. 

It was a normal day, you were cuddling and watching Die Hard, teasing the actor when things were way exaggerated. You had been rambling on about how some of the action scenes could have ended had Bruce’s character did something else. You had noticed Loki looking at you with a twinkle in his eye but said nothing about it. You really looked down at him when he grabbed your chin and angled it just enough to where he could reach your lips. 

Loki pushes and crawls up, you laying beneath him, frozen. Your eyes roam his face, it’s a little weird looking at your face but you’re too invested in the moment, to invested in the switching bodies thing. His lips come to hover over yours, close enough you could close the distance in a blink but you stay rooted to the bed. You both breath each other in, eyes memorizing everything about this moment. 

Then the moment passes and Loki pulls from you. You let out a deep breath and blink. 

Surprisingly, Loki did not run, instead he cuddled back into you and continued conversation as if nothing had happened. You replied back casually, if not a little shaky from the anticipation you had just experienced. 

Tag list: @a-laufeyson​ 

[curvynerdfan]

Danny Zuko would never

Hey y’all! I am so sorry I haven’t posted in so long. Life drug me down into a routine of chaos to be quite honest. I can’t remember if this was inspired by a request or not so I apologize if I have forgotten to tag you. 

Jax x Reader 

Friends to Lovers, Sandy level makeover 

Warnings: cursing, mentions of addiction

Y/N was having a blast! Her and Gemma decided to drive into San Jose to shop for new clothes. Y/N worked with a non-profit medical assistance center in the pediatrics wing. She was off for the next four days and tomorrow was the Charming Fall Festival. Gemma had been really struggling lately, with her and Clay’s breakup and worrying about Jax now that he was President. 

Y/N was so happy Gemma asked her to join in on the shopping trip. The club mom had a habit of pushing the young nurse out of her comfort zone. Y/N was almost always in scrubs, jeans and oversized clothes. Not that it was a bad wardrobe, it worked for her purposes. But Y/N wanted to be daring and dress up a bit. Honestly she just wanted to catch Jax’s eye. Maybe even have a Sandra Dee at the Summer Carnival moment. 

Gemma said that Jax and Y/N were a pair of idiots, perfect for each other. Neither one realized they were interested in each other. No matter how much the people around them pointed it out the two remained oblivious. So when Y/N told Gemma that she was ready to do something bold, Gemma was over the moon with excitement. 

Y/N had never been the one to go over the top. Especially with her looks, but at this point she didn’t know what else to do to get Jax’s attention. She had money to burn and was ready to up her wardrobe. Gemma said if she wanted to get the title of Old Lady that they were gonna go all out. 

Y/N was suddenly very grateful that Jax insisted on sending Tig and Happy with them because she was not going to want to drive after the day Gemma planned out. Tig as Gemma’s go-to bodyguard and Happy as Y/N’s, all piled up into a Teller-Morrow rental. 

Gemma said that meant Jax already thought of her as his Old Lady, “Sending an enforcer, only happens for the President’s girl.” 

“Then why doesn’t he ask me out or claim me as his, huh? If he really thought that way then he’d do something!” Y/N protested 

“He cares for you and sent Happy! Make him step up and prove himself.” Gemma lectured.

Tig chimed in, “Sorry hun, Gem is right. Sgt. at Arms never gets sent with a random chick for a girls day, no matter how good a friend she is.” 

Happy let out a resounding hum in affirmation. Y/N gawked at the first shop they pulled up to at Gemma’s demand. It was a very nice vintage clothing and accessory store.

“I’ll buy you the first ten pieces of jewelry you find that fit a president’s Old Lady.” Gemma paused to laugh at Y/N’s shocked expression, “Move it or lose it sweet cheeks, offer ends in thirty minutes!” 

Y/N squealed and grabbed Happy’s arm tugging him along. While he was a man of few words, Y/N had a knack for deciphering his gruff responses and gestures. She knew he’d be great at helping her pick out some goodies. She’d hold a pair of earrings up to her face or model a chunky bracelet and depending on Happy’s response she’d add it to her basket or throw it away. 

By the time she met Gemma and Tig at the register she had collected a skull ring, a chain belt, crow studded earrings, a crescent moon necklace, a crow skull ring, an obsidian oval faced ring, a snake necklace, a pair of silver hoops, diamond stud earrings, and black dangle earrings. Gemma pried over the basket in judgement before giving a sharp nod and motioning Y/N to hand the items to the cashier. 

Y/N was happy to see that Gemma had found a few items to purchase for herself as well. While they were checking out Y/N saw several studded belts, a new mirror for her vanity, some vintage ashtrays and a gorgeous green glass vase. Gemma demanded that the boys load the car with her new purchases and locked arms with Y/N before strutting out of the shop. 

Next was a gigantic department store. Gemma dragged her through the store and repeatedly threw clothes at Happy and Tig to carry to a dressing room. By the time Gemma was done each woman had fifty or so items to try on and there were even a few things for the men to try on as well. 

They would all try on a complete outfit, step outside of the room, do a little spin or strut(stand and pout in Happy’s case), receive critiques or hype and then repeat. The boys ran out quickly and ended up lounging on a couch and offering opinions when asked. Gemma told Y/N that the goal was sophisticated grunge. She still wasn’t sure she understood, but she did feel very hot in everything they decided to buy. 

Next was shoes.Y/N decided to only buy four pairs and let everyone have a say.  Happy found Y/N the best pair of riding boots for women, Tig picked out some dagger-like heels, Gemma picked a pair of knee high heeled boots and Y/N picked white sneakers that matched the ones she bought Jax a few years ago. 

Last stop was a nail salon. Gemma sent Y/N straight to the back room to get waxed. When Y/N gave her a look and squawked at her, Gemma just twirled her finger and said to “do what needs to be done”. When Y/N stumbled back out of the room, Gemma had a mimosa waiting for her. 

Y/N couldn’t commit to long nails or a dark color due to her job but it was still nice to be pampered after such a long and challenging day. While getting their nails done, the girls talked through what Y/N should wear the next night for the carnival. The three pros of MC life gave Y/N a few pointers on how to own being an old lady. This still made Y/N scoff and worry that everyone was wrong. 

----------------------- 

The carnival was finally here and Jax was excited for some much needed time off with his family and friends. Gemma wanted to watch Abel for the night. This meant he could really relax and let loose tonight. No worries about staying out too late for his little man or limiting his alcohol or weed. It was gonna be great. 

At least, til he saw Y/N walking up, “What the hell are you wearing?” 

Y/N looked different, that’s for sure. She knew she didn’t look bad though. She had on a tight black wrap-around long-sleeve crop top, ripped jeans with fishnets underneath and the white sneakers she picked out. She even threw on some of the goodies that Gemma bought her. She cinched her waist in with the chain belt, the crow studs and skull ring added to the alure. Her hair was curled and she did her makeup, highlighting her sparkling eyes with black eyeliner and her plump lips with a deep red lipstick. 

“What do you mean?” Y/N asked, holding back remorse for dressing up. 

“You look like a, shit, who are you dressed up for?” Jax questioned. 

“Why does it have to be for someone? Can’t I look hot without it being for someone,” Y/N put a hand on her hip, beginning to get pissed. 

“You look like you’re trying to lock a member down! Got your eyes set on one of the guys huh? You’ve been hanging around Happy a lot lately, trying to be his old lady?” He prodded. 

“Dammit Jax! I had my eyes set on you but I guess I can’t be your old lady unless I am pining desperately for you to rescue me! Maybe I need a stalker or some form of addiction for you to realize I like you” Y/N screamed, stomping off. 

Y/N knew that was uncalled for but her anger got the better of her but not even Danny Zuko would pull this kind of douche move. It definitely wasn’t going the way she thought it would. While she didn’t necessarily believe the others when they said Jax was interested, it hurt that he was so offended by her looks. Her eyes began to sting as she pondered why she even considered making a move. 

Jax lost his breath when Y/N yelled at him. He quickly got it back when a ringed had slammed into the back of his head. When he whipped his head around he saw a pissed off Gemma staring him down. 

“Remember how you sent Happy and Tig with us yesterday? She spent the entire buying stuff because she wanted to look like an old lady. She did that for you. We all encouraged her because everyone here sees how y’all feel about each other except the two of you. If you don’t wanna be with her, cut it off now and stay at the table. But if you want her to be your old lady like we know you do, you better chase after her.”, his mom said, matter-of-factly. 

Jax stared at her with his mouth open. He was still in shock. He always saw Y/N as his but didn’t think she would want to be with him. When she left for college, he thought he lost his chance. She came back and he was with Wendy. She dated some uppity guys here and there, he assumed that was her type and she was ready to settle down. So when Tara decided to stay in Charming and he saw Y/N out on another date, he chose to go back to Tara. 

To think that he and Y/N could have been together for years now was making his head run circles around his heart. The fact that she did all of this to be with him permanently seemed ridiculous to him. She could have just told him, but looking back she must have been trying for years. The dedication to him and the club wasn’t out of friendship but love. 

“Fuck”, Jax let slip from his lips as he hopped off of the table he was sitting on. 

He marched off on a mission, searching for Y/N. He stomped through the happy crowd and scanned the flashing neon lights with his eyes. He was pissed at himself. He knew his mom was right too, if he didn’t show his feelings now he and Y/N didn’t have a chance in hell. He just hoped he could find her. 

Y/N stopped at the ferris wheel. Her eyes were still stinging but she refused to cry, especially in front of all these people. She would either get up in the air and cry or calm down. She was losing it on the inside. Every single person she talked to said Jax felt the same way, but Jackson’s reaction was the opposite of what was expected. 

Y/N was at the front of the line when Jax finally tracked her down. Jax picked up his pace and managed to get to the ticketer as she got in on her own. Jax shoved a handful of cash into the operators hands when he protested and hopped in with her and shut the door behind him. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing Jackson?” Y/N huffed

Jax flinched at the use of his full name, “I fucked up. Can we talk?” 

“It doesn’t matter, you trapped me with you. You got one loop to convince me to stay on the ride with you”, she demanded. 

Y/N was pissed. First, Jax insulted her and asked her if she was trying to nail one of his guys and now he wouldn’t even let her cry it out on her own. She was waiting for him to pull the “let her down easy” lines she knew the man had memorized. Except with Y/N it was going to be… 

“We have been friends for as long as I remember. I didn’t realize that you felt that way about me.” 

Y/N cut Jax off, “Look, we don’t have to do this. I’m trying to keep my shit together but I’d rather not do this right now.” 

Confusion graced Jax’s face, “No, I, I’m trying to explain. It’s not what you think.” 

“I’m pretty sure it is, Jax. You made your point earlier, if I want to be an old lady I should look to Happy and or another member.”, Y/N ranted, this last thing she wanted was to dig into why Jax didn’t want to be with her. 

“Dammit Y/N! I am trying to tell you that I love you, too!” Jax shouted, losing it for a moment. 

He pulled Y/N in for a kiss, one had cupped her face and the other pulled Y/N onto his lap. Y/N was shocked at Jax’s announcement and even more so at his lips on hers. 

By the time Jax and Y/N had finished a loop, she was happy to stay on the ferris wheel with him. By the time the ride had ended they had become a couple and managed to mark their claims on each other. By the time the duo made it back to the crew’s table, the group began to hoop and holler. Y/N felt her cheeks heat up and ducked her head into Jax’s arm while he received high fives and slaps on the back in congratulations. 

“Let me know when to expect another grandbaby!”, Gemma said with glee as she walked past the happy couple with a sleepy Abel in her arms. 

To say the least, Momma Gemma is the best

Taglist: @justahopelessssromantic

[moonlightchess]

Let me talk to you about my mixed race (half black, half white) experience.

I have features and hair that suggest "black" if you know what mixed people are, which honestly a lot of people don't considering how many times a day I hear, "Okay, but what are you?" from whiypepo who are confused about my paper-pale skin, broad nose, narrow hooded eyes, thick lips and afro. It truly seems to throw them for a loop, I can't tell you how many confused, curious stares I get at parties or shopping or wherever. I felt so brutally visible, judged, freakish, because I never felt comfortable claiming the black experience despite my father being full-blooded west African (Senegal). I do have white skin, and I didn't want to appropriate that, because if you truly have no fucking idea what mixed people look like AND I've got the 'fro relaxed or whatever, you MIGHT mistake me for completely white.

At the same time, the white experience has been equally as denied to me, because literally anyone with eyeballs can clock me as mixed. I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood of rich kids after my father died, and adolescence was a nightmarish swirling hellhole of weird glances and eye rolls from kids at school who told me I needed to "get my nose fixed," and hearing nervous, "Oh, she's so exotic-looking, how lovely!" from white mothers at childrens' birthday parties. I remember with a powerful clarity the time my best friend's mother was helping me put a costume hat on when we were around 10 and she exclaimed, "Oh! Your hair is so soft, I thought it would be so coarse but it's not that bad!"

Feeling so entirely unmoored and unwanted is so painful for a kid who is already struggling with the insecurities of growing up, all the bullying that already accompanies it, and so I made my decision. I couldn't change the color of my skin enough to join my black community, so maybe hiding was better. Relax the hair. Save money for a nose job. Are there doctors out there who do the opposite of lip fillers?

I felt so deeply ashamed on both sides. Ashamed of my face, my hair, being visibly and invisibly black, but at the same time any time I tried to just say I was white I'd get dubious glances and insistences of "white and....?" The kids at school would laugh at my "ghetto" name - my beautiful name that my father gave me before he died because it meant something to him - because this was the 90s and it was long before the great awakening. They'd throw things at me in the cafeteria and yell, "That's Shaniqua Blanca!" when substitute teachers asked for my name. (My name's not Shaniqua, but that was the only stereotypically "black" name they knew).

Then I got a job at Starbucks with a mean girl and when I tried to tell her, with a kind of desperate need for her to validate my attempts to hide, "most people just think I'm white," she rolled her eyes and said, "I figured you were black. You look black, just albino or whatever. But with dark hair and eyes." In that moment, the shame and fear I felt MADE me feel ashamed of myself, because I didn't want to "look black" but I also didn't want to be ashamed of looking black, being visibly black, because black culture has always been a part of me. My father raised me on motown - to this day I'm hipster-proud of little eight year old me loving Aretha and Chuck and Muddy and Martha and the Vandellas over the popular singers of the day, I was cool. But I was also black, and that was becoming increasingly scary.

I felt ashamed of being ashamed, afraid of being afraid, especially when my beautiful brothers and sisters were out there visibly black and demanding respect when I was too pathetic and weak to do the same. There was no support group for "girls with super white skin but who also look black, "EXOTIC-LOOKING" PRIDE!" I felt so intensely alone, until one day when I attended a poetry reading by a black poet who visited my college and he was inviting discussion with the audience after his reading and I shyly raised my hand and explained that his work spoke to me because I wanted so badly to join the black experience but I felt both too privileged and too afraid. I felt like I hadn't earned that.

He shook his head vehemently and said, "my sister," and that was enough to get the tears running, "you are black. Your experience is already black. You are owed this struggle, this art, this defiance, this beauty, and you are one of us. You earned it every time someone asked you what you "are," you earned it every time someone called you "unique" looking, you earned it when the racist white kids in the schoolyard shunned you and you earned it when you cried over our works of literature, art and music. You earned it through all the cruel jokes, all the isolation, all the love."

I'm weepy even typing this up, because all my life I've felt black without being black, but on that night I felt black. I understood the power of James Brown, "say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud!" So I stopped relaxing my hair even if it lost my job prospects for looking "unprofessional". I stopped telling people my name was a shortened, whitened version of my own. I used my nose job money to fund a vacation to my father's land instead.

None of the issues I've presented here were fixed. I still deal with bullshit every day. But the shame is slowly eroding, because I am so profoundly inspired by the bravery and power in all my black family who don't even have the privilege of trying to hide even if unconvincingly like I once did. A homeless man once approached me to ask for money and he said, "sister! Help a brother out, we have to stick together!" and instead of the panicked shame I once felt, I instead felt seen, loved, known, and I gave him almost fifty bucks, all the cash in my wallet, because he'd taught me something about myself on that day.

I don't have any answers and it's late and honestly I don't even know why I'm writing this other than posterity's sake. I am so grateful that things are changing now, that kids like me might grow up knowing some different experience, and I hope I am among the last generation to feel ashamed, unseen and lost. It was never the white pop anthems of my day that made me feel powerful, it was Aretha and James demanding respect, demanding that the world know how proud they are. I love you, mixed kids. I see you all.

[alexiessan]

The brother you never asked for - One Shot

AO3

@neakco​ asked: "I saw an ask for prompts so I would like to request a sibling Jasonette where Jason is in Paris trying to win a bet with Dick over who can find the best pastries, which is how he finds/meets Marinette. Everything else is open to the freedom of your imagination."

Here is Jasonette Siblings :) 

@justafanwarrior​ @animegirlweeb​

Why was Jason running in the streets of Paris at seven in the evening again?

Ah, right. To win a bet against Dick.

The two oldest adopted children of Bruce Wayne had agreed to accompany their father on a business trip to the French capital. Damian still had school to attend and Tim was to manage the company while the CEO was away.

He didn’t really need any of his children to accompany him, but who would say no to a trip to Paris?

Bruce had a lot of meetings planned for the two weeks trip, and it took only two days for the two men to get bored. Paris wasn’t new for them and they’ve already seen all the touristic spots.

And so, they were just watching some movie in Richard’s hotel room when he had a craving for pastries.

“Let’s go to Ladurée! They have awesome macarons!” the oldest exclaimed, his mouth already watering at the thought of chocolate macaron.

Jason frowned. “Eh, really? It’s overpriced and overrated there.”

“But they are the best I’ve ever had.”

“That’s because you didn’t try to find the very best. It’s France, there are bakeries in almost every street. There must be one that makes better pastries than Ladurée.”

La maison Ladurée was a famous bakery in Paris, known for its macarons. Every tourist always ended up going there at one point or another during their stay in Paris.

While their macarons were good, it was too much of a tourist spot for Jason’s taste. There probably was a bakery out there that sold better macarons than the famous Maison Ladurée.

Urgh. Even the name sounded made him want to cringe. Snobbish much, huh?

“Then, let’s find it,” said Dick with a serious voice.

Jason looked away from the TV to face his brother. “Huh?”

Richard rolled his eyes. “Get your ass up this couch and let’s go find the best bakery in Paris!”

The second oldest of the Wayne siblings raised an eyebrow. “Do you realize how many bakeries there are in just Paris? We can’t possibly try them all.”

“You’re right. That’s why,” Dick paused, showing Jason his smartphone, “I’ve researched the best bakeries of Paris. I found two lists with a top ten of the best bakeries of Paris, and they don’t have one in common with the other!” he grinned, “so, I suggest we each take a list and try them all, and come back with a box of macarons from the one we thought was best!”

Jason looked at the list. If he tried them all and figured that the best one was one of the first he tried, it would mean going back there to buy a full box of macarons. It would be annoying to go back there again, but doable.

“What does the winner win?” he finally asked.

“Eh… Bragging rights?” at Jason’s expression, he tried again. “We’ll figure it out later.”

“Right. Then, may the best man win.”

They shook hands and were off in a matter of seconds.

This is how Jason found himself in front of the last bakery of the list — the one ranked second in the list, but it was the one the farthest from their hotel, and thus, the last one he tried — hoping it was closed yet. He really hoped this one would be the best because he wouldn’t have the time to go back to one of the other bakeries before closing time.

When he opened the door, he was met with a lot of pink. It was a cute and cozy bakery, making you want to find a seat, drink hot chocolate, and read next to the window while it was raining outside.

At the desk was a teenage girl around Damian’s age — sixteen, seventeen-year-old top — who looked visibly upset over something on her phone. When she heard him enter, she put the phone away, blinked several times to get rid of the tears that had gathered in her eyes, and smiled at him.

“Welcome to Tom et Sabine boulangerie pâtisserie! How can I help you?” she greeted him in French.

Jason made his way to the counter, looking over the different pastries. He glanced at the girl, patiently waiting for his order. She had black hair and blue eyes, half French and half Asian he guessed. She had a smile on her face, and not just a customer one, giving that she was visibly upset when he arrived, but a genuine one.

It made him want to ask her if he had to go and threaten someone, but he didn’t know the girl, and she didn’t know him, and what right did he have to ask?

“I’ll have a chocolate macaron, please,” he answered in French but with a heavy American accent.

She noticed and switched in English, which he was grateful for. He could speak French, but since he didn’t have the opportunity to practice it often, he was a bit rusty in the language.

“Of course, a big one or a small one?”

“A small one, please.”

She put the small macaron on a towel with a clamp and put it on the counter. “It will be one euro, please!”

He thanked her while paying and wasted no time in eating the small treat. The teen girl laughed when she saw him eat it in one bite.

“You know what?” he began after swallowing, deciding that this was the best one he had in his search. “I’ll take a whole box of these. I’ll even take two big ones!”

“Alright! That will be nine euros and fifty cents, please!” she said with a smile before preparing his order.

“Thanks again!” he said while handing her the money. “If the other pastries are as good as the macarons, you’ll see me again.”

She laughed. “I’m not exactly impartial, but the pastries are really, really good! So I guess I’ll see you again.”

He barked a laugh. “You can bet on it then!”

“Have a good night, sir!”

“Thanks!”

When he got back to the hotel room, Dick was already there with his own box of macarons, and they didn’t waist one more second before tasting the other’s finding.

Jason won, of course, and demanded fifty bucks as his reward.

And wasn’t it good to win a bet against his brother.

Just like he said he would, Jason came back to the bakery, with Dick with him. They tried all sorts of pastries, and even some quiches for lunch and everything was delicious. Dick made sure to note the name of the bakery somewhere on his phone so they could come back the next time they would come to Paris.

The teenage girl was still there, managing the desk and talking with the two of them when they stayed a bit longer to enjoy their food.

They learned that her name was Marinette and that she was seventeen — making her Damian’s age, just as Jason thought — and that she was the daughter of the owner. Since it was summer vacations, she helped her parents since they had more clients than ever thanks to tourism.

They learned that she was a fashion designer and that she learned English because of it. Since she wanted to start her own business one day, someone recommended that she learn English if she wanted it to be international. Speaking only one language wouldn’t do well, she explained.

While she was still in school, she had a small customer base already and did everything that needed to be done for it to be legal, and thus, was a freelance in fashion design. She was still in high school, entering her last year in September. She even expressed her desire to go to University in America, in a double major — fashion and business.

They visited the bakery every day for a week, learning to know each other a bit, but never once did she tell them anything that was upsetting her.

And Jason couldn’t help but wonder what could bring such a cheerful and positive girl like Marinette so close to tears.

It was on their last week in Paris that Jason found out.

He was on his way to the bakery to get his daily dose of pastries when he saw Marinette sitting on a bench in the park near her family’s business and home.

And she was crying.

He didn’t think about it as he made his way to Marinette and sat next to her.

“So, tell me, whose butt do I need to kick?”

She almost jumped, not having noticed him.

“God,” she breathed, “you scared me, don’t do that again.”

“My bad,” he apologized. “But tell me, what’s wrong?”

She let out a joyless laugh. “It’s okay, I don’t want to burden you with my teenage drama.”

He playfully elbowed her. “Now, now. I’ve been a teen too, you know. And I know all about teenage drama. And I know that it’s not just nothing to you, right now. Maybe, later on, you’ll think so, but it matters to you now, so it’s important, you understand?” she nodded. “Just because you’re a teenager, it doesn’t mean your problems are meaningless, alright? I know adults tend to downplay teenager’s problem, but not me.” he ruffled her hair. “Now, tell everything to your big brother.”

She laughed and shoved him playfully. “You’re not my brother!”

“Well, now I am! I’m the brother you never asked for but got anyway. Deal with it.”

She laughed again, and he felt like he succeeded a little in cheering her up. “Alright, ‘big brother’, I’ll talk.”

She took a deep breath before facing him.

“It’s my boyfriend. He canceled on me. Again.” she laughed. “I know I shouldn’t be upset to be stood up, and I wasn’t the first time. Or the second. Or the third. But I’ve lost count of the times he ditched me for his friends, or for an event that just happened. And I tried to be understanding at first. It’s just… I’m doing everything to make our relationship work. I plan dates, even double dates because I know how much he loves his friends — our friends. But it feels like it’s one sided,” she paused, taking another deep breath. “But I haven’t properly talked to him in months because he keeps standing me up. I just… Does he want to break up with me? Is that what’s he’s trying to do, but is too much of a coward to do it properly? I… I guess I’m just realizing now that we haven’t be fine for months now.”

Jason sighed. “I can’t tell you what he’s thinking, and what is his reasoning behind his behavior because I don’t know him, but I’ll tell you this: it takes all the people involved in a relationship for it to work. If the other doesn’t put any work in it, it can’t work. It can be fixed, however, but you already tried, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“Then, since you already try to fix your relationship, you have to ask yourself this question: are you happy with him?”

Tears gathered again in her eyes and she shook her head. “No… No, Jason, I’m not happy anymore.”

He opened his arms, inviting her in a hug, and she immediately threw herself in her arms.

“Then, I think you know what to do.”

They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Marinette stopped crying.

“I’m sorry, I barely know you and I just dumped all my problems on you.”

“Hey, when I said that I was now your brother, I meant it. I take my duties as a big brother very seriously.”

The fashion designer laughed. “What, you just picked people on the street and claimed they are now your sibling or something?”

“No, you’re just special.”

She laughed. “I’m nothing special, but thank you. For listening to me and offering me friendship. I really appreciate it.”

He patted her hair. “Anytime, chouquette.”

They exchanged numbers before parting ways, this time without any pastries with him.

The next morning, Jason received a text from Marinette, stating that she broke up with her boyfriend. He asked for details, and she explained that he has been oblivious to it all and didn’t understand why she was breaking up with him. She said that she gave up on explaining anything and that they were just over.

He and Dick spent the last week at the bakery, trying to cheer Marinette up, which was not as hard as he expected it to be. While Marinette was sad that her relationship was over, she was also relieved. She had been hurt too much, and it was a good thing that she wouldn’t be hurting anymore.

Their two weeks stay unfortunately came to an end, and it was time to say goodbye to Marinette.

“Say, what do you think about going to Gotham for university,” he asked her with a grin. “We could see each other much more then.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right. Going to the most dangerous city in America. No thanks, I think I’ll pass.”

He pouted. “But I would protect you.”

She laughed. “I have no doubt you would, but I think I’ll go to New York. I have an internship offer there than I can do alongside my studies,” she paused. “But hey, Gotham and New York are pretty close, no? We can still see each other.”

“One of my brothers is actually going to university in New York too next year! I’ll tell him to look after you!”

“What?! Come on Jason, I don’t need anyone looking after me!”

“Tutututu! Let your big brother handle it!”

“But you’re not my brother!”

[wallgirl]

The Little Nereid Part One

3200 words, part one of a five part fanfiction

Poseidon x OC

Dynamene, youngest of the 50 Nereids, has lived most of her adolescence as a servant alongside her sisters at Poseidon’s palace. But with her coming-of-age birthday and other developments, what she initially thought was just admiration of her master blossoms into something stronger and more passionate... and painful.

Categories: Romance, angst, unrequited love, coming-of-age, earn-your-happy-ending; no NSFW content

---

The incessant cry of seagulls encircling the rocky bluffs below finally woke her. She exhaled reluctantly, tugging the blanket closer to her chest. They were especially loud this morning; perhaps a school of fish had washed up on shore. She was surprised that she didn’t hear Thoe shouting at them in a vain attempt to get them to scatter. Thoe had always hated seagulls, and a millennium of living beside the ocean had done nothing to calm her ire. She rolled away from the bright light entering from the window and drowsily pondered how she would spend the day. If the weather held up, perhaps she would go for a run along the shoreline.

               Then realization hit her, and she sat up, fully awake. Of course, she had plans for the day – it was her birthday!

---

               And not just any birthday, but her coming-of-age celebration. From today on, she would officially be a woman in the eyes of society; no longer a mere girl, despite her thin build and wide eyes.

               She jumped out of bed and undid her rumpled chiton, tossing it haphazardly onto the marble floor as she ran to her dresser. She hurriedly sought through the drawer before pulling out one of her nicer peplos with gold embroidery, then turned to the next drawer in search of a clean chiton.

               “Dynamene! Are you up?” A loud voice echoed from the other side of the bedroom door.

               “Yes! Yes, I’m awake!” Dynamene called back, hastily slamming the drawers closed and turning to the full-length mirror across from her bed.

               “May I come in?” Without waiting for a response, the door opened and a tall maiden with her auburn hair drawn into a long braid entered.

               “Help me fasten my peplos, Actaea,” Dynamene muttered, tugging the fabric around her body.

               “I suppose…” Actaea sighed dramatically. She stepped behind Dynamene and began to gather the cloth expertly. “You know, I’m glad I caught you while you were getting dressed. I have the perfect pins for you to use today.” With a smile, she produced two golden pins with mother-of-pearl heads.

Dynamene broke into a wide beam at the sight of her gifts, her freckled cheeks dimpling in delight. “Thank you, Actaea. They’re beautiful.”

“Aren’t they? I sent for them a few weeks ago. I know you’ve wanted pins with mother-of-pearl for a while.”

“I have, it’s my favorite.” Dynamene admired her reflection shamelessly as Actaea finished positioning the pins, now holding her chiton together at the shoulders.

“I know. What older sister would I be if I didn’t know your favorite stone?” Actaea teased her with a tug on her hair.

Dynamene swatted at her playfully. “Mother-of-pearl isn’t a stone, silly!”

Actaea laughed and took hold of her hand. “Come along, birthday girl. Our sisters have set up breakfast down at the beach.”

Dynamene laughed back with excitement and allowed her older sister to rush her along the pristine white halls of the palace. Exquisite white marble reflected the sunlight entering from the tall windows, making for a heavenly vision when combined with the sight of the ocean gently churning against the rocky bluffs and sandy beaches below. They burst out of the palace’s bottom story entrance onto a vast deck. Across, carved between the rock that crowded up along the bottom of the palace, was a large staircase leading down to the beach. Well, perhaps staircase was too generous; all 150 of the steps were weathered from years of use by the Nereids running back and forth from the palace to the ocean, and tender weeds had begun to billow gently along the cracks. But the Nereids – that is, Dynamene and her older sisters – preferred the well-loved look.

The master of the palace was guaranteed to have a different opinion, but as he never used the staircase, the point was moot.

The stairs ended in soft, peach-hued sands that gave way beneath the sisters’ feet. Further down, along a cluster of rocks that jutted out into the cerulean waters, two banquet tables had been set up. They were well-laden with fresh fruit, wine, honey cakes, and just-roasted fish.

“Dynamene!” The first of her sisters to spot her yelled out. “Happy birthday, Dynamene!” The rest of her sisters, all forty-nine of them, quickly gathered to greet her. A merry chorus of “Happy birthday!” rang out for a full minute before they led her to her place of honor at the head of one of the tables.

“Happy birthday, baby Dynamene,” the last of her sisters called from where she was perched on top of the boulder closest to the tables. Good-natured Eione, with her sunbaked red hair and perpetually sandy legs, rose her glass. “To you!”

“To baby Dynamene!” The rest of the sisters called back, raising their glasses in a toast.

Blushing from the attention, Dynamene rose her glass to toast them back before sipping at the wine. It was remarkably sweet; no doubt sourced from one of the finest casks in the palace.

“Ah, but it is a sad day, too,” Actaea sighed dramatically. “The youngest of us has finally come-of-age; and now we have nothing to look forward to but senility.”

“Get out,” scoffed Ianeira, the eldest of the fifty. She waved her hand as if to swat away Actaea’s words. “Nereids don’t worry about getting old. As the pure-blooded daughters of two water gods, the day we see a gray hair will never come.”

“Why aren’t we gods, anyways,” another sister grumbled.

“I am glad enough to be a sea nymph,” Eione called, stretching her arms. “We are still leagues above mortals, and we don’t have any pesky rules or civil struggles to worry about. Let the other gods have their fun.”

“I agree,” nodded Ianeira. “We’ve seen every sort of trouble that can come from being a god, just by living here.”

Dynamene started at the mention of their master. “Ah, yes… Lord Poseidon. He’s due to come home this afternoon, isn’t he?”

“Yes, so we must make sure our duties are finished before he arrives. But there will be plenty of time afterwards to continue to celebrate your special day,” Actaea leaned over to ruffle Dynamene’s hair.

Dynamene smiled. “Perhaps it’s uncouth to ask, but… I wonder if I can expect a gift from him?” she murmured back lowly.

“Of course you can!” Eione shouted back, and Dynamene gaped at her. Truly, nothing escaped her ears. “Whose birthday was it last? They got a gift. Master Poseidon always gives us something for our birthday; a token of his appreciation, right?”

“Are you hoping for anything in particular?” Actaea asked. “Perhaps a whole island to yourself? Half of the treasure room?”

“No!” Dynamene laughed, swatting her older sister on the arm. “I…” She paused. “I will be happy with anything Lord Poseidon chooses to bestow me with.”

“Ask him to bestow you a new hair comb, then,” a sister snided from behind her. With a careless touch, Thoe ran her hand along Dynamene’s dark hair. “We should be heading back to the palace soon. I’ll fix your hair for you, Dyna. My birthday gift will be one of hair oil and the removal of split-ends.”

And so, all too soon, breakfast was over, and the sisters began their ascent back to the palace to attend to their chores. Once Thoe had sculpted Dynamene’s hair into what she deemed a more acceptable state, the two joined their sisters in cleaning the palace’s vast floors. Half of the sisters made the journey back and forth from the palace to the beach, lugging water in mighty jugs to throw across the marble floors. The other sisters used their innate gifts as sea nymphs to manipulate the water back and forth across the floor’s surface in gentle waves, gathering up the dust and dirt and sending it flowing into grated vents along the bottom of the walls. A system of pipes beneath the palace carried the water back down to the ocean, in a convenient and simple cycle.

Once the floors had been cleaned, the sisters broke up further into singles and pairs, airing out linens and shaking out rugs in every furnished room. Dynamene remained with Thoe as they methodically went through each bedroom and made the beds. Today, Thoe’s abrasive nature did little to draw Dynamene out of her thoughts. She was lost in pondering what Poseidon might give her for her birthday. It was never anything grand, but that was hardly surprising; Poseidon was no sentimental man and being able to live and serve in his palace was gift enough to begin with. But for every Nereid’s birthday, he still remembered to give them something as a token of appreciation. A simple formality. And yet… Dynamene’s heartbeat quickened. She racked her memory; what had he gifted her her last birthday? It had been a while, truth be told. The Nereids only celebrated their birthdays every hundred years. There were so many of them, and they aged so slowly, that celebrating every year seemed like a burden; not to mention that several of them shared a birth month and day.

But now Dynamene’s day had arrived, and she was the last of her sisters to reach womanhood. It was her first official birthday since she had experienced menarche several decades ago. She was quite a bit taller, though still slender in body and round in her cheeks, then she was when she had arrived at Poseidon’s palace with her sisters. Had it really been a thousand years since then? She closed her eyes briefly, reliving the emotions she had felt as a young girl seeing the palace, and its master, for the first time.

Upon their arrival, every sister had greeted Poseidon formally, stating their name with a curtsy, oldest to youngest. Dynamene had never met Poseidon before that day and had no idea what to expect of the man that would become her master. When it was finally her turn, as the youngest of the sisters, to greet him, her heart had nearly stopped.

He had towered over her, a statuesque man measuring over six feet in height, with unfeeling blue eyes and an expression carved of stone. He struck an intimidating figure, even from where he sat upon his throne, and little Dynamene’s heart had jumped to her throat in fear.

But then he had shifted ever so slightly in his seat, just a simple tilt of his head and curl of his hand. The lock of hair that threatened to fall into his eyes caught the firelight just so, and his gray gaze rose to scrutinize her face. It was then that little Dynamene no longer saw a heartless stone statue, but a god; a magnificent, handsome man, with all the power of the oceans at his beck-and-call, who made every other lesser being tremble from his footsteps.

At that moment, she no longer feared him, even as a young girl before an unimaginably powerful stranger. No, not entirely.

She was in awe of him.

“Dynamene!” Thoe’s sharp call brought her back to her senses. “Ianeira is calling for you.”

“Ah, yes,” Dynamene quickly replied, her face flushing. “I’m going.”

Down the end of the hall, the eldest sister waited for her. “There you are. We’re almost done; all that’s left is the lighting of the fire in Lord Poseidon’s quarters. As it’s your special day, I thought you might like the honor.”

Dynamene’s mouth ran dry. “The honor?! But… it’s nothing I haven’t done before.”

“Well, perhaps, if you’re lucky, he’ll arrive as you’re taking care of it. Then he’ll be able to give you your birthday gift straight-away, yes?”

Dynamene nearly choked on her breath. “I… I don’t know if Lord Poseidon would even hand me it himself. He’s always had it brought to our room by the other servants, or the delivery person. I don’t think he would personally-”

“Enough excuses,” Ianeira shooed her. “Hurry, it’s nearly lunchtime.”

With no other choice, Dynamene began the ascent through the palace towards Poseidon’s quarters. Her steps were rather reluctant, and she twisted the fabric of her peplos incessantly. Even his rooms without him in it were intimidating, full of heavy energy without a single fabric fold out of place. Of course, they were so pristine because the Nereids cleaned and organized them with care, especially when Poseidon was away on business, but every surface was kept eternally spotless to the point that it felt almost oppressive.

All too soon, she had reached the top of the final staircase leading to his quarters. Pushing through the heavy, ornate mahogany doors that were twice her height, she silently entered the sitting room. Poseidon’s personal suite consisted of a sitting room, his bedroom, and his private bathroom. Perhaps it seemed sparse compared to the living quarters of other gods, but Poseidon hated frivolity. The simple rooms suited him well.

That was not to say that they weren’t furnished with the finest furniture and materials available. The great fireplace that loomed across from her had intricate reliefs carved into its marble, recreating important moments from the Greek pantheon’s history. Dynamene brushed her fingertips tenderly against an image of a young Poseidon, freshly freed alongside his siblings from the stomach of their father, Cronus. She marveled at the detail, almost too fine to clearly see with the naked eye. Hephaestus himself had carved the images as a house-warming gift to Poseidon, his skill evident as Dynamene stared in wonder at the stone Poseidon’s face. If she squinted, she could almost make out the individual lashes of his eyes.

Without warning, the mighty doors behind her swung open, and she spun around, back pressed against the wall.

A towering figure stepped inside, allowing the doors to creak shut behind him. The faint light that crept in from the windows in the adjoining rooms gently illuminated the man’s pale face and bare chest. He moved forward, steps slow and deliberate. The dim gray light pulled along the edges of his figure to reveal a solemn face and fair, windswept hair.

“Lord Poseidon,” Dynamene breathed, immediately dropping into a curtsy. She stared at the floor, listening to her own heartbeat become a rapid pounding in her ears. She had been caught dallying in his quarters, and she hadn’t even lit the fire yet.

But his expression changed naught as he took in the sight of the dark fireplace. His eyes slewed left towards it, then back near Dynamene. “You have yet to light the fire.”

Dynamene could barely make out her own voice over the roar of blood in her ears. “Yes, my lord. Please accept my deepest apologies; I have no excuse for shirking my duties.”

He said nothing in reply, but crossed the room to drop a scroll atop his bedside table. Her face burning, Dynamene spun back towards the fireplace and dropped to her knees, quickly attending to the hearth. As the flames began to roar to life, she heard his calm voice once more.

“Come here,” he said. Her hands began to shake, and she slowly righted herself before crossing the room to stand before him on lead-filled legs.

He stared down at her. No, not at her, but somewhere near her. He never looked anyone in the eyes, and Dynamene certainly didn’t expect him to start now. It would be a wasted effort anyhow; Dynamene couldn’t even bring herself to look at his face, instead staring rigidly at his toned shoulders. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her; she knew he wouldn’t yell at her; so why, oh why was she so shaken just standing before him? Why did her entire body feel as if it would break down into jelly at the slightest movement?

He rose one hand, and Dynamene forced herself to look. Laying atop his palm was a simple box, covered in blue satin. She immediately understood, and a different sort of heat filled her veins. He again waited in silence. She knew he meant for her to take it, and she lifted her own hands hesitantly to reach for it. Every movement, every motion was a vast effort, and she found herself begging her body not to flinch, not to mess this up.

As her fingers met the box, she accidentally brushed one fingertip against his palm, and she quickly pulled the hand back, as if afraid she’d be burned. But the other hand had successfully taken ahold of the box, and she drew it back to her chest. “Th… Thank you, Lord Poseidon,” she whispered, her voice breathless and her mouth dry as cotton.

He said nothing in reply, lingering for a moment. She chanced a glance up at his face, seizing the opportunity to once again memorize every feature of his face. A straight nose with the slightest upwards tilt. Those generous black eyelashes that flared out like the wings of a raven. His slight lips that, no matter the expression their owner held, always looked soft. And that curl of hair that always rested alongside his temple, threatening to dip into his eyes – how she longed to reach forward and brush it back for him.

               How she longed to reach up and caress his cheek.

               It was then that Dynamene realized that he was, indeed, gazing back at her, for perhaps the first time in her life. But perhaps she had just imagined it because, in the next moment, he was already turning away from her, striding away towards the bath. She stared at his strong back and the shifting of his shoulder blades, and her hands tightened around the box.

Without another word, she slipped from his quarters and fled down the stairs.

“Dynamene? Is everything alright?” Ianeira called after her, voice filled with concern.

“Yes!” Dynamene found the energy to shout back, even as she continued to sprint. “I’m just in a hurry to see my gift!”

Breathless, she shouldered open the door to her room and closed it with the other before sitting atop her bed. She could once again barely command her trembling fingers to separate the lid from the rest of the box before gently lifting a layer of protective cotton that shielded the rest of the contents.

Nestled inside, a single mother-of-pearl bracelet gleamed up at her in the sunlight.

Her breath caught in her chest. She didn’t dare touch with her clumsy hands for the moment, instead lifting the box up so she could better examine it in the light. It was flawless and sized perfectly for her slender wrist. Setting the box back on her lap, she tenderly slid the bracelet over her hand. She held it with a feather-light touch, not wanting to leave a smudge on any pearl’s surface. It fit as if it was always meant to be there.

She lifted her hand to the window, admiring in awe the way the iridescent beads caught the light. “Beautiful,” she sighed. For reasons unclear, the memory of her fingers brushing his hand arose, and she pursed her lips before cradling her bracelet-clad wrist against her chest. “Thank you,” she whispered. The heat in her face, and the electricity coiled in her veins, remained.

---

Author’s notes:

I really wanted to explore the feelings and pain of first love in this fanfiction; you know, that teenage feeling of desperately wanting someone unattainable. It really brought back some of my own memories while writing this lol. I also want to explore the gray shades of loving someone like Poseidon, in as canon a view as possible. Of course, there area a lot of empty spaces in Poseidon’s canon characterization for me to fill in, but I’ll try to do so while heavily considering his canon depiction.

There’s no way I can write for 49 different side character Nereids, so there will only be six or seven at most that are part of the cast. If it’s hard keeping them straight, have this little guide I made for myself while writing:

Actaea – caring sister

Eione – tomboy sister

Thoe – rude sister

Ianeira – oldest sister

[thatdoctorharvey]

Flowers?

All I have to say is; I’m sorry.

Kudos to @soft-bois-make-me-simp for assisting with the idea. Don’t worry man, we can collab on another story!

Please listen to this while you read this!

There were only three times that Harvey would remember enjoying flowers. He usually wasn’t one for them, not because he was allergic or anything, he just didn’t find the reason to desire them.

Roses are red

The day he first knew he had feelings for you. He always said it was the best day of his life. He will never forget that day; the day you brought him wine on his birthday. You two had occasionally spoken from time to time, but it was really nothing super deep. You had opened up to him about a few things that you hadn’t told anyone else but not super personal. Mostly just little quirks you hated about yourself. He remembered blushing every time as everything you named seemed to be things he liked.

“So, how about a birthday dinner tonight Harv? I’m sure you can’t remember the last time you had a real meal.” You offered.

He was reluctant to answer at first, not wanting to be a bother, but he did hate his current diet and knew he needed to change it up a bit, even if his stomach might not agree with the sudden change from pre-packaged meals to home cooking.

“That...Sounds nice. Thank you.”

And boy was it nice. It was quite obvious you knew that he needed real food because you made more than enough for him just to make sure he had leftovers. He almost felt bad but you had insisted he needed it. You both knew it would be gone tomorrow. You secretly knew, he -- as a man -- had quite the appetite and had held back eating as much as he could with you around.

You left late that night, but left behind some flowers you had grown on the farm. They sat in a vase on the table, right next to his radio equipment.

“Feel free to get a hold of me if you need anything Harvey. Doctors deserve to be taken care of as well.”

Those words never left him. “Doctor’s deserve to be taken care of as well.” You cared about him and actually wanted to make sure he was doing okay. As suspected, you two grew closer after that. He started to become a lot more anxious but never made a move. 

What if you only wanted to be friends? That would be super awkward…

Violets are blue

The day you gave him the bouquet, he cried. Never had he felt so relieved and excited at the same time. You like him. No, you loved him. You. The precious farmer.

“A-are you sure? I’m so much older a-and there’s so many oth-”

“Harvey. I’ve made my choice.” You kissed his cheek. “I don’t want anyone else. They just aren’t my type.”

Fifty shades of red his face was. There was no denying that for sure. He was a tomato and a strawberry at the same time.

He’s never hugged you so tight either. Even when you brought the pendant to him (he was more gentle then). He just wished the flowers in the bouquet didn’t wilt. Joys of having live flowers though.

That and every month, you brought him a new bouquet. Not the exact same one, but you had started growing flowers specifically to make bouquets on your monthly anniversaries. 

My heart is dead 

The bouquets continued, even after marriage. Now, you just added an extra day and made sure the bouquets on your wedding anniversary were extra colorful. It was how you showed him how much you loved him.

He adored this. A lot. It always made his day, even if the day was actual garbage. Coming home to you was always enough to make him happy, but coming home to a bouquet on the table, dinner being cooked, and the sound of you humming...Oh it just made his heart melt. Even after almost five years of it.

They always reminded him of the wedding -- the last time he recalled loving flowers. You had made sure your bouquet was the brightest thing in existence, jokingly saying you wanted the attention to be on that instead of your face. He still scolds you for that. Playfully of course.

I'm such a fool

He couldn’t recall when things started to go downhill. Things had been okay for so long that he didn’t see it at first. He knew you were busy so he never thought much of it when you would come home late.

Until you started coming home drunk.

There were times he would wonder where you were or why you were drinking...But for a while, he didn’t think to ask who you were drinking with. When he found out you and Shane had been growing closer, he got jealous. He knew you wouldn’t leave him, but the anxiety started to build. You were starting to pass out drunk on the way home or you and Shane would fall asleep at the bar.

Of course, he had to confront you about it. Not in a mean way, at least he thought he didn’t.

“It’s not okay for you to be doing that? Do you know how bad that is for you and how bad of an influence he is?”

Wrong answer.

“You don’t even know him. You just cared about making ends meet and didn’t really listen to him.”

Why did I fall for you?

He was grateful you had started to listen to him after that. You came home at night sober, but you began to distance yourself. In fact, you had begun to hang out with everyone but him. You stopped making the bouquets. You stopped giving him gifts. It soon came to a point where he felt like you wanted nothing to do with him. He felt empty and felt he had to make it up to you.

He messed up right? He could fix this...He had to.

I gave it all for you

Dinner every night was a pain, but he did it. He always made sure yours was hot, even when you came home at 1 am. He would be there, taking it out of the microwave. Dishes were always done. The house was always clean and very tidy. Farm was always taken care of. He really worked his ass off to make sure you were happy.

But it wasn’t enough.

You kept pushing yourself further and further from him. It eventually got to the point where you slept on the couch just to avoid him.

It was when he found the letter on your nightstand that he knew there was no fixing this.

So, knowing he wasn’t welcome, he packed his stuff and went back to his apartment above the clinic. Maru, who Harvey had been talking to about everything when things started to go south, helped him get settled back into his old home. She was the one who held him when he cried that night and she was the one who made sure he ate something before bed. She even told him to let her know if she needed to work more at the clinic, not wanting him to be pushed too much.

He was appreciative, but knew his work would be the only thing that would take his mind off of you.

Love around my neck starting to feel like the noose

The words lingered in his head for days. Every sentence filled him with hurt. What had he done wrong? Was he really that boring and unattractive? Should he have just given up at the beginning? Did you ever really love him?

Why did this happen to him?

He lost weight from his loss of appetite. He knew it was unhealthy, especially when people began to notice, but he always said he had started to work a bit harder to get physically fit and the results were starting to show. He didn’t want anyone to know how hurt he really was. Maru knew, and if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have eaten.

He numbed himself to relationships of any kind. He once was very close with his patients, now he just saw them as his next visit. Even with Maru. He only saw her as an employee.

All of the lies starting to feel like the truth

He began to drink. He knew it would hurt him more, but his heart hurt all the time. He had no one to turn to when he really needed to talk, as everyone was asleep by then...But not you. You were always awake. He would hear you stumble out of the bar, laughing with at least one other person. You were drunk too, but you got to enjoy your time. He didn’t.

“Why me?”

At the end of the day, bitch, I'm not feeling you

After so long, he began to get used to the sound of you going home drunk. In fact, it worried him when you didn’t.

It started as just one night, no big deal. But then two...three...seven...twelve…

People began to look worried. No one had seen or heard from the town’s dear farmer in nearly two weeks.

The search parties started. Being himself, Harvey made sure to go. Yes, you hurt him, but by God what he would give for you to just run back into his arms and say how much you love him.

You playing with my heart, you made me look like a fool

He hated that he had been the one to find you. There was no doubt in his mind that you were gone; your skin a gray/blue color and flies around you. What killed you, he didn’t know. Only an autopsy would tell him.

At least until he further examined you.

A rather large wound on your abdomen. It was much too big to be treated on your own, but by the looks of it, you had tried to stitch it closed.

...You died because you refused to go to him for help and bled out...

This, a tragedy, it may end up on the news

The funeral was a sad one. It rained that day. Hard. Everyone in town was there too. Everyone. You had grown so close to everyone in your time away from Harvey. They all cared so much about you and our death hit hard.

It was also at the funeral where he realized how bad he had messed up. You hadn’t just been getting closer to Shane, you were getting closer to everyone. They all said a little bit of the stuff you did for them, mostly just helping out with tasks and small favors. You had started staying with Shane at the bar because he talked more when he was drunk and you had started getting drunk with him because it helped him open up. You were just trying to help him.

And Sam. You were helping him learn how to play cooler songs on the guitar and even showed him a couple cool tricks on the skateboard.

Abigail and Pierre had finally begun to form a bit of a stronger bond because you had been helping them talk through their differences.

You had been doing so much and he basically said you were cheating on him.

So, there he stood, watching the casket be lowered into the hole, and then buried. Many tears were shed. Many. Everyone knew the town wouldn’t be the same without you there. Especially Harvey.

At the end of the day, I don't wanna be with you

It rained today too.

“You still looked beautiful that day.” Harvey said softly, arranging the bouquet in his hand. All the flowers were brightly colored. Not as bright as you would have wished, but he was trying his best. “The flowers just enhanced your beauty.”

He stood in front of the tombstone, a large frown on his face. It had been even years since you had passed now, and he wasn’t doing any better. He still cried a lot, but now, it was more just a feeling. He couldn’t bring himself to get over you.

He slowly set the bouquet down against the silver tombstone, making sure you would be able to see it from the heavens.

“Happy Anniversary (y/n). I’m sorry I wasn’t a better husband to you and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you.” He slipped his glasses off his face and fell to his knees, letting the tears fall. “I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry I didn’t believe you! I’m sorry I let my feelings take over! I’m sorry I couldn’t trust you! I love you so much!”

Loud sobs left his mouth, his tears blending with the rain as they fell to the ground. His heart, for the millionth time, shattered before him.

“Harvey?” A soft voice asked.

The doctor wiped his eyes and turned his head slightly. At this point, everyone had seen him like this. He didn’t care anymore.

It was none other than Abigail behind him, an umbrella above her head and a spare one at her side.

“Hey, it’s okay. We all miss her.” She said and handed him her spare umbrella. “We’re all worried about you too. You aren’t the same.” She sat beside him. “We all arranged something to help you. Come to the saloon so we can tell you, please.”

Harvey looked to Abigail, and then back to the bouquet. You wouldn't want him to be sad. You hated seeing him cry. Maybe this was a sign from you.

“...O-okay...Thank you...Just, give me another moment. I-I’ll be there.” He mumbled, trying to hold back sobs.

Abigail nodded and stood, letting him have a moment while she told everyone what was going on. Harvey sat there a moment longer, wiping his eyes to rid them of the tears. He sniffed once more before saying the same thing he did every year. The poem you had written for him. Part of it at least. It was a reminder to the both of you that he knew he messed up.

“Roses are red...Violets are blue...My heart is...is dead...I...I’m such a fool…”

The tears came back.

“I’m such a fool.”

[dorki-c]

My Guardian Demon| Chapter 1, Part 3: Inheritance

Relationship: Izuku Midoriya X (Reader)

Rating: 16+

A/N: I thought writing this part would be really hard...Nope. Not at all. I’m surprised! I hope you all enjoy!

TW: Brief mention of Fire, Swearing 

[Masterlist] [<— Previous| Next —>]

(Song recommendation for this chapter: All the good girl’s go to hell By Billie Eilish)

PROMPT QUESTION FOR THIS STORY ARC: Are all demons ‘bad’?

“But I’m not giving up on my dream, if you aren’t going to give up on yours.”

Alas, the gloriously golden sun highlighted the features of the old dusk that was soon turning into their new dawn.

(And might I say, if society got in their way, they will pay their dues the hard way.)

The two of them knew they had to paint the sky a fresh light blue, to develop the painting of the environment with creative splatters of white to resemble the clouds.

With the sun almost sliding to horizon’s edge, a cloudy vermillion mist (that was his demon) slipped into the view of the sun, highlighting their features but not letting a shadow smudge the surface of the pretty earth that the star ruled over.

“I know you won’t give up on your dream.” Even from three footsteps away, Izuku could still make out the multitude of voices mixed together. 

“So, I won’t give up on my own dream.” Although, even if one voice is made up of many sounds, that doesn’t mean it can’t resonate with tenacity.

“Got it!”

From a roof top of an apartment building to the lonesome streets below, it was still unbelievable to the middle schooler that he…literally met All Might.

(And that he had learned of All Might’s weakness.)

Nonetheless, after every battle we grow stronger.

(Right?)

------------------------------------

The days of our years always past through fingertips that have soaked in sin.

Yet, those who want to fight are the ones who shoulder said sins like an unlucky medal garnished in pure gold.

And how this medal got passed into Izuku’s somehow capable hand, who knows?

Where the demon stood at the back of the mass of people surrounding them, Izuku was at front of the crowd. A racing horse of many thoughts drowned his selfish needs and his demon’s hopeless demands.

How can he prove to society that he is capable to be a hero?  

How can he do it?

The scene of a filthy crime, the stage was set with a hostage and villain. One of them had manifested as a flaxen haired male, maybe around Izuku’s age? Though the moment the green-haired boy saw a familiar dandelion crackling outlining the big BOOM destroying the landscape around the hostage—he just started moving too fast for his demon’s claws to catch.

(T-That’s—that’s the same villain who attacked him!)

At first, a cold breeze of (what he believes might be) your hands about to catch him. Were you about to halter or allow him to write a new beginning?

(No, you weren’t stopping Izuku. Did you want to see this event play out?)

Sure, when the main act was about to end, maybe another new role can rush in and save the show.

Why were you staying behind? Did you approve of his actions? Izuku thought you hated it when he played the saviour role. Was he wrong?

(Izuku has never been a clairvoyant, however, he can be a saviour.)

Knocking and shoving past the innocently confused bystanders, visions of red scorching the surface of the road, the sight of that same gloopy villain cackling in satisfaction at the catch they managed to reel in.

“None of us have the right quirks to stop a villain like this!” The false heroes would always say.

“I’m not a real hero…” The Symbol of Peace may whisper to himself after saving many people.

“I want to be a hero!” Is the cry of a boy whose been doubted for his whole life.

Will he be successful in his attempt of grabbing “KACCHAN!” out of the sludge after throwing his yellow bag straight at the target?

(He ends up hitting the villain’s eye! Whoop! Whoop! Bullseye! )

If it wasn’t the summer sun of this fateful day.

Then it was the memories of childhood youth coming to ride the sailing riptide of the small green-haired boys kindness.

Where pebbles tumbled down the riverway above the stream of shallow river water travelling downwards was a large tree trunk pretending to be a safe bridge for the five children carelessly bumbling across it.

As the ringleader lost his footing and slipping down, down, down into the small riptide, if it wasn’t for the cicadas- clicking away with their summery sounds whilst they hide in the bushes- then a small splosh of water could’ve sounded like splashing into a large rain puddle.

(But it didn’t, instead the sound was nearly as silent as a dormouse sneaking into your fridge for cheese.)

Underneath Mother Nature’s bridge, casted a shadow blanketing the vermillion mist where the desolate being stood waiting for its owner to notice them, but the owner ignores the mist like he usually did and opts for helping the blonde-haired ringleader.

(He’s always helped people. (Y/n) can’t tell you when he hasn’t helped anybody.)

Extending his chubby baby hands, the green haired boy asked the blonde one “are you alright?” Though the demon knows that Izuku didn’t intend for that sentence to make the other child to narrow their crimson eyes.

However, whoever anybody is, Izuku will always extend a hand.

This does not exempt from his childhood friend, Bakugo Katsuki.

(This is what it means to be a saviour. Not a hero.)

The performance of a brave act had concluded with a boring aftermath.

(Like how can a demon say that watching All Might change the weather was exciting?)

Clobbered around Izuku’s tired form was a few (false) heroes who lectured him about how he should “be careful, because you could’ve easily died” to that villain.

(Though the demon had the audacity to scoff at the shitty remarks, if those heroes did their jobs properly and pulled Bakugo out of the villain’s grasps, then Izuku wouldn’t have had to.)

Let’s not forget, that Izuku was the one who had the guts to do what the heroes couldn’t do and that Bakugou was praised for his bravery.

What ‘bravery’ was there to show? If anything, those vermillion eyes showcased fifty shades of fear and that’s not tipping the iceberg of what those falsities had said about bravery.

(They were only boosting his ego.)

------------------------------------

“Do you think I did the right thing, (y/n)?” Izuku muttered out loud, although his demon was occupied with ignoring the ‘demon therapy’ poster that hung desolate on a lamp post and instead had the goal of catching a freaking butterfly.

When their hand reached out to grab it. They halted, turned towards Izuku, then asked “were you talking” because they were highly busy trying to catch an insignificant insect to notice that Izuku said something out loud.

“N-no! Don’t worr—” A rough, maybe a tad bit too loud of a bark cut Izuku off when he heard the familiar insult of “DEKU!” from the distance.

“Oh god, what does Bakugo want?” Izuku simply shrugged. Nobody really knows what Bakugo wants anymore. Is it validation? Pride? A sense of superiority?

Nobody, not even Izuku’s demon, could make out what he wanted by his little prompt speech about not owing Izuku a dime of gratefulness. With his whole act of calling Izuku a “quirkless failure who wouldn’t cut out to be a shitty rent-a-cop, even if he tried.”

Furthermore, how dare the blonde-haired boy think that Izuku was looking down on him. He first calls Izuku a “weakling” after all he had done, then accuses him that “he did nothing to help,” and then decided to strut off like the moody teenager he is.

(But what if you were mistaken to think he was moody?)

----------------------------------

When passing maybe two, perhaps three corners of rows with houses lined down the sides of the passageways, with boxed in backyards and the sun starting to lay its weary head down for a long desolate nap, Izuku was once again setting his mind straight and into autopilot.

“Hey Izuku?” You were asking the questions and he was answering back with his answers. Usually, you either stayed quiet or screamed at anybody (besides his mom) who dared to touch his precious face, so if he was guessing why you were asking him a question; it was because you were asking him an ‘important’ question (or so you labelled them to be important, because they seriously aren’t).

“Y-Yes (Y/n)?”

And of course, Izuku isn’t clairvoyant, so how would he know that your upcoming question was “what were the colours of the sky?” since your quite forgetful at times.

What? Why were you asking that question again? He’s told you a couple times before “there’s only one colour of the sky, its blue” but knowing you and your airheaded attitude, he has to stay patient. With your small nod to his answer, you seemed satisfied with the small talk until—

“I AM HERE!” Booms behind the green-haired boy (unexpectedly).

If it wasn’t for puberty, then Izuku could’ve lost his voice by the singlehanded scream of “ALL MIGHT! WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?!”

(And what’s the point of saying “I stand for justice!” when you can’t stand up in your hero form for five minutes before spewing blood from your mouth?)

All joking aside, when the pro-hero stood in front of Izuku in his rawest form, he had a statement to say for the green-haired boy.

“Young man, I came here to thank you and discuss your question.” What? All Might was giving up his time and energy to speak to him? A quirkless nobody?

Well…colour his demon’s pointed look at the worn-down man, in the richest colours of a rainbow. What does this pro-hero want with Izuku? .

.

.

“If you hadn’t told me about your life or had run into that fight, then I would have been a worthless bystander.” With the movement of his face allowing the thin-skinned cheek muscles to stretch his lips up to his onyx encircled blue eyes, All Might had presented the most sincerely painful smile he could muster in this small snippet of time.

Though, not surprisingly enough, this caught Izuku off guard. His expression paling as he frantically waved his hands about and only managing to utter the words of “N-no! No! It was my fault to begin with! If I hadn’t wasted your time and made you drop the villain t-then--!”

All Might cutting Izuku off mid-sentence was like a miracle out of the ninth circle of hell for (Y/n).

“I’m not done talking,” Hushing the 14 year old, All Might had continued his statement from earlier, “You told me you were powerless, so when I was standing in the crowd—watching this timid, quirkless kid rush into danger.”

The pro-hero paused in trying to find the right words.

“That inspired me to act as well.”

With a hand on his heart, the moment was truly overwhelming for Izuku.

“AND WITH THAT!”

All Might had poofed back into his hero form as soon as the sent his exclamation out to the world.

“I HAVE DEEMED YOU WORTHY OF INHERITING MY POWER!”

(Wait…what?)

The revelation of what the hero had unveiled to both the green-haired boy and his red demon was very confusing to process.

(And when did heroes become so self-righteous? Like jeez, calm down on that ego of yours All Might!)

Taglist:

@glitterfreezed, @izukubabe​, @sweater-weather-seven, @nyanyabisjjj, @quietlegends, @dragonsdreamoffire​, @candybabey​, @honeylavender13​​

CREDITS:

All content and art used within this story belongs to their respective owners. PLAGARISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!

Art credits: Dorki-C and @glitterfreezed​

[MASTERLIST OF “My Guardian Demon”]​ [MAIN MASTERLIST]

[mikauzoran]

Lila Fake-Dating/Emotional Blackmail Adrienette: Betting Against the House: Chapter Five

Read it on AO3: Betting Against the House: Chapter Five: Parental Support

“I’ll call you when I’m ready to be picked up,” Adrien advised as he climbed out of the car ten minutes later. “Thank you so much for this.”

The Gorilla gave another grunt coupled with a soft smile. He watched to make sure that Adrien made it inside the bakery and then drove off.

Tom was inside, bustling around and cleaning up for the day. He looked up at the sound of the bell above the door ringing and raised a meaty hand in greeting when he spotted his guest.

“Hello there, Son!” he chuckled, smiling with such authentic pleasure at seeing Adrien that it made Adrien want to cry.

His own father was never that happy to see him.

Adrien waved sheepishly. “Good evening, Monsieur Dupain.”

Tom’s eyebrow quirked, and he crossed his arms with an affectionate sigh. The look on his face asked, “How many times have I told you that you don’t have to call me ‘Monsieur’?”

“—er—I mean Tom,” Adrien hastily corrected and had to suppress a laugh as Tom’s face burst back into a pleased grin.

“That’s more like it,” Tom praised, waving Adrien in. “I’m actually shutting down for the night, but take your time and let me know what I can get for you.” He tipped his head towards the tray of unsold baked goods sitting on the counter next to the register. “The selection’s a little slim, but there’re still some worthy pastries left.”

“Oh, thank you, but I’m not here for the pastries,” Adrien assured.

Tom’s smile turned knowing. “Oh? Here for my daughter, then?”

Adrien’s cheeks flooded with vermillion, giving him away. He looked down at his feet, lips pulling into a smitten smile as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Actually, Nino, Alya, Marinette, and I were supposed to be having game night, but I got held up with something, so I’m running a little late.”

Tom nodded, going back to wiping down the glass cases. “Unfortunately, Marinette came home from school not feeling too good. She wouldn’t see Alya and Nino when they came by earlier, so I think game night is off. Sorry no one let you know.”

“Oh,” Adrien gulped, wilting as his face abruptly lost colour. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Marinette wasn’t feeling well.”

He wondered if Tom was privy to the cause of Marinette’s sudden malaise.

“She’ll be okay after a good night’s rest. No need to worry,” Tom reassured, waving away his concern.

“That’s good,” Adrien sighed in relief, hoping Tom was right. “…Well… Is there anything I can do to help while I’m here?” he offered nervously, not sure he could truly be of any use but willing to try.

“Sure,” Tom responded jollily, happy of the assistance. “Thank you very much, Adrien. Much appreciated. If you don’t mind, could you put the chairs up and sweep the seating area? Broom’s behind you to the left, propped up against the case.”

Adrien turned and spotted the broom. “Uh…yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

He’d seen brooms used before. He was pretty sure he had the theory down, so it was all a matter of practical application.

“I just need to finish wiping down the cases,” Tom advised. “After that, if you like, we could head upstairs and play some games together. I’m sure Sabine would join in too. I know we’re not much of a substitute for Marinette, but…”

Adrien paused to stare back at Tom, dumbstruck. “Really? Would that…would that really be okay?”

Tom nodded earnestly, looking like he’d be giving Adrien a clap on the back if he were in range. “Yeah, of course. You’re always welcome here, Adrien. If you don’t mind hanging out with a bunch of old-timers, we’d be happy to have you.”

“That sounds great, actually,” Adrien confessed. “My father’s usually busy, so it can get a little lonely at home.”

“Yeah…I’ll bet,” Tom murmured softly, his heart going out to the young man before him as he remembered the distance between himself and his own father for many years. “I think about you sometimes, all alone in that big mansion…. You should come over more. Maybe come eat with us when your father’s busy with work.”

“I don’t think my father would let me,” Adrien chuckled forlornly. “But thank you so much for the offer. I really appreciate the fact that you even care.”

“Of course I care,” Tom scoffed. “There are a lot of people who care about you, Adrien.”

“Thanks, Tom,” Adrien replied, shooting a grateful smile Tom’s way. “It’s easy to get caught up in what I’m doing and forget sometimes. I appreciate the reminder.”

“Any time,” Tom promised, and then a teasing lilt came into his voice as he added, “But, you know, soon, you’ll officially be my son-in-law, and your father won’t have a say in you coming over for family dinner.”

Adrien burst out laughing at the outlandish thought. “Oh, I wish. Unfortunately, Marinette would have to be a fool to marry me, so I think I’m out of luck there.”

“Nah,” Tom insisted. “You’re a good catch, Son. Don’t be so down on yourself.”

Adrien looked up from the chair he’d just put up and studied Tom intently. “Be straight with me for a second. Do you actually think I have a chance?��

Tom shrugged. “I think it’s fifty-fifty between you and Chat Noir, but don’t quote me on that because I am the father of a seventeen-year-old girl. Seventeen-year-old girls don’t tell their papas anything.”

“So long as I’m in the race,” Adrien replied, trying to keep his effulgent grin under control. He failed pretty miserably and ended up smiling like a loon as he finished putting up the rest of the chairs and won a very close match against the broom.

Maybe, if he could just hold on until university, Lila would lose interest in him, and he could explain everything to Marinette. Perhaps she’d forgive him and let him make amends.

Who knew? Maybe his rotten luck would have mercy on him for once, and she wouldn’t stay mad at him for long. Maybe they could even patch things up by the end of the week.

 “Thanks again for your help, Son.” Tom gave Adrien a pat on the shoulder as they made their way upstairs to the apartment after closing down the bakery for the night.

“I don’t know if I was much help,” Adrien laughed at himself.

Tom rolled his eyes and waved off Adrien’s self-deprecating response. “Sure, you were. You eventually figured out the broom, and you picking up the chairs saved my back the trouble. I’m getting old, Adrien, so every bit helps.”

“You’re not that old,” Adrien snorted. “You’re only in your forties.”

“Still,” Tom laughed, a big, round, boisterous sound that reminded Adrien of his childhood, when things weren’t so lonely and cold. “You helped, so I’m grateful, and I’m proud of you for taking on something new. You kicked that broom’s butt.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Adrien joined in on the laughter, following Tom into the apartment.

“Sabine, look who’s here!” Tom called to his wife.

Adrien couldn’t see her from the doorway, but the simmering and popping sounds coming from the kitchen gave away her location.

Sabine poked her head around the corner, and her eyes widened in alarm when she spotted Adrien.

“Good evening, Madame Cheng,” Adrien greeted tentatively, getting the sinking feeling that Sabine thought she knew exactly of what Adrien was guilty.

“Oh. Adrien…Honey…. I’m afraid that Marinette’s not feeling well, so game night’s been cancelled,” Sabine informed him awkwardly, visibly warring with her dual instincts to be a good host and to get him to leave as soon as possible so that Marinette never had to know that he’d been there.

“Yeah, I let him know,” Tom explained. “I said he could come hang out with us, if he didn’t mind the company of old folks.”

He turned back to Adrien. “Have you eaten yet? You should join us for dinner.”

Adrien looked back and forth between Sabine’s pained expression and Tom’s eager one. “Oh. I…uh—”

“—I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Sabine interrupted urgently. “With Marinette being sick and everything.”

Tom turned to his wife, confusion carving deep trenches into his brow. “Yes, but, Sabine—”

“—I’m sorry, Adrien, but could I please speak with my husband privately for a minute?” Sabine cast Adrien a pleading smile that was a muddled jumble of embarrassment, guilt, and pity.

Reading the atmosphere, Adrien politely bowed out. “Yes, of course. I’ll just step out into the hall.”

He didn’t mean to eavesdrop as Tom and Sabine held their conversation in whispers. His hearing was just uncannily good nowadays since taking up the mantle of Chat Noir.

“What was that about?” Tom demanded, voice dripping hurt and indignance.

“Tom, we can’t have Adrien over right now,” Sabine whispered regretfully, sounding like she really was sorry to turn Adrien away. “Marinette’s mad at him because he started dating Lila Rossi today.”

Tom let out an incredulous snort. “Oh, come on. It’s probably just a publicity stunt that that rotten excuse for a man who calls himself his father is making him do.”

Adrien winced, a ferocious wave of shame crashing down on him at the fact that Tom thought so poorly of Adrien’s father. Adrien knew that Gabriel didn’t always get passing marks in the father of the year competition, but it hurt to know that things were bad enough that even other people could tell that Adrien didn’t have a good home life.

“Adrien doesn’t have feelings for Lila,” Tom continued, oblivious to Adrien’s pain. “He’s over the moon for our Marinette. If she ever asked him out, he’d die of happiness.”

The pallor of Adrien’s face was quickly replaced by a rampant blush. Apparently, Adrien was completely transparent.

Sabine held up her hands, shaking her head. “You know how Marinette feels about Lila. She feels like Adrien’s betrayed her, and she won’t listen to reason, so we can’t have him over until Marinette cools off a little. We need to be on her side in this.”

Adrien’s heart dropped down into his stomach to be corroded away by acid.

He didn’t know what he’d been thinking coming there, and now he was regretting it immensely.

“So, what are we supposed to do?” Tom challenged. “Just send Adrien away? Back to that empty mansion where they keep him prisoner so he can sit around alone until they let him out for school or work?”

“Tom…” Sabine sighed. “I know. I get it. My heart breaks for him too, but…whose parents are we?”

Chastened, Tom’s gaze dropped to the floor.

“I know,” he muttered wearily. “I know you’re right. It’s just…I’m not convinced he has a single person in this world in his corner, Sabine.”

Adrien’s heart cracked.

It felt like his ears were bleeding, and his skin burned.

“Didn’t you just tell me that plenty of people cared about me?” he thought bitterly and then, more sullenly, “It serves me right for listening in.”

Plagg stirred, yanking Adrien out of his dark thoughts.

Without a word, the kwami gave Adrien a look so full of love and support and compassion.

Plagg floated up to nuzzle Adrien’s cheek, and Adrien nuzzled back.

“Thanks,” he whispered, on the edge of tears. “I may not have any people in my corner, but at least I’ve got you, and that’s even better than people, right?”

“You’d better believe it,” Plagg snorted fiercely.

Back in the apartment, Tom kept going: “There’s no one looking out for him, and I just think of when I was young and my mother went away for years at a time and my father stopped talking to me… If I hadn’t had you, Sabine…”

Tom shook his head sadly, and Sabine went over to him, resting supportive hands on his arm and chest.

“I know,” she cooed, patting his arm comfortingly. “I feel for him too. It’s not like we can’t ever be there for him, Tom. Just not right now. We need to focus on Marinette at the moment, and, once things settle down, we can go back to trying to support Adrien. Okay?”

It was quiet for a stretch, and then Tom nodded, heaving a grave sigh. “…Okay. But what are we going to tell him?”

“I will tell him that we’re very sorry, but you didn’t realize how sick Marinette is because you were busy with the bakery when she came home,” Sabine volunteered. “Since she needs her rest, it wouldn’t be a good idea to have people over to play video games right now. I’ll let him know he’s more than welcome to come back some other day once Marinette is feeling better.”

“Okay,” Tom sighed again, raking a hand through his hair. “Tell him I’m really sorry.”

“I will,” Sabine promised.

“And can we at least send him home with some pastries?” Tom pressed, his voice leaking guilt.

“Of course!” Sabine assured, clicking her tongue. “They don’t feed that poor boy enough.”

Adrien quietly slipped away, descending the staircases quickly on cat’s feet. He couldn’t bear to face them. He didn’t think he could get through it without breaking down in tears of shame, so he snuck out of the bakery, locking the side door behind him.

As he executed his escape, he formulated a plan: go to the park next to the bakery and wait there until a suitable amount of time had passed so that he could call Victor to pick him up without having to admit to being kicked out.

The plan didn’t have a very long shelf life.

As he crossed the street to the park, he happened to look back and spotted Marinette up on her balcony, leaning dejectedly on the railing, fiddling with a rose she’d likely clipped from her flowerbox.

He stood there for an eternal moment, just taking in the sight of her, backlit by the nascent moon.

She sighed heavily enough to make her shoulders lift and drop with the force of it, and then her gaze meandered his way.

She gave a little jolt and straightened up in her surprise when she spotted him.

He lifted a hand in tentative greeting, hoping he didn’t spook her.

She huffed and tossed her head, seemingly offended by the gesture.

She dropped the rose, letting it plummet four stories to the dusty Paris street, and turned on her heel, disappearing back down into her room.

He whipped out his phone and hastily typed, “I can explain”, mentally pleading for mercy.

He waited a few seconds, and, when there was no sign of a reply, he added, “By which I mean that I have an explanation, and it’s a good explanation, but I’m not at liberty to share it with you at the moment.”

He pressed send and looked back up at the balcony, bouncing on the balls of his feet in agitated anticipation, holding his breath as he waited for a response.

Still more seconds ticked by without a reply, so he sent, “You’re just going to have to trust me on this one. Please” as he prayed for clemency.

Finally, three ellipsis points appeared on his screen, signaling that she was typing.

He sucked in a sharp breath, his heart fluttering around his ribcage, making him dizzy.

“leave me alone”

“i don’t want to hear your excuses”

“the last thing i need is to get akumatized and let Lila win so just leave me alone”

Adrien was positive that he looked absolutely crushed because he felt like he’d been gutted.

Shuffling his feet like a zombie, he made his way back across the street to scoop up the battered rose Marinette had dropped.

Cradling it carefully to his chest, he sighed, feeling hopeless.

“Don’t throw in the towel yet, Kid,” Plagg encouraged in a whisper from his hiding spot inside of Adrien’s left shoulder.

“What else can I do?” Adrien scoffed ruefully.

“Maybe not much as Adrien,” Plagg conceded, “but your sweetheart isn’t mad at Chat Noir, is she?”

An ember flickered back to life in Adrien’s eyes, and an impish grin rippled across his lips.

“No,” he chuckled. “She’s not, is she?”

[ranger-kellyn]

Do you ever think about how in BOTW Robbie says in his diary he never got to say goodbye to Purah? Like- I can't. I JUST CAN'T! 😭

WHEN I TELL U I THINK ABOUT THAT NEARLY EVERY DAY I AM ONLY BARELY EXAGGERATING

i reFUSE to accept it. i think he lied in his notebook. they all write their journals like they're EXPECTING them to be read. they all LIED and i rEFUSE-

-----

have the extended wip from my very first wip wednesday based on this VERY THING

-----

Slapping her hands over her mouth was all Purah could do to smother her own laughter, watching as Robbie smacked Link in his lower back with his rolled-up notebook.

“I’m starting to think I liked it better when you kept your nose outta things!” Robbie said, huffing and puffing his entire way back to his chair.

“I’m sorry!” Link said, keeping his distance out of swatting range.

Robbie swatted at the air, grumbling again.

Looking over at Link, all Purah could do was grin. “What’cha get into this time, Linky?” she asked.

He crossed his arms, face flushed with embarrassment.

“Journals I never said he could read!” Robbie answered, getting another laugh from Purah.

“How was I supposed to distinguish that from all your other mess of papers that you said I could?” Link asked.

The look Robbie shot her was that of, ‘Can you believe this guy?’

She shook her head. “Now he’s done it to both of us…”

Robbie continued to fuss at Link, all the way until Jerren and Zelda came to his rescue, dragging him along on their trip to Skull Lake to further investigate the shrine that was there.

Given it had been over 100 years since they last saw one another, Purah opted to stay behind with Robbie to continue catching up.

For the both of them, seeing one another after so long was...odd, at best; but in the same breath, odd always accompanied their relationship in some way, pre-calamity and post-calamity, so it wasn’t too hard to find a rhythm with one another again.

On Purah’s end, it was odd seeing Robbie as he was now. As a little old man, with a wife and a kid. (Never mind the part where his wife had been her assistant at one time)

For Robbie, even though he was fully aware of her experiment that had led to her physically reverting to a child, nothing could have prepared him to see her looking almost exactly as she did the day they last saw one another, the only key difference being a lack of dye in her hair and on her nails.

“What was he even getting into, anyway?” Purah asked, setting her cup of tea on the table separating them.

Unrolling the notebook, he leaned forward to place them down, angled to where she could read the first page -an invitation to continue reading if she wanted. “Just an old journal detailing coming out here and whatnot. My fault for having it out, I guess.”

Waiting for him to lean back, she looked down at it. “Can I?” she asked.

He nodded. “Go ahead. Nothing good in there, anyways. Just a lot of guilt,” he said, tugging at her heart.

She knew the feeling all too well. Far too many of her early journals were just detailed rants about the guilt she felt about not having done enough to stop the calamity.

As she began to read the first few pages, a smile tugged at her lips. His writing always tended to be more...poetic. Writing tended to be the only place he ever properly gathered his thoughts, whereas when speaking he could easily get off on one tangent, only to go down six other tangents before finally getting to the point.

It was one of many things that helped them get along, seeing as she was no better in the manner.

“Pushy? Me a pushy woman?” She asked, her grin evident in her tone.

He crossed his arms, returning the grin. “Don’t even pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said.

She rolled her eyes in a playful manner. “I have never been pushy a day in my life. Especially not when it came to you,” she teased.

He chuckled. “Pushiest damn woman I’ve ever worked with,” he said.

When she looked up at him over the notebook, it occurred to him that, a lifetime ago, the look would have been more than enough to drive him mad in only the best kind of way. In only the way Purah ever did.

“Oh, please, you liked it. You wouldn’t have rolled over so easily if you didn’t. Mister Rebel Without A Cause only ever let me push him around,” she added.

“You and now my wife, apparently,” he said, thinking nothing of the comment.

Purah hesitated, re-reading the same line she had been on again. “That’s because I trained her first,” she said.

She re-read the line again, still not absorbing any of the words, too suddenly consumed with the thought of her oldest partner marrying and having a child with her old assistant. An assistant who was fifty years younger than the both of them.

If there was one major drawback of suddenly being so much younger, physically, it was that her emotions had distinctly become harder to control again. All the experience from her lifetime wasn’t enough when faced with a frontal lobe that wasn’t fully developed again.

A frontal lobe that only wanted to scream about how wrong all of it was. A frontal lobe that was competing with the knowledge that the calamity had forced people into odd situations, good, bad, and indifferent.

Robbie and Jerren were merely a product of the calamity; two people making the best of a bad situation neither had any control over and--

She re-read the line for a third time, finally registering a few words.

Though, it was thanks to her third re-read that she realized something: this wasn’t Robbie’s writing.

At least, it wasn’t his writing from when it would have been written.

Despite his hasty nature, his handwriting had always been immaculate. Neat, flowing letters, always in a perfect line even without some sort of paper line to guide him.

This handwriting was...scratchier. Some things didn’t connect the way they would have in the past. It wasn’t like his current handwriting, but it was better…

As she turned the page to continue reading, she hesitated.

Up to that point, she knew his account wasn’t entirely accurate, but had chalked it up to emotions getting in the way.

The way he described their parting, however, was an outright lie.

“Lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice that Dr. Purah had slipped away. I knew Hateno Village wasn't much farther along the road, and that the Calamity had barely touched that area... So I felt safe letting her continue on her own. We parted ways without even saying good-bye, I suppose. Stirring myself back to action, I set out on my own journey back to Kakariko Village.”

Closing the notebook over her finger, she looked up at Robbie. “You and I both know that’s not how we parted,” she said, keeping her voice down, as though there was even anybody to overhear.

He looked away, unable to come up with a response.

“I might have skipped over some details, but I at least implied what happened,” she continued, feeling a distinct ache in her chest, cursing her young body. She had sworn a long time ago she had put all those feelings to rest.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he carefully looked back up at her. “You know I very well couldn't have written out every little detail like some trashy novel-”

“Like I said, I at least implied…” she defended.

Though, there had been a journal, long ago, right after she set up in Hateno, where she detailed everything. From everything the two of them had done, to every emotion she had forced herself to hold back from saying.

The guilt she felt from burning it in the ancient furnace nagged at her now and then.

“Don’t know why I’m trying to keep secrets after 100 years.” He adjusted himself to be more comfortable in his chair. “That’s an amended version, Cherry.”

From the other room, she just barely heard the Ancient Oven stir to life, a low grinding sound as it moved around.

Despite herself, she felt a shiver run up her spine. It had been a long time since she last heard that nickname. A nickname he had given her after she first put the red streak in her hair. A nickname she only allowed him to use.

A nickname she realized he had omitted from the journal -something he would have never done in the past.

She leaned forward again to put the notebook back in its place, her desire to read any more thoroughly quashed. “You never told Jerren about us, did you?” she asked.

“No, but in my defense, you never did, either,” he said.

“No, but I didn’t knock her up and marry her, did I?” she asked, not holding back any of the bite.

He seemed to flinch at her words.

Over 100 years later, and she could still get a rise out of him; always knowing just how to get under his skin.

And like 100 years ago, no matter how much he wanted to fight back, he rolled over.

“Jerren wasn’t even born by the time you and I had to part ways. There wasn’t a point in bringing it up,” he said.

She’d rather he just punch her in the gut.

She wanted to fight back. To yell. To lay into him for making her think that what they had never actually meant anything.

For the life of her, she couldn’t. No words would come out.

Robbie breathed a laugh. “I know that look, Cherry.” She wanted to tell him to drop the nickname. “Whatever you’re overthinking, don’t overthink it.”

She rolled her eyes, pushing herself back into her chair. “Easy for you to say. You’ve got an old man's brain! I’m over here stuck with my dumb twenty-something brain that is determined to bring up every dumb emotion I swore up and down I had buried!”

He was silent for an uncomfortably long time.

Staring at the fire crackling away in the fireplace, she nearly jumped when he said her name.

“Humor me. Come with me a minute,” he said, sliding off his chair.

She said nothing, but stood to follow him.

He led them back into the main room, where the Ancient Oven turned to greet them, their weird voice tone still grating to Purah’s ears.

“Greetings, Dr. Robbie and FamiliarNameMissing,��� they said.

Robbie chuckled, regarding the machine with a look that was probably uncomfortably soft for just about anyone else. Purah, however, remembered the look well. He had always been attached to the guardians they had drug into the Royal Research Lab, giving each of them individual names.

At the time, she pretended to think it was stupid, but, secretly, she had known all the names he had given them.

“My pride and joy, the Ancient Oven. Few things I love more in life,” he said.

She breathed a laugh, uncrossing her arms.

“Jerren, though...hates it,” he continued, getting another laugh from Purah.

“Kinda figured that. The way the poor thing sprung to life after Link finally replaced the blue flame told me it hadn’t been on for a while,” she said.

It had been rather sweet; Link not even needing to be asked to do it. The second they arrived, he saw that the outside furnace wasn’t lit, and headed off without prompt. The personality adjustment was still new to everyone, but he still had his core, endearing qualities.

“Ancient Oven wasn’t her original name,” Robbie continued. “And well...I suppose you deserve the truth.”

The machine looked between the both of them, Purah now regarding her...differently.

“Ancient Oven, what’s your name?” he asked.

She focused on him. “My name is simply Ancient Oven,” she responded in her odd cadence.

He shook his head. “What’s your real name? The name I gave you?” he clarified.

She hummed for a second, a slow grind of her gears. “My name is Cherry.”

There had been considerable heat emitted from the machine before, but Purah was positive the heat she was now feeling was from her own flush.

“Why are you named that?” Robbie asked.

“I am named after the first woman you ever loved...” The machine almost seemed to hesitate.

Maybe it was a part of her programing to acknowledge everyone within her vicinity while talking.

Maybe it was pure happenstance.

Maybe the machine somehow knew.

“Cherry,” she concluded, looking straight at Purah.

If she was flushed before, she was having a full-on hot flash now.

“Don’t misunderstand me. I love Jerren dearly. I love the son she gave me more than life itself...but there will always be a part of me that belongs to you.”

Run.

She wanted to run.

She wasn’t sure what was making it so hard to breathe. The heat from Cherry, her own flush, or the knowledge that she could say the very same to him.

She wanted to cry.

“I’m sorry-- I shouldn't be here,” she said, turning on her heel to leave.

“Purah-”

“No, no- I shouldn't be here. This was stupid- I’m so fucking stupid-- I knew coming here would do this! I knew seeing you would do this,” she said, ranting her way to the door. She didn’t even bother going back for her coat, or anything else she didn’t have on her person. Zelda and Link could grab it for all she cared. She needed to get out.

“Purah, please,” he pleaded, following her to the door.

The midday air outside was far cooler thanks to the constant breeze coming off the ocean.

She looked around, searching for Mule among the horses in the nearby holding pen.

“Maybe I should have left without saying goodbye! I knew it then-- I should have made you hate me! Getting you to hate me- I should have. I should have done it.” She nearly tripped down the stairs, barely catching herself in time.

“You know damn well I could never hate you. I only ever lo-”

She instantly reared on him, talking over him so she didn’t have to hear that word. “Don’t! Don’t say it! Don’t you fucking say it!” she yelled.

Words that were all too familiar.

Words she said before.

Her eyes began to sting as she fought back tears. “I don’t care if you don’t feel it now, but don’t you dare tell me you felt it then!”

He waved his hands in exasperation. “Why? What is so damn bad about hearing me tell you how I felt?” he asked.

“Because you just don’t get it! You don’t get how pathetic I feel because I never got over you! I never moved on! I promised you I wouldn’t let you hold me back, but I lied to both of us! For over 100 years, I never moved on! I’m pathetic!” she yelled.

Only the wind dared to break the silence that followed. A soft rustle of the spring leaves. A sound far softer than her confession.

It took everything in her to not crumble in on herself. “You just don’t get it, Robbie. Maybe it was easier for you to move on, but I just...I never could.”

He grabbed a hold of the railing, but made no motion towards her. He only looked pained. “I don’t know what to say here, Purah. Nothing I can think of will make you feel better.”