#i had this realization and i felt my neurons shift just a little. just Enough. FUCK

[moopsy-daisy]

Wait, it was OCD the Whole Time??

That common moment, all too universal, when you connect a behavior in your present to an event in your past. I've spent YEARS trying to find a spiritual spot to land, trying out deities and faiths in earnest. Every time, I might find a little comfort but ultimately it would ring hollow. I'd move on to the next inspiration.

Last night, at the holy hour of 4am - when all the strangest things happen - some of my neurons fired together and now my self-image has shifted. Even dreamt of earthquakes after, though that might've had to do with my partner climbing into bed while I was asleep.

"Give your worries to God, and if you're sincere, His Grace will free you from your fears."

That's what they told me when I was growing up. I heard it a few different ways, but it always came back to the idea that if your faith is strong enough, you won't fear anything.

Except, I was Always Scared.

No amount of thinking or praying or Bible reading worked for more than 5 minutes, if that. Fear coursed through my veins at all hours, shocked me from my sleep, and began to eat my entire life. I trusted the people who told me that prayer should work, so I Tried Harder. It had to be my fault. I sat on the floor, weeping over my Bibles, and begged the Man in the Sky to take the fear away. Please, make me a better person. (And maybe I could have a boyfriend someday, too? I was shooting for the stars, I guess.)

It never worked. Eventually, I left Christianity behind, and thought I was none the worse for wear. I hadn't grown up Evangelical, after all. My parents followed shortly after, recognizing that the faith wasn't serving them, either.

Still, that ember of belief, the idea if I could woo god into helping, had burned deep into my subconscious. I had to be a better person. If I was righteous enough, I could protect myself from everything, climate change to cancer to capitalism. If I executed Zero waste, vegetarianism, composting, obsessing over every kind of plastic in my life. Second guessing every food, tallying my sins so I could erase them. I wanted to be beyond reproach, to sweep away my carbon footprints and to be a Good Person.

Eventually I figured out that individual action wouldn't fix the problems I saw. No amount of composting would protect me from a snowstorm. The Good Place's Chidi showed me that my worrying wasn't helping. I eased up on myself, kept what worked, and bought some bacon. (Therapy also helped. Therapy's great.)

In recent years, I felt something was missing. I figured that the spiritual people in the world had a peace and joy that I, too, should be able to achieve if I just found the right faith. That little ember of belief still glowed somewhere in the back of my mind. So, I tried again. I've been to temples in the United States and abroad. I had experiences that were beautiful, I learned amazing things and I regret none of it. And I never, ever got what I actually wanted.

I didn't realize it until last night, at 4am, but all I ever wanted was a Cure. Some belief that would make my brain stop hurting me. There had to be some reason God was ignoring me.

Finally, I can stop searching. There is no faith that works the way an SSRI does, or thyroid medication, or a SIBO test. Only medicine can make my brain calm down. Only medicine could tell me that my pain came from food intolerance and not character flaws. (Yes, I believed that excruciatingly painful diarrhea was a weakness of my character. I just needed to learn to relax, I told myself. After all, I could digest milk and wheat just fine. Oh honey, no.)

Now, I've got to come to terms with what being faithless will mean for me. I'll still dabble in witchcraft, because spicy placebo psychology helps while I'm waiting to see my doctors. I'll still read about sociology and culture.

There's a hungry habit that wants to reach for answers, to keep looking. I'm going to treat that like my other compulsions instead of indulging it. The next time I'm tempted to dive into a faith system, I'll go get my coloring books or sewing machine. I'll make my world better by living my life, instead of looking for a God who will finally take pity on me.

I hope reading this long ass post helps someone feel less alone. Fuck, I hope it helps me remember that 4am epiphany when things inevitably get hard again.

[noteguk]

a little while | kth | m

↳ inspired by the song “a little while” by yellow days. 

— summary; in which Taehyung realizes that he was wrong in thinking that being friends with benefits with you wouldn’t backfire. 

— contents and warnings; angsty smut!!, pretty much pwp, taehyung is emotional, fwb au, Taehyung x reader, protected sex, dirty talk (honestly like one sentence), unrequited feelings, kind of soft sex :( taehyung is whipped and sad about it 

— words; 2k

— author’s note; I’ve been feeling kind of stuck with my other wips so I wrote this drabble to unwind :) idk if I plan to write more of it but who knows!!! My two functioning neurons are very unpredictable. 

That was supposed to be easy. 

That was all that Taehyung could think about: you two, whatever you had going on; that was supposed to be easy. It was the whole point of even starting something like that in the first place. It was the entire motive behind why anyone would ever accept a friend with benefits — no strings attached, no clingy calls, no emotional baggage. It was supposed to be a quick situation, convenient; Taehyung was supposed to see you every once in a while, maybe even forget about you, until he decided that he wanted to get his dick wet again. 

It was supposed to be easy. 

“Is this okay for you?” Taehyung asked, leaning a bit closer to your face. He loved staring at you like that: with your hair sprawled on the pillow and your pouty lips inviting him into a kiss. He had grown used to having you under him, and it had quickly become one of his favorite pastimes. “Want me to go faster?” 

You shifted around under him, your hands moving up to rest on his shoulders. “It’s alright, I like it slow too.” 

And he could only nod, because his mind was thinking too many things that he could not say. It was supposed to be fucking easy, but somewhere along the way, Taehyung had ruined everything. It was just a matter of time before the whole situation went up in flames and he managed to lose both his friend and what might just be the love of his life in one go. 

Because Taehyung had broken the first and most important rule of having a friend with benefits: whatever you do, don’t catch feelings. 

And now he was rocking into you slowly, sensually, actually making love to you instead of the way he usually fucked — fast, rough, with your loud moans filling his lungs until he found his high. It was ridiculous. He felt nauseous. 

Worst part was that he was almost sure you didn’t feel the same — and the “almost” was because there was a small fragment of hope inside his chest that really tried to convince him that he had a shot. That maybe the way you looked at him showed something beyond hunger and lust. Maybe you actually cared for him. Maybe you wanted more and you weren’t brave enough to tell him. 

“Actually, could you go a bit faster?” 

Your voice shot him straight back down into reality. Taehyung only nodded, mumbling something that not even he understood before burying his face on the crook of your neck and raising the speed of his thrusts. The world around him felt suffocating and confusing, not even your honeyed moans against his ear could raise his spirit. 

Still he tried to ground himself, his hands digging to your hips as he closed his eyes, focusing on the drag of your walls against his cock. The feeling was overwhelming, dizzying, earned a low groan from him as he continued to fuck you like you deserved to be fucked. Taehyung managed to pretend that everything was alright for exactly two minutes before you spoke up again. 

“God, that feels so good,” you cried out. His cock throbbed inside you at your words, his mind spinning at the sensation of you growing tighter. Taehyung was obsessed with you in every way, completely enthralled by how your body reacted to his, so eager to feel more. “Want you to kiss me, Tae.” 

You always asked that when you were getting close and Taehyung was always fast to do it. His lips were on yours before he could even think about it, his tongue crawling inside your mouth as he groaned against the kiss. God, he could make out with you forever, it wasn’t even a joke. 

Taehyung was absolutely whipped and that was a problem. 

He removed one hand from your hips and trailed it down your arm slowly, reaching your hand and intertwining his fingers in yours. He moaned against your mouth, feeling his orgasm building up on the base of his spine, and pressed your hand down on the mattress as he continued to bury himself inside you. 

“Tae,” you sobbed his name so beautifully that he swore he could cum right at that instant. “I’m so close.” 

“It’s okay, baby, you can let it go,” he said, his voice so deep that you felt it vibrating inside your chest. “I got you. Cum on my cock for me. Wanna feel you.”

And you did, because it was like the universe was mocking him about how perfect you could be. Taehyung groaned — both in pleasure and in frustration — as your pussy clenched around his aching cock, your thighs trembling on either side of his body while you cried out his name. It was a flawless melody composed just for him: your voice dancing in the air, the lewd sounds of your wetness as he continued to thrust in and out of you. 

Taehyung, just to top it all off, committed the huge mistake of actually making eye contact with you as you came down from your high. It suddenly was too much: your hooded eyes, your parted lips, the blissful expression that covered your features. You were too much. 

“Fuck, baby,” Taehyung cursed. He closed his eyes, paying full attention to his growing pleasure. “You’re so beautiful.” 

He didn’t really mean to confess that out loud, but you didn’t seem to mind. You smiled, that gorgeous, drowsy smile you always gave him after he had made you cum, and Taehyung swore he was in heaven. “Are you gonna cum?” You asked, earning an eager nod in return. His hair was a mess over his eyes, sweaty and disorganized, covering his gaze as he looked down to see where the two of you met. You were made for him, your pussy was made for him, and he couldn’t take that idea out of his mind. “It’s okay, Tae, you can cum.” 

Again, the universe was mocking him, because within a few seconds he was doing just that. Taehyung pressed his forehead against your shoulder and spilled himself inside the condom, wishing profusely — pretending, almost — that the latex barrier wasn’t there, and that he was filling you up with his cum instead, making you his. And that was enough to prolong his high a little further, his cock throbbing as he dove into that fantasy. 

But, eventually, it had to end. 

The silence that followed was thick and overbearing, but comfortable regardless. Most of the time it went like that: with the two of you basking in the afterglow of your orgasms, drowning in the heat of one another without saying a word. Taehyung did not know what went on inside your head, but he knew that he needed those few seconds of silence to reset his thoughts, to try and bury the emotions that ever so gradually started to build up. 

Basically, he had to take a moment to remind himself that he had absolutely no chance with you. 

You sighed deeply, your fingers diving into Taehyung’s soft locks. He had collapsed against your chest, trying to regain his breath and, at the gentle caresses of your fingers, you felt his heart leap inside his chest, pounding against your skin. 

“That was nice,” you said daintily. He only hummed in agreement, worried he would slip and say something he didn’t mean to. “I have to go, though.” 

Just like that, Taehyung felt like he just got stabbed in the fucking jugular. He whipped his head away from your chest faster than he could think (after all, he should’ve enjoyed a few extra seconds of boob time if he had the chance) and his mouth fell open for a moment before his words finally came out. “Don’t— Don’t you wanna stay the night?” 

If you thought that his plea was desperate, which it was, you didn’t let it show. You smiled, leaning back to you could shift into a seating position on the bed. The two of you were facing each other then, so close and yet miles apart. “I don’t think I have the energy for round three,” you answered playfully. 

Taehyung had two conflicting answers fighting in his head. The first one was that it wasn’t for sex, something along the lines of “actually, I might be in love with you and I don’t want you to go”; the second one was the one that you wanted to hear: “it’s okay, I’ll do all the work anyways”. And, yet, as the brave battle continued inside his mind, he was left to stare in silence as you jumped out of the bed and started seeking for your clothes.

“Besides,” you continued, “I have that research presentation tomorrow.” 

Oh yeah, that stupid research thing. The reason why you had to schedule that Emergency Unwinding Session with Taehyung in the first place. His initial bliss, but his final demise. How poetic. 

“It’s fine, I get it.” Taehyung watched your little wiggling dance as you placed your pants back on. He would’ve teased you about it if his heart wasn’t in absolute shambles. “Can I see you later tomorrow, then?” 

You didn’t even hesitate to twist the blade. “Won’t happen. It’s Yongsun’s birthday and we are going to this fancy sushi bar downtown,” you said. The universe truly hated Taehyung and you were completely dressed by the time you leaned in to place a kiss against his forehead. “But we’ll figure something out. I owe you a third round.” 

Taehyung forced out a laugh, trying to brush away the storm cloud over his head. However, he couldn’t even convince himself that he was fine. “Sure. We can figure it out.” 

You hummed and ran your fingers through your hair, trying to make it a bit more presentable. “I have the copy of the keys that Jimin gave me, so you don’t have to worry about locking the door. Just go to sleep and I’ll lock it on my way out.” 

Taehyung simply nodded because he seriously didn’t think he could say anything without completely confessing his emotions. They were so bottled up that he felt them building up in his throat, like a shaken bottle of soda about to explode. 

“See you, Tae. Thanks for tonight,” you said on your way out of his room. 

He responded with a timid, “See you,” that he was a hundred percent sure you didn’t even hear. A few seconds later, the sound of his front door closing was like thunder echoing around his empty room. 

Taehyung sighed and threw himself back against the mattress, covering his eyes with the palm of his hand. He was so fucked. So fucking whipped. He just wanted to scream against his pillow until it all went away, but he knew that it wouldn’t. He couldn’t confess to you because he was sure that you didn’t feel the same, and he couldn’t let you go because he was selfish: he wanted you one way or another, even if he had to disguise his emotions and pretend that everything was fine. 

He removed his hand from his face and stared up at the white ceiling, at the slices of moonlight that came from his open window. Taehyung decided that he would just continue faking that he was fine with the idea of being friends with benefits with you. But could he do it? Could he keep it up? For how long? Taehyung had endured those acting sessions for a bit too long then, and he didn’t know how much he could take before he reached his breaking point. 

He groaned and rolled around on the bed. He just wanted to sleep. 

That was supposed to be easy.

[spacexcowgirl]

I’d Lie - G.W.

George Weasley x Reader

Summary: Y/N fell for her best friend, but she can’t let him, or anyone else, know that.

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Alcohol usage/intoxication, swearing, mentions of food, LOTS of pining and unrequited love, I don’t think there’s anything else?

A/N: This is a song fic inspired by the wonderful unreleased song “I’d Lie” by Taylor Swift! mmmm this is my first fic without a *happy* ending and boy does that make me sad. But do not worry I quite literally already have a second part planned oops. Pictures are from Pinterest.

message to be added to tags :)

I don’t think that passenger seat 

Has ever looked looked this good to me

He tells me about his night

And I count the colors in his eyes

Y/N distracted herself with her fingers, tangling and untangling them and cracking her knuckles. It was all she could do to stop herself from completely ogling the boy sitting beside her on the couch. He was positioned towards her, one leg bent at the knee and resting between them on the couch. His hands moved back and forth wildly as he spoke, recounting some story that had happened during quidditch practice that night.

“Are you even listening?” George cut himself off, his tone light. When Y/N snapped her head up to look at him, she found that he was smiling, but still he looked a bit offended.

“‘course I’m listening.” Y/N reassured quickly, her eyes finally meeting his. That was all it took, and suddenly she was being reeled into those chocolate brown eyes, drowning in their various shades and hues, with no way out.

Y/N wasn’t sure when her feelings for her best friend shifted from friendly to something more. It was as if one day his messy hair transformed from something to giggle and roll her eyes at to something to swoon over. When his pranks made her admire his genius rather than scold the disturbance they caused. When his incessant teasing shifted from mild annoyance to exuberant joy from receiving any attention from him. Of course, these shifts all happened slowly, over a period of time, but the realization of them hit Y/N all at once. She was head over heels for the boy, and she hadn’t even realized she had been falling.

If she didn’t know any better, she’d be convinced that someone was slipping her a love potion. Or, maybe, she just hoped that, because Godric would it be less embarrassing than the reality of things. Because the reality was, Y/N really had just fallen for George Weasley, no potions or gimmicks needed, and while she was irrevocably in love with him, he had no clue. 

“Seems like you zoned out for a second,” George lightly nudged her with his elbow, although a glowing smile remained illuminated on his face. “What’s on your mind?”

“Just…” Y/N racked her brain for an excuse, something believable, because she knew George could always see right through her. “Just classes, I guess. Umbridge. All of it. I guess I’m just stressed out.”

“So you’ve been letting me carry on about quidditch?” George sounded shocked, but his teasing smile was comforting. “Please, love, if you need something to take your mind off things, you should’ve just said so.”

Without Y/N even having to tell him what she needed, he was up and off the couch, rushing towards the boys’ dormitory steps. Y/N only had a moment to furrow her brows, before George was rushing back down them with a jumper in one hand and a bag of sugar quills, her favorite, in the other. Y/N exhaled a deep sigh, before the involuntary glow and warmth overtook her. Because no matter how much she longed to only view George as a friend, everything about him permeated her subconscious, lamenting and solidifying his place as more.

He’ll never fall in love he swears

As he runs his fingers through his hair

I’m laughing ‘cause I hope he’s wrong

Y/N and George walked side by side down the corridor, laughter bubbling from both of their chests. Y/N adored moments like these, when she could forget everything for just a moment and just bask in the presence of her favorite person. Ultimately, they always were ruined by her feelings hitting her like a truck, or by someone coming to steal him away, so she always tried to live in those few peaceful moments for as long as she could.

George nudged her with his elbow after making a joke, and just as she was about to respond she noticed the change in his demeanor. He was no longer laughing, but instead a small smirk had appeared on his face as he nodded a few feet ahead of them. Y/N followed his gaze, her eyes landing upon his twin brother leaned casually against the wall. In front of him was Angelina, his girlfriend, rocking on her heels as she giggled at something he said.

“Sickening, aren’t they?” George prodded, shaking his head a bit as Fred swooped down to steal a kiss on her lips.

“I think they’re cute.” Y/N tugged her books into her chest, tilting her head to the side as she watched the love-stricken couple. Angelina could have a tough exterior, and Fred could be a lot to handle, but they just got each other so well. Y/N would never say it aloud, but she envied them.

“You would think so,” George scoffed lightly. “You don’t have to listen to him ramble on about her every bloody second of the day.”

“Maybe you’re just jealous.” Y/N teased, turning her body away from the couple to face George instead.

“Hardly.” George rolled his eyes, shifting his books into one arm. He slowly raked his fingers through his newly cut hair as he spoke again, entrancing Y/N entirely. “Love’s just not in the cards for me right now. Someone’s gotta worry about products, and about making Umbridge’s day as awful as possible.”

Y/N laughed at his joke, although she felt a little sting in her heart. Sure, he had said ‘right now,’ and perhaps that should have incited some hope in her, but it didn’t. It just made her chest ache. She knew it was foolish, but she couldn’t just drop it. She had to push on, test her luck and hope that George would offer her any sort of solace.

“Come on, I think it would be nice.” Her voice was quiet, and she found she suddenly couldn’t meet his eyes. “Someone you could share everything with? Yanno, they could just be like… your person.”

George seemed to mull over her words for a moment, before swinging his arm around her shoulder and continuing to push down the corridor.

“Well, I already have you for that, right?” George beamed down at her. “Why would I need a girlfriend? You’re already my person.”

Y/N was certain her heartbreak could be heard throughout the school.

He looks around the room

Innocently overlooks the truth

Shouldn’t a light go on?

Doesn’t he know that I’ve had him memorized for so long?

The party was in full swing, blinding lights and near deafening music. It was risky, what with Umbridge slinking around every corner, desperate to give students a detention, but they needed this. Something about this year felt different, and not in a good way, and Fred and George knew one of their infamous parties was just small way to lift spirits.

Y/N scanned the crowd of people, nursing sips of her firewhisky every few moments. Parties weren’t necessarily her thing, but she couldn’t deny that she needed to unwind. As her eyes finally fell upon their desired target, she couldn’t help the warmth that bubbled in her chest or the smile that involuntarily rose on her lips. Once George met her gaze, he shot her a wink and beckoned her over, and she was quick to oblige.

“Having fun, darling?” George rested his weight against her, clearly much more drunk than she was.

“A bit,” Y/N giggled. “Not as much as you, I reckon.”

“What’s that s’pose to mean?” George slurred, giving her a drunken pout. 

“Nothing, nothing,” Y/N teased innocently, shifting her weight to better support the boy. She wrapped an arm around his back, using it to steady both him and her. “Maybe you should lay off the drinking for now though, what d’ya think?”

“Fineeeee.” George elongated the last vowel before grinning down at the girl. “Always taking care of me, aren’t you?”

Y/N hummed in response, a small smile of her own growing as she felt her cheeks begin to heat up. “What would you do without me?”

“Hm. Probably die. Fred’s doing, no doubt.” He leaned down to rest his head against the top of hers, shutting his eyes for a moment as he centered himself. “Honestly though, I’m really thankful for you. I don’t think I say that enough.”

Drunk George was always a bit sappy, but Y/N certainly wouldn’t complain. His words felt like a shock flowing through her nervous system, hitting every neuron and sparking her to life. Alternatively, she also felt completely useless in producing a response.

“Godric, I really do have the best friend in the world.” He hummed.

And just like that, the shock was sucked from her body and she was left feeling nothing but empty.

He sees everything black and white

Never let nobody see him cry

I don’t let nobody see me wishing he was mine

Y/N had searched for George for hours. After Gryffindors win over Slytherin, what should have been a wonderful celebration quickly went south. Y/N had watched from the stands as three team members held Fred back and Harry loosely clung to George, as both boys attempted to charge Draco. Of course, she couldn’t hear whatever he said that got the two so worked up, but from the look on George’s face she was certain it must have been bad. Everything seemed to move in slow motion once she saw Harry let go of George, and she watched with bated breath and wide eyes as  he lunged at the Slytherin boy.

Of course, she had heard about the twins’ and Harry’s lifetime ban from Quidditch, and she knew George must be feeling awful now. So, she had to find him. Even if he didn’t want to see her, or anyone, she had to be there for him.

She had checked just about every spot in the castle she could think of, sighing profusely each time that she came up empty. Fred and George knew the hidden corridors and passageways of the school better than anyone, and she was certain he had used that to his advantage. 

Just as she was about to give up, she decided to check one last spot that she knew of. She crept slowly up to the seventh floor, careful to make sure no one was following her. She paced back and forth three times, just as she had been taught, and breathed a sigh of relief when the door appeared. Quietly, she pushed it open, and her breath hitched in her throat when she caught sight of the familiar head of red hair. She had found him.

It didn’t appear he had heard her come in, and she used that to her advantage as she slowly surveyed the room. She felt her heart shatter into a million pieces as she took in the familiar sight of the burrow living room and heard George’s quiet sobs from his place before the fire. After the day he had, all he wanted was the warmth of his home.

“Georgie?” Y/N whispered quietly, letting the door shut behind her. 

Immediately, George straightened up and wiped at his eyes. She had never seen him cry before, and she knew there was a reason for that. Fred and him both felt they had to be strong all the time, they had to be the ones cracking jokes and making people laugh even when it was hard for them. When he glanced back, his face was red and splotchy, but a forced smile was plastered on his face.

“Hey, darling.” His voice sounded scratchy, and it was clear it was taking all of his power to keep it together. Y/N could see that his lip was busted, illuminated by the fire, and she wanted nothing more than to cup his face in her hands and nurse him back to perfect health. “Reckon you saw the fight earlier?”

“Your lip…” Y/N spoke softly, approaching him with tentative steps. She didn’t have the capacity to answer his question, not when he looked so broken and beaten down.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” George swiped his thumb over his lip, and Y/N didn’t miss his slight wince. “You should see the other guy.”

“You don’t have to do that.” She finally reached him, taking her place beside him on the carpeted floor. “You don’t have to joke and pretend everything’s fine, not with me.”

George studied her for a moment before a shuddering breath left his lips. As the tears began to pool once more, he could no longer meet her eyes. And that killed her.

“I don’t know why I’m letting this get to me so much.” He spoke, sounding entirely disappointed in himself. “But, the things he said, about my mum, my family. And then Umbridge…” His words cut off as the tears began to roll down his cheeks once more.

“I’m so sorry, George.” Y/N reached out and gently cupped his cheek, allowing her thumb to brush a few tears away. When he leaned into her touch, her heart soared. “You don’t have to shut yourself off, though. I’m here for you, always.”

“I know.” His voice was soft as he squeezed his eyes shut, willing the tears away.

Slowly, Y/N leaned forward and brought her forehead to his, letting her eyes shut as well. Her hand drifted from his cheek to the back of his neck, gently playing with the hairs at the base of it. The action seemed to calm him a bit, so she continued to do it. By the light and warmth of the fire, the two sat in silence. Neither needed to say anything, they just wanted to be near each other. 

“I love you, you know that?” George was the first to break the silence, not bothering to open his eyes or pull away from her touch.

“I know.” Y/N spoke quietly. “And I love you too.”

And Godric, did she mean it. But she was aware that they meant it in entirely different ways, and that George had no idea.

He stands there, then walks away

My God, if I could only say,

“I’m holding every breath for you.”

Months had passed since that night in the room of requirement, and while so much had changed, so much had stayed the same as well. Y/N had felt herself drifting from George everyday, and not because either of them wanted to. George and Fred were leaving, Y/N knew that, and they had to get everything in order to do so. So, Y/N had to push through everyday with him no longer constantly by her side, and she swore it was killing her.

A few nights prior, he had let her know that this was it, that him and Fred were really doing it. She had faked a smile, excitedly throwing her arms around his neck as she expressed how proud she was. And she was proud, but her chest ached and she swore she felt her stomach in her throat. It was selfish, sure, but she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to get through the year without him.

Now she stood in the corridor outside of the great hall, bouncing nervously on her heels as she watched him say his goodbyes to Lee. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but there was already a stinging behind her eyes and she feared no matter how hard she tried to keep her emotions at bay, it would be futile. 

When George finally turned and took a few long strides to where she stood, her fears were confirmed. Her tears spilled involuntarily as she threw herself into his arms, burying her face in his chest.

“Hey, none of that,” George pleaded softly, gently scraping his fingers up and down her back. “You know I’ll write the second that I’m out of here, and it’s only a short bit before you graduate and I see you again.”

“I know, it’s just…” Y/N sniffled, forcing herself to imprint the moment in her brain. She wanted to remember his scent, and the way it felt to be wrapped up in his arms, and the sound of his voice. Perhaps it was cheesy, or overdramatic, but Y/N could feel her heartbreaking by the second, and holding onto ever piece of him that she could was the only thing keeping her together. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, darling.” George chuckled softly. He pulled back slowly, planting his hands on her shoulders as he looked down at her. “You’ll be out of here before you know it, I promise.”

“You’re right, I know.” Y/N sniffled, wiping at her tears before finally meeting the boy’s gaze. The look he was giving her made her knees weak, and she found herself wanting to spill all of the contents in her heart to him.

He studied her face for a moment longer, but then Fred was calling his name and they both knew it was time. He gave her shoulders a soft squeeze and pulled her into a hug one last time, placing a kiss to the top of her head. Nothing further needed to be said, so he gently ruffled up her hair and gave her a reassuring smile, before turning back towards Fred and beginning to walk away.

The moment was ending, he was really leaving, and she hadn’t told him how she felt. Her heartbeat started to pick up, and her palms began to feel sweaty, because it felt as though it were now or never. She wanted to tell him. She had to tell him.

“George!” She called out, causing him to halt and whirl back around.

“Yeah?” He smiled warmly at her, a few paces ahead.

As she gazed into his blissfully unaware chocolate brown eyes, she found that she just couldn’t. She couldn’t drop this on him, not on one of the most important days of his life. So, she bit down on her lip before shaking her head and forcing a smile.

“Give us a show, yeah?”

“Always do.” George winked.

And just like that, he walked away. And Y/N was left feeling entirely empty.

First thought when I wake up

Is “My God, he’s beautiful.”

So I put on my make-up

And pray for a miracle

Months had passed since the fateful day that the Weasley twins left Hogwarts behind. Just as Y/N had predicted, her time left at the school dragged on horribly. Umbridge only seemed to get worse, even in the twins’ absence, and George was no longer there to comfort her. Still, she pushed through.

After graduation, Y/N was quick to get a job at a coffee shop in Diagon Alley, figuring she’d save up her money while she determined what she wanted to do. It wasn’t the worst job, but with the Wizarding World getting darker by the day, she felt constantly in fear. Still, George was close by, and she once again had him for comfort. 

Most nights she’d crash on the twins’ couch, finding it easier to get up in the early mornings and go in to work than staying with her parents in the suburbs. Which usually meant waking up to George preparing breakfast, sleep thick in his voice and his hair still messy. And Godric, was he beautiful like that.

“Sleep well, darling?” George rasped out, a sleepy smile on his face. Y/N wrapped her arms around herself as a small yawn left her lips.

“Mhm.” Y/N hummed, leaning in the doorway of their kitchen. “You?”

“Pretty good.” George grinned, sliding a mug of tea down the counter towards her. Like always, he had made it perfectly to her liking. Y/N cupped the mug in her hands, letting the warmth slowly spread throughout her body and wake her up. “Think I might stop by the cafe on my break, pick up some pastries and coffee.” Just as he finished his sentence, Fred tiredly stumbled into the kitchen.

“You can just say you want to come see me, Georgie.” Y/N teased.

“It’s not just you he wants to see.” Fred winked at the girl, causing her brows to furrow.

“Oi, shut it, Fred.” George glared at his brother.

“What do you mean?”

“He hasn’t told you about his little crush?” Fred smirked, ignoring the daggers being shot his way. “Elizabeth, that girl that works with you. Georgie fancies her.”

Suddenly, even the mug in Y/N’s hand felt ice cold in her grasp. Quickly, she placed it back down on the counter, fearing she would drop it and let it shatter to the ground. A bit of hot tea sloshed out of the mug, scalding her hand and forcing her mind away from her breaking heart.

“Shit, are you okay?” George had already hurried towards her, but Y/N was quick to brush him off.

“‘m fine, I, uh, should just go get ready.”

Y/N didn’t give the boy’s time to question her change in demeanor, but rather quickly gathered her overnight bag and hurried to the bathroom, locking herself inside. She cast a silencing charm before slowly sliding down the wall, allowing herself to sob freely.

Just as she always knew, she’d never be what George wanted.

I could tell you his favorite color’s green

He loves to argue, oh, and it kills me

His sister’s beautiful, he has his father’s eyes,

And if you asked me if I love him

I’d lie

Y/N felt in a daze that entire day at work. She made drinks, rang customers up, and wiped down counters, but she was unable to think about anything other than the revelations of that morning. Of course, Elizabeth was the only other person working with her, and while she normally adored shifts with the girl, she couldn’t find it in herself to even crack a smile at her. It wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault, of course, and she would never purposefully take it out on her, but Y/N just didn’t have the energy to try that day.

When lunch time rolled around and Y/N knew George would be arriving soon, she busied herself with meaningless tasks, intent on avoiding him and saving her heart any extra heartbreak, at least for the time being. She offered him a small smile when he entered, then ultimately let Elizabeth take his order.

As they chatted, Y/N noted the way he lit up with every giggle he pulled from her lips, and she swore she could hear her heart shattering. When he finally left, coffee and pastries in hand, he called out a quick goodbye to Y/N, but she only offered a small nod in return.

“Godric, he’s charming.” Elizabeth sighed, coming to lean beside Y/N. “You two are friends, yeah?”

“Mhm.” Y/N didn’t look up from the sugar packets she was organizing, watching as her hands shook slightly.

“Well, tell me about him!” Elizabeth urged, nudging Y/N with her elbow. “Is he seeing anyone?”

“No,” Y/N sighed, finally forcing herself to look up after finishing her task. “What do you want to know?”

As much as it killed her, she knew what she had to do. George deserved to be happy, and she was his best friend, so she had to help him get there. George would never want her the way she wanted him, and maybe seeing him with someone else would help her get over that fact.

“Anything. Everything.” Elizabeth beamed, her perfect smile on full display.

“Well…” Y/N sighed, gathering her thoughts. “He has a twin, Fred, and they run the joke shop that just opened down the way. He’s a middle child, sort of, I mean Fred is technically the middle child but that’s just because he was born a few minutes earlier. They’ve got three older brothers, then a younger brother and sister. His favorite colors green, but if you ask him he’ll say it’s orange because of his hair. Um, he was shit at potions, but I think that was just because he hated the professor, because really he’s a genius. Oh, and he’s the funniest guy I’ve ever met, which I tell him all the time but cannot say in front of Fred. I don’t know, I guess he’s just about the best person I know, honestly.” Y/N sighed, finishing her rambling with a forced smile.

“Merlin,” Elizabeth stared at Y/N, wide-eyed. “Sounds like you’re in love with him.”

“No, really I’m not. We’ve just been best friends forever.” Y/N laughed, the lie tumbling easily from her lips. 

Because that’s what she had to do, that’s what she’d always done. To keep George in her life, to make things easier, she kept her feelings close to her heart. And no matter how much it killed her, she would continue doing it. If that’s what it took to see George happy, that’s what she’d do. 

She’d lie.

TAGS: @theweasleysredhair​ @letsgotothehop​ @wand3ringr0s3​ @sarcasticallywitty15​ @mischiefisbeingmanaged​ @gcdricreads​ @destourtereaux​ @thisismysketchbook​ @george-fabian-weasley​ @evermoreweasley​ @amourtentiaa​ @lunalovecroft​ @sunshineandshadowss​

[jilytho]

if only in my dreams

Lily has been having some dreams about James but of course that in no way means she has any feelings for him of any kind

Read below or on AO3 or FFNT

The dreams started about a month into October of Seventh Year. They started slow at first and innocent enough, fun little dreams of the Marauders and Lily’s friends all sat near the fire playing Exploding Snap or chatting at dinner. Slowly, however, they started to shift. Instead of it being all of their friends together, they began to focus in on just her and James. Sometimes they were outlandish and artificial the way dreams could be, like the one where she was a star quidditch player and was playing his team but all of the other teammates were octopuses, or the one where Paul McCartney was their Transfiguration Professor. Fun and ridiculous and clearly too dreamlike to be of any real consequence to her but certainly notable. Yet other times they were so completely and utterly simplistic, domestic even. Calm and casual, just them sitting and laughing and holding hands. Everytime one of those occurred, Lily would wake up feeling content, at peace almost. Then the realization set in and the contentment quickly turned to horror. Those were the scariest dreams of all.

After the first few she was able to write them off as a coincidence, simply neurons firing in her brain as a way of dealing with spending so much time with him during the day as co-heads. Especially as they became friends over those first few months, it was really simple and logical, just her brain dealing with him being so present in her life and working it out as she slept. Considering it’d been years of them fighting and screaming, the sudden shift to friendship and laughing was obviously a lot to process.

The dreams didn’t occur every single night, at least not at first, more like once or twice a week at max. Just enough for her to spend some time thinking about them during a boring Ancient Runes class and processing them, but certainly not enough to cause any real worry or concern over her well being.

Even when they increased in frequency, from twice a week to six times a week plus that one time she zoned out and started daydreaming during History of Magic (which didn’t really count because he was sitting next to her and smelled so good of course it was going to leech into her dreams). It wasn’t hard to rationalize those either. It was completely logical that she’d daydream about lying on the Quidditch pitch alongside James, looking up at the stars together, hands intertwined, because after all they had stood near each other in Astronomy that day and he had pointed out Venus’s moons to her. It was natural, truly.

And it wasn’t difficult at all to make the connections between that day at lunch when she’d almost tripped but he’d caught her with a strong arm wrapped around her waist with that evening, when she had dreamt that same arm was wrapped around her tightly as she sat in front of him on the back of his broomstick as they flew over the school.

They were just dreams. Harmless imaginings of the imagination and the kind of stuff that was covered in day one of Petunia’s psychology courses at muggle Uni. Easily explainable and not in anyway shape or form telling of any real emotions she’d possibly be having.

Except that considering how simple and natural some of the dreams felt, she occasionally started mixing up what had happened between dream James and Lily and real life James and Lily. Was it real James or dream James that had brushed her hand while passing a quill in Transfiguration and set a wild blaze of electricity firing all up and down her arm? Did she actually hear real James’s breath hitch when she had brushed against him while reaching for the bottle of scalamander eyelashes during potions? Was it real James or dream James that she had stood so close to, close enough to feel his chest rising and falling against her as they hid from Filch in a cupboard?

It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise (but of course it still was) when the dreams turned a little more… intimate. When instead of dreaming of lunch in the Great Hall, the scene began to shift to lunch in the Three Broomsticks, just the two of them, followed by hand holding through the streets of Hogsmeade.

Friday night escalated things to nightmare level. Lily had been studying in the common room with Dorcas when the team returned from practice, led by James. Sweaty, grass stained, hair mussed, quidditch gear wearing, James. Lily felt her throat tighten and heart accelerate. His eyes landed on her and instantly smirked, nudging Marlene to point them out before the pair of them headed straight towards her.

“Evans, Meadows,” Lily’s mouth was too dry to respond. She nodded weakly as Marlene flopped down next to her and looked at her strangely.

That image of him haunted her, snuck deep into her subconscious, permeated her thoughts and took root there to flood her dreams. Filled them with him, sweaty and red, but for a reason far different from quidditch, leaning over her, whispering into her ear while she gripped his shoulders and left scratches in a trail down his back.

She couldn’t meet his eye the next day at breakfast.

This process seemed to repeat for the next several weeks: notice something about James during her waking hours that her subconscious would latch onto for the evening, wake up embarrassed, flushed, unsatisfied, and try her hardest to ignore him and stop the cycle. She never succeeded.

The night that really ruined her was right after they’d been partnered in defense. When she’d struggled with the incantation and he’d placed his fingers overtop of hers to show the correct positioning. When she felt how strong and flexible his hand was, how warm and long and rough his calloused fingers were. She felt shivers up and down her neck as he breathed closely to her, smelled mint on his breath, smelled the warm musk that was just so James.

All night she twisted and turned in her sleep, feeling those fingers trace up and down her arms, down her chest, twisting and lapping around the valley of her breast, circling each bud, pushing lower and lower, carving out waves of electricity as they squeezed her hips until she could just feel his fingers circling her clit. She could feel the callouses, could see him smirking at her as he’d bring his head down to meet his fingers, following the same trail of his fingers with his mouth, leaving a series of kisses across her skin.

She’d woken in a tangle of sheets sticking to the sweat on her skin, his name on the edge of her lips.

It’d taken a long, ice cold shower, to clear her head successfully. She stood in the freezing water attempting to justify the dream as just a way for her subconscious to deal with the fact that her close friend was decidedly fit. She tried desperately to cling to the idea of the dreams being a symptom of teenage hormones. However, in spite of her most sincere attempts, it was becoming shockingly clear that the dreams were much more a symptom of her real, genuine feelings for James. Romantic feelings. Spurts of butterflies and rampaging elephants that flooded her heart when he smiled. The fact that he could make her feel so on edge with excitement and anticipation when she saw him coming yet also immediately comfortable and the ability to talk to him about anything.

But she missed her chance. He’d been into her before, sure, but that was long over now. He’d essentially told her as much back in September, when he asked for a ceasefire now that they were both Heads. He’d told her he had grown up and would stop asking her out and bothering her if they could be civil, wasn’t that admitting that he’d left any possible romantic feelings for her behind him? He was over her. He was over her and it wasn’t his problem that she’d just now begun to realize how very badly she wanted him, all of him. She’d just get past it too.

How she was going to possibly get over him when his every waking action filtered through her dreams each night was the real issue. Her fingers were beginning to go numb from the frigid water, nearly shaking as she reached to turn the water off.

She wrapped her towel around her tightly, sheltering her like armour as she met her reflection in the mirror. Cheeks still flushed.

“Get over it,” she whispered to herself. She’d avoid him. That was the best solution. The only way to remove him from her dreams was to remove him from her waking moments as well. It’d be hard to avoid him forever, but at the very least she couldn’t be alone with him. Groups would be safer.

XXX

The next several days were difficult. Filled with eyes flitting away, nodding answers to his questions that had clearly been asked to engage in a conversation, ducking into bathrooms as he came down the corridor, and in a moment of absolute desperation brought on when she saw him standing there waiting for her in the doorway after potions, clearly attempting to walk with her which was essentially an ambush, and she had no choice but to strike up a conversation with Slughorn on the merits of using crushed salamander spleens verses the ever controversial chopped spleens. He’d gone on for about six minutes before James had given up and moved on to lunch, Lily counted to thirty before cutting Slughorn off and dashing away.

In the end she lasted three days of almost complete avoidance. He found her in the library. She’d done her best at hiding, choosing to study in the dusty Arithmancy section that maximum one person and one ghost seemed to visit per year and the table needed a solid Scourgify charm before she was able to sit down. She’d made it through half of her Charms essay before his hands slammed down on the table.

“Lily, I need to talk to you.”

His voice was tense and without looking up she could envision his rigid shoulders and sharp jaw looming over her. Her grip tightened on her quill as she set her shoulders and took a breath.

“Little busy right now, can it wait?”

He scoffed and pulled back the chair opposite her. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Not avoiding,” she squeaked, sneaking a glance up to see his gaze locked in on her and quickly averted her eyes back down. “Just busy, very, very busy.”

She could feel the eye roll.

He reached out across the table and closed the textbook she’d been reading from with a thump, forcing her to meet his eyeline with a glare that he unflinchingly met with his own.

“You can’t prove anything,” she crossed her arms across her chest.

“The only proof I needed I got when you suddenly, desperately had to talk to Flitwick about the best technique for forging charms which we all know you mastered three years ago. Or when you needed to discuss that stupid Salamandar debate with Slughorn that was clearly boring even you stale.”

He stated it all dryly, matter of fact, leaving no room for question or debate. They sat there silently for 93 seconds (she counted) as James leaned back in his chair, a vision of casual confidence.

“Fine!” She broke first. “I’m avoiding you. Are you happy? Are we done here now?”

He barked out a laugh, dropping his hands onto the table and folding them together. “We’ll be done when you explain whatever it is I did that made being around me so awful when we were just getting to a place where I thought we were friends, or at the very least capable of being in the same room and having a civil conversation.”

“I think it's time I go.” She pushed all her stuff into her rucksack hastily, hearing an ink well shatter as she did, and practically running to the door. One of the only benefits of the Arithmancy section is that it at least had a fast exit route, away from the main drag of tables, up the side of the aisles. She could hear James scrambling out of his chair and running to catch up with her but she refused to look back, getting as close to running as she could without risking the wrath of Madam Pince.

She was so close to the exit, the taste of freedom on the tip of her tongue. If she could just get out of the library, she could go left out of view and hide in an alcove until he passed or gave up looking. From then it’d be a simple matter of hiding away in her dorm for the next two to six days before she felt capable of facing him. She was rounding the corner to the exit, nodding tightly to Pince, when she felt his fingers wrap around her wrist and yank her into the nearest aisle.

She stared longingly over her shoulder at the exit as it disappeared as James pulled her along, weaving through aisles. Past Charms, past their table in Arithmancy, straight through Potions, all the way deep into the Divination section where the dust on the books appeared to be older than Lily and James combined.

It was there he finally stopped. Pulling her to the center of the aisle and standing strong in front of her.

It was silent for a tic as she stood there counting the seconds, mentally hoping that if she stayed quiet long enough, James would give up and leave.

Instead he cleared his throat. The noise was jarring in the otherwise silent aisle and without thinking her head turned on its own accord away from the dusty tombs to meet his eyes instead. Big mistake. His eyes were positively smoldering, a storm of hazel and gold glaring down at her. She’d always loved his eyes.

“What?” she bit out, forcing herself to break eye contact and stare somewhere around his shoulder instead.

“Start talking, Evans.”

His shoulders looked solid, no way she could charge past them. The way his shirt was pulling taut across them made her wonder if they’d feel as solid as they appeared and how’d they feel on her hands if she dug her nails into them while she-

She ripped her eyes away from his shoulders and down to his shoes instead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered, studying his laces and fidgeting slightly.

He scoffed and brought his free hand to her chin to tilt her gaze up to meet his once more. There were the eyes again.

“It’s a little late for all that, Lily.” He spoke slowly and quietly, as if she was a young deer he was worried would scamper off. “Now talk to me or I swear to god I’ll learn Occlumency just to get a peek at what you’re thinking about up there.”

Well that was a horrifying thought. Her brain reeled through all the images he’d see if he had actually taken a peek, his body pressing hot up against her, the two of them sitting in a sunlit field, picking dandelions, him wiping away a butterbeer mustache off her top lip as they laughed in the Three Broomsticks, him winning the Quidditch Cup and picking her up to spin her around in front of everyone.

“There,” he whispered accusingly, “that blush all over you right now? You’re hiding something from me, Evans, and that ends right now.” The tone was soft but the words were strong, gaze remaining level with her own, eyes searching her own as if the answer was written within them.

“I’ve been having dreams,” she blurted out, too flustered to be aware of her words and instantly regretting that they had come out. Her insides shrank as she squirmed under his gaze, shifting her weight.

He held steady, keeping his hand still tight on her wrist, not allowing her to move more than a breath away.

“What kind of dreams?” Nothing had changed in his voice, still controlled and level.

“I don’t know!” she snapped out, voice far louder than his own, “the embarrassing kind, okay? Are we done?” She twisted her wrist out of his own, somewhat surprised when he allowed her to. She was free, a part of her knew she should run right now and make her grand escape but a much larger part wanted to see what James would say, do, now that the truth was coming out.

She could practically see his wheels turning, mentally piecing together her words with her actions and the ramifications of it all. He was being too quiet, taking too long, and the words were boiling up in her now, desperate to fill the silence.

“They’re just dreams, okay? They don’t actually mean anything, it’s really not that big of a deal even,” she insisted, repeating the words she had spent the last several weeks telling herself out loud for the first time.

“If they don’t mean anything, why are you still blushing like that? And why would I be avoiding me? And what kind of dreams are the embarrassing ones exactly?” His brow was furrowed and a hand was rooted in his hair.

“They’re just stupid and random and unrealistic,” she spluttered, feeling the blush reach down to her toes.

“So tell me about one!” He demanded, “what happened in the most recent one? Did I kill you or something?”

“Oh please you don’t get it at all, you buffoon.” The embarrassment quickly was turning into rage and the words were pouring out.. “You didn’t kill me, you kissed me. Okay? More than kissed me really. You happy now?”

James was decidedly not happy. His expression turned only more incredulous with each passing second as her words took effect on him. His left hand dropped from her wrist to join his right firmly rooted in his hair, pulling and twisting.

She stared at him expectantly, waiting for a response, a realization, a reaction, anything. But instead he just stood there. Dumbfounded or disgusted or downright confused.

The seconds ticked by and her discomfort level rose as each one passed. The rage faded back to embarrassment and formed tears pricking at the back of her eyes, blinking furiously and squeezing her nails into her palms to try and stop any from leaking out.

“Are you going to say anything or just stand there ripping out your hair?”

He continued to stare, unmoving.

“Goodbye, James,” she spat out, crossing her arms tightly across her chest and pushing straight through him.

She heard him splutter something and got about six steps ahead before hearing his thundering steps behind her catching up to her. She pushed ahead until she felt his hand grip her shoulder and turn her around again

There was a scream on the tip of her tongue as she was pulled around to face him. “What, Jam-”

Her exclamations were silenced as he pushed his lips down onto hers. She hesitated for a moment in shock before throwing her arm around his neck and pulling him against her, leaning up on her tiptoes and responding enthusiastically. His hand from her shoulder pushed up to caress her cheek, other hand pressing hard and unforgiving into her hip.

“Was it like that?” The words were a whisper, hot against her face, barely a breath of space between them. “In your dream, was it like that?”

She barely nodded before pulling his lips back down to meet hers.

It was harsh and unyielding and not the kind of first kiss she had ever imagined for them but was certainly something taken right out of her dreams. She felt his hand tilting her head, adjusting their angle to fit perfect against each other as his tongue reached out to meet hers. Hot and heady and unbelievably perfect.

She didn’t notice them turning until her back was pushed up against the shelf. Corners and spines of the dusty volumes pressing up against her barely registering when there was so much of him to feel up against her. His scent surrounding her entirely, permeating the air around her until all she could think, smell, feel was just him.

He pulled back again, still barely a centimeter away and clearly reluctant to do so. “Wait, wait,” he heaved, “what exactly about a dream like that is ‘unrealistic’?”

She stammered unintelligibly for a moment, head filled with fog and fist curling tighter in the fabric of his shirt to anchor herself and him next to each other, “I just meant that we were friends now and you didn’t want to be…. you know.”

He cocked an eyebrow inquisitively, “enlighten me.”

“With me! Romantically speaking!” Her cheeks burned again, and eyes flitted down to where her hand was twisting his shirt.

Until she heard laughter. Actual laughter. One quick look at his face confirmed it, James Potter was actually laughing at her.

“Dear God, Evans,” he brought his hand to caress her cheek, thumb tracing her lower lip. “Evans, if I ever, and I mean ever, say I don’t want to be with you ‘romantically speaking’ you might as well Avada me right then and there because that is clearly an imposter.”

He didn’t give her a second to respond, crashing his lips back down onto hers.

And then he was snogging her again, harder. This instantly shut down her brain, eliminating the potential to analyze the implications of what he had just said because of course there would be time for analysis later but right now, in this moment, there was no time for that. There was no time for that because James Potter was snogging her in the depths of the library and it was so much better than any dream she’d ever had. She had no idea how long they’d stood there snogging, hands pulling hair and bruising skin and leaving her so utterly weak in the knees that she became vehemently grateful for the support of his arm around her back and the shelf she was leaning on. Minutes, hours, days, years, until she was so out of breath that she was practically sighing against his lips as they both slowed down, exhausted but so unwilling to separate, lips still brushing as they breathed in and out.

Her eyes remained closed and she pressed their heads together, lips no more than a centimeter apart.

“Hey Evans?” He sighed out, kissing her again chastely.

She hummed in response, rubbing her nose against his lightly and pushing up for one of those chaste kisses of her own, feeling his glasses press into her nose.

“Go out with me?”

[bffsoobin]

Love Love

↳beomgyu could be a tough puzzle to solve. You knew that. You knew everything about him. That’s what best friends are for, after all. But why is he so upset over your date with Taehyun?

➤ best friends to lovers, highschool au, fluff, a little bit of angst (jealousy) 

Requested?: yes

Word Count: 3,779

A/N: I attempted humor here, hopefully that translated? Also I hope the turning point is good enough shdksnoeun. I rewrote it a lot to try and fit what the request asked for. As always, heed the general warning that I haven’t proof read or edited this. Also I’m tagging the biggest Beomgyu stan I know, the lovely @star-daegyu as they requested!💕

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•

“What?” Beomgyu sounded scandalized as you shut the door to your locker. 

“You heard me! Don’t make me say it again,” you clutched at the chemistry textbook cradled in your arms. Beomgyu stared down at you with an intensity you hadn’t seen since Mr.Jackson showed a documentary about how climate change was fake. You started walking away but he came with you in perfect lockstep. 

“No, say it again. I’m trying to see if my neurons misfired or if you actually just told me that-” he gagged dramatically as the two of you rounded the corner into a different hallway. 

“Remind me again why I put up with you?” You grumbled cynically. 

“Remind me why you won’t repeat what you just told me at your locker?” Beomgyu wrapped his hands around the straps of his bookbag and stared at you indignantly. Your sneakers squeaked against the tile flooring of your classroom as you entered with Beomgyu in tow. The two of you were always the first students in class after your lunch period and today you had even beaten the teacher. Beomgyu looked around at the empty room and gestured around with his arms spread wide. 

“Last chance to tell me before this room starts filling up with our drama hungry classmates!” Before you had thought he was just teasing you to get a rise, but now you could sense an undercurrent of something odd. Jealousy? 

“Fine,” you grumbled halfheartedly. “Taehyun asked me out.” You knew that your skin was flushed red as a side effect of the confession. Beomgyu nodded tightly before taking a dramatic lap around the classroom. Once he was back by your side, he plopped down in his desk next to you. 

“And you said yes?” He had finally lowered his voice as a throng of classmates filtered through the door. Your heart beat kicked up a notch as you tried to pick apart his tone. You couldn’t help but feel an odd pang in your chest at the idea that he might be jealous that someone else got to you first. You dismissed that quickly; as there was no way you would let yourself fall back into that pining when Taehyun was right in front of you and willing to give you romantic attention. 

“Of course I said yes, you know I have a crush on him! Why are you being so weird about this?” you hissed underneath your breath as the room filled steadily with even more post-lunch chatter. Beomgyu’s lips were pulled in an unsettling straight line as he simply nodded at your words. A knot twisted up in your stomach at the thought of your bestfriend being angry over something he knew you were excited about. As your teacher began to talk, the only thing you could focus on was Beomgyu. He was sitting oddly still, carefully angling his body away from you so much that you couldn’t even attempt to read the expression on his face. Of course you were worried; but more than anything you were annoyed as hell. You were used to his dramatics and occasional fits, but this sudden change to childish behavior was totally new and frankly unwarranted. If it weren’t for Mrs. Nielsen’s strict note taking policy you would have put much more effort into telling Beomgyu off during the class period. 

The class period passed quickly although the cramp in your hand would surely stick around to be sure you wouldn’t forget about all of the chemistry notes you had taken. Beomgyu remained elusive as the two of you packed up and your pride kept you from asking him if he was okay. He made sure that you couldn’t catch a glimpse of more than just his clothed back as he slung his bookbag back on. Without a word, Beomgyu stood and breezed out of the classroom door. You left the room without him by your side for the first time since you became friends in the 8th grade. A pang of sadness shot through your heart at the realization that you must have done something to really upset him. What had you done to upset him so much that he wouldn’t even say goodbye to you? 

Beomgyu wasn’t in your next class with you, but it didn’t stop you from letting thoughts of him totally occupy your mind. It was a twisted type of torture, really, to try and pick apart any of the reasons he would have reacted so horribly to what you saw as a happy moment. You never wanted Beomgyu to be angry with you, and quite frankly you couldn’t even think of the last time the two of you had had a serious fight. Sure, there had been small quarrels over what movie to watch or who got a homework question right, but never anything like this. He’s friends with Taehyun. He was even the one to introduce the two of you at a bonfire over the summer. Was he worried that your new relationship would put a wedge between the two of you? Certainly you could conceptualize that he was worried about having to pick sides after a fight or breakup. 

In favor of actually processing some of what your math teacher was currently sprawling on the whiteboard, you decided that you had cracked the code of Beomgyu’s anger. You would confront him on the drive home as soon as the class ended. You would make things right.

As the final bell of the day rang, you rushed to the only working vending machine on the floor and bought a bag of Beomgyu’s favorite candy to use as a peace offering. As you waited in front of the library- as per your daily routine- your heart jumped in your throat at the thought that Beomgyu might not meet up with you. He could very easily charm his way into getting a ride from one of your many classmates just to avoid you some more. The thought brought you to the verge of tears. You couldn’t imagine your life without Beomgyu as your best friend and absolute rock. There was no way you could even deal with him being angry at you when you were ready to apologize. The lump in your throat only widened the longer you waited, shifting from foot to foot as students milled out of the building. You considered texting him but knowing how lazy he could be about answering had you abandoning the idea just as fast. 

Finally, you spotted Beomgyu as he breezed through a group of freshmen girls who gawked at him as he passed through. He looked a bit panicked as he approached you, eyes roaming all around the area until he finally spotted you and rushed over. 

“Y/N!” He sounded a bit out of breath, which surprised you. “I was worried you were going to leave without me.” 

“Of course not, Gyu. I was worried you would pawn someone else into driving you home. I really want to talk to you about earlier,” you paused for a second as the two of you began walking towards the exit. “I got you these, though,” you offered him the bright yellow bag and without even looking his way you could see the smile on his face. 

“Do we really have to talk about earlier?” Beomgyu asked through a mouthful of candy. You unlocked your car and threw your backpack into the back seat as he climbed into the passenger seat as if he owned it. Which you guessed he technically did. You fixed him with a glare you knew read as one of annoyance. “I’m over it, I promise,” he pouted, jutting out his bottom lip in a way that would usually make you break. But not today. This was important. 

“Yes, we really have to talk about earlier,” you closed the driver’s side door and buckled up as Beomgyu reluctantly clicked his own seat belt into place. With the car in motion, you were grateful for having a valid reason you couldn’t look at him just to see more of his pouting expressions. The radio played a pop song you had heard dozens of times but you and Beomgyu sang along anyway. Admittedly, neither of you were too excited to breach the subject at hand so the distraction was more than welcome. The short ride from the school to your neighborhood was usually seen as a blessing, but not with the looming conversation you were suddenly faced with. 

“Okay. This is awkward. I’m gonna go,” Beomgyu chirped, leaning down to scoop up his bookbag from the floor of the car. As soon as his hand grasped the handle of the door, you pressed the lock button. He scoffed. “You can’t be serious, Y/N. Locking me in the car?” You expected him to be pouting, but instead he just looked tired. You huffed out a breath of air. 

“Yes, Gyu. I’m locking you in the car so that you can’t run away from me when I’m trying to be serious. I’m not mad at you for being angry earlier. I mean- I was- and then I thought about it and I figured out why you were so upset,” Beomgyu’s face morphed into something close to fear and he opened his mouth to speak. “You don’t want to be caught between Taehyun and I if we date and get in a fight or breakup. I didn’t really think about the fact that you’re also friends with him. I can’t imagine how awkward you must feel about it,” you continued despite his desire to talk. You swallowed hard. “But you need to understand that even though you might feel weird, I still really like him and while I love and value your opinion I’m still going to go out with him.” Beomgyu seemed a little stunned but he nodded anyway. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” he pushed his hair away from his forehead, “I’m sorry for getting so upset earlier, but I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I’ve known Taehyun for a while but I’ve known you for even longer and the last thing I want to see is you falling apart because of anything he does.” Your mouth suddenly felt dry. 

“What do you mean? Is there something I should be worried about?” You had a feeling that Beomgyu had accidentally let part of his last sentence slip and was now trying to pick up the pieces. 

“No! No, Taehyun is great. He’s...he’s a good guy. I was just trying to say that,” he took a deep, shaky breath, “that I don’t know what I would do if you ever came to me hurt over a boy. Any boy. I just love you so much.”  He seemed oddly vulnerable even though he had told you that exact phrase so many times before. You hoped he didn’t notice the way your breath stuttered upon hearing him say it so emphatically. There was no way he could know the effect his words had on you. His softened eyes locked onto yours at the feeling of your hand on his shoulder.

“I love you too, Gyu. And I promise you won’t have to be dealing with anything like that. I can handle myself. Now please don’t be so awkward tomorrow. We have a lab and I’d rather not spend the whole period forcing you to speak to me.” Beomgyu’s eyes crinkled into a smile and he reached over to pinch your cheek between his fingers. 

“Stoppppp,” you whined loudly, pushing his hand away from you with all of your might. When he finally let go you cupped your cheek in feined upset. “I bought you candy and this is how you repay me?” The sound of the passenger car door unlocking prompted Beomgyu to open the door and hop out into his driveway. 

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I’ll bring you coffee tomorrow morning to make up for it.” He was bounding up the steps to his house before you could even come up with a witty response, but you drove away with a lightened heart. 

----

Your first date with Taehyun took place on a warm Saturday night. He took you stargazing in a field you didn’t even know existed and somehow came up with a playlist full of your favorite music. It was such a perfect night that you even dreamed of it when you crawled into bed later in the evening. 

The next day, you practically ran down the street to Beomgyu’s house to spill all of the details. You greeted his parents and easily bounded into the comfort of his bedroom like you had hundreds of times before. He was still sprawled out under his comforter, hair laying in a mess around him when you busted in. 

“You’ll never guess how well yesterday went!” you threw yourself next to him on the bed and bounced him slightly. He groaned and finally sat up. 

“Oh, that good, huh?” His voice was still heavy with sleep as he pushed a hand through his unruly hair. 

“Yes! He picked me up kind of late and I was worried he was going to take me to a movie, which is-” 

“The worst first date,” Beomgyu finished for you as he slid out from under his comforter and stretched his limbs.

“Right. But instead he took me to this field I didn’t even know was a thing around here, and he brought snacks and a blanket and we stargazed!” Beomgyu nodded along to your words as he shuffled toward his door. 

“I have to pee, I’ll be back and you can keep filling me in,” you pouted a bit at his interruption of your rambling but knew just how small and insistent his bladder could be. He had missed his fair share of plot twists in movies due to chugging his entire slushie during the previews. You watched him leave and mentally kicked yourself for fawning over the way a strand of his hair seemed to be stuck permanently straight upwards. It was time for you to focus on Taehyun, not Beomgyu. He was just your best friend. 

He returned promptly, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes in a way that made you coo at him. He cringed in return and plopped back down on his bed. “Continue telling me about Wonder Boy,” he droned. You frowned. 

“You seem like you don’t want to hear about it, Gyu. Are you okay?” He was quiet for a moment. 

“Just peachy,” despite the edge in his voice you continued, thinking maybe he was just grumpy this morning. 

“Somehow he made the perfect playlist. I’m talking all of my favorite songs. It totally surprised me. We never even talked about music. I really want to know how he knew it all,” you sighed dramatically and missed the way Beomgyu rolled his eyes. After a few more seconds of silence, you felt the need to talk again. 

“Are you sure you’re alright? I feel like you’re mad about...something,” you couldn’t quite place it but you knew that something was off with him. 

“I’m sure. Just hungry.” He offered as he stood and headed for his door once again. Out of instinct you followed him to his kitchen and downed a bowl of cinnamon cereal in a comfortable quiet. 

“We should watch some movies off of our list today,” you offered as you washed out your cereal bowls. Beomgyu gave you the first genuine smile of the morning as he agreed and rushed back to his room to turn on his television and retrieve the ever growing list from his desk drawer. When you met him in his room he was already cuddled up in his blankets with the movie queued. 

“Come on, slow poke!” You couldn’t hold back a giggle at how adorable he looked all nestled in like a newborn baby as you slid in right next to him and laid your head on his chest. The movie he had picked was entertaining enough, but certainly catered more to Beomgyu’s tastes than yours. For the sake of being the wonderful best friend you knew you were, you tried your best to focus on it. At some point you lost track of which character was which and gave up on actively following. 

Your phone vibrated three times in a row and you decided that since you were already lost, there would be no harm in seeing who was texting you. Your heart rate increased twofold as you read Taehyun’s name. Your thumbs hovered over the screen as you tried to figure out how to respond quickly. While there were no strict rules for your movie watching adventure, you knew that Beomgyu would get whiny quickly about phone usage. 

Unfortunately, your neurons weren’t firing fast enough for Beomgyu’s liking. 

“Y/N,” he whined, “Can you put your phone away? Who are you even texting?” You could feel him craning his neck to see your screen before noticeably freezing under you. 

“Of course,” he mumbled, darkness edging back into his tone. You sighed and sat up off of him and fixed him with what you hoped was a convincing glare. 

“Of course what? I’m sorry he texted me, but why are you so angry over him? There’s something you aren’t telling me. Just come out with it already! I thought we were past your pouting over Taehyun and I!” Beomgyu’s jaw tightened at your words. 

“No, Y/N. We’re not past it. I’m not over the fact that you’re doting over him when he didn’t even plan your date!” Your eyes widened in confusion. 

“Of course he planned the date. Don’t be ridiculous,” you waved him off, shaking your head in disbelief of how childish he was being. Beomgyu sat straight up and reached for his phone from his bedside stand. 

“Fine, look. Here’s the proof,” he shoved his phone into your hands, “He wanted to take you to a movie. I told him that was an awful idea,” you read along the messages as he spoke and saw that he was telling the truth. “And so I gave him the stargazing idea, because you once told me that would be your ideal date.” You knew he was right. You could recall the game of truth or dare where you told him that. 

“Beomgyu,” you breathed, “I told you that two years ago.” Your heart swelled with a sort of pride you didn’t know you were capable of. Beomgyu was unable to hold back the shy smile that cracked onto his face. He cleared his throat loudly. 

“And I had to tell him what snacks to get, and the music… that’s my playlist for you,” his voice was much more timid than you had ever heard it. “So I planned the date. I was so jealous that he asked you out, and even more so that you said yes. And then he texted me and had to get my advice and I felt even dumber. I’ve been dying to tell you the truth but you were so happy.” Beomgyu heaved a sigh and clenched his fists. “He took you on the date I’ve wanted to take you on since the day we met. And then you came here and you’ve spent all morning talking about how great it was,” he raked his fingers through his hair, “I can’t keep pretending that I haven’t been burning up inside since you told me you said yes to him.”

Beomgyu’s eyes were shaking just as much as his hands when you placed his phone back into them. 

“You’re unbelievable,” your words were slipping out before you had time to filter them, “I can’t believe you didn’t just tell me that you liked me. I’ve spent years trying to drown my feelings for you so that our friendship would stay intact and you’re telling me you’ve been in love with me?” 

Beomgyu choked on his own spit. “Wait, you have feelings for me too?” You stared at him with your mouth hanging wide open for a few seconds. 

“Well I-” you sputtered, “I’ve always kind of…” he raised an eyebrow at you, “Okay, yes! Yes I have feelings for you. I love you too. Love love,” you threw your hands up in defeat as Beomgyu started to laugh deeply. You gasped at him. 

“Why are you laughing? I just confessed to you and you’re laughing? You know what, I’m gonna go.” Both of you knew your words held no weight but Beomgyu grabbed you by the wrist to stop you anyway. 

“Nope, too late,” he pulled your body back towards his until you were sitting cross legged right next to him. “I’m laughing,” he began as he laced his fingers with yours, “because it's so stupidly like us to take five years and a third party to get us to confess our feelings.” You knew he was right. The absurdity of the situation just felt like another chapter in your book of blissfully clueless friendship. 

“Can I kiss you?” He asked sweetly. 

“Did you brush your teeth?” You were half teasing and half serious, “I’m not remembering our first kiss as the time you forgot to brush.” Beomgyu pinched your side in retaliation until you surrendered. 

“Of course I brushed, Y/N. I’m not a heathen,” you could tell by his tone that he was bordering on being actually offended. “Now can I please kiss you?” You hummed thoughtfully and inched your face closer to his. 

“Since you asked so nicely.” His mouth descended on yours and you discovered that yes, he actually did brush his teeth. The thought made you smile as the two of you pressed your lips impossibly closer until they were red and swollen. You felt a little dazed at the idea that you had just kissed Choi Beomgyu, best friend and secret crush of five years. He leaned in again and you closed your eyes, thinking he was going in for another kiss. Instead you felt a rush of warm air against your skin as he laughed. 

“You’re already ready for our second kiss?” He teased as you finally opened your eyes. “I was just reaching behind you for your phone,” he waved the object in front of your face. “We have to come up with a text to let Taehyun down easy.” The sparkle in his eyes told you he was getting way too much entertainment out of the idea. 

“You’re the worst, Beomgyu,” you crossed your arms across your chest in defense. 

“But you love me,” he said in a singsong voice, “love love.”

[dismuch47]

ADVANCED SETTINGS (Part 2)

Winner of Scarlet Vision Drabbles votting. Because SV/WV fans are thirsty af. 

So I lied. This “drabble” is mutating and I’m long-winded. There will be a part 3.

Advanced Settings: Wanda and Vision find there is more to iron out in making their relationship “work”. This section is rated Explicit.

Vision’s head reared up when he heard the bathroom door finally creak open. He turned towards Wanda, to see her large eyes downcast. Her flame-like hair was free of it’s bun, draped behind her shoulders. She had one of the hotel robes on, which concealed her slim figure in white plushness. She chanced to look up at him, like a sorry child.

The synthezoid strode over to her, wine-glass ready for her, gentle and assuring smile upon his lips.

“Vision I’m sorry-“

“Absolutely nothing to atone for-“

“-But I was being so-“

“-Honest, which I so admire in you.”

Wanda huffed, accepting the wine. Her unease appeared to be waning. “Can’t you just be upset with me? I would understand…”

“Never.” He punctuated the word, pointedly. Then smiled broadly. Wanda finally caved with a grin, looking away.  Vision gently captured her chin with his thumb and index finger, directing her back to his sincere face. “My greatest satisfaction is in seeking yours. And that you somehow are able to accept me. Odd quirks and all.”

“Vis…”

Her eyes were glittering. She was experiencing strong emotion. Unclear if it was extreme sentimentality or misplaced guilt, it seemed logical to stoop down and kiss her full lips to make it better. His index finger stroked down her chin and ventured down her soft throat. Wanda’s breathing shifted as warm and featherlight touch lingered on creamy collarbone. He had become expert at these areas of sensitivity, eliciting honest breathy responses from his love of flesh and blood. Cause and reaction. Scripted and executed

But perhaps there were some modifications he could accommodate to his side of the performance. Inwardly, he did not enjoy contemplating that notion. Their relationship had, thus far, been founded on honesty and acceptance. It seemed dishonest to her and a reminder to him of his limitations by… pretending. Sex was proving to be more emotional than he had anticipated, which was an extremely murky concept for him to grasp…though, slowly, he was learning. Through Wanda, he was learning.

Wanda’s hungry stomach gurgled loudly in protest, causing the two to open their eyes at eachother mid-kiss, before breaking away in laughter.

Vision took his place on the loveseat first, angling himself so that Wanda could easily nestle her back into his side when she came over with her plate of late-night indulgences and wine. She gave a sigh of contentment once she was situated.

“Anything good on?” she asked, already working on one shrimp. Rather ungracefully. It was endearing.

“3rd Rock from the Sun, Batman, or Green Acres?” Vision turned on the hotel flatscreen.

“Which would you like?”

“Whichever you prefer.”

“Right, but if YOU had to pick one-“

“I would pick what you would pick.”

A moment lapsed. Wanda’s chewing even ceased. Clearly Vision had miscalculated and his response had been received as an irritant rather than as affectionate. He was about to modify his meaning when Wanda spoke up.

“Well, I’m too tired for spazzy Dick Solomon, no to cheesy super heroes… so I guess Green Acres it is.” Her tone was not as cheerful as it had been.

Vision turned it to the right station, feeling uneasy. He wanted to correct their interaction, but he eased back into the loveseat when Wanda leaned her head against his chest. She still wanted contact.

It was interesting, hearing the lines dubbed in Russian. They turned on English subtitles for Wanda’s sake, but even she said that she didn’t know how long her eyes would last, straining to read and comprehend the words in her second language. Vision asked a couple of times if she was ready for bed. She would lazily protest, trying to “convince” him she was wide awake by how well she could mumble the catchy theme song. But it was clear that she was fading fast. She just wanted to stay in his embrace.

And that would have been suffice for Vision, if he didn’t feel she would significantly benefit from a good night’s sleep. When he was sure she was unconscious enough, he slowly and gradually phased through the couch to let the cushions take his place. He set about turning off most of the lights, save for one lamp to provide a soft glow to guide Wanda to the bed. He then went about covering the left-over food with a napkin and stacking her dishes in a neat presentation for the food service team.

After placing the tray outside the door, Vision returned to coax Wanda to proper slumber, only to see her now splayed out on the couch. Turning about upon the upholstered texture had worked her thick robe open. Her smooth skin exposed in a thin sliver between her breasts, down her navel, with a bent leg peeking out from under the cloth as the only provision of modesty.

She was... a vision.

He came closer, peering down at her in contemplative wonder, to see her eyes sleepily open. She then extended a graceful arm  to him, slender hand beckoning. Her unspoken request transparently clear to him.

Vision’s clothes collapsed into a shapeless pile on the floor as his physical form faded in a golden shimmer for an instant. The very sight of his body stimulated her, he knew that well. He lightly wedged one knee between her legs, to steady himself as he leisurely untied the fastening of her askew robe. Wanda’s breathing deepened, her hands reaching above herself, tangling in an auburn pool of silky hair as soft terry peeled away from taunt flesh…

The synthezoid had always told Wanda that human bodies were not completely unlike an advanced, organic computer. She would scrunch her nose, sure that he was innocently patronizing her on some level. But it was true. And being globally aware of any and all signals and energies, seeing them in her now was not so different. Perhaps he didn’t know what they meant exactly, or what they felt like, but trace currents of electricity and signals from the brain to the billions and billions of neurons throughout the human body made sense to Vision. It was quite the light show, when he truly connected to the body’s activities as he was now. It mapped out what efforts were effective, and what areas needed his rapt attention next. Where to experiment with a squeeze, lick, or bite. When a rapid rhythm was paramount or a restrained thrust would guarantee instant and powerful release.

It was confusing, marrying the biological science which made complete sense to the synthezoid, to the complete language of erotica which was more abundantly used in literature and pop culture… and completely conceptional. And yet here Vision was, observing the messaging of Wanda’s body, comparing it to a brilliant and unbridled sea storm of scarlet, scattering billions of ruby fractals across her glittering coral shores. Complete nonsense, yet complete truth.

“Vis!” Wanda cried. Her thighs twitched in his strong grasp as the first scarlet wave hit. Vision raised his head from between her legs, laving his slick tongue over her apex one last time, like a signature. She gasped, well past the brink, her fist clutching at her hair to hold on to something.

He leaned over her, parting her legs wider, but massaged them after keeping them so restricted over his broad shoulders for a time. He then skimmed his maroon hands up her pelvis, and around to cradle the curve of her rear, then scooted her down close to himself. Wanda propped herself up on her elbows, but immediately her head fell back in helpless passion as she felt him sheath himself deeply in her and start a powerful rhythm.

Verbal coaxing always elicited positive response. “Wanda.” Vision murmured, deeply. More rubies and stardust, just at his voice. Wanda was too overcome to form words, but her hand traveled down below her navel, to where they joined and moved as one, then up his front. She squeezed, rubbed, then clawed… but to no avail. He could feel her touch… but it didn’t create storms and shooting sparks within him as it would her.

She dimmed in sadness. Suddenly those ethereal shores were darkening. Vision wavered. He was failing her.

He swallowed hard, reeling at this complete disappointment in himself, so he made a flawed calculation. He slowed, simulated heavy panting, eyes shut tight as if with desire. There was a shimmer in Wanda, of hopeful excitement. He recalled love-scenes in movies, trying to remember how the male human interacts, even though the camera was always fixed on the female in the thralls of ecstasy. He moaned softly, and then more loudly and with urgency. It was an act. It felt wrong and stupid to him. Humiliating even…

“STOP IT.” Wanda commanded. Vision abruptly stopped, gladly, yet mortified at being found out.

“I… I was just-“

“I know what you were doing, Vis.” Wanda slid herself out from under him. She was upset. “For a moment I thought…” Her voice broke off.

Vision sat back on his haunches, realizing the gravity of what he had done. “I thought it would help.”

Wanda stood up, sniffling back her frustration. She picked up the robe and put it back on, avoiding his pleading eyes. “I know you did. I know.” She put her face in her hands for a moment. The synthezoid stood up in concern, wanting to hold her. He moved forward to do so, but she put a hand up. “I just need you to let me hurt about this for a little, Vis. Okay? And not to try and fix it.”

Vis looked down at his feet, dejected. He slowly gathered his pants and slid them over his compact form. He felt Wanda’s arms slide under his and around his torso. He bowed his head.

“I’m sorry. So sorry, dear heart.” Vision’s voice had never hitched in such a manner before.

“Me too.” She held on to him for a few more beats. “I’m going to bed.”

“I am…  going read for a bit.”

“…Alright.” The departure of her embrace left him standing alone in the dark.

[hawks-husband]

Strade x Reader

This is something I wrote a week or two ago and I’m gonna just post it here too | 18+ Minors DNI | this is a strade x transmasc!reader 

The last thing I expected walking into the bar this evening was to meet anyone, especially not the kind, comforting stranger that approached me offering me a beer. It was nice. I honestly felt cared about, even if it was for a night what with friends being out of town and college starting back up. My life was a whole mess of everything going on all at once.

After just a few minutes of talking to him, I learned his name was Strade. He was a kind German man with an accent that would bring me to my knees in the right circumstances. He was on the larger side but it really did look good on him. He had a little stubble and a scar on his chin that I wanted to ask about but didn’t want to interrupt the lovely conversation we were having. We had a few drinks together and shared some laughs before I checked the time.

"Shit, it's getting late," I cursed, sliding out of my seat, heading towards the door.

"Leaving so soon?" Strade asked in that pretty accent that made me soft, leaning against the counter of the bar.

"I was hoping to be leaving with you," I decided to test my luck with confidence and was glad I did because next thing I knew, his strong arm was wrapped around my shoulders and he was leading me out to his car. "Are you usually the type to take strangers home?" I teased with a purr, lips inches away from his ear. He let out a hearty chuckle as he unlocked the doors, cornering me against the side of the car with his hands on either side of my body.

"You were just too sweet not to bring home," He whispered huskily in my ear, his voice sending shivers down my spine. I licked my lips and threw my arms around his neck, tilting my head. “I could keep you forever.” I bit my lip and my breath picked up at his tone.

"Why don't you give me a taste of what I've got coming for me?" I challenged, moaning when his lips crashed harshly against mine. He tasted like the beers we shared just minutes before and something else I couldn't quite place. It was heaven. The kiss was all tongue and desperation. I practically purred into his mouth when his hand found its way into my hair and a loud moan escaped when he gave the short locks a harsh tug. The reaction had Strade practically drooling.

"I wonder what other sounds I can get out of you," Strade purred in my ear when he broke the kiss, pressing himself against me. I gasped when I felt him already hard and straining through his pants. I groaned lowly and pulled him down for another rough kiss, this one sloppier and more hungry than the one before. I pulled away after a few more minutes of kissing.

"Shouldn't we get going?" I pecked his lips as Strade pulled away from me, nodding in agreement. 

"I think that's a wonderful idea," He got in on one side and I got in on the other, making sure to put on my seatbelt. That's when I noticed something off about the car. I couldn't put my finger on it until I glanced at the door and-

"Why is there no handle?" I looked at Strade and the dark gaze he was giving simultaneously terrified me and turned me on even more. His smile, once comforting, was now unsettling.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head," That was the last thing I heard before my head was bouncing off the window and everything went dark.

When I woke up, my wrists were tied tightly behind me and I was in a dark room. I groaned at the pain in my head and leaned it back against the pole I was tied to, trying to make sense of my surroundings. Suddenly, there was a bright, almost blinding light being turned on and I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut. I opened them again as I got used to the light to see Strade in front of me with the largest grin I've ever seen, as if he was proud of himself for bringing me here. Looking at him from this close, his hair was greasy and his clothes were wrinkled. He had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and an eerily calming smile.

"You bastard," I snarled, tugging at the restraints. "You can't just kidnap people."

"Oh, ho, ho," Strade laughed, shaking his head. "Is that what you think this is? No, I'm simply... saving you."

"Saving me?" I spat back and shot him a glare. "I would have come home with you. The force wasn't really needed, you're just crazy!" I immediately regretted my choice in words when I was kicked square in the chest, the blow enough to effectively knock the wind out of me. I coughed and hunched over, groaning in pain. I panted, leaning back again. "You're a bastard."

"Did you not learn your lesson?" Strade leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. "What to do... what to do." He pondered, more thinking out loud than anything else. The longer we sat there, the more sore my shoulders got. I shifted in my spot uncomfortably, trying to roll my shoulders to get some more feeling back into them.

"Are you uncomfortable, Hündchen?" Strade purred in a mocking tone that sent a shiver down my spine.

"Fuck you," I spat, earning another swift kick to the chest. I could have sworn I felt something crack this time. My chest heaved as I tried to take a good breath, my ribcage felt like it was on fire. I looked up at him with pleading eyes, a silent beg to make it stop. This only seemed to egg him on further. I didn't even notice him move until his hand was in my hair, forcing my head back to look up at him. I cursed myself silently for the moan that tore through my lips at the rough treatment.

"Someone's enjoying himself," Strade licked his lips, dropping down so we were face to face, resting his hand delicately on my cheek, a stark contrast from the abuse before. I'm not sure which one I preferred. It was short lived, however, when a harsh slap to my face completely tore away that feeling of safety. I cried out, dropping my head forward. Man, he was strong. "I think we should get to action." I looked up at him as he spoke, confusion clear on my face until he pulled out a large hunting knife, tossing it in the air and catching it by the handle. I swallowed hard, eyes wide.

"No, no, no," I shook my head as he approached me, blade in hand. I scrambled back the best I could but it was no use when I was tied up. "Get that fucking thing away from me!" I cried, my breathing picking up significantly. He shook his head as he crouched down in front of me again, holding my leg tightly in his hand so I couldn't go anywhere.

"You sound pretty when you beg. Please, don't stop on my account," He smirked, bringing the blade down to my thigh. I took a deep breath, trying to relax as the sharp tip traced my skin. It was fruitless, however, when the first press of the blade deep in my skin made me cry out, arching my back as tears fell down my cheeks. I shook my head, thrashed around, anything to get his hands off of me. Another loud cry was torn from my lips when a second deep cut was carved into my skin.

"Please stop," I sobbed, tears flowing freely down my cheeks. "Please, please. I'll do anything. Anything you want." This seemed to catch his interest in a way I wasn't sure I liked. 

          "Anything?" Strade asked, interest peaked. I nod hesitantly, suddenly regretting my words. I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut when Strade reached around me, expecting pain. I was pleasantly surprised when he untied me instead. I didn't have time to relish in my newfound freedom before I was being pushed to the ground on my back, once again losing my breath. I looked up at him with wide eyes when he climbed over me, already undoing his pants. I sat myself up on my elbows and watched as he pulled his cock out, stroking himself with one hand. "All this screaming has really gotten to me." His voice should have been comforting but it just made panic rise up in my stomach. I didn't have time to react before he pulled my boxers down. "Oh~?" He let go of himself and spread my thighs. "I will say, I wasn't expecting this." He pushed two fingers into me and I gasped, arching my back. I didn't realize how wet I was until he touched me. "What a lovely treat. Pretty boy with a lovely cunt for me to use."

I shook my head with a whimper, trying to kick him away. As good as it felt, I didn't want this. I didn't want his fingers in me. I didn't want him touching me... Or did I? I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, especially when his thumb brushed against my clit in a way I've never felt before. I let out a desperate moan as he curled his fingers, moving them quicker.

"Please," I panted, rolling my hips. Strade seemed pleasantly surprised with my begging, a smirk settling across his face. 

"Since you're asking so nicely," He smirked, bringing our lips together for another searing kiss. I didn't hesitate to return it even if every neuron in my body was kicking into overdrive, telling me to run away before it was too late. I couldn't react even if I wanted to when his blade was pressed against my neck again. I tensed up and gasped against his lips, digging my fingers into his biceps. He didn't cut me however, just held it there. A warning that I should listen to whatever he says. I made the mistake of relaxing, letting his lips on mine become a false sense of security, because next thing I knew, there was a blinding pain up my arm. When I looked, the only thing I could see was the black handle of his hunting knife sticking out of my arm and blood flooding freely from the wound. I didn't scream. The only noise I made was a small whimper. I looked up at him and my eyes widened at the hungry expression that settled in his eyes when he saw my blood dripping.

"What happened to your enthusiasm, mein Hundebaby?" Strade growled in my ear, his fingers still buried inside me. They were no longer moving but the feeling was the only thing I could focus on, wishing he would move them to get this over with. I rolled my hips in encouragement while giving him the most desperate look I could muster when my entire body felt like it was on fire. This seemed to stir him on because his fingers were moving again, quicker than they were before. I squeezed my eyes shut and moaned, using the arm that wasn't pinned to the ground by his knife to wrap around his neck. He curled and moved his fingers in just the right way that had me nearly screaming, arching my back.

"St-Strade," I managed to moan out, moving my hips in time with the harsh thrusts of his fingers. "Gonna- oh god yes- gonna cum." Strade perked up with a smirk, moving his face between my legs. I panicked for a moment before I felt his tongue on me. I gasped, throwing my head back. It didn't take long for me to cum, my whole body shaking. I knew it wasn't over yet, not when Strade was pushing his pants the rest of the way off.

"Wir werden so viel Spaß haben," His voice was low and husky in my ear. I was so invested and trying to make sense of what he said that I didn't notice him pushing his way into me until he was all the way to the base, tearing a moan from my throat. He wasted no time in setting a brutal speed. At some point, he ripped the blade from my arm and the movement made me gasp as another wave of pain hit me. I felt blood soak the ground underneath and the pain was almost unbearable. It muffled but didn't cover the intense pleasure I was feeling from Strade pounding into me.

"Oh god," I moaned, digging my nails into his shoulder. I was starting to feel light headed from the blood loss and everything began blurring together. The last thing I can remember is the blissed out look on Strade's face as he came in me and the wave of pleasure that washed over me as I came, then I blacked out.

I was startled awake by a kick to my leg right where one of the cuts were. I cried out in pain, looking down at my leg. The cuts were stitched up and when I looked at my arm, that wound was also tended to. My attention turned back to Strade and I gave him a confused look.

"Why are you doing this?" I wheezed out.

"Why?" Strade rose a brow, shrugging. "Because I want to. Because I can. Come on, you know you're enjoying yourself too if yesterday wasn't a good indication." I looked at him in disbelief. He couldn't be serious right? 

"I passed out because I lost so much blood. You stabbed me!" I knew I wasn't in a good position to be yelling at him like this but I was furious. How can such a kind, unassuming man turn out to be such a brutal monster? I didn't realize I voiced my concerns out loud until the look in his eyes changed to something much darker, much more dangerous.

"A monster?" He tilted his head. "After I've been so generous to you? I'll show you a monster." My eyes widened as he untied me. I didn't have the chance to move before I was being slammed face first into the pole I was previously tied to. I cried out in pain and felt blood gush from my now broken nose. I looked back at him, using my good arm to wipe the blood from my face. The sight of my blood must have done something to him, if the hungry look on his face was anything to go off of. He licked his lips while eyeing me up and down and I suddenly decided I didn't like the look he was giving me.

"Tell me," Strade paced in front of me, tapping his chin with his index finger. "Have you ever sucked dick before?" I stared at him blankly, trying to wrap my head around the question. Why should I tell this borderline stranger my sex life anyways? It’s not like it really mattered if he planned on keeping me here any longer than he already has. He didn't seem to care much for my answer anyway as he kicked behind my knee, causing them to buckle and I fell to the floor. He pulled himself from his pants then reached forwards, smearing the blood from my nose across my lips. I parted my lips when his thumb brushed over my bottom lip, taking the bloody finger into my mouth. The coppery taste was intense and it was worse to know this was my own blood I was licking from his finger.

"Du bist zu süß, um loszulassen," He growled, pulling my hair to force me to look at him. "Open." His voice was powerful and left no room for argument so I had no choice but to open my mouth for him. There was a pleased look on his face as he forced his cock into my mouth, wasting no time to force the length down my throat. I gagged but didn't dare move, closing my eyes as he fucked my mouth. He was bigger than I expected. His dick was hitting the back of my throat and it wasn’t even all the way in. I braced myself with my hands on his thick ass thighs as my nose brushed against the small patch of hair on his crotch, finally gathering the courage to open my eyes to look at his blissed out expression. There was a sort of hunger in his eyes as he watched me gag and choke on his cock, not seeming to care that there was definitely my blood on it. It was messy and rough, drool dribbling down my chin and tears pooling in my eyes at the force he was using. He didn't seem to care about how my voice would be scratchy and my throat raw once he was done.

"Schau mich an, Welpe," Strade grunted, tightening his hands in my hair. "I want you to watch me when I cum." I whined around him, the vibrations doing nothing but making him moan louder and fuck with more abandon. I did as he said though, keeping my eyes locked with his. It wasn't much longer before he was spilling down my throat with a low moan of something in German that I couldn't quite understand. He pulled out of my throat, forcing my mouth closed. "Swallow." He looked at me expectantly. I debated fighting him but knew that it would be a pointless venture so I swallowed it down and fought the urge to cringe.

I wiped the blood from my face when he let go, leaning back against the pole to catch my breath. I hardly noticed as he tied me back up.

Translations (courtesy of google translate): 

Hündchen - puppy

mein Hundebaby - my puppy 

Wir werden so viel Spaß haben - we are going to have so much fun

Du bist zu süß, um loszulassen - you are too sweet to let go

Schau mich an, Welpe - look at me, puppy

[fanfictrashdump]

Universe in a Jar, 2 - Phase 4 fic

Recap: Some days ago, I reblogged this post about the magical trio. And then my brain went off on a monumental tangent and, I wrote Universe in a Jar.

Characters: Stephen Strange, Loki, Wanda Maximoff, OC

Rating: T? 

Warnings: Language! Embarrassing use of euphemisms, mourning, grief, mention of parent death, flirting is you squint, neurological disorders, attempted accidental murder, and typos probs.

Summary: Baby-sitting beings arguably more powerful than him goes awry for Doctor Strange. He knows one person who can possibly keep them isolated and out of trouble. Well, he knew someone who could… he hasn’t seen them in decades and for stupid reasons. 

XX

Persephone paused at the kitchen entrance, steeling her resolve and gathering the courage to walk past the table to get herself a cup of coffee. The notion that she would have to make herself brave enough to get something in her own home was ridiculous, but her kitchen was currently full of magic beings, as it had been every day for the past week. That wasn't the bit that made her hesitant, not being strictly ordinary herself. It was the man bent over a bowl of blackberries, freshly plucked off of a bush out back, that made her anxious. It was the superimposition of the familiar sight, her friend picking out twigs, leaves and the occasional caterpillar from the fruit, with the dull memory of a storybook villain who laid her whole feelings to waste.

"Morning! There's coffee and I'm making pancakes!" Wanda announced, much more cheery than she had been in a long while. The silence and lack of activities of their little haven in rural Nebraska had given her plenty of time to deal with unpleasant feelings. The witch tossed a half dozen pancakes in the air, all of them flipping perfectly back onto the griddle with no mess. Some people were blessed with better magic than her, Seph realized a little bitterly. "They have blaaackberries!"

"Oh. I, um, yeah–"

Stephen made a small noise of amusement. "I got strawberries for you. I know you think blackberries taste too purple."

She was forced to look up at the face she had been dreading for a whole week. The corner of Stephen's mouth twitched upwards briefly in a not unkind manner. Purple splotches stained the front of his t-shirt, a sight that took her back to days of youth when they would fill their shirts with berries and stuff themselves under a shady tree. Clearly, he had not yet learned another method to carry produce.

"That is not a thing, I assure you," Loki quipped with a smirk. He had helped himself to a book from Seph's library and had kicked his feet up on another chair, watching as the other two tinkered with breakfast.

"I have synesthesia. So, it is, actually, a thing."

She skirted past the men to the coffee maker, pouring herself a fresh cup and helping herself to the milk and sugar that had been left beside it. Wanda was good at this homemaker lark, considering Seph felt like she was an esteemed guest in her own home. Wanda had remarked several times that she liked to make people feel welcome and that she felt guilty for dropping in with the 'Magic Castle rejects' and causing 'unwarranted levels of trauma'. Seph had reassured her that she was fine with the company and it wasn't even bad to have Stephen around, but there was always an edge in her voice and a hint of mistruth in her voice that failed to convince the other woman.

"What in this Midgardian Hel is synesthesia?"

"Mis-wired sensory neurons." Stephen and Persephone answered in unison, startling each other and sharing a long, tense look before she continued. "My taste and sight are a little crossed."

"So your brain is broken." Despite the bluntness of his statement, Loki did not sound mean, more curious.

"More like it perceives differently."

"Mm." He was quiet for a long time after that one hum. The only noise in the kitchen being the sizzle of pancakes and the occasional sip of coffee. "How do you perceive portals? Do you feel the energy and shape it?"

Seph tilted her head in thought. She knocked Loki's legs from the chair and sank into the seat. Stephen and Wanda pretended to be engrossed in their task of making pancakes while they eavesdropped on the conversation. "No. It's like… have you ever seen those forests in a bottle? With like the microplants and worms, and you water it and close it. And it'll basically a self-sustaining entity as long as you don't open it? I see it like that, but the bottle is very flexible and bigger on the inside. Like the TARDIS."

"The what?"

"Time and relative dimension in space. It's a space and time travel machine. It's bigger on the inside," Stephen explained, mixing his fourth cup of coffee of the morning, which did not help with the shaking of his hands but it did wonders to quell his nauseous anxiety.

Loki's eyes widened with excitement. "Where can we acquire one?"

Seph smiled, reaching over to pat Loki's hand. "It's a television show, buddy. It's not real."

"Then why bring it into the conversation?"

"It was a good comparison. I didn't know quality entertainment was so lacking in Asgard." The atmosphere shifted subtly and Seph looked up from her cup of coffee to see all three magicians tense. "What?" More silence followed. Stephen's eyes flittered to Loki and everything made sense. This Loki had not lived through the chaos of moving his people to Earth. She then remembered Wanda giving her an update on everyone a few days ago and how he had not really taken everything all too well… fuck. "Oh. Oh, shit, I'm sorry, Loki."

The Asgardian smiled, a calm, bright expression that looked a little forced. "No worries."

Pushing the coffee away, she angled her body to Loki's and grasped his hand. "It's OK to be sad about losing a home that never truly accepted you, Lo–"

Stephen rolled his eyes and muttered. "Here we go."

Seph groaned, closing her eyes to settle herself. "No one's talking to you, Stephen!"

"Bleeding heart."

"Scalpel jockey."

He scoffed. "You could've done any specialty, chosen any residency–"

"And that's what I did. Not all of us are content hacking into people's heads."

"Not content in making a real difference, you mean?"

"Yes, tell me how that surgical career is working for you right now, Strange!" It was a low blow, she knew, and there was almost a feeling of guilt as he closed his fists to mask the shuddering of his hands self-consciously.

"I'm sure your business is booming. A couple of global catastrophes have probably got the nutjobs flocking to the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Hale."

Seph let out a disdainful laugh. "Considering most of my patients are kids who can suddenly levitate shit around their room or accidentally set things on fire, yes. My business is booming. If only the Earth had a protector that would keep global catastrophes from happening and triggering powers in scared kids." She swigged from her coffee and leaned back in her chair. "At least they have someone to talk to."

He slammed his own cup onto the kitchen table and chuckled. "And there it is! We talked almost twenty minutes without you bringing it up, Seph. Good job! You're getting bett–"

His cutting remarks were cut off abruptly, leaving only an odd mutter and the thumping of fist on glass. Around him, walls of a shimmery energy created a box and closed off all noise from the Sorcerer Supreme. His protests sounded like they were coming from underwater, though the walls were clear and solid to the touch. It almost looked like a specimen jar for entomologists–a killing jar.

"He's quiet, at the very least," Loki remarked, turning to give Seph a smile only to find her hazel eyes glowing as if they were leaking light, contrasting starkly with her dark skin. Her hands were shoulder width apart. Distractedly, she tilted her head, curls shifting slightly, and brought her hands closer together. The box rippled, and with it Strange coughed, suddenly panting for breath as he thumped his fist on the wall. "Persephone. Seph. Seph!" The woman showed no signs of hearing him, intensely focused on just the box and her prey. "Wanda!"

Wanda turned from the stove, midway through an eye roll before she dropped her spatula and swirling a large red orb in her hands and directing it towards the glass. The barrier shimmered but barely moved. Loki worked green and golden magic over Seph, trying to break through the blocks in her mind, but was becoming continually distracted by Stephen trying to magic his way out of the enclosure until he slumped forward, breathing shallowly.

"Come on, Seph. You need to let him go. It's not going to help." His eyes drifted to Strange. The sling ring had his magic flicker shortly before dying. Something about that box was not letting him enchant. "Persephone, killing him won't make it better. Believe me. Knowing the person who made you suffer is dead only gives you more grievances."

Wanda surrounded the bottle with her magic. It deformed and shifted, but was no closer to breaking apart to when she started. "I need help and Strange doesn't have long."

"Switch!" Loki turned his attention to the box, his magic making the whole thing shudder.

Wanda had taken his place and was fluttering her fingers beside Seph's temple, red tendrils flowing between them in an effort to access the other's mind. She frowned. "She's… she's keeping me out. How is she doing this? This shouldn’t be possible."

"Impossible is our specialty. Just keep trying." Loki grit his teeth, drawing and gathering his magic and concentrating it in one small, brilliant pebble. With a grunt of effort, he shot the projectile at the glass and a small crack appeared. "Oh for fuck's sake!" 

He repeated the process several times until the crack extended and opened just enough for air to flow in. Stephen breathed a little easier but was still looking weak, his skin sallow and pale; lips a sickly purple. With one last growl, Loki’s magic exploded outward, and the box shattered with a spine-quivering screech. He barely had the time to snatch the Sorcerer before he collapsed on the ground.

Seph inhaled sharply, shaking her head to clear the cobwebs from her mind, and opened her eyes to find all three guests staring at her with furrowed brows and narrowed gazes. Her gaze connected with Wanda, who still had her magic at the ready, to Stephen who was hanging off Loki's shoulder, desperately moving air into his lungs, to Loki who just looked concerned. On the floor, shards of shimmering glass rested, shaking to some unknown Universal vibration pattern before disappearing.

"Well, at the very least, he'll know not to antagonize you, now," Loki quipped, breaking the tense silence.

"Loki, no–" Stephen groaned, watching Seph disappearing from the kitchen, her footsteps echoing up the stairs.

About an hour later, Seph heard her bedroom door squeak open. She sat up like a shot and shuffled back against the headboard. Stephen closed the door behind him, his eyes fixed on her shaking form.

"Don't. Just, go back outside. I'll stay here. I–I can't be anywhere near any of you," she rambled, eyes wide and glittering with tears.

"It's a house full of magicians, we'll survive." He placed a stack of strawberry pancakes soaked in syrup on the bedside table. "You should eat. That kind of display… you should be exhausted right now. Why aren't you exhausted?" The question he tacked onto the end sounded rhetorical.

Reluctantly, she grabbed the plate just as her stomach growled. She picked at the pancakes before taking a bite. She winced at the taste, the color was too vibrant, too in-your-face. Stephen had definitely not had a hand in making these. He was terrible, but he remembered details like it was no one's business. Swallowing the bite, she put the plate back, wincing. With little warning, Stephen had pulled her hand towards him, a handful of long scratches etched into her palm, like the shattering of the box had recoiled into her hands.

"What? You hurt yourself and you don't say anything?" He tutted under his breath, bringing the other hand to his inspection to find similar scratches.

"Stop."

"I'll have to get the First Aid kit–"

"Loki, stop!"

Stephen frowned, eyes narrowing. "Loki?"

"Loki. Stop. Now."

The Sorcerer stared for another minute, face tight, before the glamour shimmered and faded in its entirety. "How did you know?"

She turned her hands to tap on his palms, held out steadily to hold hers. "He lets them shake when he's focused on something else. And the food was a little too bright."

"I knew I should've asked him to make it." He sighed, shrugging before gesturing for her hands back. "Let's have a look, pet." After a second's hesitation, she returned her hands and left them to his mercy. His magic stung her palms, but she remained still, occasionally sucking air through her teeth at the sensation of rapid healing.

"I thought you didn't like him." She said, out of the blue, but he immediately understood.

"He's been decent enough." He paused for another moment. "I'm also certain there is some sort of cosmic balance that would gravely suffer if that bother of a human is killed.” He waved his hands in a flourish and grinned. “There we go." 

"I'm sorry."

Loki frowned. "What ever for?"

"You guys are supposed to be laying low and recuperating not dealing with a fool with no sense of control."

"No control? Persephone, you wanted to kill Strange."

"Exactly! I–"

"No. You misunderstand me." He leaned down to level their stared. "You wanted to kill Strange. I could see it in your mind but I couldn't break through. You have excellent control. Which is why I had to go for the box and not your mind. I would've had to kill you to break the magic, if I had."

"So, I'm a psychopath?"

He laughed, bringing her hands to his lips and kissing her knuckles. "No, dear. You're just very angry at him. I hate to say it, but you might have to talk this through like adults."

Seph frowned. "Have you ever tried to have a conversation with Stephen Strange?"

"Yes. It was painful." He laughed. "He's not unreasonable, though. He's just a bit of a…"

"Control freak?"

He smirked and nodded. "Your adjective is kinder."

"Usually is." The pair glanced over at the door to see Stephen leaning against the frame, arms crossed. "I was always the asshole in the duo."

Seph made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat. "Do none of you knock? Were you all raised in a barn?"

Stephen snorted. "We grew up in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, where we, quite literally, spent most of our free time in a barn. You're lucky we speak in complete sentences given the public education system here."

"I know your mother taught you how to knock, Stephen Strange."

He rolled his eyes, quickly getting frustrated. "And yours taught you how to be polite. We both failed our mothers, it seems."

Seph's eyes flashed briefly and Loki made a warning noise loud enough to break her out of the glowing trance. "Have you learned nothing, you idiot?" Turning back to her, he smiled. "What he means to say is, memories have made him miserable and pent up all week and it’s making him snarky, but he is ready to give up the torture of having you angry at him."

"I haven't been miserable and pent up." Stephen’s tone was indignant and his chin jutted out defiantly. Loki was there to match his haughty tone with one of his own.

"Oh, so the self-immolation in her name was a coincidence?"

"I wasn't–"

She mouthed the phrase to herself several times, turning it over in her mind. Stephen looked fine, little scratches and scars from attempting to wrangle the other two, aside. Her doctorly instincts were not sounding any alarm bells that usually came on when she suspected any type of self harm. Was he maybe mentally torturing himself? "Self-immola–? Oh my god." She could barely look at either of the men. She definitely did not have to know what any of them got up to in the privacy of their own rooms. "Stephen!"

"I wasn't! Are you seriously listening to him about this?" He defended, though there was a jerky sort of nervousness in his movements and his cheeks blazed red.

Loki mouthed 'he was' at her and Seph covered her face with a pillow because suffocating in the fabric was a better alternative to this conversation. "Midgardians are such prudes, honestly. You're a beautiful woman and what I can presume is a source of comfort to him. He was very respectful of you in his thoughts–"

"How long were you watching me?"

"Long enough to respect your endurance.” Movement caught his attention. “Darling, where are you going?" Seph had thrown herself out of bed and was marching towards her closet, only to find that the door wouldn't budge. Same happened to the main door, en suite, wardrobe, even the drawers in her dresser. She wasn't going anywhere and Loki had made sure that every avenue of escape was unavailable.

Stephen scoffed. "Well, I can still lea–" He patted down his pockets and let out a groan. "Loki!"

"Looking for this?" The god held Stephen's sling ring between his thumb and index. "You can have it back when you've made nice."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I am done being in the middle of conflicts. I didn't like it five hundred years ago and I don't like it now. I detest having to scramble to keep her from killing you. This is the third time this week. Every time you anger her, the response is stronger." Stephen opened his mouth to protest, but Loki marched on. "What happens when her emotion and rage outweigh her control? I barely freed you today. Next time, she will succeed."

The Sorcerer rolled his eyes, ever the dramatic soul. "Yes, tell me how you'll weep."

"It'll barely register in my mind but it will destroy her, Strange!" The men’s argument was catching momentum fast, complete with random pointing in her direction and very colorful expletives.

"Could you not talk about me like I'm not in the room?" She murmured, just as the screaming match between the two started to elevate, scuffing her feet on the ground with a pout.

Loki swallowed the, no doubt acidic, retort he had poised on his tongue. "Apologies, flower. I meant no disrespect." He gave her an encouraging smile, holding his hand out to her. "But this is an issue that must be resolved sooner rather than later." After a moment's hesitation, she slapped her hand into his with a sigh and he chuckled. "Don't seem so enthusiastic."

"It's not about holding your hand–," she defended quickly, her eyes rounding with sadness as she fell back into her spot on the mattress.

"I was kidding, darling." He glanced at the Sorcerer. "Stephen."

"I'm not holding your hand, dude," he retorted instantly.

"Good. I've seen where it's been, I don't want it near me at the moment." Seph giggled quietly and Loki looked extremely pleased with himself at the sound. Stephen frowned, jealousy gnawing at his stomach. "Stop pouting, Strange. It's unbecoming."

"He doesn't deal well with negative emotions. So, he pouts a lot."

"I do not!"

"And denies negative feelings. Acknowledging them means he didn't successfully lock them into a tiny chest, wrapped them in chains and dropped them into the ocean."

"You're making me sound like a sociopath."

Seph fixed him with a raised brow look. "Where's the lie?"

Irritation clouded his speckled blue gaze, expression falling into the bored mask he usually wore. "Alright, this was a mistake. Loki, let me out."

"When's the last time you cried, Stephen?"

"Don't analyze me, Hale." His hissed tone would have intimidated a lesser human, but she remained as passive as ever. 

"It's a simple question, bud. I want to know how irritating you're going to be through this conversation."

"Does it matter?"

"It makes my point. You've always been awful with expressing yourself because you've convinced yourself that whatever asshole mask you put on makes you seem more mature. If you–"

"Match day."

"What?"

"Match day. I haven't really cried since residency match day. We weren't talking and you went off to Chicago and I stayed in New York. That's when I knew I lost you."

Loki leaned into her and asked under his breath. "When was that?"

"Decade and a half ago."

His eyes bugged out at her before turning back to Strange. "Decad–what is wrong with you?"

"You've had ample crying in the last decade and a half, have you?"

"I've had ample crying in the last ten and a half days. What the fuck is broken inside you?"

"Hey! Be nice!" Seph snapped, glaring at the god.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Abandoned you for your powers when you were at your lowest?"

"Oh. Right."

A long pause followed.

"I didn't know how to go back," Stephen admitted quietly. "I stood outside your building for three months. I could never knock. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the look on your face when I blew up at you… I knew I couldn't fix it. I still do."

Despite the ice that flowed through his veins, he couldn’t not stare back at the accusatory glare in her eyes. "I flew back home alone."

"I know."

"I identified her body alone."

"I know."

"I buried her alone. She loved you like you were hers and you didn't show up to her funeral, Stephen. I just…" Tears cut off the rest of her sentence, a sob gripping her throat. After a long while, she sniffled, wiping messily at her face. She chanced a look at him, his expression hard and his left eye twitching the same way it did when he was particularly upset about something. Twenty years and she could still tell when he was shoving his guilt down. "You're the one who leaves her flowers." Seph sighed, thinking about the bouquet of violets that were always there whenever she visited her mother's grave, and the fact that in recent times, it seemed like the visits had risen exponentially. Which made sense, since he could open a portal to the other side of the country at any given time.

He shrugged. "You leave mine flowers, too." He sighed, glancing hard at the floor. "I didn't forget my whole damn life just because you weren't speaking to me, Seph."

"To not have been speaking to you requires an effort for you to speak to me, wouldn't there?"

"She has a point."

"Shut up, Loki."

"Just moderating, Strange."

"I was stupid and scared. I went to you for everything. Feeling happy, feeling sad, stressed–you were the go-to for advice. Ironically, the person I would've asked for advice on how to approach you… was you." He forced a chuckle, feeling ridiculous. "Much like, full disclosure, the person I asked dating advice for was also you."

She cackled. "Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. I asked you what your mystery girl liked and it sounded like you were reading from my diary. You weren't exactly subtle."

"I threw in some bad information."

"You said she might be into girls."

Stephen's mouth flapped open several times before he dragged a hand down his face. "In retrospect, yeah, I pretty much described you, but I wasn't sure if you were into both."

"We went on three separate dates, you just didn't fucking notice!"

"And you were attracted to him?" Loki interrupted, eyes narrowed and looking between the two. "Were there no other options in lovers?"

"Shut up, Loki!" They replied in unison.

Seph smiled sadly, her fingers absently trailing over Loki's in an effort to distract her mind. "I would've forgiven you the second you knocked on my door if you had just apologized and meant it. Not something out of obligation or because I was literally your last resort."

"I'm not good at admitting when I'm wrong. You know that."

"Truly a tragedy, considering you're wrong a lot of the time, even if you swear up and down that you’re right," she teased, sounding like a well-practiced jab.

There was a bit of amusement lighting up Stephen's face. "I get one question wrong on a test, thirty years ago and it's all you ever talk about the rest of our lives."

"I also got a better score than you on the MCAT, so…"

He barked out a laugh. "I hate you so much." The smile slowly melted from his face, leaving behind a passive expression. He felt relaxed, less uptight. Whether that was due to the tension in the air lifting the slightest bit or the fact that he could feel her familiar aura as he had for so much of his life, he didn't know. "I'm really sorry, Peep. Leaving you is a regret I'll take to my grave."

Her nose scrunched at the long-forgotten nickname and shook her head, deciding that she knew better than to tell him to forget that endearment ever existed. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you, I guess. In my defense, you were asking for it."

"That's fair."

"Did I hurt you?"

He smirked. "Crushed my lungs a bit. Nothing permanent." He tilted his head. “Why? Is it going to become a common occurrence?”

Persephone's face clouded. "I don’t know, Stephen. It’s a process. I can’t just–”"

“You can’t just forgive him like nothing happened. He understands.” Loki pinched her cheek playfully, leaving her to bat it away with an irritated pout. "Hold your grudge. Keep it for as long as you need, but don't let it poison you. Stupid things happen when you let grief color your perception."

"Whatever. I promise not to murder him, at the least.” Heavy expression fell on the Asgardian, next. “Also, if you ever use the phrase self-immolate in your name, again, I will punch you in the face. I didn't need to know that."

"I WASN'T!"

"I don't care if you did. I don't want to know while I'm still really pissed at you. Got it?"

Both of the men mumbled a "fine" under their breaths before a collective click resounded around the room. They were free once more. Stephen hesitated at the door, his demeanor giving off the impression that he was building up to say something. Seph watched him expectantly only to have him drop his shoulders and turn on his heel, twisting the doorknob to make a hasty retreat.

"Him? Of all people? Really?"

Seph laughed, rolling her eyes. "He was the boy next door. And he's always been pretty hot."

"You can do better." His voice was smooth and rumbly and made her raise her eyebrows.

"I think you mean I can do worse."

Loki smirked. "Norns, I hope you do."

[finleyjayne]

Living a Lie: Chapter 2

Thank you for everyone who helped with this fic, including the fantastic @2smittinkittin​, the wonderful beta for this chapter, and @kittykatlow​, who is still forever supportive.

Summary: Penelope Grace Darling: the name you live by, the only name the world remembers. That doesn’t keep the memories of Y/N out of your head. All you ever wanted to do was create a better world. You thought you were doing that until some unexpected visitors to your hometown turn your world upside down. Can you leave your past behind you in order to keep your loved ones safe? Or will your fragmented memories keep you from the truth?

Pairings: Past Winter Soldier/Reader, Plus sized!Reader. Slow burn Bucky Barnes/ Reader.

Warnings: Dub/Noncon, Rape, Kidnapping, human trafficking (referenced), Underage Rape, Swearing, PTSD, Anxiety attacks, Unhealthy coping mechanisms, Non-consenting drug use, underage Drug use, Violence, Domestic Violence, I’m trying to remember what else comes later in the series.

This is a Dark Fic if you don’t like it, Don’t Read It!

Chapter 1

Looking genuinely confused as you try to place the name with the context, your eyes flipping between the four people who were now staring at you. Three highly amused with your confusion and one completely flabbergasted. “Daisy calm down a bit? I am apparently missing something here, and you yelling is definitely not helping me piece it together.”

  At this, Clint bends over himself, clutching his sides as his laughter rips through his chest. What a sexy laugh? Even though it’s at my expense. Nat smirks a little longer than her usual quick flashes. Wanda, ever the peacekeeper, extends her hand, “Hello, My name is Wanda, but I’m usually more recognized by my superhero name: The Scarlet Witch. These are my teammates and friends, Natasha, or The Black Widow, and Clint, also known as Hawkeye. It’s very nice to meet you, Penelope. We definitely appreciate the help with the shoes.”

As her sentences click in your brain, your eyes grow as big as your glasses’ rims. Your jaw pops open, “Oh, well, it’s nice to meet you, too?” You say with a nervous laugh, well, this is embarrassing. “Thank you for coming into our store. Daisy, don’t do anything stupid. I’m going to go grab my purse, and then I’m going to lunch.” you face still plastered with saucer-sized eyes as you slip through the curtains.

How could I not know who they were? I know I use Daisy and Bruce as my source of current events, but I should at least know the Avengers’ faces. You grab your purse, slinging it across your body before proceeding out the front door toward the little corner bakery. At least I didn’t act like a complete fool. Daisy is probably freaking out. I shouldn’t have left her alone with them, she’s going to eat them alive. Who am I kidding? They’ll be fine, they are the Avengers, they can handle an over-excited almost adult. 

Thankfully, lunch and the rest of your shift flew by without any other famous guests. Your nerves were on the fritz, though; it felt as if someone was watching you. No matter what you did, You just couldn’t relax. Every movement drew your attention. Every sound made you flinch. As Bruce came through the door, you burst at the seams with the need to make your escape. You threw a passing goodbye to your boss as you jogged to your car, not even sparing a moment to change the radio back to a public station. You were out of the parking lot and on the road in seconds, causing Gertrude to complain loudly. Fighting off the sharp edges of the panic that blistered your mind. Within two blocks, you were pulled over, hand clawing at your chest, sight wavering as you throw Gertrude into park. Before you can even think about counting the rails in the fence, your vision is black. 

“Пожалуйста, прекратите! [Please stop!]” The high-pitched scream echoes through the small, dark room. “Вам не нужно этого делать [You don’t need to do this].” a shock of pain courses over your back as a second resounding crack follows. 

“Тишина [SILENCE],” comes the cold order. “Вы говорите, когда я хочу, чтобы вы говорите! [You speak when I want you to speak!]” two more cracks and, after a second, two more blazing paths are scorching your skin. Confusion is mixed into the muddled neurons of your brain as you hear the metal door sliding open. 

Cautiously you lift your eyes, peering over your shoulder, only to be met by another crack that catches you across the cheek. With another bloodcurdling scream, you fall onto your freshly whipped back. Holding a cuffed hand to your sliced cheek, you meet the coldest pair of steel-blue eyes you have ever seen. “Этого достаточно. Они готовы к этому. [That’s enough. They are ready for it]” came the icy baritone through the black mask. 

    Your assailant scowls at the man. “Пациент не готов. [The subject is not ready]”

    The empty-eyed man ignores him as he steps closer to you. “Они готовы [they are ready],” he repeats. He reaches for your arm mechanically. It was as if he was only going through the motions without knowing what he was doing.

     You flinch from his extended right hand, cowering away. “Вам не нужно этого делать [You don’t need to do this].” comes the pleading voice that you realize is coming from you. 

     He continues forward, dragging you out of the room to the scream of the man you left behind. “Она не твоя [She is not yours]!”

     Sobbing into the steering wheel of your beloved clunker, you hold onto your thick sides. The black-rimmed, ice-filled eyes continue to hover in your peripheral as you come out of the onslaught of memories. It’s not real, I am in Utah, they are not here, he is not here. I am safe. Coulson promised I am safe. After eight more deep breaths, your thoughts are cut off by a peppy, upbeat melody sung by a flowy lyric-soprano. “I know you can hear this Penny, so pick up, or I’ll sing it higher.” As the melody repeats for the third time, you scramble to pick your phone up. 

    “Delilah, I hope you realize that the ringtone you made me is, in fact, the cruelest practical joke anyone has ever succeeded in pulling.” You snip the need to portray normalcy coming through in your irritation at one of your best friends. 

    “I loooove you too, darling.” came the cloying giggle from the other end of the line. “Taylor and I were just talking about the Stark expo that is opening tonight. Also, we haven’t heard from you in a couple of days. Please save me from going to this thing without you. You can interpret Tay’s wild ramblings for me, and you can get out of that dungeon you call a bedroom for a night! It’ll be fun! Pleeeeeeeease~.” 

You can see the bright amber puppy-dog eyes she was giving you through the phone. There was no way she would let you off the hook if Taylor was dragging her to the Expo. Knowing Taylor, they had probably pre-ordered three VIP passes months ago and had been secretly geeking out since, waiting to haul us to their favorite displays and setting up the perfect itinerary. But also in their excitement, forgot to tell us about it until now.  

With a sigh, you throw your head back onto the headrest. “I’m going whether or not I want to, aren’t I?”

“You know us so well,” came Taylor’s dark-tenor chuckle through the speaker. 

“Well, I’m headed to my appointment up there right now. If you want to meet me at the east entrance of the Salt Palace afterward...” You resign, glancing at the radio clock in the dash. “I should be done by the time you get there, but I’ll text you when I’m on my way.” Delilah squeals, and Tay’s hums in contentment. 

“See you there,” they both reply. “Drive safe, Drive smart.”

“You too. I’d suggest taking Trax if you can. The parking is gonna be a nightmare. I can take y’all home when we’re done.”

“Sounds like a plan. See you there,” Tay calls through Lila’s squeals before hanging up.

Staring blankly through the window for a minute before turning on the radio and making your way back into heavy Utah traffic.  

An hour later, you pull into the large parking structure, running out of the car and into the blazing summer heat. Fucking Utah drivers. Unable to go a single day without causing some sort of preventable crash. Bursting into the large hospital, you clip your little identification tag before heading to the research lab where they run all their tests. Pulling your shoulders back as you scan your ID and pass the double doors that say: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

You follow the labyrinth of hallways to a small medical-exam room in the furthest corner of the buildings. X-rays, MRIs, and Photos were stuck to lightboards around the room. With a huff, you look away from the gruesome images, towards a devilishly-handsome blond clothed in SHIELD emblazoned shrubs and a University of Utah Hospital doctor’s coat. The modelesque picture on his ID not doing him justice. 

“Hello, Miss Darling, only ten minutes early. What happened, you get stuck in traffic?” His aggravatingly-nasal voice pierced through the sounds of him typing on his small laptop, reminding you just how much you dislike this man. 

“Yes, actually, Dr. Fenris. There were three crashes on I-15, and then there was a line of cars four miles long getting off for the Expo. I never realized that there was enough parking for that here.” I grit my teeth, plastering on my smile at his joke. 

“Well, I see no use dilly-dallying any further; if you’ll change into your gown and then sit on the exam table, we’ll start with that today, then we’ll head to the MRI and X-ray followed by your physical strength and endurance testing.” Dr. Fenris said as you grabbed the scratchy hospital gown off the end of the exam table and started changing. There is no use hiding your body, this man has seen every part of my it over the last four years since you’ve come back to the states. If you were honest with yourself, you would stop these useless exams. The longer they went, the worse you were being treated, and the more you get the feeling that something is wrong. It’s not like they were making any progress in making this “cure” that you are supposedly helping with. 

Gown on, you sit on the bed. Legs dangling off the floor slightly as you wait for Fenris to finish whatever he is typing. As he turns his attention to you with a smirk, a wicked glint enters his eye. “Look at that; just as predicted, your healing time has decreased since the last time you got an abrasion. This week we’re going to analyze how your platelets are going to react to different poisons.”

Looking at him cautiously, you move the slightest bit away from his seat.

“Oh silly, we are going to do it in the lab. Just a couple of vials of blood from you are needed. For now, at least.” He placates jovially, pulling out a tray of vials and a winged phlebotomy kit. 

You warily keep your eye on him as he comes around to the side of the table. Right as he’s about to stick you, a knock comes at the door. You look at the doctor surprised. He just gives a tight smile, showing a tight smile as he turns to the door, opening it. “Dr. Banner, I didn’t think you were going to come in today.” the jittery surprise made evident his cheerful mask. 

“I wasn’t planning on it. Then I noticed that the subject of your tests was going to be in today and couldn’t help but want to see her for myself.” responded the gentle-looking man with salt and pepper hair and black-rimmed, nerd glasses. “My name is Dr. Bruce Banner. I am here to check on the status of Dr. Fenris’ research.” 

“Hey,” you say with an awkward little wave, “I’m Penelope, but I guess you knew that already since I am his research,” you can’t help the self-deprecating chuckle and tight smile that follow Dr. Banner’s staring. “You just got to his favorite part. Fenris here was just about to stab me like Vlad the Impaler.” Your anxiety at Fenris’ obvious joy from your pain showing slightly.

Dr. Banner looked at you with complete horror. Turning to Dr. Fenris with a look of disgust. “I should hope not. It would be disappointing if this project were to stop. There is great potential for new knowledge and understanding here.”

Giggling slightly at the furious look Fenris throws you, your chest releases. “It was one time, Ms. Darling. And you healed before you even left the hospital.”

“Doesn’t mean you won’t do it again, Dr. we-are-testing-your-platelets’-reaction-to-poisons-this-week. I feel like my cautiousness is well deserved, and I still hate needles,” you pout. “Now, if you’ll hurry up and stick me so we can get this over with. I’m supposed to be going to the Stark expo thingy. Gotta play the interpreter between my friends. Though, I’m pretty sure they are just using that excuse to get me to go with them.” 

Dr. Banner chuckled awkwardly as you turn to him, trying to ignore the deplorable doctor to your right. “Anyway, how hopeful are you for this research Dr. Banner? Are you going to the Expo? I hear that they will be talking about the new renewable resource cells Stark Industries is working on. I hope that they are planning on making them powerful enough to bring about an electric car. There are just too many oil refineries around here to be healthy. I personally would hop on that electric car bandwagon if there was one affordable and efficient.”

As you rambled, two large sterile culture bottles and six smaller tubes are filled with your blood. Dr. Banner keeps out of the way as Fenris goes about testing your reflexes and taking measurements of your leg, inspecting the other doctor’s work before Looking at the pictures, and medical imaging on the wall. “How long ago were these pictures taken?” He finally asks, pointing to the first set of photographs. Your leg was utterly ravaged, exposing the metal skeleton while the flesh looked like it was used as a cougar’s chew toy. 

“Four years.” I wince, remembering the carnage that Fury and Coulson had found me in. “Almost to the day.” 

“And this one?” gesturing to the next picture; muscle and tendon now in some sense of a sinewy leg. The skin overlying the fragile tissues without much scar tissue. 

“Two weeks later. The next is two weeks after that. I can tell you that growing pains are indeed worth all the crying that children do over them.” You joke, looking at the almost normal looking appendage in the picture, then at the more tone,d version currently attached to your body. 

“Can you feel it? When did it start?” You could tell that Banner’s questions were from a scientific fascination that made you smirk. He looked kind of like a little boy set loose in a candy store; intrigued, and full of genuine curiosity.

“I can’t really feel it, but my brain started to connect to it a few months after the initial accident. I am kinda glad I can’t feel it though. Getting back feeling all at once makes ‘pins and needles’ look like child’s play. Though according to Dr. Fenris, my body is apparently fully healed, and I could get the feeling back any second.” 

“Have you had today’s scans? Can I see them?”

“Not yet. That comes after the blood draw today, Then it’s time for some superhero training. Apparently, it’s not enough to take all my healing into account. I’m also being studied as a Superhuman… Fenris here likes to refer to me as a Supersoldier. I don’t really see how that fits since I never was technically a soldier-” 

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind me accompanying you, we can see what you can do. Who knows maybe by the end of today you’ll be vetted into the Avengers.”

“I don’t think that will be a possibility, Dr. Banner. I don’t think SHIELD is a big fan of my existence. I am only useful as a lab rat.”

The man looks to Fenris through the corner of his eye. “Is that right? I have a feeling many things about this research are going to be changing,” a deep undertone of discontent laced through the Dr.’s words. 

Throughout the next hour, more medical tests are done. By the time we are back into the little exam room, you are full of pent up energy. Now was your favorite part of these appointments. You get to actually use some of the ‘powers’ that You were given. You could set yourself free.

If you want more Winter Soldier fics, check out @darkficsyouneveraskedfor​. They have a great one called Breach.

Thank you all for reading.

Tags are open for this fic; I am also curious to see what you all think. Share your truth with me.

People I think will enjoy reading this: @star-spangled-beard-burn@angrythingstarlight​ @tossacoin2yourwitcher​ @navybrat817​ @nekoannie-chan​ @donutloverxo​ @stargazingfangirl18​ @nsfwsebbie​ @jtargaryen18 @buckys-broody-muffin​ @nacho-bucky​ @giorno-plays-piano​ @buckybarney

[aswallowssong]

Second Child, Restless Child

Chapter 1 - Second Child

Read on AO3

Dakota "Kit" Katherine Colghain likes her job as one of the FBI Academy Clinic's Head Nurses. As an academy graduate herself, she keeps her head down, works well with others, and genuinely enjoys her quiet life. She enjoys it more when she doesn't have to deal with any of the stiffs upstairs.

When she's given the chance to pilot a new program, a new position, within the bureau she isn't sure what to think. She genuinely enjoys her quiet life. Splitting her time between the clinic and a new team doesn't seem like something she's ready for. Besides, Ari is better for the job.

When she takes it anyway, she has no idea what, and who, is in store for her.

She shook out her hands as she stared through the glass double-door in front of her.

I can do this. She said to herself over and over. They wouldn’t have sent me upstairs for no reason.  

Regardless, that’s exactly where she stood for seemingly no reason. She’d stepped off the elevator and taken a maximum of four steps before she’d planted on the spot. A few people had walked around her in the three minutes she had been standing there, trying to get a grip.

Ari and Monty are going to give me hell when they find out I spent my afternoon talking to some stiff about something hush-hush.

The nurses in the FBI Academy Clinic, lovingly placed on the very bottom floor of the building, really disliked going upstairs. The “stiffs” more often than not had a low level of respect for the agents, yes agents , that worked to keep the new recruits in tip top shape. She liked her job, so she didn’t care what they thought, but she could already see Ari’s raised eyebrow, and hear Monty’s loud groan.

It was going to be a long night in their apartment before Ari went to work his night shift.

Before she could waste anymore time, she wiped clammy palms against her navy blue scrubs and pushed the door open. It was the middle of the day, just after her lunch break, but there was still a level of activity happening inside the bullpen. This activity just happened to stop as soon as the intruder started to move across the carpet, towards the stairs that led up to closed offices with open blinds. This was her destination, and she moved according

The office she was looking for allegedly belonged to a Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner. He was the Unit Chief for the Behavioral Analysis Unit, or the beloved BAU. He was also rumored to be no-nonsense and incredibly stern. An impeccable combination.

Eyes darted to her and murmurs started, low enough that she couldn’t hear what was said, but loud enough that she could tell they were saying something. If her goal was invisibility, she had failed miserably.

A shaking hand went to tug at the short sleeve of her scrubs, the word “Head” embroidered like some sort of brand calling out her supervisory position.

Are they looking at me, or the scrubs? She wondered, though she supposed that if she saw a nurse that far up in the building, she would stare, too.

Her hand moved to pull at her braid, and then the other, antsy fingers pulling gently, dark green nails moving against crimson hair. Suspicion hung in the air, as well as curiosity. She breathed it in and let the air out slowly, trying to keep it away from her own anxiety. She could feel them, sure, but she didn’t have to take them in. She wasn’t going to let herself.

She knocked on the office door and had three seconds to take a breath before it was opened. Standing there was a stern looking man in a crisp suit, and she could hear Monty’s shrill laughter in the back of her mind. She didn’t let it show on her face how surprised she was at how tall this man was, or by the fact that his stern demeanor was offset by his kind eyes.

“Special Agent Dakota Colghain,” he said simply, glancing at her badge to confirm himself instead of posing it as a question.

She had to stop herself from physically cringing at his pronunciation of her last name. While she was impressed he’d gotten as far as ‘Collin,’ she wished he’d just have asked her to say it. In Gaelic there was the slight of the ‘h’ sound and a much more open vowel, at least the way her father had always taught them to say it as small children. She wasn’t going to correct him.

She tended not to correct anyone, much less the stiffs she’d met.

“Yes, sir,” Dakota said evenly, articulation clear.

“Come in.”

It wasn’t a question. Dakota walked into the office and sat as she was directed.

Agent Hotchner sat at his desk, staring at her for a moment before opening a file.

“You’ve read the proposal?”

What?

“No, sir,” She said quietly, “I was told to come here after my lunch break. I assumed that someone in your unit requires medical attention that would keep them from coming downstairs, but Section Chief Ramos told me to report directly to you.”

Hotchner looked confused by that, but only for a moment. He didn’t allow it to show on his face, but that didn’t mean Dakota was unaware of it. He was nervous, which she noted as he spoke next, folding his hands on top of his desk.

“The bureau is considering a new in-unit position. Over the last twelve months, there has been an influx of negative reviews across the board from local law enforcement. There have also been an increase of injuries during takedown operations in the field.”

He let that sit for a moment before continuing. Dakota assumed it was to gauge her, but she didn’t give any indication she was going to speak.

“They would like each unit to have a field certified, academy graduated nurse to round the team and create rapport with the local law enforcement, victims, and families. The director believes that the training nurses receive in bedside manner could be an asset in that area. They would also be required to ensure team health and wellness both in and out of the field. The BAU has been chosen to pilot the program, and you have been selected to join us.”

Dakota stared at him for a moment, the last sentence having all but knocked the wind out of her. She was sure he could feel her surprise and confusion, as it was written all over her face. It read like an open book, and she’d never wished she could shut it off as much as she did in that moment.

“I’m being transferred?” She asked finally, voice higher than she would ever like it, even squeaking at the end like a dog toy.

Hotchner’s eyebrows pulled together, showing that this was very obviously not how he anticipated this conversation going. He stared at her like that for a moment before picking up a file on his desk.

His eyes glanced to it for a moment, and while Dakota was glad to have his eyes off of her for a moment, it did nothing to quell the panic she was suddenly feeling. They were going to move her out of the clinic. She wouldn’t be sharing her responsibilities with Ari and Monty anymore. She wasn’t going to be one of the Heads anymore.

“You’re twenty five?”

Dakota blinked for a moment, looking up from her hands, which were pulling at each other in her lap. He hadn’t answered her, and he’d changed the subject.

Hotchner was looking back at her, and a hot blush was crawling across her face.

“Yes, sir,” she managed, though her voice was timid and confused.

“And, you’re the day shift head nurse?”

He sounded skeptical. He felt skeptical.

“Yes, sir.”

He flipped through the file, her file she realized, a little more before he looked back to her once again.

“You’ve been here nearly three years.”

Not a question.

“Two and a half, sir. I turned twenty three while I was in the academy.”

Dakota never corrected, but this man was a profiler, and if what she had heard about them was true, she shouldn’t lie or take credit for more time than she was due. She’d heard talk that it was impossible to lie to a profiler, because they always knew, and they always found out the truth. If it was just hearsay, she didn’t want to find out.

“It says here that you are an empath,” he said next, moving the conversation along in a direction Dakota wasn’t quite tracking. If she was being transferred, it was by someone higher up than Agent Hotchner. Neither of them would have a choice, so why did it feel like he was interviewing her?

“That’s correct.”

“You feel more empathy than the average person?”

“No,” she said so quickly that she found herself having to backtrack as to not sound rude. “Sorry, no, sir. I feel empathy more… effectively. I feel the emotions other people are experiencing as my own, and I feel my own emotions to a heightened intensity.”

She struggled for the words to wrap up her explanation, but all she could come up with was, “I have extra mirror neurons, and they’re hyperactive.”

He stared for a moment before looking through the file some more. He seemed to be weighing something in his mind, and he looked at her again before he said, “Is it related to your Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?”

Dakota’s eyes snapped up to meet his as her blush desperately crawled down her neck and up to her ears. For a moment, she couldn’t have found her voice if she wanted to. Was he being patronizing? She couldn’t feel any sense of that. He didn’t feel annoyed or judgmental either. When it came up, that’s what most people felt. His stoic curiosity confused her.

“Possibly,” was all she said. There wasn’t concrete evidence of it, and she wasn’t going to talk about her ADHD with a stranger. Especially a stiff like Agent Hotchner.

She wanted to go back to the clinic. Desperately. She wanted to get away from this man and his kind eyes and his less kind questions.

She repeated her question.

“SSA Hotchner, am I being transferred?”

It was a moment before he spoke again, taking time to consider her. When he did speak, it was almost as if he were sighing.

“Part time,” he said. He pulled a piece of paper out of the file he was holding and slid it across the desk at her. “You currently work five, eight hour shifts a week. Is that correct?”

Dakota nodded without hesitation.

“Yes, sir.”

“You would be working six. Three in clinic, and three here as a part of my team. I should mention you’ll receive a raise if you accept, and you’ll require a new badge.”

It was a moment before Dakota looked down at the contract in front of her. Contract. A contract that would mean everything would change. She would be working with stiffs.

Stiffs, dear God. Monty and Ari will never let this one go.

When she looked up next, her voice held much more distrust than she intended. She found the words from her mouth to be, “If? As if I have a choice?” instead of, “Do I have the choice?” The latter would have sounded better, in hindsight.

Judging by the way Agent Hotchner’s eyes widened the littlest bit, he was thinking the same thing.

“Of course,” he deadpanned after a very pregnant pause. “If you decide that you don’t want the position, they’ll find someone else to take it. However as you were the one they selected, you are obviously the best choice.”

Me? The best choice?

She couldn’t believe that. Ari was the best choice. Ari was always the best choice. He was the best of them, anyway, and he always had been. Monty was more open and less clinical. Less guarded at first. While Dakota was definitely friendlier in the long run, she tended to shield herself. To try to keep objective, especially when emotions got involved. It made her a great nurse, and a great friend, but not always a great first impression. Maybe not even a great second impression.

Not to mention she was unsure of herself. She continued to fidget with her hands, not allowing herself to pull at her hair in the presence of this very stern man with very kind eyes. Ari didn’t fidget. He didn’t have ADHD. He wasn’t an empath. She had no idea why anyone would put the responsibility of piloting a program on her very shaky shoulders.

Sure, she was very highly qualified. She and the others had been fast tracked much earlier than was customary. but she was young and nervous to be even sitting here on the sixth floor. Important people sat on the sixth floor.

“Why me?”

There was a moment where it looked as if Agent Hotchner didn’t understand her question. His silence was thick, as if he was trying to come up with an answer he didn’t have.

“I’m not sure,” he said simply. “You’ve impressed someone in charge of this decision, and you are the correct choice for this pilot.”

She signed the contract. Agent Hotchner explained the wording, disclosing that he’d been a prosecutor for many years before he’d moved to the BAU. Dakota could tell that he wasn’t lying, and that he genuinely had her best interests at heart as he walked her through the basic idea that her hours would change, and her obligations would be new.

“We’ll go through all of that on Monday morning. Section Chief Ramos assured he would send all official documentation once you had decided to accept the position. This is… an experiment of sorts. It isn’t going to be widespread information until we’ve worked through it, trial and error. I’m sure you understand.”

She nodded, chewing on the inside of her cheek before saying, “Yes, I do.”

“Great. I was assured that they didn’t need you back downstairs, so if you’d like to meet the team now, it might make this transition easier for everyone,” he said, standing up from his desk and slipping the contract she had signed back into the folder. Her folder. The one that told him about her ADHD and her Empathic diagnosis and probably about the Vyvanse she was on. It probably laid out all of her fallacies for him to see.

Dakota stood up to follow him, allowing herself to have one moment to tug at her braids anxiously while he had his back turned. Everything was changing so rapidly it was as if she had no control, but also, that she had all of the control.

It dawned on her as she followed him, her scrubs still horribly out of place, into a conference room with a round table and seven chairs, that she would be piloting a program. There were no expectations and nothing to live up to. No older siblings who had done it before. No Monty or Ari who had done it better, or faster, or with more attitude and sloppier mistakes. There was nothing to lose and everything to prove. There was almost no way to fail.

Her hand continued to twist around her braid, tugging gently at the bottom as she thought through what this new position, this new job would mean. Agent Hotchner had left, she assumed to get the rest of the team, and she took a moment to look around. There was a screen mounted on the wall, and a whiteboard by the door. There were windows, and even a couch on the wall near her. They spent time there, she noticed.

She would be spending time there, too, probably. Everything about every other workday was about to change, and she had no idea how. No idea what her actual role was going to be.

Why did I agree to this? I have no idea what my expectations are. Also, what if they hate me? What if they think I’m guarded, or weak, or stupid? These are profilers, and I’m a nurse. It doesn’t matter how smart I actually am if they perceive me to be an idiot before they can even -

“Special Agent Colghain?”

Dakota shook her head quickly, dropping her braid and folding her hands in front of her. She was still standing near the couch, and Agent Hotchner was being followed by a group of people. He had an eyebrow raised, and gestured to the chair closest to her.

“I asked if you wanted to sit?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you,” she said quickly. She pulled out the chair and took a seat, watching as everyone else did the same. The only one left standing was Agent Hotchner, but he was also the only one not staring at her as if she was an intruder in their home.

Suspicion. Confusion. Mistrust. Dakota tried to breathe calm into her lungs and not let them change the way she felt. At least Agent Hotchner seemed comfortable now, though she didn’t know if that made her feel better. Had she made him uncomfortable before? She couldn’t be sure. It was all so new.

-----

“Team,” Agent Hotchner started, eyes looking at everyone except Dakota, “This is Special Agent Dakota Colghain. She is one of the Head Nurses at the Academy Clinic.”

Silence followed his statement, but he didn’t seem perturbed. He continued with ease, his eyes never changing from kind. “The BAU had been selected to pilot a new program for the bureau. The intention is for every unit to be given a nurse, trained in the academy and with experience both in the field, and in victim and family support.”

“Isn’t that what JJ does?” said a woman with dark hair and striking eyes. She was slender, with sharp cheekbones and a mistrustful look directed towards Dakota.

The blonde next to her spoke quietly, her voice much more kind. “I’m the communications liaison, Elle. My job is a lot more than victim support.”

“As is Agent Colghain’s. She will also be responsible for in-unit health and wellness, as well as an in-field medic as needed. More details will be given to us now that the position has been accepted.”

“Wait, accepted as in, a member of the team?” asked a muscular man that was across the table from Dakota. He was curious, but confused. She noted that as he kept going. “We just got Elle. Why are we the ones?”

“This is Director ordered, Morgan.”

Dakota could feel Agent Hotchner become uncomfortable again, and he shared a look with the older man across the room.

The older man had stood from and was now standing behind his chair, holding onto the back like it was supporting him. His eyes were skeptical, but he didn’t seem unkind. There was no sense of hostility, which wasn’t the case with Morgan.

“Hotch-”

“As I said before, this is Special Agent Dakota Colghain. She is one of the Head Nurses at the Academy Clinic, and she is the newest addition to the team. She’ll be with us Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays unless needed otherwise.”

He gestured at each person now, addressing them by name as he went around the circle of her new team members.

“These are Special Agents Jennifer Jareau, Elle Greenaway, Dr. Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, and Jason Gideon.”

The blonde was the first to stick out her hand, giving a kind smile that was quickly returned. Usually, Dakota would avoid shaking hands. In the clinic, everything was pathogens and disinfectant. That was clearly not the case here, so she took the other girl's hand.

“You can call me JJ, everyone does.”

“The other nurses call me Kit,” Dakota said in return, “It makes things easier.”

She didn’t elaborate, but a quiet voice piped in from the closest seat to the door.

“Like, a medical kit?”

It was the man Agent Hotchner had called “Dr. Spencer Reid” that spoke, though Kit was still taken aback. He couldn’t have been older than she was, there was no way, and he was way too young to be a doctor of anything. She wondered if he was even old enough to work for the FBI in the first place.

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “though, that’s funny. I’ll have to use that one.”

“Kit isn’t a nickname for Dakota,” he said, his brow furrowing together. “Common nicknames for Dakota are Kody and Kota.”

Kit gave a small smile. She was used to this conversation, especially because Ari and Monty called her Kody around all the other nurses without hesitation.

“My middle name is Katherine.”

“But-”

“Reid, leave it. People can be called whatever they want,” the girl with dark hair, Elle Greenaway, said with a laugh. She turned to Kit and gave a small smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Elle. Don’t mind him, you get used to it.”

Kit shook her head quickly, making sure to smile at both Elle and Reid.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.”

When Kit looked around a bit more she was met with the eyes of Derek Morgan. A flash of recognition hit her as she really saw his face. She’d seen him before, but he didn’t seem to recognize her. That was fine, she decided, because it meant there was equal ground.

He nodded at her, and she nodded back, though she could tell he was less than happy about her appearance in the conference room. He was the most suspicious, and probably the least likely to think she deserved a place at their table. She would have to watch that to see how it developed.

The last person to speak to her was Jason Gideon. It was a moment before he spoke, but when he did it was even and low, his eyes darting to Reid before he started.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kit. Welcome.”

There was an awkward moment of silence before Agent Hotchner was dismissing them, everyone leaving the room in a flurry of movement until it was just Kit and Agent Hotchner again. Kit looked up at him and gave a small smile.

“Your team is nice,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say, but that felt appropriate. It wasn’t a lie, either. Though Morgan seemed closed off and Elle seemed tense, JJ and Reid seemed at least marginally open to her. Gideon she couldn’t read, but she had time. Three days a week.

Agent Hotchner nodded, looking out the window at his team getting back to their desks before saying, “They are. You’ll get to know them, but you should know that this team is a family. They can seem closed off, but they’ll adapt. And adopt.”

“I understand, Agent Hotchner.”

“Please,” he said, “everyone calls me Hotch. Now, I can point your desk out to you, but I have case files to get back to. You can go back to the clinic now, if you’d like. There’s about two hours left on your shift.”

Kit nodded quickly, standing to follow him, hands playing with the bottom seam of her shirt. She followed, quite like a lost duckling as he led her to the bullpen and nodded towards an open desk next to Reid and across from Morgan.

“That’ll be you. If you have any questions before you go, Reid can answer them. We’ll see you at eight o’clock Monday morning.”

Kit nodded, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt when she said, “Yes, sir. Thank you, and goodnight.”

Hotch gave her one last nod before heading back to his office.

Kit was now standing in the bullpen, closest to Reid’s desk, and feeling like a lost puppy. She should go down to the clinic while she still had some time. Sure, Monty had come in to cover for her, but they were all hands on deck before she left and she was sure she could be helpful. She had resolved to do just that, hand gently tugging one braid before she heard Elle’s voice from her right.

“Excited?”

Kit turned quickly, shoving her hands in her pockets. The last thing she wanted was for them to think she was neurotic.

“Me?” she said, like an idiot. The blush that hit her cheeks must have shown she thought so, because Elle offered her a tight smile.

“No, Reid.”

“What?” asked the younger man, looking up with wide eyes and crossing his arms over his chest, like he was exposed.

Elle laughed quietly and shook her head. “I was giving Colghain a hard time. Yes, you. Excited to be, what is it, piloting?”

Kit bit the inside of her cheek before giving her own tight smile. Nerves caused her hands to pull from her pocket, playing again at the bottom of her shirt.

“Confused, more like, but hopeful. I had no idea this was going to be my day when I walked into the clinic this morning,” she answered truthfully. Profilers liked the truth, and she wasn’t going to lie to a room full of them. She liked the truth as well, so she hoped that giving them the truth would elicit truth telling back.

“You didn’t know?” asked Reid, and now even Morgan was looking up from his paperwork.

Kit shook her head slowly, taking a small step towards them.

“No,” she said, “Section Chief Ramos told me to report to Agen- Hotch after lunch. I assumed someone up here needed medical assistance. He even called in the swing shift head, so I knew I wouldn’t be back right away. I just…” she struggled for the words, but finally shrugged. “This isn’t what I had anticipated.”

“And you said yes?” asked Elle, causing Kit to nod. There was a second question there, a ‘why’ question. Kit ignored it.

“I follow orders,” she said simply.

There didn’t seem to be much more after that, and no one else asked any questions. At least, not that they were ready to say aloud. It was a moment before Reid gestured to the desk next to his and said, “That’s yours. I heard Hotch tell you. Not that I was eavesdropping or anything, but I usually pick up on my name and I heard him say “across from Morgan,” and that’s the only desk across from Morgan so-”

“Breathe, Pretty Boy. I’m sure she got it,” Morgan interrupted, and Reid seemed to curl into himself a little more before he bit down on his bottom lip, nodding quickly. Unsure of himself. Embarrassed.

“Right.”

-----

Kit had never had a desk to work at, not as a nurse, and not as Head Nurse, so she had no idea what she was going to do with it. She told this to Monty when she got down to the clinic.

“It’s so desperately clinical, Mont. More clinical than down here, and this is a clinic.”

She was rubbing at her eyes, trying to starve off the stress headache that was building. Monty, however, was laughing quietly to herself.

“I still can’t believe you’re going to be working for stiffs,” she said.

Monty was wearing identical scrubs, same embroidered title across the seam of the shoulder. She had been looking at a clipboard when Kit came back down to the bottom floor, but it was long forgotten on the counter. The counter she was sitting on was not made for sitting, and a few other nurses were milling around. The clinic had slowed considerably after the morning, so their having a conversation by the nurses station wasn't as big of a deal as it could have been.

Monty's reaction had been exactly as Kit had predicted, and shook her head at the other girl.

“No, Mont, you’re still not understanding me. I’m working with them. On their team. I am going to be a stiff. I got reassigned, not offered out.”

Monty shifted to face Kit, her jaw dropped just slightly as the realization seemed to stick. A spike of panic shot through Kit’s own chest, and she took a deep breath.

“Chill out, Monty, you’re palpable.”

“Oh, sorry, it’s just a huge piece of news. You’re… leaving the clinic?”

“No!” Kit said in what was a too loud voice for their environment. They were definitely going to get in trouble. There was a reason Kit, Ari, and Monty all worked different shifts, and it had almost nothing to do with the fact that they were all Heads.

Kit took a breath before she said, “It’s a partial. Half time here, half there. It’s a test run of a new program and Ramos chose me.”

“Over Ari?”

“That’s what I said.”

“What unit?”

Kit sighed, rubbing at her eyes again. “The BAU”

Monty gasped, tugging out her bun and wrapping it back as she all but lost her mind as she said, “What?! The BAU?! That’s where the profilers are! They’re assholes!”

“Mont, múchadh!” Kit quipped, knowing their section chief wouldn’t take too kindly to her yelling at Monty to shut up in English for all the academy cadets to hear. “They’re… fine. It’ll be fine. I need you to tell me it’ll be fine.”

There was a quiet moment before Monty looked at her, a mirror reflection, and nodded. She put a hand gently on Kit’s arm and squeezed, giving not a smile, but a look so sure that it couldn’t help but settle Kit’s anxious heart.

“It’ll be fine. Promise, cúpla.”

Twin.

Kit nodded and let out a breath. If Monty’s spirit could calm, so could hers.

“Thanks. Now, I need to borrow your slacks.”

"No scrubs?"

"Business-wear."

“Oh no."

Montana and Dakota were identical. Two of three, their brother Arizona, or Ari, rounded out the Colghain triplets. All three were heads of the three different rotations at the clinic, and they tended to do ‘big things’ all together. Graduating high school early. Graduating college with degrees in nursing, scattered minors in chemistry and psychology and sociology, as quickly as possible. Working at the same hospitals. Joining the FBI Academy.

Kit and Monty had long ago agreed that Ari was the best nurse. He was organized and clinical. Monty was a confident tornado. Kit was their feeler, always friendly, sometimes dragged into Mony’s hijinks, but normally calm. Passive. She was the only empath of the three, and Monty and Ari knew their job affected her more than it did them. Ari was born first, and Monty third; Kit was the second child.

Kit reflected upon this as she sat on the metro, willing the stop to their apartment complex to come faster. After she got off it was still a five minute walk, and she really needed to be in a place where her emotions were entirely her own for a while. She had some things to sort out.

A large man sat next to her, allowing her vigilance to spike, and it allowed her to consider what Agent Hotchner - Hotch - had said when he introduced her to the team. They wanted field certified nurses, which as they’d all graduated from the academy, wasn’t an issue. However, Kit knew her field assessment scores were better than her siblings, and her weapons assessments the same. Not by a large margin, especially the way Monty handled a glock.

I don’t want to turn into some upstairs stiff. She thought to herself, standing and waiting for the doors to open at her stop. They already hate me anyway. Tight smiles and passive questions don’t change the fact that I’m an outsider. An ionróir.

One of the good things that came from being one of three, but really one of two, was that Kit could often hear Monty's voice monologuing back to her. They had, in essence, the same voice. The reach wasn’t that far.

Maybe you surprised them, came Monty’s voice. Of course, it wasn’t Monty, but thinking about it that way always helped. Maybe they feel just as uncomfortable as you do. Maybe they were caught off guard.

Caught off guard? Of course.They didn’t know I was coming.

It was natural that they were treating her with hesitation; they’d probably been just as caught off guard as she had been. If she wanted them to give her the benefit of the doubt, she had to give them the same.

She laughed aloud, eliciting a few strange looks from others exiting the metro car, but she didn’t care. A new spring was in her step as she bounded up the stairs and into the open air. Her walk home was lighter than she expected as she allowed some of her disgruntled fear to ebb away.

-----

The door to their apartment swung open as she pushed, nearly toppling over. Ari must have fixed the hinges, which only made her smile a little wider. Kit could hear him singing quietly over the sound of the shower, something in Gaelic she couldn’t place right away. He hadn’t cooked anything, which was fine, but after a quick rummage through the cabinets it was clear she wasn’t cooking anything substantial either.

They really needed to go to the store that weekend.

In the end, a freezer pizza was all she had to offer. Ari would be fine and fed for his shift, even though it wasn’t the epitome of health. They’d survive.

“Oi, deirfiúr, cad é sin?”

Hey, sister, what’s that?

Kit wheeled around, giving him a shy and guilty smile. Technically, if they were going to get takeout, it was her turn to pay. He obviously thought this was her effort at biding her time.

“Pizza,” she said, trying to save face.

“Wow, Kody, amazing. Really went all out this time,” he chided back, running his hands through his slightly damp, equally as red hair.

Kit knew he was joking. Ari, while the most stoic of the three, loved poking fun at his sisters almost as much as he loved nursing.

“Ah, múchadh. I had a stupid day.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, elbows resting on the counter top and head cocked to the side at her.

“Stupid day?”

“Yes.”

“Deirfiúr-”

“No, deartháir, it’s fine.”

It wasn’t that Kit didn’t want to talk about it. She desperately wanted to talk about it, but there was pity rolling off him. Kit hated pity. It didn’t make her feel any more capable, which was her new fear as the pity settled over her.

Damn.

They were both quiet for a moment, the only sound in the room coming from their incredibly old oven as it tried to cook the pepperoni covered, value brand masterpiece. Their apartment wasn’t nice, per say, but it was quaint. It was home for the last two and a half years. The triplet’s little slice of calm in the bustling of The District around them.

“Big feelings?” Ari finally asked, moving past her to take the pizza out of the oven. The shrill timer went off, setting things just over the edge in the room for Kit to have a full blown meltdown.

Ari always could tell when Kit was overwhelmed before she could tell herself. The pity, the heat of the oven, the sound of the timer, and the self doubt that had consumed her so quickly crashed together. Before she knew what was happening he’d pulled her into a hug, tears pooling and blurring her vision.

“I got reassigned,” she admitted after a moment, her voice tight. The tears had started running down her cheeks, but she wasn’t sobbing. They ran without any effort at all.

Ari pulled away and grabbed her by the shoulders, looking down at her. Kit and Monty had always been short like their mother, but Ari was tall like their dad.

“What?” He said, obviously surprised. Kit could feel the shock coming off of him the way it had come off of Monty. “Reassigned from the clinic?”

“No,” she said, trying to wipe at the tears that were effortlessly streaming. “I’m splitting time. Some new program for the bureau. I was chosen to pilot it.”

They’d transitioned fully into Gaelic now, the language they’d always spoken at home. Growing up with immigrant parents meant they’d spoken Gaelic in tandem with English, both languages swirling together effortlessly in their formative years. They tried not to use it in public so much, especially in the nation’s capital, but every so often it was nice to.

Here at the apartment though, they allowed themselves to just be.

“Piloting a program?” he asked.

“Yeah. A field certified, academy graduated nurse in each department part time. I guess injuries and stress are up, and rapport with locals is down. They’re just starting with one unit to see how it goes.”

“Local?”

“I think I’m going to have to do sensitivity training with them. Like I do for the nurses once a quarter.”

“What unit?”

“BAU.”

A grin lit up Ari’s face, eyes going wide. His delight was not unnoticed by Kit, and she tilted her head. It wasn’t that Ari was so against the stiffs, but he wasn’t their biggest fan. Not to mention the reputation that profilers had.

“With antibiotics guy?”

Ah.

Kit rolled her eyes and shoved at her brother’s shoulder. Not hard, but hard enough for him to know she meant it.

“Ari-”

“What’s his name? Mason or something?” Ari was nearly giddy now.

“Morgan. Lay off, I can already tell they don’t like me…”

Kit sighed and ran her hands down her face, placing a hand on the bottom of each of her braids and tugging gently. She could feel her meds wearing off, and she desperately needed to eat some of the passable pizza she was smelling.

“I’ve got a desk, Ari. I don’t even know what to do with a desk. I don't know what I’m doing. I’m supposed to get an email tonight and read over it by Monday and I was wearing my scrubs today and my headband. They think I’m an outsider and too young and-”

“Dakota.” He grabbed her shoulders again as he stopped her spiral.

Kit looked up into his eyes, their eyes, and she couldn’t help herself from asking the one question she hadn’t even let herself dwell on.

“What if they think this is way out of my league?”

Ari considered that for a second before leaning close to her, right in her face. His eyes were serious; a mirror staring back at her.

“You prove them wrong.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Bad Things Happen Bingo: Nightmares (Nate/Danny)

I ended up having a sick day from work today, so I had time to write up the second of these... after this I’m going to need some time before the next! But it’s coming, I promise!

For @badthingshappenbingo​, @my-whumpy-little-heart​ requested: For BTHB, could you do nightmares with Danny and/or Nate? It would be interesting if they were still with Abraham, but you can do whatever you want with the prompt. Thank you :) 

That ended up being… a hell of a prompt. I actually got a second request for nightmares with Ryan, so I’m going to do that one twice! It will get a second sticker. (Chronology: within the first year of captivity, but I’m not sure exactly where in that timeline)

Requested: blood stain Completed: puppy sticker

Tagging: @bleeding-demon-teeth​, @spiffythespook​, @special-spicy-chicken​

CW: Implied/referenced/pretty obviously noncon, noncon touching, noncon kissing, referenced evidence of violence/torture. NSFW implications, although nothing outright, as always. As always, keep in mind that Abraham Denner is a bad, bad man. Well, not man… he’s a bad something.

“Psssst. Wake up.”

Nate’s used to this, so when he feels the fingertips, cold as ice, against his forehead, softly brushing the black hair back and away, he doesn’t even tense up. He floats back to wakefulness slowly, trying to cling on to the dream he’d been having. 

It had been a warm and hazy thing, one of those bizarre dreams that means nothing but neurons firing at random inside the brain, the dreams he liked because they were so much better than all the ones about the living hell he’d never been able to fully escape.

He’d been dreaming about the doorbell ringing. The cabin doesn’t have a doorbell, but it doesn’t really matter, it rang anyway. Bram sent him to answer it, and when he opened the door he discovered fifteen cats in a trench coat and black film noir detective’s hat waiting when it opened. 

Can I help you? He’d asked, baffled not so much by the sight of fifteen cats in a trench coat or even that they had somehow managed to find them this deep into the woods, but mostly by the fact that they were coming by so late at night.

Fifteen pairs of night-reflective eyes had turned to look at him all at once, and he’d heard Danny behind him shout, let them in, Nate, let them in!

He’d stepped back and opened the door wider, gesturing inside in that foggy ghost way you sometimes do things in dreams. As soon as he did, they simply collapsed back down into cats, leaving the trenchcoat and hat in a cartoon puddle on the doorstep and racing through the cabin.

They climbed onto the fireplace, knocked books off the shelves, meowed happily and loudly, scratched up Bram’s couch and pulled threads from the woven-rag rug.

A brightly-colored calico, vibrant with red and brown and black and white, settled herself into Danny’s lap where he sat on the floor looking around at the chaos with delight. Do you think the cats could save us? Danny asked him, smiling, as the whip-skinny calico had put her paws on his shoulder, licked a rough tongue up the side of Danny’s face, batted at his hair. Do the cats know the way out?

Nate had jumped when he realized one of them had climbed straight up him and settled around his shoulders without him realizing, a black cat with cold blue eyes that swiped gently at his hair. Baby, wake up, you have to see this, the black cat purred, rough in his ear, in Bram’s sleep-slurred, loving voice.

“Nate. Wake up, sweetheart.” The voice is low, and soft, a breath of cold air against his ear, and he shivers a little, pleasantly, at the feeling. 

“Mmmmn, is Ashley up already?” He asks, and he doesn’t know why - she’s dead, she’s been dead for a year now at least, why is he asking that? But for a half-second, with Bram’s voice in his ear, he forgets.

There’s a hesitation, and then Bram says softly, sadly, “Not yet. That takes time. But look, Nate, look at him.”

He opens his eyes... and looks right into Danny’s face, baffled for a second before he remembers that Danny had slept in the bed last night.

Danny had cooked Bram’s favorite dinner without being asked, had remembered all the rules all day without even one slipup, had made their drinks with dinner perfectly and faster than ever before, served their food and waited to be given permission to get his own, waited for Bram to tell him if he could use fork and spoon to eat with without having to be reminded.

He’d even dropped to the floor to eat sitting right next to Bram’s chair like he wanted him to, with Bram’s hand petting through his hair, Danny’s eyes on the ground and the red flush of humiliation in his face. 

He’s been so good today, baby, and the King always says you have to include positive reinforcement, too. Do you not think he’s earned some positive reinforcement? 

Th-that’s not what I m-m-meant-

No, that’s definitely what you’re saying, that you think he shouldn’t be given good things when he’s good, Nate. That seems mean, don’t you think? Cruel to make me hurt him when he’s been so good.

I’m n-not telling y-y-you to hurt him, I’m s-s-saying leave him al, alone!

No, our pups has two choices tonight: get his reward or I’ll open all the wounds from last time up on his back again. I’ll let you choose.

Bram, pl-please-

I said choose, baby.

… the r-reward.

While Nate doesn’t particularly want to think about last night ever the fuck again (and neither, he is certain, does Danny), he couldn’t quite bring himself to regret seeing Danny actually warm for once, this morning.

He’s curled up in the center of the bed under the layers of heavy blankets, rather than the thin and threadbare things he’s normally allowed on his little mat in the living room. If it hadn’t been for the wrists bound together above his head, nearly palm-to-palm, and tied hard to the headboard, he might have even looked comfortable.

Bram had been on the other side of Danny when they fell asleep but that side of the bed was empty, now. Instead, Bram was behind him - the cold at his back where he leaned over from where he stood, fingers curled just slightly to shift back his hair, gentle and loving. Nate felt himself split like he always did into two people - the version of him that wanted to snarl and push the hand away, and the version of him that wanted to melt into the touch.

He settled for somewhere in the middle and just whispered, without really moving at all, “Is it m-morning already, Bram?”

Sometimes he stammers less when he first wakes up, when his voice is still mostly the voice from his dreams, where he never stammers at all. His dreams never seemed to catch up with whatever had happened to the connection between his brain and his mouth.

“No, baby, it’s like four.. But look at Red.” Bram’s fingers slide down, slide along his cheekbone to his jaw, take hold of his chin, tilting it up a little bit. Nate can feel the bed shift, as Bram leans his weight on it by one knee, the pressure of it along his back. 

“B-Bram, I-”

“I said look. Our little puppy is dreaming.”

Nate blinks the last of the sleep from his eyes, the final hints of the cabin full of cats, the calico climbing up on Danny’s shoulder to look at him with the same bright hopefulness Danny wore, sometimes, before the darkness took it over again. 

Bram settles down behind him, his cold breath on the back of Nate’s neck as the two of them look over at Danny.

Nate hadn’t really noticed it at first - he’d still been too lost in trying to find his way to consciousness, honestly - but Danny’s eyebrows are furrowed together beneath the healing bruise on the side of his forehead, and his already-rubbed-raw wrists jerk a little at the ropes, fingers twitching like he’s trying to grab at something. Nate watches his mouth moving, breaths of air that weren’t quite sentences escaping in occasional snatches of words Nate can almost, almost hear if he listens hard enough, the healing cut on his lip.

The red marks around his neck from the last round of barbed-wire are nearly faded completely, but underneath the thin sleep shirt Nate knows there are more bruises, more cuts. Danny’s back is still bandaged from the drinks incident, and Nate couldn’t forget the way he’d screamed when Bram punished him for that moment of rebellion, couldn’t ever forget the look on his face.

The top part of the bandage, the adhesive holding the giant swaths of gauze over it, is sticking up out of the neck of his shirt, nearly up to his hairline. 

Danny whimpers, softly, in his sleep, and Nate winces at the sound. It’s too much like the dog Bram keeps insisting he is now.

“I think he’s having a nightmare,” Bram breathes with unabashed delight into Nate’s ear, rubbing at his shoulder with one hand in excitement. “Like a midnight snack to feel all that coming off of him. I wish you were already like us, so you could feel this, this is so… does anyone still say ‘jacked’? Or is that out of style now?”

“H-how would I know?” Nate mutters. “I didn’t know what people said before all of this.”

“I guess you wouldn’t. Still... I wish I could read thoughts, I’d love to know what he’s seeing in that head of his…”

“I al-always kind of th-th-thought you c-could read minds,” Nate whispers back, keeping himself still and relaxed under Bram’s touch, refusing to react one way or the other to the hand that runs back down his arm and curves over one hip through the blankets, rests there, like a block of ice that won’t melt holding his body down. 

Danny’s little breaths are faster, now, his eyes moving rapidly under his closed eyelids, Nate struck again by the odd copper-bright eyelashes he’d never really seen on anyone else before, how pretty they are. He jerks a little harder at the ropes, whispers something, and Nate feels Bram leaning even closer from behind him, sees the sweep of white-blonde hair from the corner of his eyes.

If he doesn’t look, doesn’t see the cold ice-blue, he won’t fall in, and he can hold onto the hatred that he feels, hold on to wishing he was somewhere else. Hold on to his sense that someday, someway, he is going to get himself and Danny out of this.

I got myself out once, I can do it again.

Can’t I?

“No, baby, I can’t get into anyone’s head unless I do it the old-fashioned way, like I got into yours.” Bram’s fingers dance up the side of Nate’s head, over his ear, ‘walking’ over his hair, and Nate grinds his teeth together and keeps his eyes firmly fixed forward.

“St-... stop,” Danny whispers in his sleep. Bram chuckles behind Nate and he’s trapped - he’s stuck between Bram’s happiness and Danny’s unconscious misery and he can’t get out of this moment. All he can do is lay still, wait for Bram to move, wait to see if Danny wakes himself up. “D-don’t, st… b’good… be…”

“Oh, he’s dreaming about me, fuck yes.” Nate can hear the smile in Bram’s voice as he presses an excited kiss to the back of Nate’s neck, then pushes himself back up to get a better look. “I love when they dream about me.”

“Wh-who’s ‘they’?” Nate blinks, twisting back to look up at him without thinking. Bram looks back down and their eyes meet. Nate smiles, a little, at the man he loves and hates and cannot resist, and Bram smiles back.

“All of them,” Bram answers, as though that says all he needs to say. “All my boys.” 

How many boys are there inside your head? Nate wants to ask. How many people like us have you destroyed? Also, do you actually understand that I am a grown man? 

Somewhere in him, there is still a man who can think, I wish someone would bury a knife if your goddamn heart and I wish it could be me.

Stronger than that man, though, is the one who thinks, I love you.

“Stop… st, stop, ‘braham, I c’n, I’ll be good, want to be good, I… pl-... I, I don’t... stop… stop!” Danny’s whole body shudders all at once and his eyes fly open, wide open without quite being fully awake, unseeing. He pulls hard at the ropes and hisses in pain as they only tighten even more, dig in deeper. Nate sees the first smear of red just below one of his palms. “Oh god, I just, I… where-...” 

“What did I do to you, Red?” Bram asks, in a low voice nearly thick with an awful happiness. He looks like wolves covered in blood on nature shows, licking their chops after eating a kill. 

Danny looks slowly up where Bram looms over he and Nate, Danny’s warm blue eyes dark with Bram’s shadow as he tries to shrink back, stopped by the ropes, kept right where he is in the center of the bed. “I… I don’t… Abraham? N-Nate, why am I…”

“Don’t you remember yesterday, little Red? You were so good for me and we gave you your reward?”

Danny swallows, hard, and then slowly nods, his fingers wrapping around the ropes like he can find some comfort in holding onto them. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I remember… I remember now.” His face turns bright red, nearly fading the scars out completely, all the way red to the end of his nose with embarrassment, with shame. “Ah, um… thank you for my re-reward-” His voice cracks a little on the word, barely forcing it out, and Nate has to keep his eyes open until they burn to avoid seeing behind his eyelids what Danny’s reward had been. “-and letting me sleep, Abraham… I’m s-sorry, I woke up, I woke you up… I’m sorry, can I go back to my mat now?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Bram laughs, sliding back and off the bed, giving Nate a few precious seconds of space and the ability to breathe and warm air at his back, before he gets back in on the other side, sitting on the bed with his legs crossed, looking avidly down at Danny like a child on the library floor at storytime. “Oh, no no no no. Nate, baby, go make us some coffee.”

Danny gives Nate a pleading please don’t leave me here look, then turns back to Bram, searching his face for any sign of gentleness, finding none - just that terrible good cheer. “Coffee’s my j-job, if you just, if you just untie me, I can go make, um, make the coffee, Bram-”

“No, puppy. Nate will make the coffee today. Do what you’re told, baby, I gave you an order.”

“Y-Yes, Bram,” Nate says, standing up himself, guilty as he all but flees the room with Danny’s eyes burning into his back… but not guilty enough to go back in before the coffee’s good and ready.

Yesterday he found something in the back of the closet and had an idea, but he doesn’t have enough courage yet to use it, and he doesn’t know how much time there is left before Bram is done with Danny, before he wants to find someone new to break. 

He can’t kill him. I can’t lose him, I can’t lose Danny, I can’t. 

Do you want to save him, Nate, or do you just want to have him instead?

Does it matter which, if I would never ever hurt him?

As he steps into the living room and heads for the kitchen, he hears Bram’s voice behind him, the slippery-smooth snake charmer voice, soft and vaguely hypnotic.

“I want you to tell me all about that dream you were just having… because I want to make sure we recreate it in the most excruciatingly accurate detail. If you don’t tell me, then I’ll just have to come up with something fun to do to you all on my own, hm?”

Nate hears the rattle of Danny’s ankle chain as he tries to move again. “I don’t, um, I don’t want to…”

“Since when have I given a single flying fuck about what you wanted, puppy? I told you to tell me about your dream. If you won’t - or if you try to lie, you know I can always tell when you’re lying - we’ll just have to see if maybe some time down in the dark will help convince you.”

“N-no! No, I don’t need, um, I don’t need the cellar. I swear I don’t. I’ll be good, I’ll try harder, Abraham, I want to be good for you!”

“Then prove it.”

“Just, um. Give me a sec. Will you - will you please untie my hands, then I can, I can tell you…”

There’s a silence as Nate pulls down the coffee beans and the little electric grinder Danny asked Bram to pick up on his last supply run (whole bean coffee is, um, it’s better, Abraham, this would let me make better coffee for, for you - can I please make better coffee for you, Abraham? please?) , the pressure like the air just before a storm.

“... you’ve got a deal, little Red.” There’s a pause, far longer than the time needed simply to untie the knots, long enough that Nate feels bile rising in his throat at the thought of what might be going on behind him. Finally, he hears Bram laughing, the high-pitched hyena bark he only makes when he’s truly, genuinely happy. “Oh, you’re good at that now, huh? Who says I’m not nice to you when I want to be, hm? Now what do we say when someone does us a favor?”

Danny’s voice, when he speaks, is low and soft, nervous and eager-to-please. “Th-thank you for untying me, Abraham. I can… I can tell you the dream now.”

“Don’t try to lie, puppy, you’re the worst fucking liar I’ve ever met.”

“I… I know, Abraham. I won’t. I was just-... I did something bad, so you said, you said I had to learn my lesson...”

The defeat and fear, the submission in Danny’s voice is too much. He can’t take it. He can’t, or he’s going to start screaming and never fucking stop. This is his fault, for meeting Danny, for talking to him when he caught the younger man looking at him, for agreeing to see a movie together. This is his fault for thinking he’d gotten away, that maybe Bram would let him be, think he was too much trouble to go after.

He’d made a mistake, leaving Bram, and Danny is suffering for it.

And he’s about to suffer more.

“What lesson am I going to teach you today, Red? What did you forget in your pretty little head while you slept?”

“I-I… um, I, I-” Danny’s voice cuts off, and there’s another pause that lasts too long, that Nate knows too well from long experience. His skin crawls, but it’s his fault, isn’t it, that Danny knows the rules? “-forgot the rule not to pull away from you…”

Bram begins to laugh again. “Oh, that’s my favorite rule… What do we say when we break a rule, Red?”

“You say you’re sorry and then you get hurt so you don’t break the rule again,” Danny says all at once, memorized, pushing the words out so quickly they’re barely even separated sounds. “I, I know, Abraham, but it was just a dream-”

“Breaking rules still counts in dreams, little one. Come here and let’s talk about how you can fix that mistake you made in your sleep so you won’t even dream about breaking my rules again…”

 Nate jams the coffee grinder on and tells himself he’s not complicit if he can’t hear a thing over the sound.

[certifiedskywalker]

Academic Misgivings (Part One) - Peter Parker

Here it is! Part One!  Remember this is a Rivals-To-Lovers, slow burn story with a Fem!reader. This also takes place after Homecoming and before Endgame. FEEDBACK IS APPRECIATED!

You and Peter Parker aren’t friends, but you’re not entirely enemy either. You don’t like him but he always tries to be nice to you.  He has everything you’ve ever wanted and you’ll do anything to show him that you can make it on your own. But can you?

Blood was pounding in your ears, heart thundering in your chest as if spurred to life by some angered beast. The sensation of tingling nerves as your hand seemingly hovered, magnetically drawn, over the buzzer. Adrenaline drove you through the thrill as Mr. Harrington’s monotone voice echoed in your skull. The question floated in your mind, seeking its own answers locked away between the neurons of your brain.

With a snap of synapse your whole being jolted. Your palm slammed on the buzzer so hard that the light within shuddered a violent red. Mr. Harrington’s brown eyes widened in shock at the sound but her quickly composed himself.

“Midtown?”

“What is the Fibonacci Spiral.”

“Correct!” Mr. Harrington rang a little bell and turned his back to you. Finally, you allowed yourself to breathe, although it felt more like a wild gasp of air.

“Figures,” you heard someone grumble behind you, but you were too caught up in rolling off the high of affirmation. The mounting joy was building like the apprehension of riders on a roller coasters first crest of a large hill.

“Great job, Y/N. You’ll be heading the B team in Chicago.” And there was the stomach sinking drop. No cheers filled your ears, only disappointed thoughts barraged your mind.

“The B team? Doesn’t my improvement push me up to the A team?” The rest of the academic decathlon team fell silent at your question. You didn’t have to turn around to know that all eyes were on you. Almost all eyes.

“Well we already have Mr. Parker leading A team. We need to keep our heaviest hitters spread out through the sets of questions.” Your hands curled into tight fists. It would take you and ‘Mr. Parker’ to even out the intellect on B team. You opened your mouth to say exactly that when the school library doors flew wide. A red faced, panting, Peter Parker had decided to show up. Now, all eyes were on you as you loomed over the table.

“So, so sorry, this won’t happen again, I promise,” Peter said, his bright eyes shifting from you to Mr. Harrington. The man peered at him through his thick rimmed glasses with an almost fatherly expression. Peter, like a scolded child, dropped his backpack next to the others and found an empty seat on the other table, opposite you.

“It better not,” despite the veiled threat, Mr. Harrington’s voice was soft. “We need you in Chicago Peter. You’re our secret weapon.” If it weren’t for Peter’s awkward laugh, everyone could have heard your eyes rolling in their sockets. Ever since you were both young, Peter Parker had never failed to show you up. If he wasn’t deemed superior under the circumstances, then you were put on an equal footing that always set you more on edge than his overwhelming victories.

For instance, there was the first grade summer reading program. The program itself was not, in name a contest; but as soon as the plump librarian dotted on the fact that you and Peter were ‘neck and neck’ with the amount of books you had both read, you drove yourself to collect on a phantom prize. At the end-of-summer reading palooza party hosted by the public library, the final count was drawn in a tie. You and Peter had read a grand total of 42 books a piece, a hefty sum for a couple of seven year olds.

Then there was the infamous war forged on the third grade front of Mrs. Davis’ classroom. The lovely lady taught science, arguably your favorite subject and Peter’s realm of fascination. Mrs. Davis had both you and Peter in her fifth hour class and would often call on either of you to run errands for her before lunch period. The battle to be her teacher’s pet was intense between you and Peter. It was only in fourth grade did you both learn that being a teacher’s pet was the worst thing anyone could be, ever. Nevertheless, the seeds of animosity had sprouted that year and sixth grade only serves to nourish the growth.

The second year of middle school had not only stirred up the beginnings of puberty but also supplied an outlet for your budding hostility towards your academic rival. You weren’t one for physical education, much preferring a good book than a good jog, but dodge-ball was a godsend. Peter was as lanky as a stick bug, making him a smaller target but that also meant he couldn’t throw very far either. The dodge-ball intramural championship gave you your very first win against district-wide admiration of Peter Parker.

Despite how tall and suddenly handsome Peter had gotten over Summer break, your jealousy towards him remained. The flames were only stoked when girls would, happily, go up to talk to him, compliment him. Burning with envy, for which party, that you were unsure of, you finally talked to Peter. All years past, your competition to outdo each other had been silent. Not a word had passed between you before seventh grade and it only served to anger you further.

Peter was kind. So kind that he made you feel like your bitter rivalry had been one sided. Further fueled, you competed against him in a school hosted trivia night. However, the fates seemed to be against your thirst for conquest because you and Peter ended up on the same team. Granted, that team had won, but between you and Peter, no winner was named.

This fervent yet unspoken clash continued to grow as you both entered high-school. Freshman year had consisted of fighting to see which one of you would join the academic decathlon team first. Peter had made the A team and you the B team. The results presented a persistent conflict between you and the boy genius that had followed up to the current Junior year. Was it childish? Perhaps. Were you ever going to admit that? No.

The sound of a loud practice buzzer went off, breaking you out of your reflection.  When you looked up at the table opposite, your jaw clenched. Of course it had been Peter to answer the question. His friend, Ned, clapped him on the shoulders and you felt your own tense up.

“Correct, as always, Mr. Parker.” Mr. Harrington changed the score on the board and you felt your skin crawl. Peter was always the star pupil, no matter how well you performed in his absence. “Alright next question. Hypertrichosis is colloquially known by this name…”

The meat of your palm stung when it impacted with the buzzer. “What is Werewolf Syndrome.”

“Correct!”

You smiled smugly, reclining back in the uncomfortable chairs that, on some vile whim, the school board had deemed perfect for the campus library. Ready to gauge Peter’s disappointment in himself, you spared a glance his way. You found his brown eyes on you, lips offered you half of a smile. You wanted to gag. The role of team player had never suited you, but Peter worn it well like the clothes on his back.

“Well, that ties up our practice scores!” Your head seemed to spin out of your control as you snapped your gaze to the white, erase marker board Mr. Harrington was holding up. Just once, that was all you wanted, to win. “That gives me the opportunity to talk about the trip to Chicago.”

A chorus of limited cheers and apprehensive stares flooded the room. MJ finally looked up from her book at the news of the field trip. Some of the team was still reeling from their last one. Washington had been a great victory if you ignored how they almost died afterwards.

“It’s gonna be fun guys!” A cheerful cry from Betty, a lovely blonde sophomore. She hadn’t been on the trip to Washington. Flash, how was sitting beside you, let out a snicker at the younger girl’s optimism.

“That’s right, thank you, Betty,” Mr. Harrington continued, “sadly, due to budget cuts, we will be taking a smaller bus this time. Pack lightly and tell your parents that you will be safe. Everyone signed the waivers, yes?” Most of the team spoke up in response. “Great. Now remember, meet at the front doors at five fifty-five. We’ll be leaving the school at six.”

“So much for the healthy, professionally recommended eight hours of sleep,” MJ remarked, bringing a smile to your lips. You had never had a long conversation with her, but from what experiences you did have with MJ, you took her to be the wittiest person you had ever met. Much to your amusement, that same wit had a tiring effect on Mr. Harrington who, after MJ’s critique, promptly dismissed the team.

You stood swiftly and began to gather your things. The team had a bad habit of stacking bags on top of one another, so it took a moment for you to find you backpack. Once you dug it out of the stack of bags, you spun on your heel and nearly fell face-first into Peter.

“Oh, s-”

“Watch it, Parker,” you snap before the blush on your cheeks became too visible. he warmth from his body had dulled the flames of embarrassment for a moment before you had realized how close you were to him. You didn’t give Peter a chance to reply as you pushed past him. Luckily, it seemed that no one had noticed the dusting of pink along your face.

The white-hot soreness was put to rest by the crisp afternoon breeze of New York. While Midtown School of Science and Technology wasn’t in the heart of the city, it was close enough to the bay where, every now and then, a gentle breeze would carry off from the water. Such a gust was especially felt after school when the sun was no longer at its peak. The receding sunshine made for a cool walk home.

You adjusted the straps of your bag more securely over your shoulders, hoping to keep your mind off of the moment before. Any interaction with Peter had the innate gift of setting you on edge. You clenched your jaw as you walked, the grinding of your teeth drowning out the pestering thoughts of him. However the one sound that wasn’t overshadowed was the quick pattering of feet on the length of sidewalk behind you.

“Y/N! Wait up!’ You turned your head for a brief moment and, after recognizing the figure chasing after you, you picked up your pace. “Y/N!”

“Not now, Flash, I have stuff to do!” You felt a hand grab your wrist and you stopped in place. Glaring at your peer, you yanked your hand away.

“It will only take a moment.” Teeth gritted, you stared at him.

“It better be worth it.”

Flash gave you a startlingly smug grin as you followed him into a nearby coffee shop. He ordered some absurdly complicated mocha-cappuccino concoction before you both found a secluded table. If it weren’t for the circumstances, you would have enjoyed the shop. It was painted a calming sea-blue and littered with antiques of all sorts. The interior gave off a relaxed aura that was brutally interrupted when Flash sat in front of you as he stirred an alarming amount of sugar in his already frothy drink.

“Alright, I have a proposition for you,” Flash said, placing his coffee stirrer on a napkin. 

“A proposition? What are you, a mob boss?”

“Nah,” Flash said coolly as he waved his hand in dismissal, “just a boss in general.” You had to keep yourself from gagging as he continued. “It’s clear to me, everyone really, that you’re not Peter Parker’s biggest fan.”

You let out an amused huff. “Really? You’ve noticed?”

“Neither am I,” Flash said, having ignored your remark. “Which is why I extend an olive branch to you.”

“What does this olive branch entail?” You leaned forward with a quirked brow, eyeing Flash. He had your attention.

“You want to be on A team, as do I. No one can move up with Peter sitting there with his other nerd friends. With the right manner of,” Flash leaned close to whisper, “sabotage, we can both get what we want.”

“Sabotage?” You leaned back in your seat, eyes skirted the features of the weasel before you. What Flash was selling was enticing, but the idea of stooping to his level was wholly unappealing. Or perhaps it was the prospect of playing dirty that appalled you, the risk of actually hurting Peter maybe. You shook your head. “Not interested.”

“Hold on, hold on, you haven’t heard my plan yet,” Flashed raised his hands to calm you, keep you listening. “One of us would befrien-”

“Really, not interested Flash,” you interrupted as you stood up from your seat. “I don’t need to ‘sabotage’ him, I’m better than him.”

“Judging by your stable and steady position on the B team, it seems like you might not be.” Rage, pure, unadulterated rage flooded your body and turned your sight red. You turned to glare at Flash before you stomped out of the coffee shop.

You didn’t need him, you thought as the cool air hit your face once more, don’t need anyone. For you entire life, you had been going it alone so what was something more? You would show Flash and, hopefully, Peter. That leading spot on the A team was going to be yours.

“Y/N, hold on! I’m sorry, but please, listen!” You kept walking and, when he realized he was being ignored, Flash hurried to your side. “If you don’t to sabotage him, can we at least train together? If we’re like really good maybe the city can organize for us to meet Spiderman or even Iron Man! He gave that internship to Parker of all people so maybe-”

“What is it with you and Spiderman?” You countered, hoping to get off the road of this conversation with a well-worn detour.

“I dunno, he’s just….he’s like really cool! Did I ever tell you about the time at Homecoming he took my car?! It was-”

“You told everyone about that,” you grumbled, clearly annoyed. “Why don’t you find someone that doesn’t know that story, yeah?”

You took advantage of his silence and darted quickly down the block. Flash’s strength of talking when no one wanted him to was also his greatest weakness. One that could be easily exploited if you were in need of a getaway. Home was just a few more blocks down.

As you rounded a corner, you nearly ran into a couple walking by. The man’s arm was lazily slung over the woman’s shoulder, who smiled so brightly it was almost like she had been paid to do it. The couple exchanged giggles as you passed by and your heart sank. It had been normal for you to be so painfully focused on the academic side of your life that you had neglected almost every other facet of it. That included romance.

Peter and his ridiculously large brain and his shy little smile took up far too much of your time for you to have even entertained a relationship. Books and trivia apps were your closest friends. Your family was a different story altogether. From the moment Peter Parker walked into your life, everything had changed. You imagined his life had changed too.

As you walked, a shadow fluttered over the length of sidewalk before you. Ever so curious, you looked up to see a man swinging from building to building; Spiderman, specifically. He was hard to miss with the bright red suit and flailing limbs, spindly like his name sake. The powered man looked just as you remembered him from the first time you had seen him. Up close, he had looked more like a boy than man as he safely loaded you and the rest of the team in the elevator inside the Washington Monument on solid ground.

It all felt like a distant memory as the apartment complex you called home came into sight. Everything that last year had felt clean and safe, perfectly juxtaposed to life now. Spiraled out of control, you had once said to your mother. She hadn’t responded and you knew that she wouldn’t. You climbed the steps, as the elevator was out of order, all the way to the eighth story.

By the time you had unlocked the door, your feet ached for respite. As you kicked off your shoes, the sound of them as they hit the floor echoed in through the apartment. There was no carry-over bustle from the streets. The exposed brick bore no life in the form of family portraits. No one was home except for you and your thoughts; as usual.

You woke the next morning at five. Luckily, before you had fallen asleep, you had enough foresight to pack for the Chicago trip. Textbooks to read during the drive, clothes for the three day stay, and your favorite green sweatshirt already thrown over your loose t-shirt. From the last trip, you had learned to wear comfy clothes for long bus drives. The twelve hours from the school to Chicago was the perfect excuse to dress lazily.

From the near-empty fridge, you grabbed snacks and bottled water for the road. Already, the idea of competing with the highest ranked schools in The Windy City made your stomach churn. With the twisting nerves, you decided to skip breakfast. A poor choice, you soon realized as you lugged your bag down the seemingly endless flights of stairs.

By the time five fifty-five rolled around, you were sweaty from the trek from your home to the school. Mr. Harrington looked exhausted but the ever spry young Literature teacher, Ms. Lauren, chattered away to the team as they boarded the small bus.

“Ok kids, I know you’re tired, but put your bags in the back of the bus so we can easily unpack it when we get to the hotel.” You wondered if Ms. Lauren happened to be a morning person or if the large, travel mug of coffee held tight in her hands had anything to do with her wide smile.

Once your bag was stacked with the rest, you settled in a seat towards the front. MJ’s mass of curls popped up in a seat nearby, her sneaker-clad feet hung out in the aisle. Ned and Betty, the blonde sophomore, idly chatted, talking about the last time they had been up so early. Late, as usual, Peter Parker made his way on the bus.

“You’re lucky this wasn’t practice, peebag,” Flash sneered when Peter walked past him. The skinny boy dragged a suitcase behind him, one of the front pockets unzipped showed a type of red workout shirt. Or at least you assumed as much, judging by the look of the material.

“Hi Peter,” Ned greeted loudly, making you crane your neck to glare in their direction. It was much too early for pleasantries.

“Hey, Ned,” Peter said quietly as he added his bag to the pile. He gave Betty a nod of greeting before working his way back to the front of the bus. He stopped beside MJ’s seat, just in front of you. “Can I?”

MJ only glared in response, her legs remained sprawled lengthwise along the seat. Peter sighed and turned to look for any other empty seat. As he did, the rather crabby looking bus driver had slammed the bus door shut. The small bus jolted and Peter gripped the edge of your seat tightly, as he kept from falling.

“Is this seat taken?” Peter asked you, his tried looking brown eyes met your gaze in earnest. You stared back at him, mouth parted as your mind tried to register what was happening. It seemed that Fate was against you once more.

“Sit down kid!” The gravelly voiced of the bus driver reached your ears and pulled you back to the present. Locked eyes tore away from Peter’s as you moved. You scooted down the bus seat until your side was pressed up against the window. Peter said a soft ‘thank you’ but you were much too peeved to reply. You hoped that if you pressed your cheek against the cool surface of the window that the blush that had burned into your skin would fade. No such luck.

However, what it did cool, was your heated thoughts. A dull ache that had plagued you since you had wakened vanished. Finally at some sort of ease, you allowed yourself to close your already hooded eyes. You felt warmth as you drifted off to sleep, a safety you hadn’t had in a long time.

Whether it was the jolt or the sunlight filtering through the slightly grimy bus window that woke you, you were unsure. All you knew was that you were comfortable. Slowly, your eyes opened as you cringed against the rising sun. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours since you had left, but tiredness still seeped into your bones.

It was when the sounds of snickering filled yours ears that you awoke fully. The telltale sound of a phone’s digital camera shutters clicked off and you were thrown into a frenzy of embarrassment as you realized why you were so comfortable in the first place. As if his body had burned you, you pulled your head away from Peter’s shoulder. You narrowly avoided knocking skulls thanks to an alarming quick reaction on Peter’s part.

“What?!” Your shout caused the growing crowd around you and Peter to scurry off.

“Ar-Are you okay?” Peter’s soft brown eyes met yours and held the utmost, disgusting amount of concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine. The bus jus-just jolted,” you grumbled in reply. Peter nodded but you knew that he knew it was a lie. You had never been quite good at lying.

“Oh, o-okay,” Peter murmured before he fumbled with his phone. You rested the side of your face against the window once more and watched other cars race by. Silently you hoped that the movement would keep you awake. Out of the corner of your eye, you observed Peter as he attempted to untangle his earbuds. He gave up halfway through and put the small speakers in his ears. The cover art on his lockscreen read ‘Bastille’ in bold white font. Of course he had good taste in music too, you thought bitterly.

The twelve hour drive dwindled down to it’s final hours, marked but the periodic buzzing of Peter’s phone on his lap. After it went off three times in a row you looked at in annoyance and hoped Peter would take the hint. The notification was a text from MJ with nondescript emojis, including the squirt gun one. Peter didn’t seem to have noticed your glare and happily responded to the messages.

You let out an audible groan at the sight of his smile. The boyish, upwards quirk of his lips was nothing short of adorable and it physically pained you. Not only was Peter Parker smart and seemingly kind, but he was cute too. As well, at least from what you assumed from the messages, taken by one of the smartest girls in school. It simply wasn’t fair.

“Is Pissbag Parker annoying you?” Flash’s voice crept up from the seat behind you and made you jump slightly in your seat. Before you replied, Peter plucked out an earbud.

“Is everything okay?”

“You being too loud? Y/N here doesn’t seem to happy.” Flash’s taunts seemed to frighten Peter as he looked to you.

“N-No I’ve been quiet this whole time,” he stammered. Flash rolled his eyes and opened his mouth with a readied retort. You took the pause and stepped in.

“Peter’s been fine, Flash. A more agreeable bus partner than you are to John.” You gestured over to the skinny, black-haired boy Flash was sat beside. “Why don’t you be quiet?”

“Alright,” Flash said as he sat back down in his seat. You groaned again and turned back, only to have locked eyes with Peter once more.

“What? He was being annoying,” you said, justifying your rudeness.

“Y-yeah, n-no it’s jus-” Peter was cut off by a buzz. His phone lit up in his hand. Another message from MJ. You bit the inside of your cheek to quell the jealousy, but your envy spilled out before you could stop it.

“You better answer that,” you snapped before you settled back against the window. You let out a huff and hoped silently that the next few hours of the drive would go by quickly. It was torture, being sat next to Peter Parker and knowing full well just how more complete he was than you. Or, maybe it was the fact he was complete without you.

What do you think, my friends?? I hope you liked the first installment! I promise this story picks up, it’s a slow burn, like I said!

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 20

Your name is MICAH, and ten nights have come and gone in what felt like a few hours.

It’s still early enough that even Lynera is still asleep in the next room over, which is really saying something because that girl is up at the asscrack of dusk no matter what night it is. You’re curled up on the sofa in the study, staring at a fungus-shaped nightlight that does a poor job of actually illuminating the surrounding area, and wondering what the hell you were going to tell your friends in the future.

Hey, guys! Sorry I kind of dropped off the grid for a while there. I fought this fucked-up version of one of my human friends, vanished into the literal void to take a nap because I was super tired from splitting a whole universe apart, and then traveled back to the past to help fight in a literal revolution… because I want to save my other friends, I guess? You don’t have to worry about that changing the future or whatever, I promise! I’m literally a god now, so I have total control over time and space.

Geez. You hope Vriska is ready to stop the others from kicking your ass.

Should you just go? You could easily spend the night on future Alternia and be back by breakfast. Teleporting still makes you a little nervous; the fear of messing up still lingers in the back of your head, but nothing bad has happened yet, so…

Yeah, you’re definitely not getting any more sleep. Might as well be productive.

You roll off the couch with a grunt, stagger a bit as all the blood rushes down to your legs, and then stumble over to the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face. Maybe you were about to pull up to the future to get yelled at by a bunch of teenagers, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you have to look like crap.

The person looking back at you in the mirror startles you more than you’d like to admit. Their eyes are tired but wild, like a feral animal that’s been hunted to the point of exhaustion. Too-pale skin reflects the ceiling lights with an intensity that hurts your head if you look for too long. The dark shadows underneath both eyes are so dark they look like smudged mascara. You’ve always been very fair, even for a white kid, but you know that looking like this can’t be healthy.

Then there’s the fact that you’re still pretty underweight. You’ve been doing your best to eat on a somewhat regular basis, but you just don’t feel hungry anymore. It’s like your body already decided to give up.

And to be honest, the rest of you isn’t too far behind.

“Look at you. Sans Undertale looking-ass,” you tell the shadow in the mirror.

The shadow blinks in agreement at the same time you do.

You can’t look at yourself anymore. Moving as quickly as you can, you brush your teeth and do your best to assemble yourself into what could maybe pass for a functional human being and leave to go get dressed.

You’re rifling through your backpack for your water bottle when the lights come on in Lynera’s room. The bedroom door cracks open, and a messy head of pair pokes out, bits of sopor slime still clinging to black curls.

“Micah? What are you doing up so early?” she yawns.

“I, ah, I gotta go visit some friends a ways out of town. I’ll be back in a bit,” you promise. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“You didn’t! A new cluster of eggs is due to hatch tonight and I want to be there!” she practically sings as she gets ready.

You feel the sadness leave your body as Lynera practically prances around as she gets ready for her shift. It’s not often she lets down her walls, but when she does, you can’t help but take a step back to enjoy the show.

“Give those babies some love for me,” you tell her as you hoist your backpack over your shoulders.

“I will!”

Alright. Here we go. You close your eyes and visualize Vriska’s living room. That’s a good place to start, right? You’ll have a quick talk with Vriska, you’ll go visit your other friends one at a time to explain what’s going on, and then you can talk to those who are interested about helping the rebellion from the future.

Time and space part easily as you zap out of Lynera’s study and--

“-- worry about OH MY FUCKING GOD.”

You yelp in surprise as somebody shrieks at a deafening volume right next to your ear. Instincts take over, and you spring backward into something big and hard. That ‘something’ turns out to be a bookshelf, as you soon find out as a couple of novels fall from the top shelves and hit you right on the head.

“Ow! Shit!”

And that’s when you realize you have twelve young teenagers sitting around Vriska’s living room, all staring at you in various degrees of shock. Nepeta, Equius, Kanaya, and Sollux are all on the sofa, with Sollux perched on the backrest like he’s ready to take flight. Terezi and Vriska are standing on the coffee table together for some reason. Eridan’s curled up on the loveseat with one hand on his rifle. All of the others are sprawled out on the carpet.

All of the others except for Karkat, that is, who seems to have been returning from the kitchen with a pile of chips on his plate.

“Oh, hi!” Aradia says cheerfully. “Wow, I can see your bones--”

“THEY’RE BAAAAAAAACK!” Vriska hollers, launching herself off the coffee table and slamming into you at full speed.

The air is smooshed out of your lungs before you can brace yourself for impact. Thankfully, Vriska catches you before you can eat shit, otherwise you would have probably just teleported back to past Alternia and tried this whole thing again some other time.

“Hey, Vris,” you wheeze, patting her back. “Happy to see you too.”

“Fucking HELL, don’t do that,” Karkat yells, stomping over to the sofa and plopping down next to Kanaya. Kanaya purses her lips in mild amusement and delicately plucks a chip from his plate to eat.

Vriska just scoffs. “Don’t be a baby, Vantas, you know full well Micah can teleport--”

“Eat my full ass, Serket.”

“Hi, Micah!” Nepeta trills. A general murmur of greetings follows that, some more enthusiastic than others. Sollux, Equius, and Tavros all seem to be very on-edge tonight.

Feferi actually hops up to give you a hug as well, thankfully with a lot more care than Vriska had. It’s becoming weirdly normal to know that this big-ass six-sweep old girl could crush your skull like an eggshell.

“Don’t worry, nobody’s mad at you, I promise,” she whispers in your ear.

“Huh?”

Vriska grins and clasps your shoulder. “Oh, I already told them everything.”

“... Oh, boy.”

You turn back to the others and try your best winning smile.

“Yeah, what the fuck, dude?” Sollux demands.

“How are we even gonna exist with this kind of thing?” Karkat splutters, throwing his hands up in the air.

Tavros winces. “We get that you can do crazy space-time stuff, but--”

“You’re in way over your pan, retard!”

Ah, fuck. “Listen, guys, I know what I’m doing sounds pretty insane. And I’m sorry that I can’t tell you how exactly I’m going to pull all of this off because… you know, time shenanigans. But I need you guys to trust in me, at least for now. Also, Karkat, let’s not use that word. It’s extremely disrespectful.”

“Who are you, my lusus?” he challenges.

“No. Should I zap over and get him myself?”

“NO!”

“That’s what I thought.”

Vriska snickers under her breath. Karkat gives her a look that just screams murder.

Everybody else still looks a little queasy. Guilt rears its ugly head for the millionth time in the hour you’ve been awake, fearful and taunting and ashamed all at the same time. If you could just tell them everything, right now, you wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore.

Tell them.

You don’t, because you’re a coward, but you do try and calm everybody’s nerves again. “To elaborate on what Tavros just tried to say, yes, I can do crazy space-time stuff. Which means I can do stuff in one point in time and it won’t completely fuck up all the other points in time. It’ll change things, sure, but it won’t erase people.”

“What about our memories?” Eridan asks tersely.

“Definitely not,” you tell him. I won’t let that happen. “If everything goes according to plan, things will just start… changing.”

“We’re gonna make a new world that’s better for everybody!” Vriska announces proudly. “That’s why you guys are all here today.”

“By our human friend fighting in a rebellion that was already lost? Setting aside the fact that’s… treason… that also sounds rather dangerous. Micah, you aren’t a great fighter,” Equius says. His voice is quiet, but he’s so stiff you could probably use him to prop open a barn door.

“A rebellion is a lot more than just fighting, dude. So far I’ve just helped teleport people around,” you remind him.

“... Still.”

Nepeta suddenly surges to her feet, eyes blazing. “I don’t care that it’s treason! Don’t you care about what they did to me? My whole neighborhood got burned down in a drone strike!”

“Nepeta--”

“No! I remember everything now. I’m gonna help them win, ‘cause, ‘cause… even though we all had to suffer, the ones who come after us might not have to.”

Nobody speaks for many heartbeats after that. Something about what she said rings inside your head, sticking to your neurons like glue.

“See? Nepeta knows what’s good!” Terezi yells.

“This is insane.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome!”

“I’m in,” Aradia agrees, winking at you as she smooths her skirt down. Your anxiety backs down a little at her blatant support. Aradia Knows Things, right? Surely if she thinks you should keep doing what you’re doing…

“So am I,” Tavros announces, setting his jaw defiantly. Nepeta seems to have set off a chain reaction, because everybody else sits up a little straighter, eyeing each other as if daring anybody else to go first.

“And I,” Kanaya adds.

Karkat groans. “Fuck you guys. Fine! It’s not like we can play SGRUB anymore.”

“You guys are gonna die,” Sollux says, scrubbing his face with the palms of his hands. “We. Are. All. Gonna. Die.”

“So are you in?” you ask, reaching over to poke his arm.

He smacks your hand away. “Get fucked. Sure. Whatever.”

“Yay!”

Eridan huffs quietly and crosses his arms. “Well, you guys are gonna need somebody with power to help. And money. I’m in.”

Equius turns to stare at him with his jaw nearly on the floor, and you’re so full of pride you think you’re going to explode. You should have known your friends would eventually come around. And with not one, but two whole seadwellers on their side, they were truly going to be a force to be reckoned with.

“I knew it! I knew you cared!” Feferi squeals, jabbing a finger at her ex-moirail. Eridan curls up tighter on himself, but that doesn’t stop a small smile from lighting up his face.

“Is that a yes from you, Feferi?”

“It’s a hell yes, Micah!”

Gamzee smiles lazily from underneath the coffee table. “I told you motherfuckers. I told you a miracle was coming, and here it is.”

Poor Equius looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. “I-I… you can’t possibly, I mean--”

“If you’ll excuse us!” Nepeta chirps, effortlessly pulling her moirail from the couch and slinging him over her muscular shoulders. The indigoblood yelps indignantly, but Nepeta just prances on upstairs as if she’s carrying a sack of potatoes and not a teenage boy nearly twice her size.

“What’s up with olivebloods and being insanely buff? I mean, my girlfriend’s taken on a jadeblood and a teal at the same time and she won,” you wonder.

Karkat immediately focuses on you with the intensity of a laser. “A girlfriend? You’re in a relationship?”

“Micah’s got a girlfriend!” Feferi yells, picking you up and twirling you around.

“What quadrant?”

“Is she cute?”

“An oliveblood, right-?”

“We wanna meet her!”

“Guys! Can we please focus on taking down the Empire? We can gossip about Micah’s love life later!” Vriska yells, clapping her hands for order.  

You rest an elbow on Feferi’s shoulder, enjoying being tall for the moment as she’s carrying you. “Ooh! You got a mission plan, Vriska?”

“You bet your skinny alien ass I do!” She pauses for emphasis and puffs out her chest. “We’re gonna go beat up a bitch for using lowbloods as FLARP bait!”

“Didn’t you do the exact same thing not too long ago?” Karkat scoffs.

Vriska scowls down at him. “Yes! Yes, I did! But now I’m gonna turn things around and help them instead, okay? ‘Cause I’m changing my…. my toxic behavior.”

She looks to you for support, and you give her the thumbs-up.

The others actually look a little impressed, which gives her the courage to keep going. “In half an hour Terezi and I are going to meet this violetblood dude who’s been responsible for a lot of rust and bronze deaths in the area. It’s a FLARP session at sea, so he’ll have his team-- I mean hostages-- on board with him.”

“You need a team?” you ask.

“You offering?”

“Of course.”

“Yes! But no passing out on me! Our goal is to neutralize the threat, secure the hostages, and deliver them back to shore so they can go home. Any questions?”

“I’m coming too,” Eridan says. He hops to his feet, dusting off some invisible debris on his pants. “That’s not a question, though.”

“Can I come? It sounds exciting,” Aradia begs.

“Sure! Anybody else?” Vriska scans the crowd with a smirk, as if saying You are all too pussy for this kind of adventure.

Unfortunately, it works. Karkat and Feferi step forward as well, which brings the team total up to six. Everybody else gets ready to go home before the sun comes up. Out on the horizon, heat lightning crackles in the sky like a strobe ball. You end up leaving your jacket with your backpack on the couch, because even for somebody who has trouble retaining heat, Alternian summers are brutal.

Surprisingly, the team figures out their FLARP-ing shit quickly enough, as they all played at one point or the other. You still have no idea what to make out of all the numbers and stats and scores that come with each move, even though Vriska makes it all look like child’s play. Karkat keeps grumbling about “games for girls” which has your hackles up until you remember that female trolls tend to be more violent than the males. That makes sense to you, especially when you remember Remele beating the shit out of that purpleblood and all of Lynera’s knives.

In almost no time at all the six of you are sailing out to sea, the wind in your hair and the smell of salt water filling your nose. If you close your eyes and pretended, you could almost imagine you’re back on Earth, taking a boat ride with your mom’s boyfriend and your stepsister at the lakehouse--

A particularly large wave knocks you back on your ass, and the memory cuts off as quickly as it began.

“Fuck!” you hiss, trying to get your bearings. You try as hard as you can to visualize what you just remembered, but all you can recall is sunlight sparkling off water, the rumble of an engine, a man laughing and nearly choking on his beer as your tiny preteen self got knocked around by the rocking of the motorboat.

A strong hand picks you up by the arm and sets you on your feet. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Fef.” You pat her elbow. “Sometimes it’s rough being a little guy.”

Her eyes are round with sympathy. “Looks like it. That reminds me, I wanna ask your opinion on something really important.”

“Oh, okay!” Wow, the Heiress of Alternia is asking my opinion on something? Talk about friends in high places.

… Wait, what was I trying to remember?

“What do you think of the hemospectrum?”

You purse your lips. “Well, if that ain’t a loaded question I dunno what is.”

“I mean, you don’t have to answer, but…”

“You know what I think? I think that the hemospectrum could have been a really good thing. Those who live for quite some time, paving the way for those who won’t be here as long? Sounds great. But then it became about power and control. And-And I think that if-- that once we win, we can’t go back to that system. There’s just too much trauma that’s been birthed from it that’s affected literally every troll to have ever existed,” you explain.

Feferi considers that, and then she nods in agreement. “That makes sense.”

“Oh, shit, is it big brain hour?” Terezi calls from the wheel.

“It is!” Then you do a double-take. “Why is the blind girl driving?”

“Vriska’s getting dressed.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Forward.”

“Bruh.”

Karkat throws up for the fifth time over the side of the ship. You groan and stumble over to him to pat his back.

“You’ll get your sea legs soon,” you promise.

“I hate the ocean. Why does there need to be oceans. I never would have thought I would ever say this but by infant Troll Jegus do I miss Texas. It’s hot, it’s human-racist, but there is hardly any damn water and for that it’s easily one of the best places I’ve ever been,” he rasps.

You smile. “Wanna see Dave after this is over?”

“Yes, please. Strider’s bullshit is the only thing that can numb me to the pain of occupying the realm of mortals.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Eridan smirk. You turn to look at him in confusion, and he makes the quadrant symbol for flushcrush: two thumbs pressed together over the center of his chest, where a troll’s heart would be.

Really? you mouth at him, delighted by this unexpected turn of events. He nods eagerly, clearly just as enthusiastic about Karkat getting a boyfriend as you are, but before you can sneak off with him to get the tea his gaze fixates on something past you.

You turn to see the small speck of what is undoubtedly another ship coming your way. A ship that is much bigger and fancier than the 8rigantine, at full sail and most likely armed to the teeth.

“He’s coming on our eleven!” Feferi calls up to Terezi.

“Go get Vriska,” the tealblood orders. Her perfectly white fangs flash in the light of the moons as she grins like a shark. “Time to kick this bitchboy’s ass!”

[vannahfanfics]

Where am I?

Category: Angst

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Characters: Tomoko Shiretoko

An abyss— the inky blackness enveloped Tomoko like a thick blanket, but she did not feel comforted by its embrace. It smothered her, wrapping her in an icy cold that seeped deep into her bones and made every ragged breath she drew excruciating labor. Her limbs felt as if they were weighted with lead, suspending her in the endless space and giving her no strength to move. Her lidded gold eyes were slits as she peered into the gloom; even they felt weighted, chained down to the bottom of her void-like prison beneath the shifting black fog. 

Her throat bobbed as she struggled to speak, yet she could form no words. Even if she could, she could not think of what to say. Like her disorienting surroundings, her mind was shrouded in mist too. Articulation and thought were faraway concepts to her now, save for one.

Where am I? 

Tomoko was not sure how long she was there, suspended like a broken marionette in the endless black. Broken, because in the ebb and flow of bewilderment the searing pain in her body would rise like a rocky cleft in the receding tide. She could not pinpoint whether it was a single wound that pained her so, or if every single one of her bones had been crushed, filling her to the brim with agony. 

Either way, she despaired each time she became lucid enough to feel the burning ache filling her up. She could do nothing to alleviate it— not scream into the void, not sob in misery, not even clench her teeth. In silence, in stillness, in solitude, she suffered. 

Again, she could only think as her tears floated in the chasm around her, Where am I? 

Time was endless, or may it wasn’t long at all, only stretched by the endless blackness shrouding her in its cold veil. Eventually, light speared through the blackness to carve a blazing white path. Tomoko both relished its coming and abhorred it; though part of her welcomed the light— the change— part of her had grown accustomed to her black home in twisted sleepy contentment. 

The light snaked toward Tomoko, chasing away the darkness on either side to extend like a road before her. A groan finally rumbled from her weak lungs as her limbs twitched to life. The world of black swirled around her, and Tomoko had the strangest sense that she was ascending. Lying flat on her back with her arms splayed to either side, she rose like a ghost from the grave to grave the world of light once more. 

And again, she thought, Where am I? 

A grimy white-tiled ceiling greeted her weary eyes when she finally had the strength to open them. Her mind was in dissonance registering it because surely no hospital would allow such deplorable conditions. Another thing that unsettled her was the silence; there was no hushed discussions of doctors and nurses, nor regular beeping of monitoring machines, or even the hum of an air conditioning unit. Only quiet reverberated in the gloom, deafening her with its overwhelming presence. 

At first, Tomoko’s body was numb from lack of use, but the pins and needles soon faded as her brain repeatedly fired neuronal signals to move. As she went to lift her arms, they stopped short a few inches above the bed she laid on, and the clinking of metal filled the air. 

Metal? She thought groggily, rolling her head to observe the thing obstructing her movement. It took her a few moments to recognize the shiny handcuffs securing her to the hospital bed. 

Tomoko’s heart jumped into her throat when her lagging brain cells finally processed her dire situation. Squeaking in alarm, Tomoko bangs her shackled hands against the railings, filling the once-silent room with frantic jingling. Her panic-stricken mind could still realize that this place was no hospital. 

Memories came rushing back like a flood, joining the tidal wave of fear drowning Tomoko. A dark night, dense woods, a villainous raid, and a flash of steel in the dark— the fragmented memories painted a morbid picture, a portrait of her own harrowing kidnapping. As she jiggled the handcuffs violently, part of her frantically wondered if the children and her teammates were okay, while the more rational part of her wondered if she was going to be okay. 

“Now, now. There’s no need for all that noise, Ragdoll, dear.” 

The clanking ceased as Tomoko froze. The voice had emanated from the gloom, sounding over her agitated jangling with carefully controlled malice. A squat man wearing a white coat plodded out of the darkness to give Tomoko an eerie smile. She didn’t like it; he eyed her like a specimen to dissect, a machine to disassemble, and it sickened her to her core. 

As her breaths hitched into hyperventilation, Tomoko began flinging her hands upward again to the point that the cold metal of the handcuffs bit deeply into her wrist. 

“Tsk. You are a professional hero. Have some composure, young lady,” the creepy scientist sniffed in disdain. 

Composure? Tomoko couldn’t even dream of having composure at that moment. The time for composure had long since passed; her only guiding force was self-preservation, frantic sparks of her nervous system driving her body into fight-or-flight mode. Tomoko would one day wonder if that made her any less of a hero, but in the end, she was only human— a frail, pitiful little human just a slave to her mind as the rest of them. 

Tomoko froze again as a massive hand clamped down on her throat. She wheezed as it pushed down on her windpipe, constricting the airflow to just a few ragged puffs. Her yellow irises drifted in a vast sea of white as she stared wildly at the scientist man, whose evil smirk widened to stretch his pudgy face. 

It was not his hand wrapped around her throat, however. 

Her assailant stood at the head of the bed behind her, thick muscular arm reaching around to hold her petite body still. She whimpered pathetically as they leaned over, his bulk casting a shadow over her face. The whimper morphed into a frightened, choked scream as his ghastly face came into view; the crown of his head was a patchwork of ugly scar tissue all the way down past his eyes, so his Cheshire-cat smirk floated underneath a scarred dome of pale flesh. It was an absolutely abhorrent sight, and Tomoko felt a fierce shiver grip her bones. 

The man chuckled as she quaked in the bed, filling the air with faint jingling again. 

“What a fine Quirk you have. I’ll be making excellent use of it.” 

A cold flush shot through Tomoko’s arteries. My Quirk? Use? What? What is he talking about? Though Tomoko’s confusion was evident in her impossibly wide eyes, the man neglected to answer her. That vile snicker resounded in her ears, vibrating her bones and twisting her belly with dread. 

The man squeezed her carotids briefly, relishing her shocked squeak and the way her eyes dilated as her brain was starved as oxygen. An agonizing few seconds passed, but he released his grip before she could suffer any hypoxic damage. As his calloused hand migrated over her face, Tomoko coughed and sobbed. Of the many things that her mind could land on, it once again rang with that quintessential question. 

Where am I? 

His hand closed over her face. Tomoko wriggled as he smothered her mouth and nose, once again making her lungs heave in an effort to suck in air. His cruel chortling filled her head until it was the only thing she could focus on, resounding like a death knell chiming in the deep of night. His grip tightening, fingers digging into her skin— and then her body began to feel strange. 

It felt like electricity humming just under the surface, just a numb tingle at first. It gradually rose in intensity until it seared like liquid lightning across her face. The sensation drew an agonized scream from her body, and her back arched up of the table as her arms and legs writhed. The clanking of her restraints joined the symphony of his laughs, which had risen in pitch and volume to full-blown evil cackles. 

Suddenly, the electricity began to recede. No— that wasn’t it. It felt like it was being drawn out, absorbed through his fingers. The abnormal feeling began to spread from her head down to the rest of her body. Dread pooled in Tomoko’s belly as it felt like her very soul was being sucked out. 

No, stop, please, she tried to plead, but it came out only as garbled gargles against his palm. As the strange draining sensation hummed in her body, her struggles diminished bit by bit until she felt slack against the table. Her eyelids began to droop as drowsiness washed over her. Perhaps this strange villain had taken her soul, and here she was, on the cusp of a sad and lonely death. Tears brimmed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she grappled with her mortality.

Where am I? How will they know where I am? Please… I don’t want to die alone in this place…!

The darkness began to creep back into her vision, beginning as small trickles and rapidly rising into a flooding wave. Tomoko had the sensation of becoming weightless, floating down, down, down into the depths of the dark. As her eyes drowsily drifted shut, she embraced the darkness as it wrapped around her in a cool blanket, delivering her into a dreamless and painless sleep… 

~~~~~~~~~~

Heaven— the cloudy white enveloped Tomoko like a thick blanket, and she felt comfort in its warmth. She hummed as she breathed in deeply and easily; fresh, cool air flooded her lungs with the unlabored breaths. She felt weightless and free, floating unrestrictedly in the lovely expanse of fluff. Her eyes slowly opened, and the golden pools were greeted with neat white tiles framing fluorescent lights. The rhythmic beeping of a machine echoed dully in her ears, accented by the pleasant voices of two women in scrubs by her bedside. 

Where am I? 

“Ah! She’s rousing. Go get the doctor while I do a vitals assessment, quickly!” the nurse ordered her comrade as Tomoko’s eyes fluttered. Tomoko just barely registered the hasty shuffling of her feet as she exited. The nurse gently brushed Tomoko’s locks of emerald hair from her face with a kindly smile. “Easy, now. You’ve been through quite the ordeal. Just relax. We’ll take good care of you.” 

Tomoko’s mind hung in a fog as the medical professionals fluttered around her, checking her vitals and conversing with one another. She caught snatches of conversation that alarmed her greatly— All for One and missing Quirk and warehouse and All Might’s fall. Her frazzled mind toiled to comprehend the snippets of information, but too many pieces were missing from the puzzle. She ended up sitting up in bed with no recollection of being pulled up, drifting in the clouds with no clear way to come down. 

“Ragdoll!” 

Tomoko blinked blearily at the mournful wail that sounded in the doorway. Pixie-Bob came bounded into the room to throw herself at her bedside, snatching up her hand to squeeze it tightly. Tears glimmered in the corners of her eyes. 

“Ragdoll, thank goodness, you’re okay! We were so worried about you!” she sobbed into the white sheets draped over Tomoko’s body. Her pitiful cries pulled Tomoko into lucidity, allowing her to finally appreciate the gravity of her situation. Tiger and Mandalay joined Pixie-Bob at her bedside, and for the first time in what seemed like ages, Tomoko felt relief. 

“You guys…” she moaned as fresh sobs bubbled up in her throat, “where am I?” 

She didn’t really mean it physically. It felt like she was no longer herself, a husk of her former person. She was desperately searching for some semblance of herself, but all she could find within was fear, doubt, and loss. 

Mandalay leaned over to envelop her in a crushing hug. 

“You’re safe, Ragdoll,” she whispered as she nuzzled into Tomoko’s green tresses. “Y-you’re home.” Tomoko blinked slowly, and then a shaky smile stretched across her lips as tears dripped from her lashes. 

Home. Yes. Her home, her beloved teammates. 

No matter what, Tomoko could always find herself there. 

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!