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isthisthingeven0n · 4 years

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you’re still here : s.r

spencer watched you die in his arms, believing you were gone forever. but when he learns the truth that you’re alive in london, he can’t help but wonder why you’ve hidden away for so long. (2.4k)

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DO NOT STEAL MY WORK - IT IS ALL MY OWN WRITING

Salem, Oregon

“No, no, no Y/n, please,” Spencer pleads as he holds you close, his arms wrapped around you as your body becomes weaker by the passing second. “please don’t go,” His cries intensify as his arms shake, watching as your eyes begin to close. “no, please.”

“I’m sorry,” You manage to whisper as tears fall from Spencer’s eyes, the last sight you ever saw as your eyes closed, and your head fell back.

“No,” Spencer mutters, shaking you lightly. “no, you can’t be, no!” His cries turn to yells as Morgan approaches him slowly, resting his hand on Spencer’s shoulder as it shakes violently.

“Reid,” Morgan sighs, afraid to look down and see you lifeless in Spencer’s arms. “it’s over, I, I’m sorry.”

Looking over his shoulder, the rest of the team with solemn faces walk over and shield around Spencer whilst the police take care of Jason Lodgings; your murderer.

“Come on, Spence,” JJ speaks softly as she kneels beside Spencer as tears fill her eyes.

“I’m not leaving her.” Spencer states firmly, still not letting you go from his embrace.

“Reid,” Hotch calls out, his voice firm as he stands tall, watching as Lodgings walks away in handcuffs, glancing down with sorrow at the blood oozing from your cream jumper, dripping onto the wooden floorboards. “we have to go.” Hotch tells the team as they slowly rise to their feet, not wanting to start an argument with their superior.

Closing his eyes, Spencer releases a shaky breath as he gently lowers you to the ground. He pushes your hair out from your face and brushes his fingers across your cheek for the last time.

“Goodbye, Y/n.” Spencer whispers to you as he stands up and turns around, ignoring JJ’s open arms and walks out.

London, England - Two years later

It was always going to catch up with you, this life was a mere facade for your sake to have a sense of normality, but normality was never something you wanted.

Nearly two years had passed by since they last saw you. You hadn’t seen Garcia flirting with Morgan, heard JJ talk about Henry with such joy or avoided the stern looks Hotch shot over when you joked with Rossi and Emily for two years. But the one thing you’ve missed more than anything was seeing Spencer smile. You missed everything about Spencer, but seeing his smile brought a sense of indescribable joy.

This was never going to last forever, and you knew that coming into the situation. Hotch and Emily helped you figure out what to do, where to go in order to keep you safe. But keeping you safe meant everyone believing you were dead in the eyes of Jason Lodgings and his team, otherwise, they’d kill your team, your family off one by one just to get to you.

Having experienced the trauma from Emily’s ‘death’ you knew this wasn’t going to be easy on the team. You were lying in Spencer’s arms, close to death as you heard him cry for you. Every part of your body screamed to react, to tell him you’d see him again soon. If only you could have, just to provide him with some sense of relief in the long term. Yet if you did, it would’ve ruined the entire plan.

Wandering through Hyde Park, you knew he was close by. Maybe he had seen you already and was too afraid to believe it. The last time you spoke to anyone you knew was a year ago in Paris with Emily.

* Paris, France - One year Ago *

“How are they all?” You question as she sits down opposite you, files in hand as she places them on the table.

“They’re healing,” She answers, sliding the files across as you grab your bag, putting them inside without any hesitation. “it’ll get easier, but they’ll always miss you.” Emily sighs knowingly. “That contains everything you’ll need to get to London and set up a life there. But please, don’t trust anyone easily, Y/n.” She warns you as you nod.

Rising to your feet, you shrug your bag back onto your shoulder as you look down to one of your oldest friends for the last time. “Thank you, Emily.” You smile to her, wishing you could say more.

“Stay safe, okay?” She tells you, unable to form more words as thousands hover behind her lips. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

With a nod, you turn on your heels and walk down the street, not daring to look back as you’ve got to carry on.

Exhaling deeply, you bury your hands further into your coat pockets. Autumn was approaching as the Summer nights came to an end. You can’t help but kick through the piles of leaves that line the pathways as children giggle with their parents behind you.

“Did you know after June 21st, the Summer Solstice the sun’s direct rays will begin to shift southward from the Tropic of Cancer toward Earth’s equator?” You can’t help but tense as you hear his voice, filled with pain behind you. “As a result, the summer days become shorter, but that isn’t noticeable for a few weeks until late August when we near Fall.”

With a heavy heart, you begin to turn around and face the one person you owe the most to.

Your eyes remain locked on his feet, an old pair of sneakers lined with dried mud. Slowly, you raise your gaze past his trousers and toward the knitted sweatshirt vest, one you remember vividly even after all this time. As your eyes reach his shoulders, you can see his hair is long again and you can’t help but want to reach out and run your fingers through it like you once did.

“Hi,” You breathe out, unable to meet his scared gaze. “hi, Spencer.” You mutter, tearing apart the tissue in your left pocket as your nerves spread through your system, igniting undiscovered anxieties about this situation.

Spencer remains silent, taking in the sight before him. He never thought he’d see you again, the last time he saw you he held your lifeless body in his arms as he cried for you to stay with him. Yet you’re here, in London, alive.

“Do you wanna sit down?” You motion to the nearest vacant bench, and Spencer walks alongside you without saying a word.

Sitting down beside him, the gap between you feels too big. You’re used to the times of sitting together on the jet, resting your head on his shoulder and drifting off peacefully.

“Been up to much whilst here?” You ask, unsure what else to say. You can see out of the corner of your eye he’s looking straight ahead at the squirrels scaling the trees like buildings in the city.

“Why?” Spencer breaks his silence, his voice firm with you which takes you back by surprise.

“I,” You pause, lowering your head in defeat as you stare at the faint scar on your hand from the initial knife wound that Jason struck you with. “I had no choice.” You admit, hearing the gunfire as you blink away the memory.

“Everyone has a choice, Y/n, always.” He reminds you and just hearing him say your name causes your heart to drop. “You could’ve told us, we would’ve kept you safe, you know I,” Spencer pauses as he exhales his frustration. “we could’ve protected you.”

“I know, Spence,” You mutter, now turning to look up at him for the first time. “but I couldn’t do it, Hotch and Emily assured everyone would be safer this way.” You try to explain as you see the pain that lines his eyes, the heartache held in his gaze as he focuses on you.

He looks older, still sleep-deprived, but there’s a hint of happiness in the lines that surround his lips. A reassurance that he does have good days, the one thing you wished he'd have since you left.

“So you just left knowing we thought you died in my arms? Do you have any idea how I felt?” He’s angry, and rightfully so. “I, I thought I meant more to you than that, Y/n.” His anger subsides as his voice softens, his defences down.

You can’t help but reach out as you look at your hand on top of his, not daring to move it as you study his reaction.

“You’re the most important person to me, Spencer.” You reason, feeling his hand take a hold of yours, resting it in his palm as he curls his fingers over your hand, refusing to let go. “That’s why I had to let you believe I was gone, as Lodgings’ team would know, they’d always know and you would be in danger because of me.”

Spencer shakes his head. “We would’ve found a way, we, we,” He stumbles over his words as you squeeze his hand.

“You think me faking my death was plan A, Spence?” You chuckle, noticing a faint smile crossing his lips. “That was plan Z, actually version 3 plan Z if we’re being specific.”

“Did you ever plan on coming back?” Spencer quietly questions as his words linger around you for a moment as you slip your hand out from his.

“What did Emily tell you, Spence?” You ask, looking up at him as you hide your hands in your coat pockets, picking at the tissue once more.

“Besides the fact you’re alive and in London?” He nervously chortles, catching you rolling your eyes playfully. “She said you were doing okay, and that you were safe here.”

“I am, with Lodgings’ team having been sentenced, I’m no longer a target to them. My life is my own again, I can finally carry on living it.” Looking up, you watch as pigeons fly overhead, swarming down on the chunks of bread left for the swans. “But I made an agreement with Hotch, I’d stay away for at least three years. Three years to ensure my safety and for Lodgings’ team to be dismantled and dealt with.”

“Three years.” Spencer repeats, and you nod along. “You’re not planning on coming home, are you?” Your silence answers his question without you needing to respond. “I understand, Y/n. Three years is a long time to be gone from us all, and people change.” He reasons to himself more than to you. “I, we all thought you were gone, and finding out you’re alive I,” His voice trails off as he clenches his jaw, fighting his emotions that have been pent up for so long.

“Spence,” You mumble his name as tears fall from his eyes. “I want to come home, I do. I just don’t know if it’s home anymore.”

“Home is where the heart is.” Spencer comments.

“Elvis Presley.” You chuckle, lifting your hand up as you wipe away his tears, feeling him tense momentarily from your touch.

“Please don’t go, Y/n.” Spencer whispers as he lifts his hand up, resting it on top of yours as you cup his cheek. “I want to be selfish, I don’t want to lose you again if I don’t have to.”

Tears glaze your eyes as Spencer scans your face for any uncertainty. “Six months, Spence.” The words are barely audible for anyone passing by, but you know he heard you.

“One hundred and eighty-two point five days.” He nods as you lower your hand from his cheek, but he still keeps his on top of yours. “Then you’ll come home?”

“I can’t promise, Spence.” You know lying would be useless with him, you were never the most confident liar around him. “But before I go, I just want to tell you something.”

“Anything.” Spencer responds in a heartbeat, his entire body facing you now as you lower your gaze and take a steady breath.

“When you held me in your arms as I was,” Even after all this time, you still struggle saying the word. “well, fading, there was one thing I couldn’t help but think as you pleaded for me to stay.”

Spencer edges closer, your thighs touching as the previous gap between you both on the bench is gone. “What was it?”

“I wanted to tell you how much I care for you, how much I love you. And I wanted to thank you for being there for me through everything.” Your eyes remain locked on his as you pour your heart out to him, knowing if you don’t say it now, you never will. “But I didn’t have enough life in me to say all that then.” You nervously laugh. “So I thought I’d say it now, as it’s still true. You are a wonderful person Spencer Reid.”

A comfortable silence falls between you both as echoes of children's laughter surrounds you. And for the first time in years, you feel perfectly content.

“You know, Rossi once told me something,” Spencer speaks up, looking down at your hand as he brushes his thumb over the scar Jason caused. “scars show us where we have been, they do not dictate where we are going.”

“Wise words from a wise man.” You comment quietly as Spencer pauses.

“I know you have scars, Y/n. Externally and internally. But I’ll always be here, wherever you chose to be.” A small sweet smile lines Spencer’s lips as you focus on him, wishing there was so much more you could say. “And I’ll always love you, I’ll always miss you. But if I know you’re healing, then that is all that matters.” He lifts your hand up to his lips, kissing it softly before lowering it back to your lap, unaware of your heart-shattering in your chest.

“I’ll see you soon, Spence.” You tell him as he stands up, hands resting in his jacket pockets as he sways back and forth on his heels.

“One hundred and eighty-two point five days, Y/n.” He reminds you, and you can’t help but laugh and Spencer joins in too for a moment and everything feels okay again, just for a second. “I’ll be holding you to it.” He smiles to you one last time as he sees the glint in your eyes falter. “Bye Y/n.”

“Bye Spencer.” You wave to him as you turn around, walking down separate paths once more, unsure when you’ll next reunite.

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twst-bs · 3 years

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TWST Dorm Leaders and an Anxious MC

This is the first piece of written specifically for this blog!

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Riddle: Had they broken a rule?

Even if Riddle had improved by leaps and bounds in the anger management department, he still held his rules in high regard. And the way his brows furrowed when he looked at them from across the table, was he angry about something? He couldn’t exactly punish them - they had no magic to lock away, and they were a dorm leader in their own right, so he didn’t have any right to discipline them, but what if they had done something on a personal level? Offended him in some way? They had barely mastered social cues in their own world, what if they messed up in Twisted Wonderland? What if -

...Riddle had said something, and was clearly waiting for a reply. In their internal panic, they had missed whatever it was.

“I-I’m sorry, Riddle, I was kind of zoning out. What did you say?” Were there rules against zoning out? Probably, that seemed like something that would annoy him.

“I asked if you were alright.”

“...Huh?”

Riddle set down his tea cup - it was a pretty, delicate little thing, gilded gold along the edges and handle, with roses painted beneath the rim. His mother would be mortified if she knew he was drinking strawberry milk tea with an ungodly amount of sugar out of it, Riddle had once said with a small, almost sheepish smile. That same mouth was now downturned as he regarded them with concern in his wide gray eyes.

“You seemed to be under a lot of stress lately,” he spoke slowly, like they were a frightened animal. Maybe they were. “Is everything alright? Are you sleeping well?”

They weren’t, but that was more of a side effect of their stress than the cause of it. They idly tapped their fingers against their own tea cup, a matching one to Riddle’s. They had been drinking lavender tea in an effort to calm their nerves, but it clearly hadn’t worked.

“I’m fine, promise,” they grinned, hoping it looked convincing.

By the way Riddle’s face scrunched up, it did not.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I know I’m not the best at handling emotions, but if I can help in any way…” Riddle trailed off, looking embarrassed.

They felt their stomach twist in horror. These little tea parties were the highlight of their week, a little moment of reprieve for the both of them to just relax and enjoy each other’s company. And they had gone and ruined it because they couldn’t figure out how to human properly.

“I’m sorry!” they burst out. “I’ve been so anxious lately, and I haven’t been able to sleep, and I’m worried about my grades slipping because I don’t know the first thing about magic and -”

They didn’t even notice they were starting to spiral until Riddle had reached across the table and grasped onto their hand. Their chest was heaving with barely-contained sobs, and they weren’t sure if the trembling they felt in their hands was theirs or Riddle’s.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured. “Deep breaths, now.”

He was parroting what Trey would tell him to help him calm down, they knew, but it was good advice. They knew that he had talked Riddle down from many an anxiety attack before, but the fact that Riddle, someone who suffered from severe mental health problems, was the one calming them down made something sour begin climbing up their throat.

“I-I’m making everything worse…” they mumbled, squeezing Riddle’s hand tighter. “I should be able to handle this without freaking out, but…”

Riddle reached out and brushed away a tear they didn’t know had fallen away with the back of his knuckle. “I know better than anyone how it feels to be under pressure.” he sighed. “Please, don’t think you have to deal with all of this stress on your own.”

Leona: “Will you sit still for five minutes?”

They hadn’t thought they had been making that much noise. Certainly not enough to wake Leona up from his nap, that was damn near impossible. So either the floorboards in Ramshackle dorm were worse than they thought, or Leona hadn’t actually been sleeping.

“Sorry,” they mumbled, staring down at the worksheet in front of them. They had been trying to finish this homework for hours, and the incantations were starting to blur together. What language were these even written in? Were they in the demonic section or nature section?

Leona sat up from where he had unceremoniously plopped himself on their bed. “You’re fidgeting like a rabbit, herbivore.”

“So you weren’t sleeping after all.”

“Hard to sleep when I can practically smell your anxiety.”

“Then go sleep somewhere else.”

Leona clicked his tongue, sounding annoyed, but they both knew he secretly enjoyed it when they got snappy with him. Not a whole lot of people had the guts to give him sass, and he liked having someone to verbally spar with. “And miss watching you squirm?”

“I’m not squirming.” they bit back.

“So that chair squeaking was just the ghosts, then?”

“Maybe.”

They could practically hear Leona roll his eyes, but they still didn’t take their eyes off of their textbook.

“Staring a hole into the page isn’t going to solve the equation.”

“How do you know?”

“Shut up and get over here.”

That made them look up. Leona had stood up, motioning them over with a tilt of his head. “You’re taking a break.”

“But -”

“You’re. Taking. A. Break.” he punctuated his words by grabbing the back of their desk chair and pulling. Just enough to jolt them, they could tell by the way the chair stopped that he was purposely holding it steady. Even so, they couldn’t help the small noise of surprise they made.

“Leona, I have to finish this!”

“You’ve been staring at the same page since I got here, you aren’t finishing anything.”

Subconsciously, they knew that taking a break would probably be good for them. But the part of their brain that was panicking about failing was telling them that if they took a break they were essentially giving up. And giving up wasn’t an option.

“Herbivore.”

The soft growl in Leona’s voice snapped them out of their thoughts. Leona had gone back over to the bed, flopped onto his back with his arms splayed out. To anyone else, it looked like he was just lazing about, but they had been with him long enough to realize that this particular position was an invitation.

It was then that they realized just how sore their neck and back were from being hunched over their desk. And how badly their eyes were burning from staring at the miniscule writing in their textbook. And how their legs and arms were one wrong move away from cramping because of how tense they had been.

...Okay, yeah, maybe a cuddle break was in order.

Leona grunted when they plopped on top of him, face buried in the crook on his neck. “Shit, herbivore, that hurt.”

“Suck it up.” they muttered, internally melting a little when he brought his arms up to wrap around them.

“Tch,” again, he sounded annoyed, but they knew better. “Learn to take better care of yourself.”

Azul: There was so much stuff to do.

Even if Crowley made sure they didn’t have to worry about money, a lot of the responsibilities of dorm upkeep still fell on them. They had to buy groceries, clean the whole dorm, make sure the place didn’t fall apart, follow Grimm around and make sure he hadn’t scorched any curtains...and that was all after they had done the assigned homework.

All things considered, they did a pretty good job, but sometimes they laid awake at night thinking of all of the things that needed to be done. Which left them in a less-than-ideal state for class the next day.

Gr-gr-grmmble…

They winced, hoping no one heard that. They had slept soundly through their alarm this morning, to the point where Grimm had to slap them awake, and therefore didn’t have time to snag breakfast. And it was really hard to focus on Trein’s droning lecture when they were both hungry and sleep-deprived.

Ace looked at them out of the corner of his eye with a raised eyebrow, but thankfully didn’t say anything. It might have been because the last time they got busted talking in class the spiel from Trein had been worse than if Riddle had just collared them, but still.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Trein dismissed the class. They still had Alchemy before they could go grab lunch, and even though mixing potentially explosive potions in their current state seemed like a terrible idea, Grimm skipped class enough. They didn’t need to add to his track record. So, feeling distinctly zombie-like, they made their way through the halls towards the alchemy lab.

Maybe they could dash by Sam’s shop really quick and grab a protein bar just to hold them over? No, Trein had yammered on until the last possible second, and they only had a few minutes before their next class started. There was no time. Maybe -

“Oof!”

“Whoa!”

Well, that’s what they got for not watching where they were going. Their books clattered to the ground as they ran headfirst into someone.

“Ah, damn, I’m sorry,” they bent down to pick up their books. Now they really were going to be late.

“Are you alright?” they looked up to see Azul stooping down to help them. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No, I’m fine!” they grinned sheepishly. “Just wasn’t paying attention, is all.”

Azul frowned, picking up their Alchemy textbook before straightening. “You look exhausted. Another rough night?”

“Is it that obvious?”

Pale blue eyes widened and Azul flushed red. “I-I didn’t mean it like that!” he stammered, “I just - I merely - “ he cleared his throat, quickly recomposing his gentlemanly demeanor. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”

“Relax, Azul,” they laughed, standing up from their crouched position. “I was just teasing you.”

“Must you do that in public?”

“Are you saying you like it when I tease you in private?”

“That is not what I said.”

They laughed again, reaching for their books, but Azul held them out of reach. “Hey, come on,” they pouted. “I’m going to be late.”

“Seriously, are you alright? You look kind of pale.”

They sighed. “I didn’t sleep very well last night, and then overslept this morning, so I haven’t eaten anything. Happy now?”

“Not really, no.” Azul frowned. “Come on, I’ll treat you to lunch at the lounge.”

“But I have class.”

Azul kept walking, and they had no choice but to follow considering he still had most of their books. “I’m sure Crewel will understand if you miss one class. You have an otherwise perfect track record.”

“How do you know that?” they asked. “We don’t have any classes together.”

“I have my ways.” Azul smiled cryptically at them.

“Which one of them was it?”

“Jade.”

“Knew it.”

Kalim: “...and then, there was this one time, the baby elephants broke out of their cages…”

They wanted to pay attention, they really did. Kalim was a great story-teller, even if he was a bit all over the place. And stories from a magical noble family, no matter how mundane to Kalim, were always fascinating. They could sit here and listen for hours.

Well, usually, anyway.

Nothing in particular was wrong, really. They had just woken up feeling off. It could have been anything. They could have had a weird dream, they could have forgotten something minor, the planets could be slightly unaligned, it didn’t matter. It was just an off day, and they were feeling it.

“...hello? You still in there?”

They nearly hit the ceiling when Kalim snapped his fingers in front of their face. Where they had been sitting there being anxious about trying to figure out what was making them anxious, Kalim had crawled across the floor where the two of them had been having lunch in his room. He had wanted to have a picnic on the flying carpet, but Jamil had put his foot down. Literally, he had stood on the carpet so Kalim couldn’t ride it.

“Sorry!” they yelped, almost knocking their tea over as they were forcibly brought back into the present.

“You looked kinda worried there,” Kalim frowned, quite an unusual look for him. “Everything alright?”

“I’m fine,” they looked down at their lap and bit their lip to stifle a gasp. While they had been worrying, they had subconsciously been picking at the skin around their fingernails. There were a couple tiny drops of blood beading up around their nail beds. Maybe Kalim wouldn’t notice?

“Hey, you’re bleeding!”

Damn.

Kalim’s expressive, ruby-red eyes went wide and he lunged forward to grab their hands. “When did that happen? How did that happen? Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

“Kalim, I’m fine, there's barely any blood.” they sighed, gently prying their hands away from him. “I do that a lot.”

“You just randomly start bleeding?!”

“No, Kalim,” they laughed softly, shaking their head. “I pick at my nails when I get anxious.”

Kalim pouted, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “You’re anxious? Why are you anxious? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, it isn’t you, I promise!” they idly swiped at their nails. The places they had picked open had already closed. “It’s just...it’s a thing. I just have anxiety in general, is all.”

Frowning, Kalim sat back down in his original spot. “Isn’t there a way to fix that?”

“There’s a few ways, but none of them are quick.” they shrugged. “I was doing better, but suddenly coming here brought back a lot of my old habits.”

“Hm…” Kalim stared at them intently before the apparent storm passed and he brightened up again. “Well, we’ll just have to get you new habits to replace the old ones!”

“I...don’t think that’s quite how that works…”

“Here!” Kalim reached down and took a bangle off of his wrist. It was gold, with an elephant charm hanging off of it. With a big, eye-closing grin, he handed it to them. “When I was little, I used to get scolded for squirming a lot, so my mom told me to play with a small toy instead of running around. I know it’s a bit different, but maybe, instead of picking at your fingers, you can play with the charm instead? Would that help?”

For a moment, they were quiet, just staring at the shiny gold bracelet in their hand. Then, a small smile split across their face. “Yeah, I think it’ll help.”

Vil: “You haven’t been sleeping.”

“Hello to you too, Vil.” they sighed, flopping unceremoniously onto the stone bench beside him. Usually they at least tried to hold themselves to a higher standard when they were with the Vil Schoenheit, but they just didn’t have the energy. “How could you tell I haven’t been sleeping?”

“Unless the undead look is a new fashion trend, but bags under your eyes are very telling.” he reached over to tuck their hair behind their ear, both in an affectionate gesture and to get it out of the way so he could assess them better. “You’re also breaking out. Are you stressed?”

“Isn’t everybody stressed?”

“Don’t get existential, just answer the question.”

They huffed, letting their head rest on the hand that was still at their ear. “Yes, okay, I’m stressed, happy?”

Students were watching the two of them on their way through the gardens, but Vil paid them no mind. He had plenty of practice at ignoring the masses. “We’ve discussed this, haven’t we? Mental health is just as important as physical health.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” they closed their eyes, unable to look at him.

“I didn’t mean that to be scolding,” this time, Vil sighed. “Just a reminder that you need to take care of yourself. Maybe a spa day is in order.”

That did sound nice. “Can we do hair masks?”

“Of course, my dear.”

Idia: “Big Brother, you have a guest!”

Idia fought the urge to groan when Ortho popped his head into the room. Why did people always have to bother him on raid night?

Just as he was about to tell Ortho to send whoever it was away, a second head appeared.

“Hey, Idia.” the Ramshackle prefect sounded drained, enough to make him type a quick “AFK” into the chat and turn to them.

“Everything...alright?”

They stepped fully into the room, returning Ortho’s cheerful wave before closing the door and collapsing face-first onto Idia’s bed. “There’s too many people out there.”

“Mood.”

“And they all want me to do stuff for them.”

“Also mood.”

“So can I hide in here for a little? Please?” they turned their head to look at him with pleading eyes. “I’ll be quiet, I know it’s raid night.”

Idia turned to glance at the screen. The team he had gotten saddled with this time around was garbo - three tanks and no healer, honestly - so he was fairly confident they weren’t finishing the dungeon. Shaking his head, he clicked a few buttons and the screen returned to his desktop.

“Bunch of losers anyway,” he mumbled, getting up from his chair. “Wanna play something else?”

“Can we play Skull Girls?”

A few moments later, they were sitting side-by-side on the bed with the opening for the game playing on one of Idia’s monitors

This was what they needed. No people besides the two of them, no lazy Headmasters asking them to take care of problems way beyond their physical and emotional capacity, no chaotic cats threatening to light everything on fire. Just a nice little break.

Slowly, careful, so as not to startle him, they leaned over until their head was resting on his shoulder. He tensed, but his hair didn’t turn red, so they counted that as progress.

“Thanks, Idia.”

“N-N-No problem.”

Malleus: Okay, so this probably hadn’t been one of their better ideas.

Sleep just wasn’t happening tonight. All of the things they had to worry about kept running through their head, and every time they thought they were about to drop off, something else popped up. Eventually, they had given up and decided to take a walk.

Unfortunately, they had completely forgotten how cold it could get at night. Even with the jacket they had pulled on over their pajamas, they were shivering.

“You’re up late.”

The deep voice startled them, but they managed to compose themselves before turning around. “So are you, Tsunotarou.”

Malleus Draconia smiled softly at the nickname, looking absolutely ethereal with the small green lights flitting around him. “It’s dangerous to be out alone at night, Child of Man.”

“The gargoyles will protect me.” they said cheekily. Malleus chuckled.

“And what of me?” he asked. “Do I not get the honor of protecting you?”

“You can fight the gargoyles for the honor.”

Again, Malleus laughed, before noticing the subtle tremors that wracked the human’s body. “You’re cold.”

“This wasn’t my best-laid plan.” they sighed, tugging their jacket closer to their body. “I always forget how cold it is at night.”

Malleus hummed before opening his arms. “Come here, then. I’ll keep you warm.”

They hesitated for a moment before stepping into his embrace, sighing as his body heat seeped into their being. “Wow, you really are warm.”

“Dragons run hotter than humans,” he explained, tugging their head beneath his chin. “It’s why I have no trouble roaming around at night.”

“Lucky.”

“Well,” he murmured. “I’ll simply have to accompany you on your nighttime adventures to keep you warm.”

#twisted wonderland #disney's twisted wonderland #twst riddle #twst leona #twst azul #twst kalim #twst vil #twst idia #twst malleos

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httpsmultifandom · 3 years

Text

Home // Tate Langdon

word count: 2k

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Two years have passed since the Westfield High shooting. Tate, who was your on-and-off boyfriend at the time, had a mental break and went, full-on psycho. You weren't at school that day luckily because your 6-month-old daughter at the time had been sick. Tate was a good father from the looks of it. He loved to teach her new things and hold her every time she was around. After his death, there seemed to be a void in her and your life. This brings you here in front of your former lover’s house.

As the memories of the once-happy family that lived here rushed back, a small stream of tears began to run down your cheeks. Though your daughter wasn't raised by Tate. It seemed as if she felt comfortable on the property which he once lived and died on. As you opened the gate Lydia immediately stopped fussing and seemed to be in a trance of some sort. Noticing this you kissed her head and walked towards the double doors.

Taking a deep breath in you tried to hold tears back as you pondered on the life that you and Lydia could have lived if Tate had not decided to let his destructive mental state get the better of him. As you gripped the doorknob with your free hand, your palms began to sweat in anticipation. Finally gaining the courage, you entered the now-empty home. It smelled of dust but was surprisingly clean as if someone or something was still living there. “Hello,” you called out making sure nobody was there. With no response, you made your way over to the living room. The floorboards creaking under your feet as you moved from room to room. Once inside the living room, you made your way over to the large window, opening the curtains to let some light come into the house. The sun was warm and comforting feeling as if you had just received the most tender hug. Looking down at Lydia you examined her soft features. Though she had your attitude she was almost identical to Tate when it came to looks.

Just as you were about to set Lydia down on the wooden floors you had heard a small noise coming from the kitchen. Alarmed at this you quickly picked her up and headed toward the door. Reaching towards the handle you pulled but to your surprise, it was now locked. Frightened at the thought of being in the house any longer you quickly moved your way to the back door. Just as the door entered your line of vision a voice called out. “Y/N?” The strong southern accent rang through your ears making you whip your head around. “Constance,” you said in disbelief walking toward her. You and Mrs. Langdon have kept in touch over the years due to her never-ending need to be involved in her grandchild’s life. To say that she was a great grandmother would be an understatement. You often tied this back to her being a mother herself who not only loved her kids but unfortunately lost all of them.

“What in the world are you doing here,” she said sternly pulling a cigarette out from between her lips. “I just thought that maybe Lydia would want to see where her dad used to live,” you lied. Truth be told you missed Tate more than anything in the world and you thought that coming back to the house in which he once lived you could somehow become closer to him. “I think you should leave.” You furrowed your eyebrows confused at her sudden erratic behavior. “Constance, as far as I’m aware you don’t own this house anymore. You cant kick me out,” you said. “I suppose you’re correct. But really Y/N why are you here?” she said lifting her cancer stick up to her lips. “I miss Tate.” you looked down at your daughter as her big brown eyes glistened in the sunlight just like her fathers used to. Constance cleared her throat ending the peaceful silence. “Can I tell you something Y/N,” she asked. “Anything.” “This house is one of a kind truly. It seems as if whoever lives here, dies here, or is born here never actually leaves. Sure you could walk out of those double doors right now but a part of you even if it’s small will stay trapped in these walls.” she said putting out her cigarette in the small ashtray placed to her side. “What are you trying to say?” “I’m saying that if you came here in hopes of finding someone or something you’ll find it but perhaps not in the way you’d expect.” With that, she left leaving you and Lydia alone in the dreary home. A little puzzled at what she said you made your way to the wooden stairs. Gripping the cold railing with your free hand you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand. Unsettled by this you hesitantly made your way up the stairs. While you turned to climb the second flight of stairs you saw a dark figure out of the corner of your eye. Remembering what Constance said you pushed any negative thoughts to the side and continued up the stairs.

The second floor was just as you remembered it. Memories of you and Tate flooded your brain as you made your way to his former bedroom. As you approached the door you felt a wave of cold wind come over your body. Lydia who was sitting on your hip began to mumble quietly which was something she only did when you entered the room. Confused at this you slowly made your way into the bedroom. To your surprise, the bedroom was just the way you had remembered it as if Tate was still occupying the space. You hesitantly made your way to the bed which was placed in the middle of the room you placed Lydia down. Scanning the walls your eyes made their way to his bedside table. There sat a picture of him you and newborn Lydia. Picking up the frame tears started to build upon your water line before one single tear fell landing on your cheek. You smiled thinking about the love you still had for Tate.

“God I wish he was still here,” you said in a soft whisper as you set the picture frame down.

You looked over your shoulder. Your eyes widen seeing an empty bed where your daughter once resided. “Lydia,” you yelled looking all around the room but finding her to no avail. Your heart began to beat out of your chest as anxiety rushed over your body. Running out of the bedroom you looked down the hallway.

There they were. Your daughter and the father she never knew. “TATE,” you shouted running over to him embracing him in the most passionate hug. As your head laid on his chest tears of joy and confusion poured out wetting his sweater. Pulling away you looked up at his facing scanning his features. They were just as you remembered them but something felt wrong, he felt distant. Pulling his hands into yours you looked up into his eyes. “How is this possible,” you asked tilting your head to the side. Prior to this things such as ghosts and ghouls seemed to be fake little stories people would tell on Halloween but now seeing Tate you knew that those stories were anything but. “I’m still not quite sure myself but that doesn’t matter now. All that matters is you me and her,” Tate said looking down at Lydia. “Tate..” You paused moving his chin to look back at you. “Never leave us again, please. It’s terrifying,” you said as rows of tears donned your cheeks. Looking down into your bloodshot eyes Tate raised his hands to your face lightly cupping your cheeks. “As long as you don’t leave me.” A smile crept its way onto your lips as you pulled Tate by his sweater planting a passionate kiss on his lips to which he quickly reciprocated.

Pulling away from your lover’s lips you both look down at Lydia. Smiling you bent down to retrieve her off the floor before lifting her to your hip. “She looks just like you doesnt she?” You looked down at your daughter. He frace lit up when she looked at Tate as if she already knew him. Noticing this Tate bore a toothy smile. A smile which youve been deprived of for what felt like a lifetime. Letting the two of them have their father-daughter bonding time you made your way back to Tates bedroom after placing a kiss on both of their cheeks.

As you waited in Tates room you snooped a bit. Looking at his old books which held information about birds and other miscellaneous things. How could this all be possible? Why hasn’t he reached out? Why hasn’t Constance told me about this? As questions clouded your mind you hadn’t noticed Tate and Lydia entering the room. “Having fun,” Tate said while sitting down on his bed before placing Lydia on his lap. You looked over your shoulder giving him a sweet smile. “So much fun,” you said standing up from the now book-covered floor.

Sitting down beside Tate you gently placed your head on his shoulder reveling in the fact that you two were finally together again. “It’s been hell not being able to see you two,” Tate said looking down at your now sleeping daughter before giving you a soft look. “Same here. I really wish you could’ve been there for her as an infant. But if it makes it any better her first word was dad,” you said looking up into his dark eyes. “Really?” “Yeah. I showed her pictures of you and pointed to you to show her who her dad is.” A smile stretched across his face before looking back down at Lydia. “She’s perfect.”

A few hours had passed since you had arrived with Lydia and it was starting to get dark out. “Hey Tate…” His head shot up from admiring his daughter. “Yes.” “I was wondering if Lydia could stay the night?” After thinking about it for a few seconds Tate responded. “I don’t see how one night could hurt,” Tate said looking up at you with a warm smile. Walking over to Tate you gave him a quick kiss before heading over to his drawer to grab something to wear. As you searched through his drawers you found a polaroid photo of yourself from one of your first dates. “You kept this?” “Of course.” Standing up he set your sleeping daughter on the bed giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. Making his way over to you he placed his hand on the small of your back whilst taking the photo out of your hand and examining it. “I remember it like it was yesterday. The beach, the food,...the sex. All of it,” he said looking down at you. To say that you stayed celibate during Tates absence would be a lie though it never personal due to only wanting to have Lydia in your life. “It’s getting late I should probably get some sleep,” you said pulling out one of Tates old Sex Pistoles shirts. Walking over to Tates bed you stripped down to your underwear before throwing on the oversized shirt. Tate’s eyes watched you steadily as you slipped each piece of clothing off of your warm body. You could feel his eyes burning through your back as he radiated sexual frustration.

Climbing onto the bed next to your sleeping daughter you patted your side wanting Tate to come to lay with you. Noticing this small act Tate made his way over to you making sure that he was as close to you as possible. “I love you,” Tate whispered. “I love you more.” With that, you shut your eyes and let the sweet embrace of sleep take over your body.

#ahs #ahs fandom #ahs fanfiction #fandom #fanfic #tate langdon #tate langdon x reader

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caramelcal · 3 years

Text

the hideout

day three of the april 500 follower celebration! an avengers one this time. hope you guys enjoy <3

the fact that i’m just posting this and it’s 10:30pm really says a lot about my dedication for this...I have no motivation anymore LMAO idk it’s only three days in but this has been a major flop but enjoy anyways besties <3

also just a quick note, i refuse to believe that what steve done in endgame happened, so it didn’t. steve is still alive in this. Also, it doesn’t have much detail but I didn’t really know what to describe because they don’t know each other like at all ahahah

"You scared me!" "I scared you?" "Why are you creeping around in the dark like that?" "What do you mean, creeping? Unlike you, I live here!"

the rest of the prompts can be found here.

Six months. That was how long Molly had been away on her mission. Granted, she had got a few miles on her soul, but she didn’t get to see much. She single-handedly managed to destroy a hydra base from the inside, gathering as much intel as she could get her hands on before fleeing. She didn’t stay to watch the dust settle, that was the clean-up crew’s job.

She was happy to be back in her own bed, though. In her own apartment, in her own space. She would finally be able to relax properly, surrounded by her own things, and able to meet back up with her friends. She had never been so relieved to see the wooden door of her apartment.

It was 6 am so she tried her best to be quiet, her spy skills really coming in to use as she silently placed her key into the lock of her door. Her door opened as she walked in, going to reach for the lamp as she looked over the room of her kitchen/Livingroom open-plan space until her eyes caught onto something.

A body. In her apartment.

Her hand halted, not bothering to turn the lamp on she kept her eyes on the figure. They looked big; muscular. Molly didn’t scream, she didn’t even make a sound, staying silent as she crept around the side of the room, hiding in the shadows. The blinds of the room weren’t completely closed, letting the tiny bit of light that the early summer mornings provided filter into the room, specifically on the what seemed to be sleeping person.

She had a bed, obviously, and it confused her as to why this man would choose to sleep on the floor with a sheet underneath him than her bed. If he was going to invite himself into her home, he could have made himself comfortable.

Molly was about 2 feet away from her kitchen counter, which had a gun strapped underneath for emergency break-ins and she was pretty sure this counted. Sure, she had weapons on her, but they were in her bag and she was concerned the zipping of her bag would awaken the intruder.

A groan sounded from over in her direction as he rolled over and she moved quickly, making the floor creak. Fuck. Suddenly he sprung awake, cold blue eyes darting around the room until they landed on her, and he jumped up. At his abrupt action, she made the final leap for the gun, successfully getting it, loading it, and pointing it in his direction.

Her brown eyes met his blue and she realized he was taller than she had thought he was going to be. He was shirtless, dog tags around his neck glinting in the moonlight but that wasn’t the only thing that was.

“Jesus Christ! You scared me! Want to stop that?” He called out, asking her to point the gun in a different direction from him.

She raised an eyebrow at him with a smirk, realizing exactly who he was, “I scared you?”

“Yeah!” He flailed his arms slightly, the light glinting on the metal arm once more, “What are you doing creeping about like that?”

Was he being serious? She got that they had mutual friends, Steve and Sam to be exact, but surely they wouldn’t have given him the right to go into her apartment.

“What do you mean creeping? I live here!” She cried out, grip never loosening around the gun.

He let out a small laugh as he shook his head, “I think you have the wrong apartment, doll.”

“Okay if that’s your logic, how did I get in ad how did I know there was a gun hidden in here?” He hummed in response, rocking back and forward on his heels making his dog tags clank rather loudly.

He shrugged a little, suddenly getting bashful, “I got told this was a vacant safe house. It makes sense someone owns it though, explains the diaries.”

Her eyes opened in horror as she let out a cry, “You read through my diaries?”

She was very happy for the shadows right now, not only because it was providing her a slight sense of security, but because it was hiding the blush of embarrassment that coated her cheeks. Her diaries were hidden away, some of her most prized possessions, she talked about her feelings in them, he must have done some digging for them. Especially considering that they were concealed underneath a wooden slat in the floor underneath her bookshelves.

“Yeah, wooden floorboard under the books? I looked through your book selection, good choices.”

How could he be so casual about this? He just found out that he had been intruding in someone’s home for the past six months possibly, how was he acting as if this was casual?

“How long have you been staying here?”

“Four months, roughly,” He coughed lightly, rubbing his nose awkwardly.

She lowered the gun slightly with a sigh, rubbing her forehead. Maybe she was too tired to properly care, considering she had been deprived of a good night’s sleep for six months, but all she wanted to do right now was sleep and she wasn’t going to get that from standing there and talking to the super-soldier.

With the gun still in her hand, she began to retreat wordlessly to her bedroom, but not before she heard a hushed whisper from behind her, “Hey, where you goin’?”

“To bed,” She said without turning back, “We’ll talking about...this tomorrow.”

“It’s already six am.”

“Well, Sergeant Barnes, I haven’t got a good sleep in six months so if you could please just let me go to bed that’d be great.”

She had turned back to look at him now, brown meeting blue once more as he hesitantly nodded. He could see the prominent bags under her eyes, the slight slouch in her posture, and he knew she was telling the truth. She was probably just happy enough to be back in her own home.

“Hey,” He called out once more, taking a few steps forward but still staying in the Livingroom, “Can I at least know the name of the girl’s house that I’ve been living in for the past few months?”

Silence filled the room once more as her deep, brown eyes surveyed him before her mouth parted, speaking softly, “It’s Molly. Night Sargeant Barnes.”

“Goodnight, Molly.”

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x oc #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #marvel x reader #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan x ofc

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wildenessat221b · 4 years

Note

Perhaps a little of Cap opening up about Havers to Allison one night.. maybe it's early in the morning on the day of Havers departure similar to the show ..

Sorry this one took a little longer! All aboard the yearning train, choo choo.

Where was their copy of the Guinness Book of World Records? They must have one, everyone has one, propping up a coffee table or keeping a door open or something. Alison needed to consult it as a matter of urgency, Mike definitely had a chance of getting in.

Loudest snore from a human.

Actually on reflection, the ‘from a human’ disclaimer probably wasn’t necessary.

She huffed, and pulled a second pillow over her head. It did very little, so little in fact that she heard the clock strike three.

With a loud groan, she accepted a battle lost, tossed the pillows onto the ground and swung her legs out of the bed.

Button House was cold, dark and still at night. Alison pondered as she pattered towards the kitchen that she perhaps wouldn’t maintain a regular sleep schedule if she were a ghost, but to each their own, she supposed.

And apparently, not all the ghosts did.

She passed the threshold into the library and The Captain was by the window, staring out of the window. He turned like a startled rabbit as her toe hit upon a creaky floorboard, eyes wide and mouth ajar.

“Oh... Alison...” for a split second he looked like a naughty schoolboy caught stealing pencils, then he straightened up and cleared his throat. “I didn’t know anyone else would be-“

“Mike’s snoring. Gunfire metaphor would be very appropriate here.” She saluted clumsily, then ran her hand down her face. “Sorry, sleep deprived.”

“Quite alright. I was just... checking. Hmm. And now I’ll just uh...” he pointed to the door - the escape passage, as it were - behind her, and began moving towards it. She stepped to the side to let him pass.

Then she noticed something.

She can’t have noticed something.

Surely that was biologically -

Metaphysically -

“Captain?”

Impossible.

“Have you been crying?”

He froze. Then he quickly un-froze.

“No.” He said sharply, moving down the passageway like he was trying to beat his two-minutes-thirty.

Alison remained rooted for a moment, then followed him. “You have. You’ve been -“ Some of the sleepy fog lifted and she frowned deeply as she persued him. “Why are you down here at three in the morning?”

“Could ask you the same question.”

“You did, and I answered.”

“Nyah.”

“Captain, stop.”

He was at the bottom of the stairs, and a decision. Did he go up, and risk waking the others, or remain down and stay trapped with Alison?

“Captain, please.”

He swallowed hard and turned to face her.

“I have been... exercising some delicately calculated cathartic saline release.” He nodded firmly. It sounded very convincing to him.

She shook her head, just as firmly. It didn’t sound very convincing to her.

“No you haven’t. You’ve been crying. You’re upset, and I simply won’t be allowing that.”

“Alison.” There was a rawness to his voice, previously absent, that took her aback a little. “Please just leave it be. Everything will look better by daylight.”

A beat passed.

“Better, but not okay, right?” She asked tentatively, a small, sad, coaxing smile on her face.

And oh bloody hell, she understands.

Damn.

“Perhaps.”

“Tell me what’s upsetting you,” she whispered.

He swallowed. Then he laughed flatly.

“Just the... Bally calendar.” He spat it bitterly.

Alison frowned.

“The calendar?”

“Well, the ah - the date it’s reporting. I lost someone close to me on this date, many years ago, you see.”

Alison tilted her head to the side and her face softened in sympathy.

“Oh... Captain I’m sorry. You know lot death better than a lot of people but I guess it doesn’t get easier to think about -“

“He didn’t die.” The axe-sharp contrast between the first and second half of his admittance could have felled an oak tree. The first half, a bark. The second, a whisper. “He just... left.”

the poor

“...oh. Oh, that’s worse, I suppose, that’s -“ she paused to think about how misty-eyed he’d become at Sam and Claire’s wedding, “That’s probably worse, isn’t it?”

He didn’t reply. He didn’t reply incredibly loudly.

She bit her bottom lip.

“Captain, not to pry,” he gave her a look to which she had to relent with a shrug, “But... did you...”

did you love him?

did you love him like I love mike?

did it break you in two?

“He meant a great deal to me.”

yes

yes I did

yes it did

#bbc ghosts #ghosts #the captain #alison cooper

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heavenunderthemoon · 4 years

Text

Doctor, Doctor- Luke Alvez x Reader

Summary: Luke gets injured on a case and you’re his doctor

warnings: mentions of assault

The team had found themselves on a rather hard case, harder than most. Those that were in their home territory tended to do that.

Cases at home meant that, suddenly, that tiny, invisible, practically none-existent barrier between them and the monsters was ripped away. That fine layer of protection that seemed to encase them every time they got off the jet, stepped off that plane and hailed their cabs back home, back to their family, back to their safety, was gone. Every twig snap, shadow, and eerie noise had their senses on edge. Not only did it cause the team to become more tense but it also awakened a protective rage. Monsters weren't supposed to follow them home.

But this one did.

A man, of course, white and in his mid-forties, avenging a mistake his mother made long ago. The team had split up, attempting to cover as much ground as they could in the abandoned warehouse. That was how they had caught him, the unsub leading them to a rather dilapidated part of the building. The floorboards creaked under his weight, and the team had shuffled in to follow uneasily. Distracted by the seemingly unstable building, they hardly had time to react when a blur of movement halted them in their tracks.

Luke had been the unlucky one to be closest to it. The hammer in the unsub's hands rained upon his head with a sickening crack and he collapsed to the floor with a groan. Already, his head was pounding, eyes fluttering in an attempt to shut them but he forced himself awake. His survival instincts kicked in, ignoring the team handcuffing and escorting the unsub out, only focusing on his breathing.

The team had been worried, extremely so. They practically had to hang up on the technical analyst, the Garcia woman screaming into the phone as the team forced the former ranger into the ambulance bay and shuttling him off to the hospital.

He had protested the entire way. Sure, his head hurt, but he wanted to go home. Besides, it was a tiny little cut, how bad could it be?

After hours of pacing the waiting room and too many cups of cheap, hospital coffee, the team was informed by a nurse that they could see the man once more. With spirits high and hopes higher, the group made their way into room, surprised to hear a familiar laugh roaring through the space.

Sitting up in a hospital bed, gown disheveled and far too small on his muscular body, Luke wore a large, woozy grin. His hands clutched two slender fingers, his eyes never quite leaving the y/e/c orbs before him.

The room smelled like most hospitals, like sterilization and freshly laundered beds. The walls were covered in a pastel green color, as if reflecting its patient's illness on the walls. The tv played a re-run of FRIENDS, but the volume was almost non-existent, closed captioning dancing across the screen.

Beside the bed sat a small table, a small clipboard of notes lay across it, and a pen scribbled against the paper before the hands were returning to Luke's face. Y/n's hands floated before Luke's eyes, her soft voice telling him to follow her fingers before she was nodding with a smile, scribbling down something else.

With a lopsided grin, the man was speaking again. "How am I doin', Doc? Are you gonna need to amputate?"

From the minute Luke had been wheeled into your examination room, the man hadn't quite stopped looking at you like that. The way he looked at you made you blush, which was rather juvenile and not entirely something you would admit aloud, but true all the same. He looked at you as if you were wearing designer clothing rather than the two day old scrubs you had on. The scrubs you hadn't had time to launder because you had been working for thirty four hours straight, ones that had a stain on the sleeve that you weren't entirely sure what it was from.

Your hair had been thrown into a messy bun, the fast paced environment not giving you time to do anything fancy. And your makeup- well, you weren't wearing any.

But still, he looked at you as if he couldn't quite take his eyes off you. And it wasn't in the creepy, stalker way you had experienced men doing so before. No, because Luke was different. Just the man's demeanor told you so. The way he talked, voice slow and steady (maybe that was just the pain meds), or the way his eyes, two pools of melted chocolate, reassured you that being around him was probably the safest you'd ever be. You didn't need to see his badge on his hip to know that.

At the man's words, you let out a chuckle, clicking your tongue and sliding your pen back into your pocket. "I don't believe we'll be needing any amputations today, but keep landing on the wrong end of a hammer and we might have a different story."

Turning to the large group walking into the room, you smiled warmly. They were a large bunch, the jackets they adorned matching the one Luke had worn before he had been forced to change into a hospital gown. 'FBI' the breast pocket read. Briefly, you wondered what they did, but realized it didn't quite matter. They were here because they needed you to do your job, not to learn about theirs.

Patting Luke on the shoulder to indicate he could sit back, you grabbed your chart, going to stand near the team. They stood adjacent to Luke, and the small room allowed everyone to be in talking distance.

"I'm assuming you're the family? I'm Doctor Y/F/N Y/L/N, head of Neuro." Your easy smile was enough to release the tension from the team. Seeing Luke crumple the way he had made them worry, but the bright smile on your face reassured them.

"When he came in, the wound was looking a bit nasty." They listened intently while you talked and they didn't seem to miss the way Luke's eyes never quite left you as you spoke. "The swelling went down with some cream, and we took a CT to clear him of anything internal. Now, there was a small hemorrhage-" You watched as the team's eyebrows furrowed in concern, and you brought you hands out, a gesture for them to calm. "But his symptoms were small. Once we got the scan we saw that the bleed was tiny. Most bleeds will actually resolve themselves, so no need for me to go in where I'm not needed."

"Doc, you're welcome in my brain any day." Luke smiled cheekily, and your lips quirked, eyes narrowing playfully.

"I'm who you call when you need the big guns, you don't want me in your brain, Agent Alvez." His lips twitched when his last name rolled off your tongue and you would be lying if you hadn't gained the tiniest bit of satisfaction at the reaction.

He clicked his tongue, playfully grabbing his chest. "How you wound me. We went over this, it's Luke." He corrected, and he realized how desperately he needed you to say his name. He needed to say his name whether you were angry or sad or happy or excited. He needed you to say anything at all to him because your voice was something he hadn't even realized he needed until he heard it and now that he had he wasn't sure he would be able to live without it.

His actions made you chuckle, shaking your head at his antics. "Alright, Luke," You conceded, going to hang back up the man's medical chart on the bed. The nurses would take over from here, the former ranger only needing to be discharged after the rest if the pain meds wore off. The ones you had given him weren't too strong anyways, it wouldn't take much longer. "Try not to piss off anymore toolboxes, your head isn't as hard as you think it is."

The man smiled and just the sheer brightness of it made you suck in a breath. "I don't know, the screwdrivers in my shed were giving me a funny look the other day, I may have to teach them a lesson." He quipped smoothly and you rolled your eyes despite the large grin that grew on your features.

When you turned back to the door, the large group of agents seemed to be split between giving knowing smirks to Luke and impish looks to you. A certain blonde adorned in extremely bright colors seemed to want to interject, but the only other blonde clasped her hand onto the woman's shoulder tightly, stopping her from whatever she was going to say.

"I suggest that he doesn't go in the field for at least three days, and I would like to see him in a week for a precautionary scan to check and see if the bleed resolved itself. Other than that, he's good to go. If you all have anymore questions feel free to ask Nurse Cassidy, she'll be in in just a moment to help you with discharge paperwork and medical prescriptions."

They nodded and, before they could respond, your pager was chirping, signaling the need for your presence elsewhere. Your hand grabbed at the pager clipped onto your waistline, eyes scanning the message before your eyes were flickering back to the agents.

"Duty calls. It was nice meeting you all." You gave a final nod, moving to leave the room, but just as you were about to exit a voice stopped you.

"Hey, Doc!" Luke called out, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

You turned, one hand gripping the doorway as your head peeked out from the side. You hummed in response, eyebrows furrowing.

"See you next week!"

Maybe it was childish, or unprofessional, or wildly inappropriate. Perhaps it was the fact that you were sleep deprived, hungry, and running on fumes, or maybe it was just the charming nature of the Alvez man, a gravitational pull toward the comfort he naturally exuded, but you found yourself smiling widely, a pink tint covering your cheeks.

"See you next week." You nodded in confirmation, leaving before you could say anything else.

#luke alvez x reader #luke alvez #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds x reader #Criminal Minds #Spencer Reid fic

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merakiaes · 4 years

Text

Teardrop Tattoo - Jose “Sad Eyes” Guzman

Pairing: Jose “Sad Eyes” Guzman x reader

Requested: By @ugh-jalynn

Prompts: None.

Warnings/notes: This one-shot is loosely based around the song “Coffin” by Jessie Reyes. It’s a bit angsty but nothing too bad. Not proofread so I apologize in advance for any possible mistakes and as usual, translations are at the end.

Wordcount: 3940

Summary: Relationships aren’t always a dance on roses, especially not when you’re dating a Santo. But in the end, you pull through, because you’d rather die than live without each other.

Your mother had made sure to teach you very early in life that no relationship was a dance on roses, that when you and your significant other fought, it was important to remember that it was never you versus each other but rather the two of you versus the problem and that whenever you found yourself in an argument, it was important that you stayed on the same page and solved the problem together.

But it was easier said than done when the time came that you actually found yourself in a situation in which you needed to follow her wise words; especially when you found yourself in said situation pretty much every day.

You had known what you were getting into when you first decided to start dating a Santo; you had known that it wouldn’t be easy.

But things were getting out of hand and you didn’t know what to do anymore.

You had been fighting non-stop over the past few weeks.

You fought until the sun rose and by the time the two of you went about your days and your jobs, neither of you had been to bed, running on little to no sleep which was not a very good combination with the already existing tension and the fact that both of your professions required that you didn’t lose focus.

Money was tight for the two of you so you had been taking on extra shifts at the hospital all while he and Spooky were being worked to the bone by Cuchillos to clean up the mess Cesar had left behind with the Prophets.

You were both stressed, sleep-deprived, easily vexed, barely got to see each other and in all your angry glory, you blamed it on each other even though deep down, both of you knew it was only a matter of bad timing.

But lately, it had started feeling like he was purposely avoiding you. You had been trying to spend time with him and he just came up with excuses as to why he couldn’t, every time.

He would tell you he was being sent out on a run or that he needed to take care of something for the Santos, and then when you would go out with your friends to distract yourself from the stress, you would find him drinking and laughing the night away at the same parties.

It wasn’t a big deal that it happened one time, but you were ashamed to say that it had happened more than once, and even more ashamed to admit that all of the fighting was making you doubt his loyalty to you.

At this point, you were living in a constant, never-ending, dark circle.

You would fight and then one of you would take the step to apologize and reach your hand out to the one who was still drowning in anger.

But when doing so, every time, the other wouldn’t be ready to let the argument go and pull the other down with them right back under the surface again.

And so it kept going, over and over again, almost like clockwork.

You had reached the point where you didn’t know what to do to save your relationship anymore, or whether or not it was even possible in the first place.

You were like water mixed with oil, a disaster just waiting to happen and a lethal mix always on the verge of exploding.

You were so angry at each other all the time that you rarely even remembered why you were mad in the first place and you found yourself at your wit’s end, constantly torn between your mother’s many life-advice.

On one hand, she had taught you not to give up on the people you loved, to be patient and work hard to keep your relationship together, even when it seemed like there was no hope.

But on the other hand, she had also taught you that people make time for those they care about. No bullshit. No excuses. No broken promises or false hopes for the future.

If someone was into you, you wouldn’t have to keep begging them for a text, call or quality time together. They’d take the initiative, themselves, if you were a priority.

She taught you that no person would ever be busier than someone who wasn’t interested in you and lately, Sad Eyes had been awfully busy and all the things he claimed to be busy with always turned out to be made-up.

All of it had made you so exhausted that you could barely bring yourself to be angry anymore. You were just… sad.

You were sad when you stared at your boyfriend of two years from your spot in the doorway, eyes following his every move as he moved around the room, getting dressed after his shower.

“What’s going on with you lately?” Your voice came out as a mere whisper, your cheek leaning against the doorframe and your eyebrows creasing together. “I barely even recognize you anymore…”

He didn’t even look up at you, putting all of his focus into turning his inside-out tank-top back out. “Yeah? You and me both.” He muttered simply, pulling the tank-top over his head and then wordlessly turning his back to you to put on his navy blue button-up over it.

Your jaw tensed and a breath left your nose in annoyance, but you kept your calm and pushed yourself off the doorframe, taking a step into the room and crossing your arms over your chest as you watched him put his golden chain back on.

“Don’t try to shut me out like that.” You told him sternly, shaking your head and glaring into the side of his face. “I’ve been here from day one. I know things have been tense between us for a long time now but this… This is something else entirely and I deserve an explanation.”

He turned around to face you, but he avoided you like you were the plague, walking right past you and out of your shared bedroom. “I need some time to think. I’ll be home later.”

You wasted no time uncrossing your arms and turning around to hurry after him, barely even able to keep up with his long, urgent strides. He was obviously in a hurry to get out of there, just like every day these past week and a half.

“Yeah, you’ve been needing a lot of time to think lately.” You scoffed at him as you jogged after him, managing to slide your body in between him and the front door right before he could grab the door handle.

For the first time since coming home the hour before, he had no other choice but to look at you, his eyes meeting yours and watching as your face pulled into a frown.

“Do you not want to be with me anymore? Is that it?” You asked quietly. “Are you tired of me? Do you not love me anymore? If that’s the case then I’d rather you just put me out of my misery now because I can’t do this anymore. I can’t-“

You cut yourself off, tearing your eyes away from his as a sudden wave of sadness overcame you.

Above you, his cold eyes flickered with emotion at the sight as you continued. “I can’t walk around and pretend like everything’s fine when in reality, I’m mourning you even though you’re not even gone.”

A heavy silence fell over you, the only thing being heard being the clock in the kitchen and the various sounds of people going about their days outside on the block.

You kept staring into the floorboards under your feet for another good half minute before you felt a warm hand come up to touch your face, Sad Eyes’ fingers catching your chin and lifting your head up to look at him again.

He stared down at you, moving his hand from your chin to tuck a piece of your hair behind your ear. Then, he leaned his head down to yours and kissed you.

It was short, but it was more affection than you had gotten for a week so it was very well-appreciated nonetheless, succeeding in making you a bit happier, even if it was just a little.

“I love you and I want to be with you, none of that has changed.” He told you when you broke back apart, caressing your cheek just for a second longer before dropping his hand back to his side and taking a step back. “I just need to do a run for Spooky and then I’ll be back.”

And just like that, the bitterness returned to your body in a wave, just as quickly as it had gone away. “Yeah, it’s always runs for Spooky.” You muttered, looking to the side.

His hand reached out to take a hold of yours, causing you to look back up at him almost instantly. “I’ll be back before the hour is up.” He told you and you gave him a doubtful look.

“Do you promise?” You asked, and he nodded, eyebrows furrowing together slightly.

“Tienes mi palabra.” He nodded.

But he never came home.

An hour passed, and then two, three and four with no sign of him, leaving you home alone to nurse yourself back to a mediocre, temporary happiness with a movie from the hurt caused by yet another broken promise.

It had been around six in the afternoon when he had left the house and by the time the front door opened again, the clock on your nightside table was closing in on midnight.

You had kept occupying yourself with movies for the first two hours but after that you had turned off the TV, unable to concentrate any longer and breaking down in your bed.

After quite literally crying your eyes out, you fell asleep for… well, you didn’t really know how long and you didn’t have the energy to do the math, and then you had just laid there staring into your phone while you absentmindedly scrolled through your social media.

When you heard the front door unlocking and opening you looked up from the phone, listening intently to get an idea of what he was doing.

The sound of a bang reached your ears shortly after the front door had slammed shut again, followed by a string of hushed, Spanish curses and you instantly prepared for what was to come, sadly enough used enough to it to have it all down as a routine by now.

You locked your phone, putting it to the side and sitting up in bed to the sound of his footsteps closing in on your bedroom, watching as he stumbled through the doorway a few seconds later.

He was still cursing quietly under his breath, his eyes obviously not used to the dark yet judging by the way he was fumbling and stumbling around. But then again, that could have just been a result of the alcohol he had obviously consumed.

The mere thought of it caused your face to pull into a glare and your arms to cross over your chest.

“Have you been out drinking again?” You asked before you could stop yourself, and watched as he near jumped out of his skin.

He obviously hadn’t noticed that you were awake up until then and you’d caught him by surprise by breaking the silence, causing his stumbling to become even clumsier.

But rather than turning to face you, he seemed to do the exact opposite, turning away from you so quickly you instantly turned suspicious.

“I’m not drunk.” He answered back bitterly, and you hummed in disapproval.

His voice wasn’t slurring so he was obviously telling the truth, but it was groggy, indicating that he had in fact been drinking. And the smell of beer only proved it, scent so strong he might as well have spilled an entire bottle over himself.

And what did you know, maybe he had. You wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

“You’re not sober, either. I can smell it on you all the way from here.” You pointed out, watching his every move with eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You told me you were just going on a run. You promised me you would come back home afterward. We don’t break promises.”

Your eyes squinted even further when taking note of how he was excessively avoiding turning to look at you and when he grabbed a pillow from his side of the bed, your body reacted almost as if out of instinct, moving out of the bed to stand.

“What are you doing?” You asked, rounding the bed as quickly as your legs could take you when he began walking out of the room again, pillow now clutched tightly in his hand.

“I’m sleeping on the couch.” He muttered back simply, not even sparing you a glance.

Your face pulled into a glare and you quickly rushed up in front of him, forcing him to come to a stop in order to not walk straight into you.

“No, you’re not.” You glared, trying to get his eyes to meet yours but you couldn’t even get a look of his face with how quickly he had walked around you again.

“I need to be alone right now.” He kept arguing with you and that’s when you snapped.

“You’re not sleeping on the couch, give me the fucking pillow!” You exclaimed, getting in his way again and reaching out to grab the pillow, tearing it out of his grasp with one, sharp tug and in turn, he slipped up, whipping his head around to face you with a glare equally as fierce as yours.

"I’m fucking tired and I want to go to sleep. Is that too much to ask for now, too?!" He yelled back, but his words barely even progressed in your brain, your eyes widening as you were finally able to see his face.

It was like all of the air left your lungs in that one moment, leaving you breathless and unable to progress anything around you.

All you could see, all you could think about, was the black teardrop now inked into the tan skin underneath his eye, the edges around the small tattoo still red and showing cleared just how freshly executed it was.

You had always been scared for him, the worry coming naturally with him being a gang-member and always being on the run from the law and the Prophets. But never, not ever, had you been this scared.

He avoided your wide, fear-struck eyes like his life depended on it, looking behind you into empty space, but now that the cat was out the bag, he made no move to further hide the reason for his previous avoidance.

"I thought you were just doing runs." You managed to get out through the thickness of your throat, swallowing in an attempt to calm your rapidly growing panic.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, too, his jaw tensing and his eyes glaring over your shoulder. "It’s never just anything with Cuchillos.” He answered lowly. “Shit’s been hectic with the Prophets lately. We needed to take care of it, keep the block safe."

"Baby..." You gave him a sad look, dropping the pillow onto the couch beside you and slowly reaching your hand out to grab his.

He ripped it out of your grasp in one swift movement to a start but you didn’t give up, reaching out for it again and this time around, he did nothing to stop you.

Slowly and cautiously, you took a step forward, and then another and then a third, pressing your chest against his and reaching your arms up to wrap them around his neck and by doing so pulling his face into your shoulder.

In turn, his arms slowly wrapped around your waist and he pressed his face harder into your neck.

His beard tickled your skin uncomfortably but you forced yourself to ignore the prickly feeling, holding him close and furrowing your eyebrows in thought as you came to the realization that his angry, snappy behavior suddenly made sense.

When he made a mistake, he knew it, felt it, tore himself apart about it. He lost sleep, didn’t stop thinking about it and beat himself up about it to the point where he would be on the verge of losing his sanity completely.

You didn’t know how you hadn’t seen the signs before but now that the cards were out on the table, it was all so insanely clear.

Sad Eyes had never been like the other Santo cholos.

Had he grown up poor with worse privileges and fewer opportunities than others? Yeah, everyone in Freeridge had. But despite all that, he had lived a good life.

He had a loving mother, two sisters that he adored to bits and pieces and up until his passing when he was seventeen, he’d had a good, solid father-son relationship with his dad.

He didn’t have a traumatic childhood with absent parents like Oscar and so many other Santos had. He wasn’t in the Santos because he had a legacy or family crest to live up to, or because he was roped in against his will.

The brotherhood, the strong bond of loyalty between ride or die brothers and the sense of belonging somewhere; of, despite all the laws being broken in the process, doing something good and being able to protect those he cared about, it was all the life he, himself, had chosen.

The law had never done anything to help him or his family when the governmental system had failed them so he didn’t give two flying fucks about whether he lived on the good or the bad side of the lawbook.

But still, he was so sincere, so gentle and so loving. He didn't mind robbing a bank or dealing drugs, but you knew he'd never really liked the violence that came with it.

The beatings he was sent out to do when someone disrupted the Santos’ plans, the beatings he'd been forced to sit through every time someone new was being jumped in… He didn't like it at all but it was out of his control and he had no other choice but to follow orders.

The only thing he did have control over was his killing count. He had never taken another man's life and he found great comfort in it, even if he would never admit that kind of vulnerability out loud.

But now that was out of his control, too, and you knew that now more than ever, you needed to follow your mother’s advice and put your differences aside in order to be there for him, hold up your end of the promise and stay by his side for as long as he wanted you to, forever and always.

Because at the end of the day, no matter how much you fought, he never let you go to sleep wondering if you still mattered and you would be caught dead before you did that to him, too.

You might have been a fool for falling for a Santo in the first place but you loved him to death. You would rather lay lifeless and rot away in a coffin six feet underground than live without him, and if he was, against all odds, the first one to go, the coffin better have been made for two, because if he jumped, you jumped.

You had been in this shit together since the start, and no matter how severe of a crime committed on his part, that would never change.

But he was obviously expecting you to end it right then and there judging by the way he was standing, breathing, squeezing his hands shut at his sides and glaring into something further away in the room when you broke apart from the embrace, which only broke you heart even further.

You slowly raised a hand up to his jaw, watching as his eyes fell shut at the feeling of your touch, and supported the weight of his head when he leaned his forehead against yours.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You whispered, and he let out a deep breath through his nose, his hands squeezing down at your sides.

“I didn’t want to scare you away.” He muttered back, his voice coming out low. “You’re the best thing I’ve got going in my life, even with all of the shit that’s been going on. I couldn’t lose you.”

Your heart tugged in your chest at his words and you swallowed, looking down. “When… when did you-“

“Last week.” He replied without missing a beat and you nodded.

“And that’s why you’ve been-“

“Yeah.”

Your eyes flickered back up to his to find that he was now looking at you with eyes full of regret.

“I’m sorry.” He looked at you somberly and you instantly started shaking your head, raising your other hand to his other cheek.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Good people sometimes make bad decisions, whether it be by their own choice or by having it pushed upon them.” You assured him, turning your head down to hold his gaze when he attempted to break it. “They mess up and they let others down, but that doesn’t make them bad people. We all make mistakes, we all have flaws, it’s what makes us human, so don’t let one mistake ruin a beautiful thing. You know I’d stay by your side no matter what, so don’t push me away. Please.”

He stared intently at you as you spoke, the expression on his face unreadable. But he said nothing, so you continued, caressing his face soothingly .

“I can’t promise you a perfect relationship without arguments and differences but I can promise you as long as you’re trying, I’m staying. No matter what happens, no matter how deep you get caught up with the Santos. The only thing that could make me leave you is if I’m dead and even then, I know I’d find you, somehow, somewhere.”

You paused briefly, taking note of the way he tensed up when your touch neared the teardrop under his eye.

But he quickly relaxed again when you brought your hand down from his face to instead grab his hand, your lips tugging up in a small smile. “You’re my ride or die, remember?”

A moment of silence fell over you, the two of you just staring into each other’s eyes. And then he nodded, squeezing your hand back and leaning in to press his lips to your forehead. “And you’re mine.”

You nodded, mustering a small smile of comfort. And then you leaned your cheek against his chest, hugging him close and letting him do the same to you.

Your mother’s advice and words of wisdom had taken you so far in life but something she hadn’t mentioned was that sometimes, two people had to fall apart to realize how much they need to fall back together.

You’d had to learn that lesson all on your own and now that you had, it was going to be so much easier for you to handle everything that was going on, knowing that you would be able to get through any obstacle as long as you were together.

Come tomorrow morning, you would start fresh, and even if that turned out not to be possible with everything now obviously being about to change, you wouldn’t even consider leaving him.

You would rather live a miserable life full of crime with him than a miserable, safe life without him, because at the end of the day, he was your ride or die and you were his, as you had been ever since you first met.

Nothing was going to change that, especially not a stupid teardrop tattoo.

Translations (I’m not a native Spanish speaker so this might not be a hundred percent accurate):

Tienes mi palabra – You have my word

Tagged: @babienay @firebenderwolf @chaneajoyyy @moanlightbaby @dolanackles @marvelously-flawed @ugh-jalynn @jazzwhitlockhale @joyrivh @socialistavocado @turn-diamonds-into-snow @shadow-of-wonder @bxmaaa @clemmingstylins0n @trublmr @fairygardenss @spookysnena @shxllxfx

#sad eyes #sad eyes imagine #sad eyes x reader #steve villegas #on my block #on my block imagine #on my block x reader #omb #omb imagine #omb x reader #spooky #oscar diaz #oscar diaz x reader

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christopherjwinter · 3 years

Text

When a mind builds an expectation for an event, it struggles to realign its thoughts once reality proves those expectations incorrect. The more anticipated and longed for the event, often the more a mind may struggle with what feels like a profound wrongness of a situation. Such what my state when I finally made my way to Old Jack's cottage. Over the previous two months, I had essentially been held captive by my orphanage and the religious devotions of the church of Asmodeus. I dreamed of spending time with Jack once more. Of the simple joys that came from the hard labor of chopping wood, only to hear him spend hours telling me stories of the Lantern King while we shared a hearty supper. I fantasized of seeing his deeply lined face and the pleased grin that was offered as soon as I came bounding through the Chitterwood and offered a welcome. And though I knew it was impossible, I privately wished there would be a day when Old Jack gave a heavy sigh and asked me if I wanted to stay there with him. That he didn't want me to return to The Home for Lost Children. That he would take me in to look after as his own. I wanted that so badly, but I never dared to say this desire out loud least I risk any possibility it might come true.

It was an overcast sky, threatening to rain with distant rumbles that crept overhead when I made my slow passage and came to that familiar ramshackle building. Back aching from the still healing scars, I didn't care if I did a lick of work and in return earned no coin. I just wanted to see Old Jack again. I went to the front door and raised my hand to knock on the wooden frame. There was no response. I waited patiently, as I knew how advanced in years my friend had grown, and he sometimes rose from his chair with difficulty. When there wasn't even a sound to be heard save from the noises of the birds and bugs of the woods, I called out. "Hello, Jack!" I listened, and heard nothing. "It's Puck!" I was greeted only with another long, drawn out silence.

Moving around his property, I wondered perhaps in my two months of absence if he'd been forced to attend to the more physical chores on his own. That he was simply nearby and winded. Stepping about and brushing the dark hair of my bangs out of my eyes, it did seem that some things had changed. His weathered axe that I often used to chop wood was absent from the old stump, the dinged wheel barrel with the broken handle I was sometimes sent with to gather supplies in town was absent. I found these details curious, but continued hunting for signs of Old Jack. Coming to the rear door of his home, I knocked again ... and the door opened to the pressure of my hand. It had been left open. I didn't often enter my friend's home without his accompanying me, so my feet were locked in place while I made one final call. "Old Jack? Are you there?" Again, nothing. I reached my hand out, and pushed the door open further.

I was met with a troubling vacancy. Old Jack had learned to live simply, so I'd noticed on the few times he brought me inside that his home was sparse save for the cluttered belongings he kept in the basement. Except, looking into his home now, there was nothing save bare walls. No rocking chair, no broom in the corner, even the old stove was absent with simply a narrow hole in the roof. I stepped inside, and began to inspect further with the anxious feeling of treading through a crypt. Nothing. Moving to the small private room that I had never been invited to where I knew Jack slept, and all I found was an empty space. My mind slipped away from accepting what I was seeing, even as the first tattering taps of rain fell on the rooftop. It lasted for only a handful of seconds, then ceased. Still, I wasn't finished. I pulled up the latch that led to Jack's cellar, and started carefully down the crooked stone steps.

The times I'd been sent down here before, I had always wondered at the vast meandering collections that Old Jack had accumulated over the years. It seemed he had a habit of hording every little thing that wasn't tied down, and his basement was little more than piles of oddments with a winding path between them. A chill went through my spine as I saw for the first time the whole of the area without a single belonging. It felt somehow smaller than I remembered it this way, the caked dirt walls and the wooden floorboards above having shrunk in response to its lessened need. My arms clutched about myself, and before I was prepared, I felt moisture well in my eyes.

Had Old Jack left? Had he moved, in the time I was forced to remain part of that congregation? No. No, that wasn't something he could have managed on his own. Besides, that's the sort of action he would have certainly had to planned on. Even if it was an emergency, I knew he would have left me a note. Among the many other lessons I'd learned under Jack, he'd made sure I knew well enough how to read without stumbling and tripping over each word. Still, I darted back up the stairs and let my eyes race over the empty surfaces in hopes of finding a message. A single hint or sign. Still, there was an overwhelming presence of nothing. My heart was pounding so heavily that I was unable to ignore the sound of it against my ears.

Where was he? Did he leave me? I found myself reaching to squeeze against my own body again, even while I looked out through one of his shuttered windows. Still, my inner self wanted to reject what I was finding. Jack had to be there. He had to be. I had been wishing on being with Jack for so long, why wasn't he there? In my hopes of trying to comprehend it all, a terrible suspicion came to mind. Had Old Jack actually never been there?

The idea caused my to snap up and my plum colored eyes to shoot wide. Weirder stories were known to happen. I was Fey after all, and weren't my folk supposed to be notorious for this nature of trickery? An idea came to mind, and I started to look about. There was the patch in his roof that he'd instructed me to take care of in the first few visits I had ever managed, claiming he didn't trust himself to climb up on the rooftop. Looking outside the back door, I recognized several split logs that I had personally spent hours with blistering hands chopping. No, Jack had been here. It all hadn't only been some sort of phantasm.

My mind was dizzy, so I settled down onto the splintered floorboards and tried to think. After several more minutes, the rain returned. Hard this time, a pounding of drops on the roof that rose a clatter which made me cringe in response to. I worked at the problem of where Jack had gone off to, and a tiny voice in my head spoke a sad truth. Old Jack was, by his very moniker, old. Well matured even before we crossed paths, and I had been coming around for years. I had been doing so very much for him, because he simply found so many tasks too challenging. Had Jack passed in the two months I was gone? He spoke of family who rarely visited, though we'd never crossed paths. Had they come out to Old Jack's cottage, and salvaged all of his belongings?

The worry that Jack was dead filled me with a sharp pain, and the tears that had been threatening to spill came out in a torrent. My chest hurt with the sobs that claimed me, ugly and untamed in the way only the worst losses can affect a body. Jack was gone. I would never seen him again. I had so little, this single void nearly ruined me. After the first wave of crashing rain, the storm had settled into a lingering drizzle all around me. I denied the deprivation of Old Jack from my life, but the truth was too loud to be refuted. He was gone, and he would never come back. My insides churned and clutched. A pressure pushed against my heart.

After about an hour, I decided that no good would be gained by remaining. Though my feet had grown numb from how I sat, I pushed myself to standing and shuffled back through the door. Closing it proper as I exited, unlike how I left it. In a stupor, I move through the trickle of rain back towards Gillamoor as I wondered at the new shape of my life.

I don't even recall the distance traveled. All I knew was that the next moment the rain was easing to the verge of not falling at all, and I was in site of the Gillamoor Home for Lost Children. There was the aged stone wall that I'd helped construct forty years prior, now starting to spill apart where other sections were consumed by moss. I looked over at the small horse stall us children had built just a dozen years ago, when Norwell's predecessor had needed one built for the horse he'd acquired. Seven years after that, he'd been bucked out of the saddle to split his skull, and the new Herrod had taken over in his place. I felt the weight of time weighing on my shoulders. I wasn't young, and I wasn't old. I was this singular individual removed from the spinning of the seasons, creeping through the years with the pace matched only by the trees.

Norwell was primping himself in the reflection of a glass window when I stepped inside, before generously offering one of his many well manicured scowls in my direction. I knew how pathetic I looked, some half starved orphan soaked and with a hole in his life too big to ever fill. I didn't even say a curse under my breath before I turned and went off to the shared sleeping hall. There was nothing to me anymore. I was a shade, a counterfeit version of Puck that would wilt away once brought out into the sun. I was soul sore. Unsure of what else to do, I curled up on my cot and closed my eyes. Though the sun was still overhead behind the blanket of clouds, I slept almost immediately.

Lìse woke me with a hand running through my hair. I roused with the awareness that she'd been saying my name several times. "Puck? He's not well, Tanner. Puck?" I opened one eye, and saw relief pass over the deeply freckled face of Lìse. "Sweet merciful heavens, Puck, you had me worried."

In my pain, I lashed out. "Piss off." I emphasized this with a narrowing of my gaze, before rolling over to face the opposite way. I felt a hand come once more into my hair, and I yelped as it instead of offering gentle strokes had came to clutch at its length and give a sharp tug. I began to turn back around with my mouth open in complaint, only to be met with the fiercer eyes of Lìse Ó Broin.

"Puck, you arse, I can see something’s wrong. But just 'cause you're hurt doesn't make it right to hurt those caring after you." This little girl spoke with the confidence of a goddess, and her compassion for me was not tempered in the least by my breach of proper behavior. Still, I was suffering from what felt to be a mortal wound of the heart, and I glared at her in return for a long stillness. One of our other orphans who hadn't been chosen by the Hell Knights, Tanner, took a step away as though he might be injured in this battle of wills and rubbed his nose against the sleeve of his shirt.

Finally, I dropped my eyes and spoke under my breath. "I'm sorry, Lìse."

"There," she said imperiously. "That's better. Thank you. Now, tell me what's wrong." Without being asked, the rusty haired girl started to push me up so that she might sit on my cot with me. Tanner, seeing there would be no further metaphorical knives drawn, crept back closer and plopped onto the floor besides Lìse. He almost never spoke, and followed her around with his owlishly wide eyes like a pet. I looked at Tanner, and even though he often retreated from the slightest touch, he reached up his tiny child's hand and gave me a pair of pats on my knee. I looked at proud Lìse's expression, easing as it was clear I had accepted my fate and would confide in them.

It all spilled out. My history with Old Jack, how I had kept him secret from the rest of The Home. I expressed sincerely how guilty I had felt in keeping him a secret, especially to Lìse. There was no judgment in her face, only understanding. I was surprised that while sharing my experiences with Jack hurt like rubbing at a skinned elbow, it did not bring me to tears as it had. I wanted others to know of him. Of how wonderful he was. How Jack was the source of all those stories of the Lantern King that I sometimes shared with the other orphans. That when I came back to The Home, it was from his campfire that I brought extra food to share with Lìse. I didn't share each experience I had with that wonderful elder, but enough. They could see how much I cared for him.

They absorbed my story in quiet as some of the other children started to return from whatever efforts they had spent trying to find a copper to pay for our stay. Our lips were sealed shut, each of us looking into one another's eyes. Then Tanner rose up to his feet, and leaning over the lip of the cot gave me an awkward hug. The simple act of sweetness from a boy half Lìse's age had a choke rise to my throat, but he let me go before I did something awkward. Then he was walking off to his own bedding, leaving Lìse and myself alone. Another long silence was shared between us, and from the crease between her brows, it was clear that she had a thought to share.

I didn't know it, but this moment was a pivot on which the entire course of my life would change. The theory that Lìse was prepared to share with me would forever alter me as a person, and give me a suspicion to wonder at through the remainder of my years. It was only after she bit at the corner of her lip at a section of dry skin that a question was risked. "Puck ... I'm thinking about something." A hand reached up to tug at a curl of hair, hoping to conceal the fold of her ear. Lìse took a deep breath, and continued to speak in a soft voice that left the conversation to be shared only between the two of us. "it's ... it's wild and fantastic, but it also makes sense to me. Only, you would know better than I."

Lìse put a hand on my shoulder, and leaned close enough that I could feel her breath against my cheek. When she spoke, she both whispered and said her concept loudly enough that I didn't mistake a word. I shot her a look of such surprise as the implications rebounded inside my skull, I don't doubt that I looked the idiot.

"Puck ... what if Old Jack was the Lantern King?"

#Puck #Lìse #Lìse Ó Broin #The Lantern King #Lantern King #Writing #Writer #Author #Fantasy #Magic

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pretendingboyfriends · 5 years

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untitled dunkirk! alex

a/n: i have been working on this for so long and i finally finished it. i usually don’t write things this long from lack of concentration, but new ideas for this piece constantly stuck in the back of my mind and i just had to write it. i really hope you guys enjoy this as much as i do!!

word count: 2,494

warnings: tiniest bit of angst, smuttt, unprotected sex, mentions of war

- - -

It was late. Too late. I was so very tired, but no amount of pillows or blankets could sate my need for comfort. I missed him. I needed something that made me feel the comfort that his presence brought me. Tossing the covers off my body, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and pushed myself to stand. I needed his sweater. The sweater he wore just months before he left. The sweater that represented the happiness we had right before all the chaos. I dejectedly trudged across the dark room towards the large, wooden dresser against the wall. I slowly tugged the bottom drawer open, letting a puff of air leave my lungs. That was the first time I had opened it since he left. I scanned the small drawer for the large, olive green sweater that I loved so much. Reaching underneath a stack of white undershirts, I ran my fingers over the ribbed material. I felt a tear slip down my cheek as I took the thick sweater into my arms and inhaled the scent. It smelled like him. It smelled like his minty aftershave and the expensive cologne I’d saved up to give him last christmas. I stood up, lifting my nightgown over my head and replacing it with the sweater. It was heavy and warm and I immediately felt comfort from it. So I climbed back into the bed, wrapping my arms around myself as I wiped the remaining tears from my face.

When we met, I was 19 and he was 25. He worked at a small car repair shop that my father owned and managed and one day, when I brought my dear father his forgotten lunch, we ran into each other. He was sitting up against one of the cars, chewing on a turkey sandwich as I walked up to the garage. He wore a simple grey jumpsuit, the sleeves rolled up just below his elbows. He kept a small smirk on his lips as I asked him where my father was and he responded with some sort of witty remark. After that, I made weekly excuses to drop by my dad’s office just to visit with the man, and when my father wasn’t there, he’d sneak me out to the back to kiss me. Months later, he was taking me out on proper dates and calling me his girlfriend. Then, the night he told me he loved me, I asked him to take me back to his apartment. I remember it so vividly and every night I spent alone I would think back to that very night when my fingertips travelled past the waistband of my panties.

We stumbled across the small hallway in his apartment that led to his bedroom. My fingers were wrapped around his button up, tugging him against me as our lips moved in sync. He pushed me up against his bedroom door and turned the knob, both of us lurching towards the bed. I landed on the queen sized bed, our lips detaching for a moment as he carefully tugged my dress up over my thighs,

“You sure you wanna do this?” he asked, looking up at me with his kind, green eyes.

“Yeah.” I breathed with a small nod.

He smiled and slowly pulled the dress off of me, tossing the thin garment to the side and grabbing my face again. He smeared his pink lips against mine and pulled my legs around his waist as he pushed me further up the bed. My heart thudded in my chest as his hands roamed my body with a gentle fervor. He was always so gentle with me no matter what despite his cold appearance. He was definitely more of a giver than a taker and I wasn’t complaining. I bit my lip, watching him travel down my body, removing my panties as he went. I wasn’t really sure what to do with my hands, so I just clutched the duvet tightly. He saw what I was doing and took my wrists into his hands, placing my delicate fingers through his brown locks and giving me a haughty smirk. Then, I felt his lips against me, softly kissing the moist, sensitive skin beneath my panties. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Sure, I’d touched myself before, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of my lover’s lips against me. He definitely knew what he was doing, stealing glances at me as I moaned and writhed under his tongue.

After my first delicious orgasm, he maneuvered himself above me, pressing himself between my legs as he tugged that olive green sweater off. I gripped his biceps as he slowly ground his hips into mine, soft whimpers falling from my lips. I couldn’t really think straight, but I do remember saying something along the lines of “I need you” and he was quickly rummaging in a drawer for a condom. While he prepared himself, I removed my bra and leaned back against the bed on my elbows, waiting for him. Soon, he was back between my legs assuring me that he’d go slow and let me adjust to the feeling.

I slept there that night, his strong arms around me the entire night. I loved him, but not everything could be perfect for us. A few weeks after that was when he was drafted into the war. Then followed a big fight which ended in us almost breaking things off, but we needed each other and we both knew it. We were soulmates. So, the day he left for war, he asked me to wait for him and promised me that as soon as he returned from war, he would marry me. Of course the possibility that he wouldn’t survive the war crossed my mind, nevertheless, I promised I’d wait for him with tears in my eyes.

Now here I was, lying in his large bed, hoping and praying that he was alright. It was quite a routine at this point, but I didn’t care. I was worried sick. He had stopped responding to my letters months ago and I’d yet to find an explanation. It hurt not being able to speak to him or contact him.

I felt a single tear glide down my cheek and I was quick to wipe it away with the sleeve of his sweater, closing my eyes and burrowing myself in the sheets in an attempt to find sleep, but as time passed I realized tonight would be another sleepless night. But, there was one thing I didn’t know. He was coming home.

Just as my eyelids became too heavy for me to keep open, I heard the creaking of a floorboard and my eyes shot open. My heart was racing, but I stayed completely still, hoping to not give away where I was if someone was in the house. Then, the bedroom door opened slowly, but I didn’t dare look back. I remained still as one side of the bed sank from the weight of another person and I breathed in sharply.

“Love?” I heard the familiar soft, deep voice behind me and I slowly turned my body around. His green eyes met mine and I reached out to touch him, making sure I wasn’t dreaming and that he was actually real. Sure enough, my fingertips brushed against the harsh stubble along his jaw and I gasped. He was almost unrecognizable. He was covered in oil and dirt and I could tell he had lost a lot of weight since I’d last seen him. He closed his eyes, placing his larger hand over mine as I caressed his cheek.

Eventually, after a moment of kissing and hugging despite the grime covering his body, I pushed myself off of the bed and told him I would prepare a bath for him. He didn’t say anything but I could read the thankfulness in his eyes. As I finished running the water in the bath, I felt his presence behind me and turned around to see him already half naked. I could tell he was exhausted so I helped him remove the rest of his clothes and moved him to the steaming bath. Before I could move away from the bath, he caught my wrist, tugging me towards him.

“Stay. Please.”

I nodded and began to undress. He watched me as I turned around and I immediately felt his eyes fall down my bare body. I felt slightly vulnerable under his gaze; It had been so long since we had seen each other like this. I stepped into the steaming water after him, his hands finding purchase on my waist and tugging me down between his thighs. Laying back against his chest, I could feel his heart thumping against my back and I sighed. It felt good being close to him again.

I helped him wash all the grime from his skin and quickly put him into a pair of pajamas, pulling him to bed with me. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep and now that he was back with me I felt my sleep deprivation finally overcome me and I was able to drift off into dreamland as well.

Morning came sooner than I had expected. It was a rainy day, like most days these past few months, but the sun was still out momentarily and the warmth of it splashed my face as I woke. He was still snoring soundly beside me and I turned my head to watch him. He looked so young and small, like a baby being cradled to sleep by his mother. I traced a few scars on his face, none too deep or noticeable but at the close proximity to his face, I was able to see every freckle and flaw. I wanted to let him sleep, so eventually I left the room to make something for breakfast. I prepared a whole spread, eating my own portion before preparing a plate for him and bringing it to the bedroom. He was still asleep, but I decided to wake him and make him eat before he slept through the whole day. I gently nudged him and immediately his eyes cracked open.

“Morning,” I smiled, stroking my fingers through his hair as he stared up at me.

“G’morning.” he responded, closing his eyes again as he smiled weakly.

“Brought you some breakfast, and I want you to eat it before you fall back asleep.” I said. He nodded slowly, pushing himself up against the backboard of the bed. I sat across from him as I placed the tray of food into his lap. We didn’t speak much as he ate. I wanted to give him time to get used to everything again.

When he had finished most of the food, he put the tray on the bedside table and held his arms out towards me.

“C’mere. Wanna hold you.”

I smiled and crawled into his open arms as he sat with his back against the headboard. I straddled his waist and he wrapped his arms around mine, pressing me against him.

“I missed you so much.” I whispered as I buried my face into his neck. He squeezed me tighter,

“I missed you too.”

Pulling back slightly, our eyes met. His fingers hooked underneath my chin, pulling me in for a gentle kiss. It started out innocent, but soon turned into a passionate make out. Small whimpers left my lips as he kissed me and he quickly flipped me onto my back, wedging himself between my trembling thighs.

“I love you,” he breathed against my neck, causing my eyes to water a little. I’d missed him so much that it hurt.

“I love you too.” I squeaked as he tugged the sweater I wore up around my waist, his fingers toying with the waistband of my panties. He glanced up at me for a moment, holding eye contact as if to ask for permission to remove them. I nodded ever so slightly and he carefully tugged them down my smooth legs.

“Do you have any condoms?” he asked, sitting back on his heels. I chewed my lip, sitting up on my elbows and shaking my head. His face dropped and I reached out for him,

“We don’t need them.”

He was taken aback by my words, studying my face for any sign of humor but I wasn’t joking.

“Please, Alex, I need you.” I whispered, tugging him towards me desperately.

“Are you sure?” He asked, a concerned expression on his face.

“Wanna feel you,”

He chuckled quietly and shook his head as he pulled his shirt off.

Finally, he was pushing into me and rocking his hips into mine. He started off slow, letting me adjust to his size, then he began to pick up the pace. It was passionate and loving, similar to the way he made love to me the night before he left, but this time everything was much more intense. We had never gone without a condom before so the experience was new for both of us.

Alex buried his face into my shoulder as he moved, searing kisses into my skin passionately. His hand bruisingly gripped my thigh to help him drive into me harder, animalistic growls leaving his lips as whimpers left mine.

“Takin’ me so well, m’love.” He mumbles, pecking his lips up my neck, along my face, and to my own lips. I whined in response to his words, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck to bring him closer. I could already feel my release starting to build within the pit of my stomach with the pace Alex worked against me.

“I’m close,” I moaned through harsh breaths.

He picked up the pace of his thrusts, pushing my leg up against my chest for a better angle which caused me to cry out in pleasure. He thrusted a few more times and finally I was coming undone. Alex picked his head up from my shoulder and watched me with hooded eyes.

“So beautiful,” He muttered to himself as I slowly came down from my orgasm.

His thrusts continued unevenly as he chased his own release, the sensitivity between my legs causing my thighs to quiver. He let out a guttural moan just before coming inside of me and collapsing on top of my body.

We stayed like that for a few moments collecting ourselves until he finally moved to sit up, pulling out of me and watching his come slowly seep out onto the sheets. Our eyes met and Alex opened his mouth slowly,

“Let’s get married.”

if you enjoyed this piece and would like to support me, pls donate to my ko-fi!

#my writing #harry styles #harry styles smut #alex dunkirk

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eliminatedtheimpossible · 4 years

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The Loss of Inhibitions in Sleep Deprived Addicts

As self-help books and medical practitioners are quick to point out, an addict is always an addict. Generally, I’m the type to disregard idioms as baseless, but in this instance, I find myself begrudgingly agreeing with the sentiment. It should come as no surprise to those who are interested in my personal life outside the realms of logical theorems, deductive reasoning, and cases that I’ve struggled with my own addictions. This has been mentioned in newspapers with an attempt to discredit my work to little avail.

I’ve never considered myself an addict. I’ve always been keenly in control of what I put into my body, for what means, and how much. My dabbling with cocaine has always been for the purpose of my work. There were instances in the past where I was required to stay awake for long periods of time to solve a case. Though I pride myself in my capability to withstand my body’s more base urges, after two sleepless days, the third is always difficult to muster without losing some of one’s mental faculties. Obviously, when working on a case, this is unacceptable. Cocaine was an easy solution. As it is a stimulant, it was able to keep me alert and functioning well past the time when I should have been able to do so.

I won’t delve into a past that holds no bearings on the present but needless to say I haven’t used frequently in some time, after a bad miscalculation. The whole trick to being a functioning drug user is the ability to discern the dosage needed to produce the desired effect without developing a dependency. Tolerance is also a painful variable in the equation, but I’m not here to explain how I managed to use drugs for as long as I did.

I’ve been informed by John that I was using intellectualisation as a coping mechanism. If I believed I had an infallible equation, there was no way I could be an addict. He must have discussed the matter with his idiotic therapist. As she was unable to cure John’s psychosomatic limp and I was, I choose to believe my equation still holds merit. Though, I will resign to the fact that the heroin had been a mistake.

There had been a logical explanation for the heroin use at the time, but I’m unable to recall it. It had something to do with balance. Like one balances a chemical equation. The cocaine was a high, a stimulant, an upper. But what is left when the case is over and the high continues? What does one do when they need to sleep, when it feels like the universe as a whole is in flux and you can feel it, when everything is hurtling at you with breakneck speed and there are millions upon millions of new ideas and possibilities scratching at the corners of your mind and there are loose threads on your bedsheets, and when did this happen, and how did this occur? Where is the nearest place to buy new bedsheets and would they be open? And why does one need bedsheets? What real purpose do they hold?

It all came down to wanting to sleep. I craved the moment of silence heroin gave. Even now, there are some nights where I crave this silence.

After my train journey back to London with John, I came to the revelation that it had been months since I slept as well as I had with him in that carriage. It only made sense that my mine went to heroin. Once an addict, always an addict.

I didn’t have any in the flat, of course, I wasn’t that stupid. Once I had kept a small stash of cocaine beneath the floorboard of the creaking step which led up to the landing of 221B. John had discovered it about a month after he moved in. Since then, I haven’t kept drugs in the flat. It’s probably for the best but last night I regretted this decision.

It was four in the morning and I hadn’t slept in three days. It’s always around day three things begin to get difficult. On day three, heroin seems like a logical idea. A cure for an ailment. It’s really the equivalent of taking paracetamol to alleviate a headache. On a brain which has been deprived of sleep for three days, it seems like the same thing.

I wanted to stop my experimentation regarding the relationship between John and myself, as I theorised further advancement would be treacherous. However, last night I saw no other alternatives but to push our boundaries once more. As I’ve stated (see ‘The Method of Places’) John and I have been known to share his bed during the day when his injuries are particularly bad but we’ve never actually slept together, in the most literal sense of the word.

I’d been desperate for sleep and John’s bedroom door was ajar. He’d been asleep when I first entered the room, but as I crawled under the covers beside him, he awoke with a start. The morning after I recorded a transcript of our conversation as I could best recall it, to use as further data regarding the changing attitudes towards affections within our relationship. The transcript goes as such:

“Sherlock?” It should be noted, having just woken up, John was rather more daft than usual. I hadn’t seen the need to respond. I buried myself deeper under the covers. They smelled of John.

“Everything alright?” He asked next. It seems to be a habit of his, to ask if I’m alright following a display of closeness. I made note to conduct a systematic analysis of other transcripts I have recorded to see if such a theory holds true.

I admitted to him that I needed to sleep, unsure of how he would respond. I waited for him to object. He didn’t. He became quiet for so long I had begun to drift off but he startled me awake by saying my name again.

“If it’s a danger night, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” It had taken my own sleep-deprived mind a painfully long time to catch up. Oh Mycroft. Bloody gossipy bastard.

“Possibly,” I responded. The two of us don’t discuss this type of thing but John seemed to want to.

“Is it a danger night?” John is stubborn when he wants to be, so I told him the truth.

“Not anymore.” This was enough for him.

He settled back down into the bed, leaving half a foot between us. I hadn’t realised my hand was encroaching on his side of the invisible boundary until I heard the rustling of sheets and felt the lightest touch ghost across my fingers and palms. In my tired state, I found myself clinging on to the touch. It was a hand, John’s hand. His hand was warm and calloused. I could feel the slightest hint of a tremble, which seemed strange as since John and I began solving cases together his hands had remained steadfast. Like his ever-present limp, the slight tremble in his hand had been a memory. Now I felt it, another strange phenomenon. I’m not known to be a comforting person but I felt as though John needed something.

It was then I remembered John’s sleeping habits when it came to the long list of girlfriends he had since I made his acquaintance. He stays the night at their house and they have sex but they never sleep together. He comes back to Baker Street with a sore neck and a barely perceptible limp from sleeping on their sofa.

It was then, I did something I’d never done before. I asked for permission.

“Is this okay?” I felt like an idiot. John had laughed a long, shoulder-shaking baritone laugh.

“After all the shit you’ve put me through, you’re going to ask if this is okay?” This confused me, I may try to unpack the statement later but I was glad I seemed to make him relax.

“It’s fine Sherlock, get some sleep.”

He may have said more after but I can’t recall. I had finally fallen asleep.

After some reflection, I can confirm my supposition that attempting to further our relationship would be disagreeable as I now understand my desire to avoid romantic relationships doesn’t strictly apply to John. As I understand he doesn’t have the same inclinations as I do, I believe it would be best for the both of us to reestablish our old boundaries.

S.H.

#johnlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock #sherlock holmes #john watson #fan fiction #fan fic

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scrunchyharry · 4 years

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RIP WIP: if you see this post, respond with a snippet of a fic you (sadly) won’t be completing.

So, this inspired me to go through my google drive and unearth this fic that I’ll most likely never finish. I haven’t touched it since March 2014, so, you know. I might as well have not written it myself.

meet this 1950s, Oxbridge, shy librarian worker meets bad boy AU that almost was. the title of this google doc was “kill your darlings - library sexcapades”, so you can see where my mind was. I was in library school, I’d just gone to see Kill Your Darlings in theatres, it was so predictable, really. reading through it earlier, I realize that I used many of the underlying ideas I had for this fic in fondre ton absence, which I first started only two months after I abandoned this one (and I only posted it in 2019, I know.)

I abandoned it because, if I remember correctly, it was only my second ever historical AU (the first one wasn’t in this fandom, it’s a glee fic, if you bully me enough I can provide a link) and I really, really struggled with it, not only with keeping it free of anachronisms, but also relevant to 1950s British culture rather than American culture, which I am more familiar with as a Canadian. I vividly remember panicking when I couldn’t figure out if Brits went bowling in the 1950s, or even now???? we had different problems in ye olde days before the pandemic, hm?

now, of course, I’ve come to love the pain of researching historical AUs, it’s literally the only thing I’ll write, but 6 years ago was a different story. also, I’m not in grad school anymore, so I have more free time. this helped a lot with fleshing out my fics, this whole “no longer being in university” thing (that I say while being 5 years out of university and now only posting a single fic per year).

anyway. enough from me. here’s the fic. it’s 6500 words long and stops abruptly.

Lying awake in his bed, Harry listened to the steady pitter-patter of the rain hitting the windowpane, the yellow streetlamp outside his dormitory room’s window casting distorted shadows on the floorboards as it filtered through the water running down the glass and the sheer curtains. On the other side of the room, Niall was fast asleep, his breathing regular and slightly wheezing from the cold he’d caught playing football out in the rain the day before. Every six or seven inhale, he’d snore loudly, rousing Harry from the half-sleep he had managed to slip into. Staring at the ceiling, Harry was trying to tell the shadows of the bare tree branches from the cracks in the off-white plaster. The room smelled dank like the rest of the building, the wood creaking and beads of water oozing from the walls from the rain that had been plaguing them for close to a week.

Harry turned on his side, wincing as his joints ached in the cold, humid air of the room, Niall’s congested nose asking for the window to be left ajar, which only let more humidity in. His bedsheets were moist and stuck to his skin in a way that made him feel queasy and promised to rob him of sleep for the entire night.

From somewhere down the hall came a peal of laughter, the sound piercing through the still night air and drifting to Harry’s ears. The sound was almost comforting, breaking through the oppressing bubble of his insomnia to remind him that he was not stranded, or alone. There were other people alive, other people asleep in the rooms next and above and below his, and the sun would rise even if it was behind grey clouds, and not being able to sleep was not the end of the world, no matter how it felt as he lay in his bed, restless and exhausted.

He reached for his alarm clock, the bells quietly chiming as he moved it, and he frowned when he saw that it was half past three. He had to be up in four hours, hours which he knew he wouldn’t sleep. With a final sigh and a resentful glance at the sprawled shape of Niall, Harry rolled out of bed and grabbed his dressing gown, a plaid atrocity his sister had given him as a joke two Christmases past.

The hallway was quiet as he made his way down to the creaking staircase, holding on to the railings as he went down so his slippers didn’t skid on the polished wood. He nodded at the night guardian reading a library copy of A Christmas Carol, his feet up on the desk by the double, windowed entrance doors.

“I’ve still got two more days to read this, haven’t I?” the man asked, lowering the book to squint at Harry in the dimness of the hallway.

“Three, sir,” Harry replied, hands deep in the pockets of his robe and shoulders slumped forward as a shiver ran through him. He could smell the fireplace burning from the common room and yearned to reach it soon.

“Greg, give Harold a break, will you? He’s not working right now,” Zayn said, appearing out of the dark hallway and stopping by Harry’s side. “It’s already tedious enough to watch you read a Christmas novel in November, don’t make it worse on us by bothering poor Harry here about his job in the middle of the night.”

With a wink to Harry, Zayn dropped a pack of cigarettes on the guardian’s desk before walking past him again, back where he had come from, a quick nod inviting Harry along. He followed and closed thankful eyes as he crossed the common room’s threshold and was met by a wall of warm, dry air.

“Liam’s nicked logs from the hall across campus,” Zayn explained as he slouched in an armchair by the fire.

“Bless him,” Harry said, sitting opposite Zayn, close to the hearth. He extended his feet and let the flames warm them, feeling as if every crackle eased his weariness from the past few days.

September had been a neverending blur of mixers and social events to try and make friends as quickly as possible before it was too late and you were relegated to the ranks of social outcast. By the time October rolled by, Harry had managed to be late in all of his classes and had found himself locked in the library even when he did not have to work, his entire universe reduced to the dusty smell of books and ushed voices whispering about classnotes and midterms. On most nights he had to stay up well into the early hours, the grey light of dusk filtering through his foggy mind like through dirty glass as he tried to read three novels at once. Now that midterms were over, he had hoped he might be able to sleep while he counted down the days until finals, but he had managed to well and truly mess up his sleep rhythm.

“No offence, mate, but you look like shit,” Zayn commented after a while, startling Harry out of his most-welcomed doze.

Rubbing his eyes, Harry let out a small laugh. “Can’t sleep.”

“I know a guy--”

“No, thanks,” Harry cut him, not unkindly.

Zayn always knew a guy, who knew a guy, whose brother could get you whatever you needed. He himself took nothing, keeping a record as straight as his ridiculously white teeth; scholarship kid, they said. Harry knew better than that, because he was one himself and had never seen Zayn at any of the disastrous mixers the financial aid office tried to organize. Besides, scholarship students were expected to work on campus, which Zayn did not do. He always seemed to be drifting from place to place, black hair carefully styled so that a swirl appeared to carelessly fall on his forehead and jacket nonchalantly hanging off his shoulder like something out of a magazine, without a care in the world. Harry figured it was the sort of attitude you had to adopt when you had a name like Zayn Malik. Not that Harry gave a damn about any of that, but, to put it mildly, it was not because people were quick to point a finger at Germany for what they had let happen that they were willing to face their own ignorance. In short: people whispered, and all of this despite the thick Northern accent that surprised the wits out of Harry the first time he heard it come out of Zayn’s mouth.

“It’s not healthy, though, is it? You should go see a nurse or something about it, you can die from sleep deprivation.”

Blinking slowly, Harry stared at his oldest friend on campus silently for a moment. “I hope you never make it into medical school, you’re going to be a shit doctor. ‘You can die from sleep deprivation,’ you tell the insomniac at four in the morning.” With a long sigh, Harry shook his head. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

Zayn laughed. “Don’t worry, mate, I’ve heard worse. Have you met Louis?”

Harry rolled his eyes at Zayn. “Yes,” he replied despite knowing that this was a rhetorical question. “I know Louis.”

He shifted in his seat. Mentions of Louis had the pesky side-effect of making Harry’s stomach churn uncomfortably. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the curls as he yawned. He watched as Zayn light a cigarette and shook his head when offered one, instead pulling his legs up on the chair and curling up in it, arms wrapped around his knees.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m still up at this hour?” Zayn asked after discarding his cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

Tearing his eyes from the fireplace, Harry blinked slowly at him. “Do you want to tell me?”

Flashing him a wicked grin, Zayn winked. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

Harry rolled his eyes again. “I should have seen this one coming.”

“But you didn’t and that’s why we love you, Harold.” Zayn stretched and got up, picking his jacket off the back of the armchair and shrugging it on. “With this, I’m off to bed.” With a pat to Harry’s head, he headed out of the room.

“Goodnight!” Harry called after him before turning back to the fire, resting his chin on his knees with a sigh.

Harry considered following after Zayn for a moment, but the thought of his cold room made him wince. Instead, he carefully placed more wood into the hearth and pulled the armchair closer. He wrapped his dressing gown tighter around himself and then closed his eyes, turning his face to the warmth with a smile as his thoughts drifted through his memories.

The first time he had seen Louis did not technically count as the first time he had met him. His first glimpse of him had been a fleeting one: a knock at the door of his room and the flash of a crooked grin before a sharp voice called Niall out and the door slammed shut. It had been a whirlwind of sights and sounds, there and gone in a matter of seconds, and promptly discarded as one of Niall’s many boisterous friends.

The first time he met Louis, on the other hand, had made a much stronger impression. Harry had been working the counter at the library, alternating between reading a novel he kept hidden under the desk and staring off into space, eyes on the specks of dust as they drifted through the sunbeams pouring in from the tall windows. It had started with a gust of autumn wind sweeping into the room as someone threw opened the heavy oaken doors, causing the occupants of the library to look around in disgruntled curiosity. Harry himself had found himself craning his neck to try and see who was the utter idiot who was entering a library like it was a barn.

Louis had come running at top speed, muddy wingtips squeaking and skidding on the linoleum and his opened jacket flying behind him. He braced himself on a table as he took a sharp turn to the left and headed towards the counter, vaulting it and crouching down before Harry could stop him. He had stared down at him silently, blinking slowly, until the boy had pulled him down by the front of his shirt so he would kneel next to him.

“You can’t stay here,” Harry had said lamely, feeling ashamed of the yelp he had let out as he looked at the red-faced, breathless boy still holding his shirt in his fist.

“Hi, I’m Louis,” the boy had said, letting go of his shirt to extend his hand for Harry to shake.

“You can’t stay here,” Harry had repeated, ignoring his hand. “And I’m Harry.”

“I know,” Louis had replied, smirking. “So, I may or may not have dressed the statue outside the principal’s office in a dress. And I may or may not be currently running away from the school security.” He had paused to look up at Harry with big, pleading eyes. “My life depends on you, Harry. Please, hide me.”

“You--what? Why would you do that?”

Louis had squinted at him, an amused smile playing on his lips. “For fun?”

“Well, you can’t stay here, we--”

Louis had shut him up with a hand over his mouth. “Please, Harold. I’ll owe you one.”

“No, I mean, there’s--” Harry had mumbled against his hand, eyes darting to the top of the heads of the guardians he could see coming closer to the counter.

“Harry Styles, I am begging you, please let me hide here.”

Prying Louis’ hand away, Harry had rolled his eyes. “Shut up and listen to me, there are two guards coming over here right now, you need to run.” He wouldn’t be able to tell what took him, but had he found himself adding, in a quick whisper, “I’ll distract them. Go.”

Louis had grabbed Harry’s face to plant a loud, wet kiss on his cheek before repeating in a rush that he owed Harry his life and running back the way he had come.

A month had gone by since their meeting and Harry still winced with embarrassment when he thought back to it. He had looked like a proper fool in front of Louis, who, it turned out, was friends with all of his friends. He always turned up, no matter what they were doing or where they were going, teasing and joking and mocking, always constantly there in Harry’s peripheral vision. He was a third year, the rumour was that he had the lowest average in the history of the university (which made no sense, considering he still managed to pass his classes; besides, Harry had checked in old yearbooks during a quiet afternoon in the library and had found that a certain Lionel Hearst allegedly had the lowest average back in 1931--chances were that each year had their own Lionel Hearst, and the class of 1954 had elected Louis Tomlinson as theirs), and he was quite possibly the most annoying person Harry had ever met.

And there was another problem, a massive one that was threatening to destroy Harry’s sanity: he was gorgeous. Not your inoffensive “I can recognize that, objectively, Humphrey Bogart and James Dean are attractive males”, which Harry could very easily and comfortably live with. No, Louis was the kind of gorgeous that had poisoned Harry’s mind until it was all his twisted mind could conjure whenever he had what a psychology textbook he found in Liam’s room had called ‘nocturnal emissions’.

When combined, Louis’ irritating personality and Harry’s inability to get him out of his head were a dangerous mix. One that he never missed an opportunity to use, because on a misguided evening, Harry had made the mistake to go out with Niall and had tragically confessed, over his fourth pint, that he was having unbecoming thoughts about Louis. The news had obviously rapidly travelled all the way to Louis’ ears and now it seemed he had made it his mission to make sure Harry never lived his shameful infatuation down.

Not to mention that, well, he was a boy infatuated with another boy. The same psychology textbook had told him that what he was had a name, and that it was diagnosable, and thus curable, but Liam had walked back in before Harry could read exactly what they meant by ‘aversion therapy’. He hadn’t dared ask Liam, not while Louis was sprawled on his bed, smoking with slow drags and slower exhales, winking at Harry whenever their eyes met.

Louis had asked what Harry was reading and he had mumbled something about insomnia (which had been his first goal, mind you) and a wicked grin had appeared on Louis’ face.

“You were reading about paraphilias, weren’t you, you naughty boy? Which one was your favourite? I’m quite fond of homosexuality myself.”

Zayn had thrown a wrinkled jacket at Louis at that, saving Harry the embarrassment of having to reply by saying through a laugh: “The shit that comes out of your mouth is astounding.”

“It’s not shit! What’s it classified under, again? Payne, help me out.”

Reciting dully, as if he was used to the question - and Harry suspected he was - Liam had rolled his eyes. “Sexual deviations are under personality disorders of the sociopathic subtype.”

“Thanks, mate. I didn’t understand half the words in there, but I like the ring of ‘sociopathic’, don’t you? It makes it sound so dangerous, so ‘I will kill you in your sleep and then shag your corpse’.”

“Someone’s won the roommate lottery,” Niall had said, earning himself a slap upside the head from Liam.

This particular exchange, and more specifically the image of Louis talking about sexual deviations while lying on a bed like some sort of caricature of a French painting, was running through Harry’s sleep deprived mind as he hurried to his morning class under the cold drizzle that had replaced the rain. He had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep, but had woken up when the fire was out and the room had turned frigid. Going back to his room, he had collapsed on his bed, only to hear his alarm clock ringing what felt like three minutes later. And now, as he hurried up to the fourth floor on the slippery stairs, he realized with a groan he had forgotten to do the assigned readings for the class.

He took his usual seat near the centre of the lecture hall, unpacking his notebook and fiddling with his pen to keep his mind busy and, more importantly, awake. A three hour lecture on Shakespeare was the last thing he needed at the moment, his eyes unable to focus on the board for more than a handful of seconds before they closed heavily, his entire body jerking back as he drifted to sleep and started to fall forward.

The door opened loudly and Harry didn’t have to look to know who had just entered. He always banged doors opened, making his entrance known as if his presence itself wasn’t enough to get him noticed.

“Harold!” Louis’ voice echoed around the half-empty hall, off the wood-panelled walls and the high, off-white ceiling. He was holding a notebook in his hand, the poor thing in tatters like most of what Louis owned. The usual swirl of hair was falling on his forehead, disheveled in a way that felt more genuine than Zayn’s calculated styling, with the sides ruffled and looking mostly unkempt.

Harry waved at him, shifting in his seat as he watched Louis climb the steps up to where he was sitting and make his way to the empty chair next to Harry. He rubbed his eye and braced himself for the tornado of Louis’ personality.

“Hi, Louis,” he said once Louis was settled. “How are you?”

“I’m brilliant. My day’s always off to such a good start when I get to see you first thing in the morning.” He patted Harry’s knee, a smirk on his lips. Harry swallowed around his dry throat. “You, on the other hand, look terrible.”

“Insomnia,” Harry replied with a shrug, stifling a yawn with his hand. “Nothing new.”

“Yeah, I see that, the bags under your eyes are terrifying.”

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but then forgot to close it as Louis reached up and stroked a thumb under Harry’s eye, lightly touching the paper thin skin. He could wax lyrical about how soft Louis’ skin turned out to be, or how unexpected the touch was, but neither of those things would be right. The fact of the matter was that being touched, stroked, petted or any other synonym describing fond, affectionate physical contact were common when Louis was concerned. That did not mean that Harry was used to it, and he found himself freezing under Louis’ careful finger, his words dying in his throat.

“It looks like you’ve got shiners,” Louis said, voice quiet and soft. “You have to take better care of yourself, Haz, or else someone will have to do it for you.”

Louis’ fingers were still lightly brushing his cheek, close to his ear, as his thumb moved back and forth, barely touching his skin, and Harry absolutely could not let out any sound resembling modern languages. Instead, he nodded, remembered to close his mouth, and cleared his throat to try and speak. All of his efforts were ruined when Louis patted his cheek and moved back, slipping lower in his seat and winking at Harry when their knees bumped.

Harry blinked to realize that the hall had filled while Louis was busy making him forget English. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for his glasses and slipped them on, not missing the pleased noise Louis let out next to him. He glanced at him, frowning.

“Love the glasses, Harold.”

“Me too. They help me see.”

Harry did not particularly consider himself a religious man. He went to church when it mattered and tried not to do unto others what he would not want done unto him, but for the most part, he never really had God at the back of his mind whenever he did something. And yet, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered what he had done to anger God. His eyes widened and he felt a blush blooming on his cheeks, his skin burning with the shame and embarrassment of his reply. They help me see, way to state the obvious, Styles. Louis was obviously flirting and the only thing he could come up with was bloody “they help me see.”

Louis let out a bark of laughter, pushing his knee against Harry’s. “Good for you, mate. You wouldn’t want to strain those pretty eyes of yours.”

The professor walking in and setting up his papers behind the lectern saved Harry from having to answer. Harry kept his eyes trained on the front of the class for the first hour of the lecture, pointedly ignoring Louis’ constant shifting and squirming around in his seat. Liam often asked if he had ants in his pants, which usually prompted Louis to let out a vulgar joke about what he did have in his pants. It was better if Harry ignored him, then. He was already struggling to keep up with the deadpan droning of their professor, he didn’t need to think about the way Louis’ thigh brushed against his every time he moved.

The lightbulb closest to the door kept flickering, the rhythm varying from every other second to one every two or three minutes, and Harry found himself captivated by it. The ventilation buzzed in the background, a low metallic rumble pushing moist air into the suffocating hall. A strand of hair had escaped from his comb-over, falling into his eyes and curling from the humidity. He blew on it, watching it rise and fall and repeating the motion over and over again, until Louis elbowed him.

Harry turned to him, bracing himself for a witty remark that would turn him into a blubbering mess, but instead he was met with Louis’ profile, face set and serious as he had his hand raised in the air. Squinting, Harry turned to their professor in time to see him calling on Louis, who lifted his eyebrows, once, before an amused smile curled up his lips.

“Sir, there is something that has been bothering me since I read through the assigned pages last night. See, I can’t quite figure out what Shakespeare meant when he had Aufidius say: ‘Let me twine mine arms about that body, where against my grained ash an hundred times hath broke and scarr’d the moon with splinters,’ and then later when he adds: ‘but that I see thee here, thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart than when I first my wedded mistress saw bestride my threshold.’”

Louis glanced up from the copy of Coriolanus opened in front of him, several lines underlined in blue ink, to give Harry a wink before looking back down and continuing.

“And when he writes: ‘thou hast beat me out twelve several times, and I have nightly since dreamt of encounters ‘twixt thyself and me; we have been down together in my sleep, unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat, and waked half dead with nothing,’ what I don’t understand, sir, is that it sounds to me like Aufidius is courting Marcius, doesn’t it? All this talk of,” Louis glanced down again, “nightly dreams of what sounds to me like some sort of wrestling? All of this leads me to think that there is a certain passion to Marcius and Aufidius’ relationship that you haven’t talked about, yet.”

Louis sat back in his seat, the line of his shoulders disagreeing with the look of candid innocence he had schooled his face into. The entire hall seemed to be waiting with baited breath for their professor’s response, the poor man looking terrified and offended and minuscule in his bulky tweed jacket. His lip quivered, making his grey, toothbrush moustache dance, and he narrowed his eyes at Louis.

“Ignoring Mr Tomlinson’s depraved mind, let’s have a short break. Class will resume in ten minutes.”

Chatter rose around them and Louis shook his head, a look of annoyed resignation on his face.

“I knew he’d do that. I bloody knew it. They’re always too stuck up to address the blatant homoeroticism of the material they assign us.”

Homoeroticism. The word rang in Harry’s ears, filling up his skull and flushing out everything else, leaving him with images of--with images of things he’d rather not put a name on. Of Louis’ lips as they curled into his trademark smirk, of Louis’ spread thighs as he lay on one of their beds, reading out loud from whichever book he had found on the bedside table, of Louis’ eyes and the way they had to always seek Harry’s, but also of older memories. Memories of swimming in a lake with his older cousin as a child and watching the drops of water running down his chest and shimmer in the sun. Locker room memories, a seemingly endless number of them, all strung one after the other in his mind like a neverending series of discomfort and shame as he caught glimpses of changing bodies. Memories of feeling wrong and twisted, an abomination that would bring shame to his family if he said anything.

There was a word for all this, a simple word which Louis uttered like it didn’t carry the weight of the world with it. A word which didn’t sound as ominous as the others did. That word wouldn’t be in Liam’s textbook. That word evoked ideas of art in Harry’s mind, not of therapy.

“Harold? Are you all right? I’ve lost you, here, haven’t I? Wake up, Styles, you’re not in your bed. I understand that it can be confusing for you right now because we all know you see me in your dreams, but--”

“That word you used,” Harry said, cutting him. He cleared his throat and decided it was better to ignore how accurate Louis’ teasing was.

“Which one? You’ll notice I speak quite a lot, so you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that.”

Lowering his voice, Harry leaned in. “Homoeroticism.”

“What about it?”

“It was the first time I heard it. I didn’t know it existed.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about.” Louis patted his thigh with a pout. “But don’t worry, I can teach you. I owe you one, remember?”

Harry let out a strangled noise and looked away so he would not have to see Louis’ smirk.

Harry spent the rest of the lecture in a haze, his mind preoccupied with what he tried so hard to ignore during the first half: Louis’ elbow brushing against his on the armrest, their knees bumping when he moved, the sound of his breathing, regular and deep, the way he tapped his pen against his notebook, the muscles in his forearm shifting as he took notes. By the time his torture was over, he realized with horror that he had not listened to a single word of the entire second half of the lecture and he bit his lip.

“And they say I’m the worst student this school has ever seen,” Louis commented after seeing the blank page that Harry failed to hide.

“I couldn’t concentrate,” Harry explained as he packed his bag hastily and followed Louis to leave the lecture hall.

“You can borrow my notes, don’t worry.” Once out of the hall, Louis turned to walk backwards, eyes on Harry. “Why, though? Why was Harold Styles, scholarship student, not paying attention in class? Thinking about boys, maybe?”

Without thinking about it, Harry lurched forward to put his hand over Louis’ mouth. “Shut up,” he hissed.

Unfazed, Louis lowered Harry’s hand with his, his expression softening. “So, you were? This is an interesting turn of events.” Looking up at Harry, he frowned. “Oh, you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared.” At the sight of Louis raising his eyebrow in disbelief, Harry licked his lips. “I’m terrified.” He glanced around, feeling like all eyes were on the pair of them as they stood in the middle of the hallway and blocked the traffic.

Louis nodded and took Harry’s elbow, dragging him along and out of the building. Outside, pale rays of sunlight were peeking through the clouds and the air felt light for the first time in days. Harry tried to avoid the puddles covering the cobblestones while Louis kept pulling him along, mindful of keeping his socks dry even as an outrageously flirtatious man he barely knew was taking him somewhere unknown.

“Do you have work today?” Louis asked over his shoulder as they crossed the campus towards their dormitory.

“No. Where are we going?”

“My dorm.”

Harry stopped abruptly, causing Louis to stumble forward before he caught himself and turned. “Why?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to molest you.” Letting go of Harry’s arm, he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I just thought you’d prefer to talk about your innermost secrets in private. Assuming you want to talk about it?”

Harry looked down at Louis for a moment, unsure of what to do next. Louis held his gaze, eyes wide and earnest, almost begging for Harry’s trust. Gnawing at his lip, Harry breathed in sharply and nodded, making the jump, stepping off the edge of the metaphorical cliff and choosing to trust Louis.

A small smile appeared on Louis’ lips, more subdued than what Harry was used to see, and it warmed up the bottom of his stomach in a way that was not unpleasant.

“Very well. Let us be on our way, then.”

A sense of dread descended upon Harry as they neared Louis’ room. His nerves were setting in, sparking up, exploding in bright flashes of what felt a lot like terror at the prospect of the conversation he was about to have and of its ramifications. Thinking it was one thing, admitting that he was thinking it was another, but voicing it was in the realm of impossibilities. The door shut behind them with a quiet click and then they were alone, shielded. Louis sat backwards on his desk chair and motioned for Harry to sit on his bed before he folded his arms and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Harry, tell me. How long have you known?” His voice was quiet and soft, so unlike Louis’ usual loud squawks that it eased Harry’s nervousness, if only partially.

Harry found that he could not look at Louis’ face and he let his gaze drift to the wall behind him, hung with pennants in the colours of Liam’s favourite teams. He brought a hand up to scrape his teeth against the knuckle of a finger, a nervous habit he’d been trying to get rid off for years. He could feel Louis’ steady gaze on him and he swallowed thickly, breathing out.

“I don’t know.” He forced his eyes back on Louis, briefly, to see him frowning. “How long have you known?”

“That I’m gay?” Harry winced at the word and it made Louis smirk. “Summer 1943, there was this bloke billeted at a neighbour’s house. He’d pop by to play with my sisters and I some times and I’d seen him almost every day for months, but that one particular day, he helped my mother with gardening and took off his shirt because of the heat. It changed my life.” He chuckled and scratched his cheek. “I was twelve. I spent the entire day in my bedroom, watching him from the window, absolutely confused about what was happening. I thought I was ill.”

“What’d you do?”

Louis shrugged. “I masturbated, obviously. That was a first. What a day.”

Heat spread on Harry’s face, bright red spots blooming on his cheeks at the words, and he muttered a scandalized ‘oh, my god’ that made Louis laugh.

“Have you never?” Louis asked, giving Harry a curious smile. “Have you really never touched yourself?”

Putting a hand over his eyes, Harry groaned. “Of course, I have, but I don’t talk about it with everyone,” he blurted out, ashamed.

“Why not? You have to stop listening to your minister, kid. It’s perfectly normal, everyone does it.”

Harry shook his head and wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers. He could not remember having ever been as uncomfortable as he was in that instant. His nerves were raw and he felt too hot and too cold at the same time, safe and cloistered at once in the cramped dorm room. Looking at Louis, he found him observing him with a steady expression. Harry appreciated that he was not pushing for answers despite his obvious curiosity. He didn’t feel pressured to answer, but the possibility was there, hanging in the still, humid air between them. It was his choice to seize it and, with a shaky sigh, he did.

“I’ve always had, hum, suspicions that I wasn’t normal. I can’t--” he waved his hands around, “--put words on it, or tell you about specific incidents, but I’ve been having doubts since grammar school.”

“You’re normal.” There was an unexpected fire behind Louis’ words that made Harry frown.

“You can’t be serious. You heard Liam the other day, we’re sociopaths.”

Louis rolled his eyes, digging in his pockets for a cigarette. He placed it between his lips and cracked a match to light it, eyes on Harry through the rising smoke. “Do you feel like a sociopath?”

Harry shrugged. “Not particularly.”

Blowing smoke, Louis raised his eyebrows. “There you go. You’re not. Simple as that. Admitting a bloke needs to have his hands tied above his hands to be able to come, would you say he’s a sociopath?” When Harry shook his head, Louis continued. “But that’s still a paraphilia, ergo he’s mental. We’re not perverts, we just love differently. That’s how I see it, anyway.”

Harry licked his lips and nodded, transfixed by Louis’ verve. “And they say you’re the worst student of your year.”

Louis laughed, sharp and clear, smoke coming out of his nostrils. “I’ve had a bad freshman year and the reputation, sadly, stuck with me. Of course, I’m not a scholarship kid, so I don’t compare.” He winked a Harry.

“How do you know so many things about me? We’ve rarely spoken.”

Louis laughed again, but the sound was softer, more intimate, in an odd way. “Well...” He rubbed the back of his neck, discarding the butt of his cigarette in a dirty ashtray on his bedside table. “I asked around. You helped me a lot when you befriended Zayn.”

Harry shifted on the bed to rest his back against the wall, kicking his shoes off quickly to pull his knees up against his chest. “Why?”

Louis’ eyes widened, almost comically, before he shrugged. “Curiosity. You looked interesting.”

#caro writes fic #larry #larry fic #my fics #rip wip meme

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julerocks · 5 years

Text

So here we go… dear @clariserenaldi this is for you and I really hope you like this little one shot.

Before I start, I have to go into some detail. A little while ago, we got that bts pic of Matteo lying on David’s desk and I saw that valve thingy was gone the day after and that was a headcanon I always wanted to read about.

Then Pauline’s druck fandom gift exchange happened and I thought “That’s it…this is the moment, use this and try to put your thoughts into words”. The thing is, I have never written anything before but wanted to be part of this wonderful event. Therefore, thanks to my lovely Inga @amyriadfthings and Pauline @shakshuka-grandpasweaters you both have no idea how much you helped me <3

And now, dear Steph this is for you.

Vielleicht Vielleicht

or how many headcanons can be put into roughly 2k words

Matteo thought he would sleep like a baby after these last days. He was sleep-deprived and yes, after the last 24 hours he would have bet all his money he would fall asleep the minute he laid his head on the pillow. However, David had other plans, not that Matteo complains, he loves this boy so much and making love to him after all this heartache and turmoil and not knowing if he would see him again felt like salvation and everything falling into place. From now on its David and Matteo, so simple yet so powerful.

Nevertheless, right now he is feeling more awake than ever. He is not sure, if David is still with him or if he is already sleeping. Matteo instinctively hugs David a little tighter to give him assurance he will be there for him even when he sleeps, trying to find his inner composure to fall asleep as well.

The floor lamp and both table lamps, which David switched on when they entered his room, are still on and Matteo feels the impulse to turn them off, so maybe he could find sleep eventually. He is convinced by now that David is sleeping soundly, considering his soothing and constant breathing. The problem is that half of David’s body is literally on top of Matteo and the latter does not want to wake him up, so he tries to move as slowly as possible. After a time that felt like an eternity, Matteo has freed himself from David’s embrace and stands up carefully.

‘These damn floorboards’ he thinks when they creak loudly as he takes his first step. He takes another step and tries to make himself as light as a feather. After a few steps, he arrives at the desk and switches off the floor lamp and the first on the table. He is reaching for the second one and the moment he wants to turn it off, his gaze falls on a red metal piece lying on the foot of the lamp. He touches the red thing, which seems to be the valve of a faucet, and asks himself what it might be.

“That’s from the pool,” David says in a sleepy voice and Matteo is so startled that he stumbles over his own feet and finds support on the desk chair.

“Alter… I thought you were asleep!” Matteo responds while trying to calm his heartbeat.

“It was cold all of a sudden and I noticed that you were no longer in bed,” David says and sits up. Matteo smiles fondly: “I just wanted to turn off the lamps and then I saw this valve and was wondering what it is.”

David tilts his head the way that Matteo loves so much, starts smiling warmly and begins to speak: “Well I took it with me the day we finally kissed.”

“Really?” Matteo looks surprised.

“Hm… I don’t know why, but I just had this feeling. Like something was gonna happen. First you fight with Sara… and then you wanted to get away with me. So yeah, I was very hopeful. That valve caught my eye just when I was thinking about what could happen with us,” David explains and rubs his face. “So I just couldn’t leave it there. Please come back to bed now.”

“Your wish is my demand,” Matteo grins and gets up, keeps the valve in his hand and goes back to David. He puts his arm around his boyfriend, David places his head on Matteo’s chest, and they both look at the red iron thing in Matteo’s hand.

“After I left you that Sunday morning I grabbed my jacket on my way out I found the valve again in my pocket. From then on, it is my lucky charm. These hours with you were the best I had in a very long time,” David pauses and looks up to Matteo.

“I had the valve with me always and everywhere. Down by the water that day and you told me that you broke up with Sara… I had it in my pocket and touched it to get some courage… I just I just wish I’d been braver that day.”

Matteo instinctively intensifies his embrace while David continues: “Do you remember that evening, when you messaged me after I came out to you, stating that you wouldn’t let me down? I was lying right here on my bed… holding the valve. Or when you called me before my math exam, I sat at my desk and had it right in front of me and I was relieved that you wanted to see me, you have no idea. That evening I went to bed happier than I had been in weeks, which was ridiculous considering in sight of the upcoming math exam, but I couldn’t help it, you know.”

Matteo briefly loosens the hug and puts the valve down on the floor besides the plant that is at his side of the bed and snuggles back to David again.

“I actually like the idea that you had something that reminded you of me the whole time. For me it was your drawings. I always kept them close, and pinned the second one on my wall and looked at it for hours. But don’t ever tell anyone about it, I still have a reputation to lose,” Matteo grins. “In an outburst I even crumbled the second one only to straighten it again afterwards. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.”

Matteo stops speaking because he has the feeling that David already fell back asleep and Matteo touches David’s hair because he missed it so much, but instead David asks softly:

“Do you know AnnenMayKantereit?”

“Yeah but that’s not my first choice of music. I’m more into K.I.Z, Frittenbude, Trettmann or RY X when I’m not in a good mood. Also a very important person to me introduced me to the music of a certain Irish singer. You know, I was actually familiar with that particular song… I mean I have not been living under a rock, but besides that song I haven’t heard any of his other stuff and have actually listened to everything he has ever released in the last 4 weeks,” Matteo pauses and strokes David’s arm.

“Always a pleasure to teach you some taste in music,” says David and fends off a loving punch from Matteo. “Since we are going down memory lane, do you actually remember which song you heard when we saw each other the first time in the hallway? I mean you were wearing your headphones that day,” Matteo asks.

“I was thinking about that yesterday, but you know what I have not a single clue. I would love to say something substantial like "Take me to church”, but yeah I have no idea. I mean, even if I did remember, the moment I saw you everything went blank. I had this strict plan of changing school, be as inconspicuous as possible to get my degrees for studying without having to interact with many people… yeah I felt that I never looked up from the floor, locking the world out while listening to music. However, the moment I actually did look up I saw your incredibly sad eyes, and I know it sounds silly, but I had the feeling even time slowed down. I felt drawn to you the minute we locked eyes,“ David laughs quietly to himself.

"It is cheesy, but I felt seen and I wanted to be seen, but only from you, if that makes sense. I had to take another look, that was nothing I could control, and then you looked back and I knew I was screwed and my plan had failed utterly,” David ends and after some time Matteo starts to speak:

“This is nice because I almost had the same feeling you know… I felt lost and the way you looked at me, I knew immediately that I wanted to get to know you and I was so freaking happy when you showed up at the abi prank committee… By the way, you were kind of checking me out.”

David starts to giggle and rubs his face into Matteo’s neck while he remembers this first interaction with the blonde boy.

“Ja! I actually noticed that,” says Matteo blissful while placing a kiss on David’s head. “My brain was running at full speed, just to keep us talking so I had to come up with something fast and was so relieved you accepted my offer of having a smoke with me,” Matteo chuckles. “But then you played that cool and mysterious dude and let me down with that eyelash. I was so proud of myself but you looked unimpressed as hell,” Matteo smiles and David places a little peck on his neck.

“Yeah, I admit that was adorable, you have no idea how much I have melted inside but I couldn’t let my guard down immediately… cool and mysterious you know."

David takes Matteo’s hand and looks at their intertwined fingers.

"I am so relieved I finally got you, Herr Schreibner.” Matteo kisses David’s brow like David kissed Matteo’s after their first time.

“And I am very happy I can finally be with you. There is still one thing I want to tell you and it has something to do with AnnenMayKantereit. There is this song called "Vielleicht, vielleicht” and I listened to it all the time in the weeks we were separated because it just reminded me so much of us. There are these lyrics that basically say that you see what I don’t show anyone else and that I can tell you things I am not telling myself, or that it’s easy to be honest with you and you give me time when I am not ready. Those words describe perfectly what I felt about us, even after that short time we spent together.“

Matteo kisses David. His mind is still overwhelmed at the thought that he is able to kiss David every time he wants to. He feels the warmth of David’s body and a sweet feeling rises in him. Is it possible that everything will be good in the end? They have each other from now on and Matteo just hopes that David knows he can trust him unconditionally.

"Would you play that song for me? I think I would like to hear it.”

“The AnnenMayKantereit song?”

Matteo nods.

David sits up, takes his cell phone from the bedside table and starts looking for the song. Matteo sees with half an eye that David is scrolling through a playlist that is called “Unterwasser” and Matteo can’t help but smile tenderly.

“Oh, will I ever get to hear the other songs of that playlist as well?”

“Yes, sure, but not now. Like a wise man once said: we have all the time in the world… or something like that.”

Both boys smile and they lie tightly wrapped around one another and listen to the voice of Henning May.

Suddenly Matteo feels overcome by drowsiness. He kisses David on the head and says “Enough for tonight. Sleep tight David. Ich liebe dich.”

But David can’t hear him anymore; he has already fallen asleep again.

Matteo takes the phone from David’s hand, covers him with a blanket and lies down himself, closes his eyes when…

‘Ah, god damn it… One lamp is still on!’

#druck #druck fandom gift exchange #druck fan fic #my headcanons

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writingsoftheunderworld · 4 years

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AU - yes! Time Travel - no?

Hope you guys enjoy this one! Find also on AO3 here

Chapter 4

Katherine had been surprisingly easy to deal with, Rose noted, watching the 500 year old vampire menace whoosh past her and out of the house. They hadn’t spent long talking, mainly because she had kept Katherine at arms distance as much as possible and explained that she was there to help with Klaus. Rose figured hearing the hybrid’s name was a great trigger word to dealing with the woman so she utilised it to its capacity and it worked out pretty great, except now Katherine was off telling someone everything, including a plan she didn’t hear anything about and a witch she, and no one else either, had heard anything about. Rose felt she should be more worried than she was, but she was confident enough. She’s been here for a maximum of two hours now and she was flying by the seam of her pants and still she was able to gain allies and prove herself as competent. Her parents would be so proud… if they ignored everything else about this adventure.

She headed upstairs to find a place to nap considering she was going on at least 20 hours of no sleep considering the finals she’d just finished before heading home and the party her parents had thrown the day she got there and her winding up here. But as she walked she passed by Damon’s room and remembered something a bit more important than her nap. The moonstone. She had to get the moonstone out of wherever the younger version of her dad hid it. Hopefully he still had horrible hiding places, like the back of the fridge when she was 15 and Christmas and none of the presents fit at all behind there, but she pretended not to notice even though her mom almost died laughing on the floor when both of them walked in on him ginning proudly while at least two boxes fell out. She wasn’t sure if this was her dad being overconfident or if he really genuinely thought that had been a brilliant idea. So she entered his bedroom and began looking at the most obvious places someone would hide a moonstone in. It took her a grand total of 30 minutes to find it in the soaps basket - which begged the question of why did her dad even have that, her mom always kept the soaps very nicely packaged and stashed in a small drawer in the closet space next to the bathroom back home. Still, she stowed the moonstone away, in her boot, and went back to finding an empty bedroom to nap. It was slightly uncomfortable walking with it, but it was luckily small enough to accomodate. Rose picked the first room she had never really gone into before and laid down on the bed. She was asleep in seconds.

Damon was driving, hands loose on the wheel, leaned back in his seat, music coming through the radio as Bonnie turned it on low. There was quiet in the car, despite Jeremy seemingly in high energy, his left leg bouncing up and down, Bonnie seemed deep in thought as well despite her head nodding to the rhythm. He didn’t pay the music coming out of the speakers any mind, instead focused on the young woman in his house that just turned their plans inside out. He still wasn’t sure he believed her when she mentioned that he simply didn’t know all Bennetts’ out there, he paid too much attention to the continuation of their family to simply miss someone, but he had had a break in his watchful eye in the fifties that could’ve very well meant her family could just have been lost to him. He almost chose to ignore that thought since he despised thinking about those five years, smoke and burning flesh and heat always suffocating him whenever he did. So he shook his head and turned up the radio. He didn’t recognize the song, something new and upbeat, the kind of upbeat that melded and sounded exactly like everything else on the radio these days. It didn’t take long for them to make it to the witches’ house and it took even less to get annoyed by the whole situation.

Damon ran outside as soon as he was able to move, his skin still sizzling softly when he reached the morning air. He listened closely as Bonnie and Jeremy continued on without him, as the little witch did whatever magic she needed to gather the power of 100 or so dead witches. He wondered briefly if he should worry about it, she’d never liked him nor did she seem to have any qualms about attacking if you messed with her rules, case in point her attitude to Caroline when the blonde had just turned a few months prior.

“You alright there Judgy?” he called out when he couldn’t hear either human inside the house. He didn’t have any worries regarding Bonnie’s ability to do what they needed, but he definitely had plenty of worries regarding the other witches they’d be contacting, especially Emily Bennett, for all he’d helped her during the time she’d lived on this earth. Emily didn’t seem to like him much, similar to the judgy witch currently inside really, except Bonnie had had ample reasoning for her dislike, Emily he couldn’t understand. And hadn’t really, even after her son told him the reason itself following her death.

Damon strained his ears, but still no sound was coming through. He pondered for a few seconds, called out again, but nothing. He took a breath in. “Emily, please don’t screw me here, I’m trying to help your ancestor.” he mumbled and ran inside. Bonnie was nowhere to be seen on the first floor, neither was little Gilbert. Nor were they on the second floor, especially since the floorboards there were close to crumbling, so the basement level it was. He called out one final time when he finally heard movement. He entered the room, noting vaguely that Jeremy was sitting cross legged on the floor in front of the witch because his gaze was immediately drawn to her. She was chanting, candle light reflecting off of her skin if soft tresses of shades, giving her an ethereal look, her words were barely whispered but tasted of power and command on his tongue as he breathed in. He couldn’t focus on anything else but her, his gaze tracing the slope of her shoulders and up the length of her neck, extended, a tendon pulled as she spoke faster. He shook his head but stayed silent, she’d complained earlier about needing quiet to be able to focus on her spells and he’d paid attention. He weirded himself out a bit since he still could barely focus on the room around them, but now that he tried he was able to feel the magic infused in the walls, floor, the very air of the room. Old magic, dead magic. He almost, almost could make out the influence of Emily’s magic if he tried a bit harder, almost taste her anger and fear and control, the way he’d done it the night she’d died.

He saw Bonnie’s chest distend once, a deep inhale, and on her exhale he felt all the power in the air dissipate and move towards her. When she opened her eyes, he almost expected them to have changed, but they were the same deep forest green they’d always been, except she stood a bit taller, moved a bit more confidently as she sat up and stood on her feet.

“Done Witchy?”

She seemed almost confused for a second as she looked at him and Jeremy, as though she’d forgotten what she’d been doing or where she was, but then a soft grimace, a scrunch in her nose and a loud sneeze seemed to bring her back to the present. She shuddered suddenly, as if in afterthought, and glared at him. He winked back, exaggerated in the way he enjoyed so very much to do since it irked her and she had the most precious pout when he did it.

“Did it work Bonnie?”

“Yeah, I think that was it. I can definitely feel their power.” she answered Jeremy’s question and Damon almost felt offended if he didn’t already know that was just their modus operandi to irk one another, and being ignored certainly irked him plenty.

“Yeah? So what can you do know? Pull two rabbits out of your hat?”

“Weren’t you supposed to stay upstairs, Damon?” He’d been right, the most precious pout.

“Ah, I was going to, but then I thought to myself and realized I couldn't deprive the poor judgmental women in here of my presence much further, I’m not a monster!” he put a hand on his chest as though entirely sincere and affected, if not for the shit-eating grin on his lips. Bonnie scoffed and he thought he almost saw a smile, but she turned to pick up her messenger back before he could tell for sure. He still took it as a win. “Ready to go now children? Daddy has a meeting with a 19 year old back home” He cringed as the words came out of his mouth, regretting them immediately.

“Gross Damon! God, do you even hear yourself when you speak?”

Well, that just won’t do. “Why Bonnie? I never took you as the jealous kind.” She shook her head again, shuddered forcefully and walked past him, careful pointedly to avoid touching him, their eyes meeting briefly and he swore she looked about ready to laugh.

#bamon friendship #bamon fanfic #bamon fic #bamon #bonnie/damon #Damon x Bonnie #bonnie bennett #Bonnie #Bonnie x Damon #damon salvatore #Damon #future daughter #tvd fic #tvd fanfiction #TVD

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hardyimagines · 5 years

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Part 2 — SOLD!

may I ask you to write Something about a girl who is sold to alfie (by her father, boyfriend or else) to repay a debt, the girl is terrified by him the whole story, and he won’t soften because of her, he is as harsh and tough as in the show.

Part 1 Part 3

Warnings: Sexual abuse

———————————————————————

A lamb. That was what you reminded him of. He’d been thinking for the last few hours, as he watched you obediently scrub the dirty dishes in the sink. He’d been pondering for quite some time what exactly it was that you were and this — this animal seemed to be your exact match.

Vulnerability. It radiated off of you. It twinkled inside the bravery that you so strongly kept on show. A lamb was the most vulnerable creature he could think of. Slow. Visible. Defenseless. You were soft. Kind. Quiet. All traits that a lamb contained. And he was the hungry tiger, lurking at every corner, watching your every cautious move.

Alfie set his hands down flat on the table, caressing the smooth surface of the wooden top as his blue eyes followed your tentative movements. Each blue bowl and silver spoon was set to the side on the towel that was laid out, opened wide to catch the water that fell off of the wet dishes. Your movements were shaky because you, unlike a lamb, weren’t stupid. You felt the fiery stare that he didn’t try in the slightest to hide. His rings tapped the table noisily, each sound making your strained ears even more alert.

Tap, tap, scrape. You looked over your shoulder, sensing he wanted your attention without verbally having to ask for it. The lengthy lashes attached to your eyelids kissed the tops of your cheeks with your blinks as you fixed him with an inquisitive stare. Alfie Solomons was a sight for sore eyes. Although he was, in fact, your captor, he was very nice to look at.

Broad, beefy, strong. He had wide shoulders and a built chest. You’d seen the pleasing, tanned skin beneath the layers and layers of clothing he wore. He had a chiseled jaw, hidden beneath a scruffy amount of facial hair. The wiry strands covered his jaw, cheeks, chin and upper lip. It suited him. Most men, you thought, with that amount of facial hair were in their 80’s or homeless. You narrowed your eyes toward the bloke when his pinky tapped the mug at his side. The soft tinking sound told you that the jeweled ring on his finger had come into contact with the cup. You licked your lips before crossing the short journey from the sink to the table. Wrapping your hand around the mug’s handle, you lifted it from the table and moved toward the pot of brewed coffee in order to refill it.

What was life like, living with Alfie Solomons?

Well, you’d been here for — your eyes lifted to the torn calendar that hung crookedly on the wall beside the window. A twitch of your brows was the only sign of surprise that escaped you. Two months. You’d been with him for two months. Looking back toward the mug, you poured some hot, steaming coffee into the awaiting center before adding some sugar and then returning the mug back to him. And how was this life treating you?

Well for starters, you didn’t have your own room. It had been miserable at first — forced to share a bed with a bloke who could snap your neck in two. But you’d grown accustomed to sleeping in the same bed, it would be weird to sleep alone now. He was warm, a blanket of security. He liked to snuggle up, arms locked around one another and while it had been annoying at first, you couldn’t help the twinge of excitement that you felt now, every night when the clock would strike 8 and that meant it was time to settle down. His bed was big, but despite that, he spent the night rolled over on his side, arm hooked around your waist so he could hold you for the entirety of the night.

Secondly, he let you have your own job. He didn’t keep you locked away inside the house, deprived of fresh air and sunlight. He let you have your freedom, he just made sure you knew when to be home and to be careful when you ventured out. You worked at a shop on the corner that sold candles. It wasn’t big, the pay wasn’t great, and the shift dragged by for what felt like forever, but it was better than roaming a home that wasn’t your own.

Thirdly, he taught you to bake. Course, his teaching was loud and infused with so many swears you couldn’t keep count of how many times he dropped the word ‘fuck’, ‘cunt’, or ‘shit’. But you could now successfully make a loaf of bread, a pie, a cake, and a few other meals. Even though these were the upsides, there were a few partial downsides.

Like the fact that he liked sex. And he liked it a lot. Oral when he was stressed — and he seemed to be stressed a lot. Your jaw had ached for what felt like a week straight. He was a rough lover, the type to pin you down and fuck you as harshly as he pleased. It didn’t bother you — not now, but the first time he’d taken you, you’d been afraid. There was no actual hatred for Alfie, but you did wish he’d been a little more gentle with you. He’d checked up on you the next morning when he’d seen you limping about. His voice dripped with guilt. You’d grown use to the way he screwed though, you’d actually grown to quite like it. But that didn’t mean you liked him. Alfie was still cruel, rude, and overall — to be blunt — a bastard.

He spoke about you like you were a toy. Alone, in private, you swore he looked at you with a tint of care. You swore he actually liked you. But when it was time to go to work, to a meeting, or to have some friends over, then he turned into bossman Solomons and the sweet, gentleman you knew was gone. He howled with laughter, roared with his stories, he boasted about how animalistic he could be with you, and how tame you were. Even though you’d found it possible to convince yourself that Alfie was developing feelings for you, you couldn’t ignore the fact that you’d been given to him as a piece of property and he would speak about you as such.

“Right,” His deep voice pulled you from your raging thoughts. Looking toward the bloke, sat at the table with his knees widespread and his fingers tracing the rim of his tophat, you lifted a slow brow, waiting for him to speak further. “I’m off then. Busy day, innit, fucking Saturday’s, seems to be the day all the fuckers in Camden are out.”

“That’s everywhere, Mr. Solomons.” You pointed out. “It’s the weekend.” Your need to continue the conversation was automatic. If you didn’t give a response, he got agitated. “But I’m sure this just means the day will pass by quickly.” The words exchanged were soft, brief. You looked toward him, sweet eyes roaming the length of him as he drew on his lengthy trench coat. He let out a harsh grunt, one that told you he didn’t care much to continue the topic of conversation.

“Well, you’d best get to work.” He pointed toward the oven. “I’ve got, yeah, remember, an important fucking meeting tonight and I’m hosting it, ain’t i, here. Right, lass, so I need you, yeah, to make some fucking meal, whatever you want, yeah, just something quick and easy.” He pinched the buttons on the front of his coat and one by one, fastened them. He crossed the creaky floorboards, only coming to a stop when he was stood directly in front of you. Reaching up to lift his tophat out of his way, he leaned in closer, waiting for you to close the space.

You did so without much thought. Leaning up on your toes, your warm lips pressed to his, slow and sensual, a kiss he’d told you that he liked the first time he’d received it. He didn’t place his hands on your body, for that meant he wanted more. Slow kisses like this meant he just needed a sliver of affection to get him through the day. You had rules to follow, gestures that told you what he wanted.

For example, a kiss with no touching was innocent. But if he would’ve set his hand on your hip or cheek or back.. or any other part of your body, that meant he would like to proceed and you’d wound up pinned between him and any other surface. He didn’t want you speaking to other men. If asked about your relationship status, you were to claim you had a boyfriend. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but he didn’t want to label himself as that. What if an actual woman came along that he was interested in and they thought he was dating you? So he was your boyfriend, but you were not his girlfriend.

The kiss came to an inevitable end and when it did, he brushed past you whilst simultaneously fixing his hat. The sound of his footsteps faded the further he went from the kitchen and when the slam of the door sounded, you let out a heavy sigh. You did not want to have a dinner meeting.

——

The house was loud. The voices of the guests were overlapping. All of the men were piled into the main room, some slouched on the sofa, others residing in the armchairs, but Alfie and the main men were sat at the table in the corner. It bordered the kitchen and the living room. You were in chagre of tending to everyone, ensuring that they weren’t hungry or thirsty and it made you beyond annoyed to have to keep checking on them, because majority had a staring problem.

Alfie had his body hunched over on the table, elbows on the surface and arms folded as he spoke seriously to the blokes in front of him. You didn’t know what this meeting pertained to, everytime you passed it was a completely different discussion, not related to any of the others whatsoever.

First it was alcohol.

Then it was women.

Then it was races.

Then it was Thomas Shelby.

Now, you couldn’t hear, you were tending to drinks in the kitchen.

“So what is she then?” Hank chortled, eyes glistening with amusement and mockery. “I mean, is she just a hole you’ve got for free or is it.. a little something more?” His alcohol-spurred questions were so easily asked when he had an intoxicated mind.

“Ain’t none of your fucking business, now, is it, really, mate? Shes mine, that’s all you need to fucking know.” Alfie bit back, fingers curling around the bottle of liquor in front of him. He swished it around lazily, a brief distraction from the building anger in his stomach.

The man in charge, Williams, sat with a sickening grin on his lips, fingertips grazing the side of his jaw as he fixed Alfie with a purse of his lips and then a quiet tutt. “Word on the street, Mr. Solomons, is that you bought the girl off a bloke who owed you some change. Isn’t that so?” Williams pinched a toothpick from his pocket and stuck the wood between his lips. Burying the sharp tip between his teeth, he picked at the annoying bits of food, wedged in his mouth. “So if she’s just a bit of a bargain, you wouldn’t mind sharing her?” Williams looked to Hank. “He’ll pay you for her. Darnest girl he’s ever seen, he’s been blabbing about the lass since the first time he saw her, a few weeks back.” Alfie straightened in his seat before looking toward the money that Hank tossed on to the table. It was a lot. Alfie pulled his lips in before lightly shrugging as he reached for the bills.

“Knock yourself out, mate, she doesn’t mean that fucking much to me.” He lied smoothly. Truthfully he didn’t want any other man putting his hands on your soft body, so pure and innocent beneath his stare, his touch. He was the only one who’d ever had you, apart from your previous boyfriend and he didn’t count that much considering the fact that the bloke couldn’t make you moan in the slightest. Alfie looked toward Hank as he stood. “You’re to be gentle with her, right, can’t have you messing my gal up, can I?” Alfie shifted in the creaky seat before looking over his shoulder, toward the kitchen. “Y/N!” He beckoned.

Your ears twitched. Adjusting the tray full of drinks, you struggled to carry the glasses, filled to the brim, as you walked back into the main room where they were all seated. The second you entered, the men wore hungry stares. They looked as if they all wanted a piece of you instead of the drinks. You came to a stop beside Alfie’s thigh, hunching over to set the drinks on the table. “I’m here, I’m here.” Your soft voice made him feel a bit guilty for taking the wad of money in his hand.

“Lass,” Alfie ushered toward the standing bloke in the corner. “He’s paid me a great deal of money to take you to bed.” He tongued his cheek. “So you take your pretty little self, right, up to the guest room, yeah, and show the gent a good time.” He placed his hand, so hot, against your back and ushered you toward the stairs. He did his best to ignore the alarming look in your eye. “Go on.”

“Mr. Solomons..” You tried to speak up. You wanted to demand why all of a sudden he was handing you out like a harlot, but the block in your throat and the glare you received silenced you. You did not want to sleep with random men that paid Alfie.

“Go.” He demanded again. His eyes lifted to yours then, strong and steady as he held your watery gaze. He ushered you along before looking back to Williams. The room was quiet and your blood was boiling. But you did not want to deny or disobey Alfie Solomons. When you sluggishly made your way toward Hank with an expression that told the man, none too discreetly, that you’d rather die, he folded his arms. He’d originally been planning on going easy on you, but now, he figured he’d do whatever the hell he liked.

Williams finished off his glass. “I think I’ll have a go next, Alfie.”

Alfie stiffened. “Mate, you know, as well as I do, that the lass will be soiled if I let too many men have her. Now,” He sighed. “She is, right, my property, and I do, yeah, enjoy the time I spend with her, feels quite good if you want the truth. So why, then, yeah, would I want to share something so good? And why would I want to share that something with you?”

Williams sneered. “I’ll pay double.” His smile made Alfie’s stomach churn with distaste.

“Mate, you’re lucky I even let the bloke up there,” He pointed toward the ceiling where the sound of your footsteps could be heard and then your garbled voice. “have his way with her.” Tonguing his cheek, he drew in a deep intake of breath before moving his fingers to his beard. Pinching the strands, he tugged on them lazily, teeth rubbing together as he lost himself in his thoughts.

“Triple?” Williams offered then. He didn’t hesitate in the slightest. He considered himself to be a winner, he didn’t care how much it took for him to get his way.

“Right, you don’t know what the word no fucking means, do you?” Alfie clenched his jaw before moving the hand in his beard along his jaw. His thumb created a loud scraping sound as his nail scratched absentmindedly at the irritated flesh. A heavy sigh, a sound of annoyance, left him in a harsh puff as he slumped back against the chair. “Listen, right, I invited you, so kindly, to my fucking home so we could discuss the races, yeah, not my girl.”

Williams smirked. “Can’t care for her too much, can you, Alfie? After all, you are letting a stranger sleep with her for a few bucks.”

Alfie lowered his free hand to his lap. His palm opened wide to press against his thigh, lazily brushing along the length of it before it halted at the hem of his slacks. He slowly brushed his thumb along the revolver, tucked away securely in his pants. “Watch your tongue, mate.”

The house was quiet then, Alfie and Williams exchanging looks of hatred. Alfie didn’t appreciate Williams calling him out for something he already felt quite guilty for and Williams didn’t enjoy the look in the opposing man’s gaze. Alfie Solomons couldn’t be trusted. He had a tendency to pull a weapon on those who simply ticked him off. Williams warned himself to back off, but found it hard to heed his own advice. “You know I’m right.” He spoke again.

Alfie’s face was hot and his skin burned. He was about to unleash a loud, overpowering array of words to beat the man across from him down, but your sudden sharp cry rendered him silent.

“Stop!” Your voice sounded. “Quit! I don’t like that.. I..” He could hear in your loud voice that you were distressed. He stood without a second thought. The legs on his chair groaned loudly as they scratched the floorboards beneath them. He smoothly pulled his weapon from his trousers and headed for the stairs. His movements were already fast, but when the sound of a loud slap filled the air, he pushed on even quicker.

“Y/n!” He shouted, thumb lifting to cock the revolver in his hand. The tip of his boot hit the door, shoving it open with so much force you thought it was going to break off the hinges. You were on the bed, dress torn and legs opened. Hank was on his knees, hands cradling his cheek and front of his pants drooped open. You looked toward the bloke in the door, watery eyes moving between his before you scrambled off the bed. Dragging the straps of your dress back up and on to your shoulders, you sniffled quietly before wrapping your arms around yourself.

“He was tryna choke me.” You told him breathily. Alfie directed his stare to your throat, checking to see the damage done. Evident red lines marked your skin. He curled his free hand into a tight fist while the other adjusted its hold on the gun. He studied the irritated flesh that was so very visible. You had indents from his rough fingers, flesh too delicate for such an aggressive touch. Alfie has wrapped his hand around your throat plenty of times and never had it turned another shade.

Swallowing thickly, you moved your hands to your sore skin to shyly cover the area he was staring at before pulling your lips in. The man’s eyes flashed when he looked toward the culprit on the floor. Alfie’s footsteps seemingly shook the entire house. “Get up.” He ordered.

Hank didn’t have a chance. Alfie’s hand wrapped tightly in the back of his shirt so he could yank him up and to his feet. There was no time for Hank to drag his slacks up and fasten them, for Alfie shoved him backwards until his back slammed against the wall. He lifted the gun, aiming it directly at the man’s head. There was no hesitation, no curiosity, no wondering. Alfie was going to shoot him.

“Mr. Solomons.” Your desperate voice erupted from your throat. “Dont..” Moving toward him, your fingertips lifted to his wrist, lowering it as quickly — safely — as you could. He looked toward you, confusion swimming in his bright orbs. “This will only cause more problems.” You reminded him. You hated having to talk to him like this. He was a grown man for fuck’s sake. He should know right from wrong. And yet, as he stared down at you, you could see that at times, he didn’t. When he was drowning in anger, nothing mattered. You tugged on him in the slightest until he uncocked the weapon and tucked it away in his trousers. His eyes were apologetic, but he didn’t verbally ask if you were alright or tell you it wouldn’t happen again. He merely tongued his cheek and pointed for you to leave the room. You did so.

The floorboards moaned out beneath you, each one noisy and irritating, so you did your best to avoid the ones that you knew were particularly loud. You barely made it into the corridor before the sickening sound of Hank’s nose breaking filled the room. Lifting your hands to your ears as you cringed openly, your previously slow footsteps turned instantly to a skip. Holding your dress around your body, you hurried down the hall and into the bedroom that you shared with Alfie. The door slammed shut loudly, alerting the man that you’d probably stay tucked away in there for the rest of the night. He didn’t mind.

Alfie left Hank on the guest bedroom’s floor with a broken, bleeding nose and a mouthful of cracked teeth. His fist throbbed from the harsh impacts, but he had too much adrenaline pumping through him to actually feel pain. Stepping out of the room, he brushed the back of his hand off on his nose before making his way down the hall and toward the steps to tell Williams to get his shit, including his man, and get out.

Williams didn’t hesitate. It would be quite foolish on his part. Alfie really wasn’t a man to be trusted. The bloke grasped his hat and coat before ordering his men to get Hank. He barely bid Alfie a farewell before scurrying from the house. Because he’d asked if he could bed you, he feared Alfie would give him the same treatment that he gave Hank.

The house was silent. The only sound that filled the home was the quiet snores from Cyril, Alfie’s dog, and the ticking from the clock in the corner. When the chatter from downstairs died and the house creaked from age and not wandering men, you ventured out of the bedroom. Your barefeet padded along the floor, soft red nightgown swaying with your stride. In one hand, you held a hairbrush, gold with sharp bristles. You drew the brush down and through your strands in long strokes, ensuring you removed each and every tangle as you made your way down the steps and toward the kitchen to grab yourself some water.

Alfie was sat at the kitchen table alone, wad of money in the center. Ash covered bits of the surface from where the men had been smoking and you knew you’d be on your hands and knees cleaning in the morning. Alfie lifted his gaze to you when you entered the room completely. Neither of you said anything, but you figured that was normal. What was a man suppose to say to a girl he was taking care of after trying to whore her out?

You drew the fridge open and grasped a bottle of water. Pulling it to your chest, you swallowed nervously before looking toward the man at the table. His eyes were low, fixated on the money he’d accepted. He grit his teeth, rubbing them together in disappointment. You wondered silently if he was going to speak, but he really didn’t seem like the type to apologize verbally. “Are you..” Your voice failed you momentarily. He didn’t look up. “coming to bed?” He looked toward you then. His eyes were softer than usual, sweet almost. He tipped his head toward you in the smallest nod possible before rising. He nudged the chair back into its rightful position under the table before moving around the set so he could approach you. The light in the kitchen shown down on you, illuminating your throat. You made movement to head toward the steps, but he set his hand on your hip and pushed you back. Pinning you between himself and the sink, he lifted his left hand to your chin and tipped it back. He didn’t say anything, he just stared. “Why did you let him pay you?” You whispered. “To have sex with me?” The question was almost inaudible.

He shook his head. “Don’t ask questions. Right, I did what I fucking had to, didn’t I, to get a little extra money.” His excuse made you want to laugh mockingly.

“This is my body, Alfie. You can’t just..” You were walking on thin ice. A poor, poor choice on your part. Bite your tongue. You were his, he could do whatever he wanted and if that meant giving you to another bloke for an hour or two, then you didn’t have a say.

“I can just.. you’re mine, remember that, pet. Right, if I want to take you upstairs and have my way with you, yeah, and then invite a bunch of men over to do the exact same, I expect you to lay there like a good girl, don’t I, yeah, and take what’s given.” His eyes narrowed the longer he spoke. You swallowed thickly. Shut up.

“I’d rather die than sleep with you again. You showed me today what I mean to you and I can’t believe you just..” There was an ache in your chest, a deep ache that felt much like a void.

Alfie laughed harshly, a spit of a laugh that made his shoulders shake. “You think I give a fuck, right, what you fucking want? It ain’t in my fucking interest, right, to care about what you want or what you like.” His words were like jabs to your heart. For some reason, you’d foolishly convinced yourself he cared for you. But he’d shown you, the second he accepted the money, that that wasn’t the case. A small part of your brain reminded you that he’d come to your aid when you’d cried out, but he hadn’t scooped you up in his arms and checked you thoroughly for any damage. He’d merely told you to leave the room and then had hit the bloke.

“I don’t want to be given to other men, Mr. Solomons, I’m.. not use to that.” You attempted to reason with him. You slumped against the sink completely, lower lip wobbling.

“Ah, pet, that’s a poor fucking excuse, innit. If you can sleep with me, yeah, you can sleep with anyone. I’m the farthest thing from gentle there is.” He uttered before moving his hand up to your throat. He traced the markings slowly.

You looked toward the floor and lazily shuffled your feet. This wasn’t what you wanted to talk about anymore. It was clear to you now. Alfie didn’t care about you, he just cared about money and sex. Sex and money. You were just a bonus for occasional affection. Maybe he’d tire of you soon. “I don’t want to sleep with anyone. I didn’t even want to sleep with you.” Your words were followed by you pushing past him and heading for the stairs.

“Didn’t?” He called out, unmoving from his position at the sink. “But you do now?”

“Did.” You corrected him. “You’ll have to force me from now on. I can’t believe you accepted payment..” He sensed you wanted to rant, to scream, to go off on him, but you wisely shushed yourself and continued toward the stairs. You could hear him following though, so you kept a steady pace and a brave face.

You barely made it up the stairs before he caught your wrist snugly in his palm and spun you around so that he could peer down at you. “You’ve been so obedient thus far, don’t ruin it now.” He hissed out. His grip tightened on your wrist. “Because of what happened tonight.. I’m not going to let another man, yeah, lay his greasy fucking hands on you. It doesn’t bring me joy seeing them blokes fucking hurt you.” You tote your arm away from him.

“Good to know.” You whispered before continuing on down the hall to the bedroom. Your small body scrambled on to the bed so you could drop face down on the mattress. You had questions to ask. So many, but you didn’t think it wise to bring them up now.

Was he struggling for money?

Why hadn’t he hesitated before handing you over to same other bloke?

Would he promise to never let it happen again?

Did he care about you?

The questions were silenced when Alfie climbed on to the bed. His weight made the bed tip toward him in the slightest. He undid the white buttons one-by-one on the front of his shirt before peeling the thin fabric off and discarding it on the floor. He dropped down on his back, head propped up on the mountain of pillows. There was a lingering silence in the room before he rolled toward your body. He placed his hand on your back, curling his hand in the silky material. He drew it up slowly, inch by inch until the fabric was around your waist.

You lifted your head from its position on the pillow in order to peer at him. “Alfie..” You whispered pleadingly. You really didn’t want to have sex. Maybe you’d forgive him eventually, but right now.. Your hand moved to his, attempting to push it off, but when he merely began to stroke your back, your touch softened. He traced the length of your spine before leaning in and stealing a very soft, chaste kiss. It didn’t last for too long, and you found that once it ended, your body yearned for more. You dropped down against the pillows again, allowing him to continue to caress your skin. In any other instance, this would’ve meant sex, but because of the circumstances, you figured he was just apologizing.

———————————————————————

Part 1 Part 3

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