#it comes to writing kissing scenes. didn't realize that people actually enjoyed that part of writing I thought it was just there for realism

[reiderwriter]

She's a Silver Lining

Chapter Nine of I Can't Help Myself

Summary: Spencer comes to terms with your abduction.

Warnings: ANGST, Suicidal ideation, kidnapping, mentions of fetal abduction and murder of pregnant women, descriptions of abuse, descriptions of prenatal care, typical case details. Spencer is depressed.

A/N: I'm sorry this chapter is a day late, I literally saw God this weekend (I saw Taemin perform live), and really, all that's been on my mind is how God is Good (Taemin is hot), and so I haven't been able to write anything as depressing as this chapter. I hope you enjoy (?) it anyway~♡

Masterlist || tags are currently broken, I'm sorry ♡

Eight days. It had been eight days since Spencer had last seen you. Eight days since he'd screwed up his one job so massively that he'd lost you. 

He'd lost people before. He'd lost people on cases. Victims, unsubs, bystanders, and family members who didn't stand a chance at recovering from their own loss. He'd lost Maeve, which was a little too similar to his current circumstances to think about too hard. He'd been losing his mother since he was born, and he'd really lost her again a few months ago. He'd lost Gideon. He'd lost Elle, too, before that. He'd lost Emily, and though she'd come back too, it wasn't the same. He'd lost Morgan, and then Hotch. He'd lost Alex Blake.

He'd lost nearly everyone in his life. Some of them had come back, most of them hadn't. 

He'd thought himself immune to the pain of losing someone at last. 

He'd certainly lost enough of himself in prison. 

It may have only been 84 days, but whatever was left in him of hope before was gone. He'd emerged completely empty. 

He supposed that's why he'd accepted the role at the university. There was nothing left for him to give to the BAU, but he couldn't be the one to leave. 

As it was, he'd already been unsettled enough by leaving you behind when he'd finished up his time there. 

It felt weird to him, saying goodbye. Not that he'd actually said goodbye. He'd kissed your forehead as he slipped out of your bed, sure, but you'd been neither conscious, nor fond of him in anyway. It was a parting gesture just for him  and he hadn't been quite sure why he'd done it. 

It was just a gesture and one he'd repeated multiple times after getting you back. You didn't know, of course. How could you? 

He'd either woken up before you and kissed your forehead, or climbed into bed beside you late at night and greeted you then. 

You'd lain side by side, drifting to sleep slowly, when he realized it had become a daily habit. 

He hadn't any idea of what he'd do when you left. 

And now you had. And it was his fault. 

In the eight days since you'd been kidnapped, Spencer had come to terms with a few facts.

He knew 64,956 women were currently declared missing in the United States. He knew that 77% of adults reported missing were found in 24 hours. You weren't. He knew 4% were found in 48 hours. You weren't. Only 3% were usually missing still after a week. 

You were somehow in that small minority, even though there was an entire team of FBI agents working around the clock to find you. 

He'd had faith in his coworkers before. Before, he'd begged for their help, and they'd succeeded in 24 hours, even if the outcome wasn't preferable. 

This time, he didn't beg. He had no faith. He just hoped to be present with a gun, loaded with two bullets, if this time went the way of the last. 

On the eighth day after your abduction, Spencer finally returned home.

The damage from your abduction was still apparent. 

Not that your captor had left many clues. In fact, they'd left none. Not even a fingerprint or a good angle on the CCTV. But he hadn't taken returning to an empty apartment well.

He slashed through the crime scene tape quickly, letting in hang in the doorway as he entered. The bookshelves he'd attacked were limping, leaning on each other for support after he'd ripped books off so violently he'd set them askew. 

He'd kicked and ripped and punched the wall so hard he'd needed stitches that he'd absolutely refused to get. 

He'd cried and sobbed into his bloodied and bruised hands until Emily had arrived, and then he'd cried some more, leaning on his friend, his sister, for her support. 

Returning now, there wasn't a single tear left.

In the hospital, they'd addressed his flesh wounds, but the emotional ones would never hear. 

You were gone. And now there was only a 3% chance he'd ever see you again. 

Emily hadn't allowed him to stick around to make their jobs harder. She's placed him on house arrest - funnily enough, her house, where you should've been if he wasn't such a selfish ass - and assigned a watch. 

She’d said it was for protection, but what she'd meant was it was to protect him from himself.

The rest of the team had avoided the topic entirely. They didn't know how to deal with whatever stage of grief he was going through. Many of them had comforted him the first time. They didn't know how to do it a second. They didn't know if they could. 

After eight days, Spencer had left Emily’s apartment. He'd dodged the Agent she'd stationed alongside him, got into a taxi, and gone home. 

Surveying the damage, he was surprised how deep the hurt had already cut to not feel much anymore. 

He looked at the books splayed on the floor. It was a title that you'd been reading that week. One he remembered you using at the office, one that had been on both of your courses reading lists. He picked each of them up and put them back on the shelf. He righted each shelf and organised them neatly, how he thought you'd like them. 

He picked pillows up and rearranged them. He vacuumed the debris from the floor, the thin layer of dust that had gathered since he'd left, the splinters pf bookcase that had crumbled off, the shards of wall that were speckled with his blood. 

He wept the entire time, though silent, until there were no tears left to cry. 

Then he'd come across a tiny package underneath his coffee table, a single corner of plastic peaking out, begging for attention. 

He'd picked it up and wept again as he found depths of sadness to reach further down than what he'd assumed to be rock bottom. 

Aa he lay in a pool of his own despair, a new, haunting fact crashed from his brain to his heart. Since 1987, there had been 21 foetal abductions in the USA. 19 of them had ended in homicide, with the mother dying. 

You made 22. 

In the two months since you'd been abducted, you'd learned three things. 

The first was that you absolutely loved Spencer Reid. You'd spent enough time sitting introspectively about everything in your life to realize you had to stop being so stubborn and admit just that. You'd been about there before all of this, but now you knew for sure. 

You should be cursing the man that inspired your horror show of a life, after all. But instead, you thought about him and held back tears. 

She gave you updates these days, testing your reactions to his name, waiting to see you crack, to see you cry, and sob and break down completely. 

Today, Spencer had been to see his mother, she said. He'd broken down in her arms and caused her to have an episode. She'd hit him so hard, his face had already been bruised by the time she saw him. 

The second thing you knew was that your baby was going to be born healthy. You had no plans of having a home birth, but now, at seven months pregnant, and large enough that you almost thought about doing your conception math again, you knew you were on track for giving birth in the room you'd been in for the last 58 days. 

You hadn't counted. 

She’d been good enough to tell you the date, the day, and her plans every morning when she visited you. She checked your vitals, your blood pressure, the position of the baby, your temperature, your heart rate, and recorded everything in her chart. She asked you how the pregnancy was going, almost as if she was the nurse she'd been training to be. 

Her bedside manner was so good some days. You forgot entirely that you were tied down to the bed, ankle clamped down. 

She let you walk for an hour a day, but recommended bedrest after that for health reasons. You didn't complain or talk back because she didn't like that. 

She let you read, and she was even curious about your reading, asking you questions and taking notes as if this were just part of her regular college schedule, an office hour that had taken over her life. 

You shuddered sometimes as she stared up at you with those big eyes, so wide, and young, and naive, and full of hatred, and evil, and you wanted to claw them out and scream for help, and stab her with the pencil she wrote notes with, and stab, and stab, and stab, and-

The third thing you knew was that you'd never hold your baby in your arms because you'd be dead moments after they breathed their first breath.

You knew, because she had told you as much everyday since you'd woken up. 

In two months, Spencer had become more manic and self-destructive than he'd ever been in his entire life. 

His world centred around you, and finding you, even as his 3% slipped to 1%, slipped to 0.1%, and he knew deep inside that he'd never see you again. 

He hadn't returned to the BAU but had instead turned his home into an investigation room, emptying the walls so he could pin up information, evidence, pictures of you, everything he could find. It wasn't that he'd regained hope, but he'd grown so desperate that he suddenly gripped hard onto the only slither of it that he had left and refused to drop it. He was a dog that didn't know the game of fetch only conti he'd if he dropped the ball. His life would not go on without you.

So he searched. He knew how far along you were. He knew how far along a woman had to be for a c section, professionally performed or not. 

He barricaded himself into his house and paced for days as his friends pounded down his door. He let none in. He didn't go out. He wasn't sure what he ate, or drank, or if he slept, but he knew he paced, and he thought, and he came up with theories. 

After two months, Emily was tired of knocking. 

“Spencer Reid, I am coming in,” she shouted from behind the door. 

He usually ignored her. She couldn't pass the bookshelves he'd moved in front of the door anyway, even if his superintendent had given her a key. 

This time though, he heard a banging, a creak and a crash as the bookshelves went down and Emily, who had left him and returned, made her way inside his apartment. 

“You barricaded the door?” she said, looking at him. 

He took a shaky breath and tried to answer as she surveyed his apartment, the mess of papers, books, string on the wall. He saw her stare down at the pile of sheets on the floor where he'd been sleeping, the bag of your things he had dragged to be closer to him. 

He saw her look at the baby shoes, and baby grows he'd laid out neatly on the floor, and he saw the pitying look she turned on him. 

“She's pregnant,” he finally said out loud, though you must've been 7 months along by then. “I'm going to be a father.”

“Spencer,” Emily said, grasping his hand, voice cracking from the strain of emotion that coated her tongue, making her voice thick. “You would've been an amazing father.” 

“No. No-” he said, breaking away and moving back to his wall. “No past tense, I won't let you… I won't let you give up on them.” 

“It's been two months.” 

“So she's only seven months pregnant. I have two more months to find her, Emily. Two more. At least allow me that.” 

The tears in his eyes streamed freely now as she nodded. 

“We will…. you know we'll help you. We'll do everything we can, so come to the office.” 

He didn't want to give up his space. His reminders of you, the baby grows, the information he'd gathered.

Equally, he didn't like Emily being in this space. She thought you were already dead, and he couldn't even look her in the eye. 

Reluctantly, he nodded, lifting himself up on legs weakened by insurmountable grief, and he followed her to Quantico. 

By the end of your third trimester, you wondered how you could ever have gotten so big. When you gave birth, the child inside of you would only be the size of a small pumpkin. You felt like you'd swallowed five regular size pumpkins whole, and you felt you were still expanding. 

The point worried her. She'd broken two glasses in tantrums this last week alone, measuring you every day. 

The closer you got to birth, the more agitated she grew. 

“This demon inside of you is going to kill you. I won't even have to do it myself,” she'd whispered to herself, or to you, as she took your vitals that morning. 

“Please don't say that.” 

“Why not? You're a whore, and you're going to give birth to a devil. You have seduced my soul mate, because you are a jezebel and the Lord is punishing you.” 

You'd needed all the strength you could get for these conversations. Even one tear, and she'd erupt and put a knife at your neck. With only a few weeks left, there was no saying whether she'd speed her plan along. 

“I did not seduce your soul mate,” you said as calmly as you could muster, taking deep breaths, hoping that she would mirror them and calm down. 

“Do we have to watch the fucking video again?” she spat at you, stomping around to the side of your bed and pulling out her phone. She queued up the video quickly and you averted your eyes. 

She turned them back quickly, holding your head in place as she forced you to watch your own office space. She showed you the videos of you and Spencer talking, teasing each other. She showed you the video of you insisting you were not attractive to him. She showed you the video of Spencer fucking you on the sofa, though she screamed and cut her fingernails into her skin the entire way through. 

She even showed you the video of her attempting to seduce Spencer during their office hour. It was the first video in her collection, the first time she'd set up the camera. She used your entrance as proof that you were breaking her apart from her soul mate. From Spencer. 

You were a whore who had thrown herself at him in anyway you could, and you had trapped him with a baby. 

She was going to free him from all responsibility so he could be with her. 

“My baby will be your devil,” she said as the video ended, and you forced your heart to settle. 

“It is not your baby.”

“Spencer won't know that. He doesn't know it's your baby either, and who are the authorities going to believe when I show up with his child. One paternity test later, and I'll have him, and we can be a happy family together, and we can live happily. I'll take in your devil  and raise it as my own, and we'll forget about the whore who almost ruined it all.”

The psychosis was so clearly written on her face, you were surprised no one had caught onto her state yet. She was devolving. She'd been calm, and contemplative the first week. She'd laid out her plans still, her insane plans, and seemed somewhat coherent. 

Then she'd began rambling about the devil and soul mates, and you'd pitied her, even in your fear. 

Now you were just glad she counted your office tryst as your conception date, and you'd never corrected her. 

She still believed there was a month left until your death. You knew it was days. 

You just prayed your baby could buy you some time.

“Professor?” she said as she carried away the tray of items she'd checked your vitals with

“Yes.” 

“You are not in love with Spencer Reid,” she said, as if trying to convince you. 

“No,” you said, trying to convince yourself  though it was hopeless. “I am not in love with Spencer Reid.”

The first lead in the case came on your due date. Patient confidentiality was, happily, overlooked by a few doctors when he pressed the issue, needing to know until when he was counting down. 

He'd done the rough math himself, but he needed a professional opinion. 

The lead came in the form of an email. The university was cleaning out your office to make way for a new professor, despite his insistence that you'd return, and they needed him to collect things. 

And though he knew you'd be giving birth that day, and he had run out of time, something compelled him to go and do this menial task on today of all days. 

Luke had joined him, and then so had JJ and Emily, and Penelope and Tara. Rossi had even arrived to watch you pile books into boxes that were supposed to have lived on these shelves for a long career. Everyone in the room was so busy watching him, waiting for him to crack, that it had to be him to find it. 

At first, he thought it was a hole in the couch. It was so dark and black, its curved corners giving the illusion of introversion. Then he'd touched it and felt the rough bump. 

“Penelope, here, now,” he breathed out, gasping for air as he finally pulled the tiny spy camera free and thrust it into his friends hands. 

He had a lead. He had you now. 

The first hour of labour was inconvenient only because you weren't alone. She'd been tending to you all morning, fussing over your food, trying to maintain the right amount of prenatal vitamins as she usually did, but she'd ran out of two bottles, and the pharmacy wasn't open. 

You sat still and uncomfortable, trying to not even flinch as your water broke, too afraid of death to be thinking about the life you were bringing into this world. 

The second hour ticked by much the same until she left. 

The third came, and you ceased your screams of pain, even as your hands bore holes into your sheets. She returned, and you knew there wasn't much longer until she knew. 

By hour four, she had your legs spread and was watching you deliver your baby, and you knew the same blade that would sever your umbilical cord would also end your life. 

By hour five, you were so delirious with pain that you thought you saw Spencer. You heard his voice cooing to you as you pushed. You felt his hands wipe away your sweat, smooth the hair from your eyes. You heard his voice announce your daughters birth, and you felt his lips against your skin as you finally gave up fighting and drifted into oblivion. 

[strawhattery]

utilities included: the faq

ahead of the utilities included finale, i shared my retrospring on here & twitter, and i invited anyone to ask questions about the story. you can find the answers to those questions below the cut, and i'll be updating this post as any additional questions come in!

why did you choose an alpha/alpha pairing?

i think i was drawn to that dynamic specifically because it felt the most accurate to how i interpret their canon dynamic. it also gave me a vehicle to explore sanji's identity (and queerness), which was a lot of fun.

why did you choose sanji's limited POV?

limited POV in a romance story creates an interesting layer of narrative tension ("how does the other character feel?") that i love. i also knew early on that i wanted sanji to be a chronic overthinker in contrast to zoro's more simple, straightforward approach to life, and i knew that i wanted that contrast in their personalities to be the root of the story's "conflict." so it was easy to decide that i needed to plant myself in sanji's headspace for the story—that's where all the conflict is!

why did i decide to remove sanji's ability to sense pheromones?

when i was first outlining the story, sanji was actually going to move into the apartment as a favor to his friend luffy, who was begging him to take over his lease. but when i sat down to write this, it didn't really feel like luffy to me, so i pivoted to story so luffy has already run off and nami's trying to find a total stranger to take over his lease. this is what you see at the very beginning of chapter one. however, i quickly realized a plot hole in this: if sanji could sense pheromones, he'd immediately know the place wasn't nami's, and he might not even step foot in the apartment to begin with (because i was always going to write him not liking or trusting other alphas). so. uh. i nixed his ability to smell pheromones. and that spur of the moment decision ended up becoming the cornerstone of sanji's characterization and a major part of his internal conflict. i actually forgot until i sat down to answer this question why this became part of the story because it was a decision made so early in the process that it's funny to think there was ever a version of utilities included in my mind that didn't have it!

which part of utilities included did i enjoy creating the most?

chapter 10 is my favorite chapter overall, but the pool scene at the end of chapter 3 is really special to me. it's the first time sanji realizes these people are thinking of him as a friend, and it's also the strawhats (and friends) being petty criminals in a modern AU. honestly, any of the group scenes (with 4+ characters) i had a blast writing. i love the chaos and the silliness and also being able to push myself to make every character sound distinct from one another on the page. but the pool scene is just extra special for me.

while writing sanji POV, did i think of what zoro's POV would be each scene?

generally speaking: no. when i first started writing fanfiction, i had this compulsion to cram every detail i had thought about into my exposition instead of letting the details come up naturally through conversation or character observation. there are different ways you can get out of this trap as a writer (or lean into it, if you want to), but for me the most effective method was the most simple: if you don't need it, just don't think about it! so unless zoro's state of mind was directly contributing to the plot (because of what he was saying or how he was acting), i simply did not think about it. i like to think that gives sanji's spiraling thoughts some degree of authenticity because while sanji was thinking "how does zoro feel about this?" i was also thinking "hm. i wonder how zoro feels about all this." well. to an extent. i knew that zoro was going to be into sanji from the first moment they met (he likes blades. sanji threw a blade. simple.) and i knew that their first kiss was going to be zoro's "little garden" moment where he'd suddenly go from neutrally annoying sanji to actively stoking the fires of sanji's competitive spirit (and sexuality). and i knew that when the "define the relationship" conversation inevitably came to pass, zoro was going to be just as Not Bothered about it as sanji was Bothered. that's it, that's all i planned for zoro's perspective (with the obvious exception of the epilogue). i'm a big fan of working smarter, not harder with this stuff ☺️

what did sanji first smell like to zoro?

i kind of touch on this in the epilogue, but i'll expand a bit here. for sanji's pheromones, i wanted them to reflect the duality of his canon personality: both harsh and kind. so i wrote his pheromones as being both sweet and a little burnt. when i was thinking of how pheromones "work" i was loosely using the formula of "imagine you smelled a subtle scent ONCE, then ten years later your brain had to recreate that scent from memory." so zoro's brain does something like sweet + burned = caramel / sake, another character's brain might do something like sweet + burned = tobacco. it's less about a 1:1 scent and more about what their brain associates with that scent, if that makes sense? and if it doesn't make sense, you can see why i enjoyed writing a 100k story from the POV of the one character who can't understand this crap ☺️ as for their first impressions: when zoro first walked into the apartment, sanji had been contently cooking, so the room was probably very sweet at first. then there was a sudden, sharp burst of that burnt smell when sanji's anxiety kicked in.

was zoro into sanji from their first meeting? did he have an "oh" moment?

i wouldn't call it love at first death threat, but zoro was definitely interested in sanji from their first meeting. nothing like a little adrenaline to jumpstart zoro's attraction. i don't think zoro had an "oh" moment in the traditional sense, just because i think he goes with the flow so well that he's less likely to get bowled over by a sudden surge of feeling? if that makes sense? i think he'd be much more like "damn, i was right all along" than "oh" but that's just my take on him 🙃 as for when he fell in love, i personally like to think it was watching sanji's ddr match against koby. but i'm open to all other interpretations too ☺️

how did zoro feel seeing sanji cuddling with his friends for the first time in chapter three?

this is an interesting question. i didn't really think about it much while writing the scene, but i think zoro would probably not have lingered on the moment very much. i think, to him, it's obvious that sanji would be integrated into (and loved by) the people closest to zoro. if sanji was the sort of person zoro's friends wouldn't love, zoro would never have pursued anything more with him to begin with, and they would have just stayed contentious roommates forever. but zoro knew from early on how much his friends liked sanji, so seeing them all cuddled up together like that was probably just confirming what he already assumed.

we know what happened to sanji, but what happened this siblings?

i haven't thought too much about this because, again, i don't think sanji thinks too much about what happened to them. he was isolated from his siblings as a child—at first for judge's fear that whatever was wrong with him might be communicable, then later as a sort of carrot-and-stick measure (if sanji got better, he could play with his siblings; as long as he didn't get better, they were allowed to bully him). if i had dug into the vinsmoke siblings more, i'd probably have characterized them as people still adhering to the same reductive beliefs judge tried to instill in sanji early in life. they wouldn't have been exposed to the same medical trauma, but they would have been fed a lot of misinformation about alpha dominance and what it means to be the "right kind" of alpha in this society.

are there any canon side ships in utilities included's universe? are luffy and law an item?

i think the only confirmed ships besides sanji & zoro are robin/franky, nami/vivi, and usopp/kaya. luffy and law definitely have something going on, but what that something is is never confirmed. i'm happy to leave everything about them open to interpretation!

[baileys-3]

Yesterday I finished chapter 16 and I'm really happy with how the story has progressed so far. Can you say that about your own story? I always try to stick to what the series dictates. Some things can be discussed. I also read a lot of nice scene summaries here. Those really help. And then I have my own thoughts.

Simple example of what I mean exactly: In 5x12 Lucy is clearly checking out Tim's upper body. I think that implies to some people that this is the first time she's seen him shirtless. But I don't believe that.

Why? On the one hand, there is the scene in which Lucy wires Tim. She also checks his upper body and has definitely seen him without a T-shirt, or rather with his T-shirt pulled up. And then I don't think they've been dating for weeks, he's changing jobs for her and she's never seen him shirtless. Nobody can tell me that they haven't made out by then. I think she generally likes checking him out. Who can blame her? And so in my story he definitely appears to be a shirtless Tim. Why this example comes to mind. Well, because that was simply a topic in the chapter I wrote yesterday :)

_____________

But enough chatting now. Now for the sneak peak. This time from Chapter 12:

In the meantime, Tim is called to a few locations as supervisor, but never to one where Lucy is. Their lunch times don't coincide this time, so they don't see each other at the food trucks either. But that doesn't stop Tim from exchanging several messages with Lucy during lunch with Aaron. Which earns him one or more sideways glances from Aaron. Not that Aaron knows who he's texting with, but he can see that he's not just checking his results and statistics app. Because he types too much for that. At least Aaron knows when to keep quiet and doesn't ask any more questions.

The afternoon is pretty uneventful. Lucy is called out on several small calls, but these consist more of assistance than actual police work. Although assistance is also an important part of police work. And it's also one of the parts that she always particularly enjoys. But the afternoon is simply quiet. She texts Tim when she gets back to the station.

Lucy: Go and have a shower and then drive home. Is there still a chance of meeting you somewhere?

His reply comes almost immediately.

Tim: Just got back to the station. I've got some paperwork to do. Write to me when you're done. We can meet in the car park by your car.

Half an hour later she arrives at the car park, freshly showered, and sees Tim, still in uniform, leaning against her car. He pulls her round the corner and behind a small ledge that she didn't even know existed until now. And then he pushes her against the wall and kisses her until she gets dizzy. Tim seems to have some kind of weakness for pushing her against walls. Which suits her. Because she clearly has a weakness for being pushed against walls by Tim. They don't have much time because, after all, they are in the LAPD underground car park and someone could always come along, even if they are a bit hidden. And so, the few minutes they have consist of making out and whispering snippets of conversation so that nobody hears them if someone does come. And Lucy gets a little adrenaline rush from this secret meeting and realizes for the first time what it means to date in secret. And somehow it turns her on that this relationship thing is a secret between the two of them. Something that only belongs to the two of them.

[nottoxicfr]

Pfffff! I Didn't double check what I wrote. I meant to ask "What are your Rosegarden Headcannons?"

What are my Rosegarden head canons? Hmmmm…that’s a pretty good question. I’ve never made a list to be honest. My brain is more like a highway where my neurons activate when I think of the pairing. I'll try and cover what seems to be the foundational stuff first, then maybe get more specific?

Who falls in love first?

Oscar falls in love first, but he doesn't fall in love immediately. He get a crush on her fairly quickly but actual love only starts during the time when Oz is hiding in Oscar's mind. He has more time to think about stuff that isn't an impending death of identity, and he naturally thinks about why he likes Ruby. He has the realization of love in Salem's dungeon, which is a depressing time to realize you love someone. I like that timeframe of events because it makes Emerald interrupting the Rosegarden hug funnier and a little sadder, which I like. He just realized he loves a girl and he can’t even get a hug! Maybe he could confess to her later, but then she dies…(kind of). He's entirely devastated and barely recovers.

Ruby falls in love with Oscar second, but it’s falling. There’s not a slow descent from affection to crush to romantic love. That wouldn’t happen until after V9, though there is a certain lovely feeling to Ruby being in love with Oscar but prior to V9 just feeling like she can’t be in love the world is ending and I need to save it so I can’t be in love. I respect anyone who head canons that. For mine, I think the first big indication is writing a recurring thread of Ruby missing Oscar in the Ever After.

“Oscar would know what to do. Oscar would know what to say. Oscar would think this is weird.”

It’s incredibly important that the thoughts don’t indicate that she thinks Oscar is better than her (a perilous trap for RWBY writers of all pairings) but that she thinks he would be able to take the lead while she is free to fall apart. She wants someone else to be there and she trusts Oscar to be that person.

NSFW Questions? Y'know, like sex.

I don't really think about them having sex. Partly that's because that seems like a good policy to prevent mean behavior on my posts (I assume you've seen anti-RG rationale) but also my mind just doesn't really go that direction. It's not quite to the point of Aesexual! RoseGarden, although I enjoy that too. Most of the time that I write big consummation of romance scenes, it ends up being more about kissing or they essentially propose to each other and swap necklaces or something. Rings are a hassles! This is influenced by FFXIII...

I do think they’re the type of people to adopt and co-parent a kid while living together, but not be in a confirmed romantic relationship. They’d sleep in the same room with two beds next to each other. Eventually they’d confirm that relationship and switch to one bed, but the important thing is starting off with two beds in one room because they are not dating. I think it is 1) Funny and 2) Filled with the comfortable tension of co-habitation. It’s very Advent Children.

I’ve written them with a kid twice (unpublished), both times adopted and both times it was a Grimm that had evolved to the point of essentially being a human. Once was post-series and the other was a thing where a Grimm ate part of Ozcar’s magic and got turned into a kid between V6 and V8. I’m very fond of the second because it’s incredibly silly to me to do that at that specific time. I need to talk about that sometime.

Who is taller? That comes up a lot, right?

Oscar is taller than Ruby, but it’s close enough that it really depends on who laid down the most recently. A height difference of maybe three inches? Something that’s easy to catch up to for Ruby by wearing tall shoes and standing up straighter. I like negligible height differences.

What’s another thing people are always talking about? I don't get involved in discussion a lot...

Food?

Oscar likes coffee, but Ruby enjoys fruit smoothies. Oscar has a weakness for sour (not bitter) desserts like lemon tarts or lime sorbet, but not much of a sweet tooth. Their main point of agreement is orange cookies.

Is there any song I associate with RoseGarden?

Steven Universe's True Kinda Love, specifically the end part where Steven (Universe) is climbing up the big Injector-Thing to reach Spinel. Oscar is hardly Steven, and Ruby's no Spinel, but during V9's Peak Ruby Breakdown Time I liked to imagine Oscar climbing the Tree to reach Ruby.

Also Simple and Clean from Kingdom Hearts 0.2.

Also also Lightning's Theme from Final Fantasy XIII. It has a lot of sentimental meaning to me, but it plays under dialogue about growing up in the wake of grief. I strongly associate that with time-skipped Oscar.

Who supports the pairing the most?

Emerald and Blake/Yang are the biggest supporters of the pairing for Oscar and Ruby respectively.

I think we've discussed Emerald and Oscar as a duo before, but I'll say again that my long term hope is that Emerald and Oscar become close pals. I like to write angst and the EO duo, so I write Emerald as being aware of Oscar's plentiful sadness and also his determination to live.

On the other hand, I think Blake likes Rosegarden because she's a suppressed romantic and also because she thinks they're a good couple conceptually. She wants them to get their happy ending!

Yang supports the couple mostly because she wants Ruby to be with someone who has open arms, meaning Oscar doesn't hesitate to give Ruby his time or affection. He's also very good at detecting when she needs his attention/affection/time (mostly because he asks).

My ideal HC ending?

Oscar decides to go on a road trip at the end of the series and Ruby goes with him. His idea stems from the feeling that Oz was very familiar with Remnant’s past, but Oz has passed on now. Both Ozma and Oscar loved the world, but Ozma is gone now. There’s only one person of their duo to live in the world they love, and Oscar wants to see Remnant as it is now, and he wants to live to see the future. He wants to live!

Ruby goes with him for several reasons. She wants to see Remnant. She wants to be a hero. She doesn’t want to be the hero. She thinks she can probably do that on a smaller scale and still help the world. She thinks Oscar's likely to disappear from her world if she lets him slip away.

Together, they also share a formidable feeling that they’ve completed the major plot of their lives. They feel lost without a major goal in their world, and everyone else they know is settling into their lives in their new roles, so Ruby and Oscar bond together to take care of each other. In the short term, Ruby’s goal is to keep Oscar alive. Oscar’s goal is to teach Ruby how to drive.

In the long term, I like to imagine Ruby as a courier with a bike that she can use to zoom across continent and Oscar as…something? His day job would be like an innkeeper or a librarian, a job which stays in one place. He takes the calls for the Rose Courier Service. However, people also call for him a lot. They need help or advice or wisdom, so he isn't actually all that stationary. They both have adventure, but they also both have a place to return to.

I really like angst and AUs so I have a lot of head canons about that stuff. I tried to limit the above to what seemed most relevant. Below, I'll will do some more AU-esque head canons.

Favorite Time-Skip head canon?

I have a recurring image of Oscar walking in the desert walking past scenes of Oz's life and then being confronted by the "ghost" of Ruby standing in front of him. Sometimes he stops and sometimes he keeps moving, but it always does something.

Emerald is Oscar's most frequent friend during the time-skip, and she's the only one who knows the depth of Oscar's feelings for Ruby. After Ruby comes back, Emerald pushes Oscar into hugging her at some point.

Ruby is strongly caught off guard by Oscar running around trying to keep everyone coordinated, or by how well he's doing. For the entirety of the time-skip, they've been trying to prepare for Salem trying to destroy Vacuo. Ruby thinks Oscar takes to leadership strongly, but he is not doing very well.

One person Oscar never talks to about Ruby or his feelings is Qrow. Things go from peaceful to bitter and back again really quickly between them, and Oscar is certain being in love with one of his dead nieces wouldn't help. Qrow would just be sad about it though.

Oz is quiet more often now. There's a space between them, but Oscar is more dedicated to protecting the world than ever before so he thinks that's part of the reason. The actual reason is that Oz wants Oscar to live on his own while he can be Oscar. They're very fused together still.

If any of this interests you, please ask away! I have a lot more timeskip stuff to talk about.

Is there a head canon prompt I enjoy?

I really like writing the faux Dojo Scene 2. The Dojo Scene being Oscar asking Ruby how she deals with everything (you already know this). The Dojo Scene 2 is the much anticipated reversal, but I like writing it where Oscar dodges her questions. He's not sure how to feel around a resurrected Ruby Rose, much less answer her questions about how he is handling everything.

Favorite AUs (I just wanted to list this one)

My personal favorite is the FFXIII AU I have where Oscar is a l'Cie (meaning someone given a mission by a god to complete or turn into a monster, given access to magic and such) and Ruby (a third year at Signal) has to escort him across Remnant to awaken sleeping gods. I intend to publish this one on AO3 later on! Generally though, I really like Time Travel AUs, with Lost Parallax being a favorite of mine.

I'm very passionate about fanfiction, and that makes me a bit of an airhead when I talk about this. I'm also kind of bad at answering questions. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I hope you feel free to ask anything ever. I love answering!!

I also submitted an ask to Chaikachi about headcanon reactions to scars, but I was so nervous about it that I made it anonymous. If you see it, that's me!

[fiadorable]

Director’s cut for an ending unforeseen, please. Or breakfast and a show. Or both. 🙏❤️

Both. The answer is always both @curator-on-ao3

Ok, so I'd been looking for an excuse to write an ending unforseen pretty much since the pilot for strange new worlds aired. I couldn't believe the similarities between Pike and Kiley 279 and Janeway and the Caretaker. As strange new worlds progressed, I became more firm in my convictions. Two explorers, separated by over a hundred years and tens of thousands of light years, each with an incredibly tuned sense of justice and tragic proclivity for self flagellation (and clinical depression imo)... what more could I want??

Answer: time travel. The thing these two boneheaded captains love the most. I really needed Janeway to have that moment with Pike when he tells her she's doing a great job because she had so little opportunity for that external validation, and then for Janeway to also give Pike some of her relentless hope as he's preparing to go back to what he feels is his final hour. And the ending. Ugh. I made myself emotional with it. I feel like it's a hair too saccharine, but I dragged that poor man out of a catastrophic accident, dumped him on Voyager, and then had to have them send him back so like he deserves to know his sacrifice was not in vain?? That people respect him and honor his commitment to returning knowing what he's going back to, to have some of his compassion reflected back at him. God, the feelings.

I was a little nervous writing this fic for two reasons. 1) It had been eight years since I'd written Janeway and I was feeling a bit creaky in the characterization department and 2) I was dumping a lot of backstory into the summary so I could get on with the actual important part of the story which was not how or why the time travel worked. Neither of which were actually an issue, of course, everyone was quite lovely about everything. Even the way Janeway pulls Pike aside at the end for a private question just like she does to Chakotay in Shattered which I didn't realize I'd done until after I published OH WELL y'all are nice to not mock me relentlessly for that.

And then breakfast and a show was SO FUN to write, I genuinely enjoyed every second of it, which is, uh, rare lol. Since the show did a musical episode, it felt right to do a Pikeuna piece with Una and Pike. It was fun to use Pike's POV to describe the patter song and think she's perfect and gorgeous and The Best even if she's not much of a dancer. And I wanted them to feel a little "lived in" so I threw in the classic "quiet spouse scares the shit out of the focused spouse" gag.

Una is singing a Sondheim patter song (a fairy dies every time a Trek character mentions Gilbert and Sullivan and entire multiverses collapse when a Trek person sings Gilbert and Sullivan). They get into a mini food fight after Chris starts "helping" her finish up, but it ends with Una clearing the kitchen island with a single sweep of her arm and lifting Chris onto it to finish him off instead.

I find drabbles quite liberating in their constraints. The challenge to create a perfect soap bubble scene where the reader knows there's story that comes before and story that continues after, but this here is the most important, distilled part is just... chef's kiss.

send me an ask for more behind the scenes info on my fics

[dreaming-marchling]

Director's cut around anything in The Warlock's Cat? I absolutely adore the story.

The Warlock's Cat Tidbits :)

Also, hopefully cats weren’t deathly allergic to romaine lettuce, carrots and what tasted like balsamic vinaigrette. All Alec knew was that cats hunted mice, what their diets were like after that was a mystery. Nobody could actually be allergic to a carrot, right?

Just in case anyone out there is unclear, cats totally can't survive on a vegan diet, they have to have meat. So nice try with this salad, Alec, but this did absolutely nothing for you lol

---

He braced himself, flexed his claws but didn’t attack. He didn’t want to attack. Alec was just resting up, he’d get out of here as soon as he could but he had no way of communicating that so the cat probably…

It licked him.

Aside from the kindness from Chairman here, cats groom each other to bond but often the groomer is asserting dominance over the groomee. So in cat speak, Chairman is also saying "this is my house but I like you" while he grooms Alec. Further enforcing Magnus' thought later that Chairman and Alec are friends and that Chairman is the alpha in the friendship lol (and that they're both aware and okay with that)

---

To his great surprise, she turned to him and nodded her head as well, “I am the Sirin. It is a pleasure to meet you as well.”

The initial outline didn't have the Sirin. I just wanted some various Downworlders to show Alec how similar their people were and that Magnus was nothing like what Maryse had said. I decided it'd be fun to have a non-humanoid being come to Magnus so I started researching. When I discovered the Sirin from Russian folklore I fell in love and had to include her.

This is a picture of her and her counterpart Alkonost (the Sirin is on the left)

[By Viktor Vasnetsov, Birds of Joy and Sorrow (1896)]

This is my favorite artwork of them but there are many other great ones (plus plenty that stick a pair of featherless tits in the center of their bird chests, if that does anything for you lol).

---

The spell carried Alec all the way to his bed in Magnus’ bedroom where there was some green stuff – oregano? – scattered around. Alec didn’t stick around to figure it out, he just rushed back out to the living room but Magnus was gone.

I've said before that I was heartily tempted to include an "Alec on catnip" scene but didn't because the technically un-aware and un-consenting drug use on Alec's part would change the overall lighthearted tone of the story too much but please know that after the story eventually Magnus manages to convince Alec to give the catnip a try and he gets some potent zoomies and really enjoys himself rolling around on the floor over and over again lol. He likes it better than alcohol.

---

Once more, the conga line departed the loft via portal.

Listen, if I was rich and could pay the cast to act out scenes from my stories, I'd obviously totally pick the really major romantic moments or big revelation moments or hurt/comfort moments, like I've got a list I could choose from happily. This one though... I would be genuinely tempted even though it's not major in any way. It's so dumb at a certain point, like it forever cracks me up. I was cackling writing this. I don't really do funny confidently but like, I was genuinely laughing at how ridiculous this had gotten.

---

Under no circumstance was he telling them about the litter box situation. If they loved him they wouldn’t even ask.

This occurred to Izzy and Jace both but they do love him so they didn't ask.

---

He was small. He was furry.

He was a cat.

Again.

Shit.

Originally the story was meant to end with Alec going to talk to Magnus and them realizing they're in wuv and kissing. I was having too much fun though so I added the whole cat shifter thing.

---

“The next person who finds you and thinks you’re a stray might be a more modern and responsible cat owner.” Cat said, glancing at Magnus before she turned and smirked at Alec, “I was encouraging Magnus to neuter you. Sorry about that.”

After the story ends, Magnus casts a few spells on Alec to ensure that any catting doesn't get him in a bad situation like a tracking spell and, discretely and importantly, a notice-me-not spell on his balls. I didn't know how to weave that in but like, it's important lmao.

---

“Sorry if this is rude but is your cat a cat?” Alec asked in one rush.

I added this shortly before posting because readers had been commenting about Chairman's perceptiveness. Give me a hint of an excuse to talk about Chairman Meow the familiar or the old forest god or literally all the many headcanons and thoughts I have about this cat, seriously. Any excuse.

---

Then came something glowing red. Alec picked it up gingerly and was surprised to read Kīlauea Lava from January 22, 1884 Eruption.

This is a real eruption of a real volcano. I researched this. Why? Are any of you vulcanologists? I don't know why I was so intent on accuracy here but good opportunity to tell people now: this is a real volcano eruption.

---

Magnus laughed, “Shall you tell your mother or would you like the High Warlock to do so?”

Maryse listens to the explanation of this and literally stares at them silently for like a full minute before turning and walking away. It's like long after Valentine that Maryse again acknowledges that her son is a cat shifter.

Thank you for asking!!

[andvys]

ANDYYYYYYY QUEEEEEEN

I've been busy with my own bullshit and I didn't even realized you posted part 7 of Everlong. I'm ashamed of myself cause this story lives rent free in my mind cause is SOOOOO FUCKING GOOD

Ok first of all, we love a girlboss who threatens to shoot at people that hurt her bf. Favorite trope of badass girlie that can fuck you up if you disrespect her man but also is such a sweetheart. I can't tell you how excited I was to see her defending him, honestly goals.

Then we have bitchboi Steve... ok, so I do feel kinda bad for him, he's got some problems he should work through, and the whole thing with his parents and probably everyone in the ST universe has added ptsd but I FUCKING LOVE THE ANGST OF MAKING HIM SUFFER, does that make me a bad person? Maybeeeee, but I enjoy it. Bitchboi Steve how are you going to come here and tell her that you can change just cause you haven't had sex since you CALLED her a slut? Oh wow, what a big change.

I can't tell you how much I loved that scene of Steve opening his heart to Reader and her being like "I don't forgive you" cause you the way you write it we can see her mind going from "I'll always love Steve, he's been my bestie for so long" to like "He fucked me up real bad". To me, in this case, it feels like a bigger betrayal and heartbreak from the fact that they've been friends and lovers (emotionally only I'm assuming, unless there's somewhere that says they slept together before and I missed it) than someone who just broke your heart.

Anyways Andy I know this ask is going long so all I want to say as always is that I love your writing, your angst makes me cry and it's the best. Love you queen ❤️

IM SO HAPPY YOU LIKED IT SO MUCH!!!

I loved writing that little action scene haha! Sunshine characters that turn into scary badass bitches are my faves 😌

I’m glad you like the part with Steve! He definitely has a lot of trauma and he needs to work through a lot of things. He had the worst coping mechanism ever and losing her actually made him realize some things!

They have definitely been emotional lovers! Aside from the kiss, nothing happened! Steve got his heart broken twice, not only did he lose her as “his girl” he also lost her as a friend! She’s gonna suffer too though, losing a best friend is the worst 🥲

I’m so glad that you love my writing so much! Thank you, love ❤️

[regenderate]

for the fic asks - any or all of 3, 7, 10, 45?

kissing you on the mouth for sending this anon (sorry. that comes on strong. i am giving you a respectful and firm handshake)

(asks are here by the way)

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

OOH i think about this fairly often! i think you can see a lot of what i'm interested in through my fics. i definitely tend to go for fluff, i love disabling my characters, i like quietly complicated emotions, i like touch... oh you know what? my characters are in doctors' offices/med bays all the time. it's actually really annoying i always want them to have medical tests or whatever and then i have to write ANOTHER med bay scene 🙄 oh also at this point mitski i will should probably be considered a trope.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

OOH well first of all turning the bad wolf thing into a disability at all i think is like. really fun in that regard, like... i enjoy taking a common bit of fanon and going "okay but surely this wouldn't just be fun time powers right." and like i've said before it's really good because it gives space for both projection and wish fulfillment

i also like. haven't gotten to put a lot of penny's backstory into tattoo au (when i run away (you're who i run to) is the official title i just only ever call it tattoo au) yet because it's not like she would volunteer the information, and it's not like donna would say anything either but adapting the doctor's backstory for a human is something i really enjoyed. it's a really intense backstory but like so is the doctor's! basically she was adopted by a medical researcher who found out that she had a gene mutation that gave her increased immunity to various diseases (i'm like 80% sure this is a real thing but please don't fact check me thank you <3) and used that as a reason to like. exploit her to research the gene mutation etc-- all that is an adaptation of the timeless child. her chronic illness is because over the course of this experimentation she contracted a virus she wasn't immune to and it was just her luck that it happened to give her chronic fatigue-- this is an attempt at adapting the way regeneration goes wrong for the doctor, i realized i headcanon them as having trouble with regeneration because of all that trauma/experimentation.

also she's trans which is mostly separate from all that except her past experiences have informed her physical transition and it's meaningful to her to be able to make changes to her body that are completely under her control and explicitly positive (but she will not inject hrt, she has to do pills and/or gel, and she is an absolute terror every time she has to do a blood test). and getting tattooed is similar for her, it's like... a positive change that's under her control. she got to donna by running away from her adoptive mum when she was like sixteen and winding up in london trying to do a-levels at donna's school, and donna befriended her. she didn't have the name penny yet and she was sixteen and a bit of a dork so she went by "the doctor," penny comes from going over to donna's and having donna's mum go "it's the bad penny again!" because she's like. always there (because she kind of doesn't have anywhere else) and wilf turns it into an inside joke and starts calling her penny affectionately and then she's like. yeah okay sure. that'll be my name. ALSO donna is the one who introduced her to judaism, she wasn't raised with much religion but as she became part of donna's family etc she started to enjoy/appreciate judaism more and more and eventually converted. which is meaningful to her both because the religion itself resonates but also because it connects her to the people she actually considers family. (her last name is also noble, legally.) the funny thing about this au was realizing that literally all my characters except donna had run away from their families in some capacity as a teenager but like what do you expect from doctor who

also she has finley L word hair. as is the natural way of things. (but s1-2 hair when finley's still blond)

SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT I'VE BEEN RESISTING DUMPING ALL OF THIS ON THE PUBLIC FOR MONTHS NOW IS THE THING.

10. How do you decide what to write?

OUGH I ROTATE THINGS IN MY MIND AND THEN THEY'RE ON THE PAGE. sometimes there's a prompt challenge or exchange or something but mostly i have really unhinged conversations with my friends and by the end of it i have a new wip. or i just start thinking a little too hard about a character or dynamic or whatever. but pretty much anything i write is just like. something i'm feeling things about in the moment.

45. What’s something you’ve improved on since you started writing fic?

ooh i'm so much more detailed now! a lot of my fics used to read as like. almost as scripts? like mostly dialogue, not a lot of description. which makes sense, i come from the theater, but like. it's not the vibe i want! i've gotten better at pushing myself to imagine the little nuances of a scene, like the body language/expressions and stuff, and i've gotten better at describing emotional experiences too. i feel like in general i've just matured a lot as a person too and with that has come added depth and perspective to my fics. like i started posting to ao3 when i was fourteen and now i'm 23. and i think it's really interesting to look at my old fics and see how i've grown since i wrote them!

[wastefulreverie]

every one one of my characters i write is aroace coded btw because figuring out how straight people think is fucking beyond me

[cherrykindness]

let's make babies |

pairing: Harry Styles x Actress!Reader

summary: you and harry are doing a live on instagram, you've drunk a lot of wine and now the world knows that the future Mrs. Styles is ready to make babies.

warnings: mostly cute, but the title tells you what you need to know 🤪

"What is your favorite song from the Fine Line album?" Y/N read aloud, twirling in her right hand the second glass of wine of the evening, the one already halfway through. "Adore You and Watermelon Sugar, of course."

Harry giggled, rolling his eyes upon hearing his fiancée's statement.

"Y/N will always choose Adore You because it was obviously written for her." He accused. "She wouldn't give that answer under different circumstances."

The comments climbed up the screen continuously, most fans gushing about how cute Harry Styles and YN/LN could be while the other part was concerned with wringing even more information out of the slightly inebriated couple who had decided to do a surprise live one early Sunday morning.

As expected after being away for some time to begin filming Don't Worry, Darling in Southern California, Harry enjoyed a lazy weekend in the house he shared with his fiancée and her pets. The days were filled with late naps and relentless Netflix marathons, sublime and ethereal evenings, marked mostly by unexpected declarations and rounds of sex that used to last until the beams of light were shyly coming through the linen curtains. They were not a monotonous couple, so this order could easily be changed.

"Watermelon Sugar is nothing more than about my love for watermelons, don't get too creative." Harry replied to a fan while sporting a corner smile, the message standing out among the rest for its dozens of emojis and large print, questioning the singer about erotic content behind the lyrics of his latest hit. "I really don't know what you guys are talking about."

Y/N laughed, shaking her head before leaning it against her fiancé's chest, propped up on the soft white pillows that were spread practically all over the bed. The air conditioner was on at a minimal temperature and a light rain whipped on the panes of glass camouflaged by the cream-colored curtain, that being the projection of Y/N's favorite nights.

"You can tell them, I'm not shy." She joked, nudging her fiancé's waist.

"You know what it was written about and who it was written for." Harry replied, raising one of his eyebrows. "That's what matters."

It went without saying that much of Harry's newest album, as well as some of his earlier work, had been done in exclusive dedication to his future wife. Y/N had been the muse for a vast repertoire of romantic songs, and even though the singer preferred to keep the story behind his more explicit compositions a "secret", the relationship the two had shared for more than three years was already solid and known enough for the media and fans to distinguish hidden messages in small details.

"It's a song about what usually comes before the act of making babies." Y/N laughed as he pointed at the display. "Honestly, you guys are impossible."

"No, we make babies every day." Harry joked, making a funny motion with his eyebrows. "I would spend my entire career writing just about that."

"Harry!" The actress exclaimed incredulously, slapping her fiancé weakly on the chest. "Children might be watching this."

"You don't want to have babies with me?" He asked falsely offended, accepting the cup that Y/N offered him. "Because I want some babies with you."

Y/N laughed, rolling her eyes as she watched the internet freak out at the dialogue that had suddenly emerged. Since the beginning of the quarantine, it was kind of inevitable that the couple of artists would not become the darlings of all social media; they were fervently active with photos, videos, and lives that depicted step by step daily life in isolation, gaining more and more followers and making the media more and more fascinated by the relationship they both shared.

The wedding was scheduled for the summer of next year and it was perhaps the most anticipated event in the tabloids. Bets about what the model of Y/N's dress would be and lists presuming who would be selected for the short list of guests stood out among countless news stories about the famous people influencing pop culture today.

The possible arrival of a Styles baby was an inevitable topic in interviews. Harry and Niall were the only members of the ex-boyband that had not become fathers yet, and because they had maintained a solid relationship and were seen as one of the most enviable couples during the last four years, Y/N and Harry had gotten used to all this openly asked questions. They didn't mind, they even had fun with the montages and all the anxiety that dominated the whole internet, often mentioning the fandoms' efforts to represent them as such "cool" parents in perfectly edited pictures.

"No, guys, I'm not pregnant." Y/N amusingly clarified the doubt of dozens of new comments. "Please don't believe so many controversial news stories that appear out there. I was on twitter last week and saw several people theorizing about a possible pregnancy, most of the arguments based on a website that used photos from the set of How to Get Away with Murder in the season where I was actually playing a pregnant woman as Laurel." She laughed. "It's so funny! I know you guys love to guess these things, but we won't hide something so special when it actually happen, I promise."

"Especially because Y/N can hide absolutely nothing from anyone." Harry accused, leaving his drink on the corner table before settling into a comfortable position for the two of them. "Anyone who's a Marvel fan knows that. That's one of her most characteristic quirks."

"They gave me a fake script for the last two movies." Y/N agreed, shaking his head. "For me and Tom."

"We agreed to keep the engagement a secret for a while. The plan was to travel to Holmes Chapel to break the news to my family in person, but guess who got a call at ten o'clock at night from an angry Anne because she learned of her son's engagement from an interview Y/N gave the next day?"

Y/N gave a guilty smile, winking gracefully at the camera. "It was all James' fault! I'm sure he already suspected something, those questions were very suspicious."

"Of course the questions were suspicious, babe. You literally said you had a secret that involved both of us but that you couldn't tell because it was important that our families knew first."

"I thought he would think about a pregnancy or something!" The actress defended herself, feeling very convincing in her intonation bordering on obviousness. "That's a mania I can't get rid of, it's in my genes."

"Did you all hear that? Further proof that you guys don't have to worry about guessing when Y/N's pregnancy will be, I'm sure our baby will make sure to tell you everything while still in the womb, mom's genes will make sure of that."

"You are so funny, Harry Styles." Y/N sarcastically stated, holding back a giggle as countless messages with laughing emojis were frantically up. "Yeah, I know I talk a lot and all, but you have annoying quirks too."

It was obvious that live would be news the next day. Although they were completely open about matters concerning their relationship, nothing seemed better than receiving so much exclusive information from a Harry and S/N drunk on expensive wine.

"You wake up in a bad mood and you're dangerously sexy, that should be illegal."

Harry laughed, holding his fiancée's waist a little tighter as he felt her tumble a little further to the side, getting closer and closer to the edge of the bed. Y/N was dangerously weak for drinks, and the singer knew that the actress' body was already near its limit.

"You're the only sexy person here, love." He declared with a corner smile, evidently finding the whole situation funny. "Do you want to go to sleep now?"

"No." Y/N shook her head. "Can we watch some movie? Can we watch Sweet Home?"

"Of course, love." He murmured, giving the woman a quick kiss on the forehead.

Even though Harry knew that his fiancée was unlikely to make it past the five-minute mark of the episode, he made sure to restart the korean series at exactly the scene where she had stopped, the first chapter still halfway through after Y/N realized that it would be impossible to watch such a macabre work without a drop of alcohol in her blood.

She had been so excited by the taste of Argentinian wine and the idea of updating her fans after a few weeks away, that she had forgotten the main purpose of the live. Harry and Y/N had been apart for a few days due to the new movie the Brit was shooting in North America, all happening in an unrestrictedly careful manner due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic.

He was slowly migrating towards acting and the future Mrs. Styles couldn't be prouder. Y/N had felt on cloud nine when Harry had given her the news of his upcoming job, but her only pronouncement on the subject had been a succinct post on instagram. Just a photo of the couple on a trip to Germany with a simple heart emoji didn't seem enough for the actress' exhibitionist soul, and coming to that conclusion was the main reason she decided to invite him, already relatively changed, for a live appearance. Y/N wanted to go on and on about how much she loved that man and work on that whole honeyed speech that would bring her (once again) the title of "cutest bride of all time," but of course Harry had to come home from his trip with his favorite red wine and poison her with those sweet caresses that took her out of orbit, turning the degree of alcohol content into the least of her problems.

"You're going to kiss Florence." Y/N exclaimed suddenly, as if only now realizing that her fiancé would share the screen with Florence Pugh, one of her closest friends in that industry. "Kiss on the mouth."

The MacBook was still open and hundreds of new comments were going up every second, but Harry didn't bother one bit to warn her about the possibility of her becoming a meme the next day. He was having too much fun with the situation to worry.

"Are you jealous?"

"Yes." She stated with a pout. "I am jealous, I just don't know if I'm more jealous of her or of you."

"But you kiss me every day, babe." Harry laughed. "And you've been kissing other people's men for almost ten years." He joked.

"But I only think about you, I already told you that."

Harry shook his head negatively at the camera, knowing he was sharing with the fans the funniest side of his fiancée.

"I know that, honey." He assured, lightly stroking the actress' back. "I think we'd better turn off the TV and go to sleep now, I'm sure you'll have a terrible headache tomorrow."

The brit planned to bid his audience goodbye and put an end to that recording, but Y/N was drunk and her sense of right and wrong had already gone to space. Harry should have been quicker, however, because his fiancée's speech would be cause for new tags and the only subject for the interviewers for at least the next few months.

"I don't want to sleep, how about we make babies?"

That's what Watermelon Sugar was all about, after all.

[rayslittlekitten]

You Got This - Part 2

I recommend reading Part 1 first if you haven't.

Plot: After having a heart to heart, you and Jax re-live your youth.

Pairing: Jax Teller x F! Reader

Contains: a lot of fluff and fluffy sex, also a shit ton of Jax smoking porn, and you see his butt 🙃

A/N:  Thank you Anon for this request.  I hope you and the other readers enjoy this (if not more) than the first part. This took me longer than I expected to write this, but it's finally done.  I kept going back and forth on trying to decide what to include and what not to.  Also, had I known I was going to be writing a part two for this, the beginning of this would have been at the end of part one, but hindsight is 20/20. I actually did already write out most of the beginning but decided to leave it out of part one because I thought where I left it was a good place to end it. I also thought about eliminating it completely but I really like the interaction that happens with Gemma.  To me it's like a beauty shot. Is it necessary and does it move the story along at all? Not quite, but it looks good so let's just leave it in there anyways. Also to squeeze a little bit more angst out of Jax.

Also, I had a bit of trouble writing this as well because as strange as this sounds, I couldn't find the perfect song to pair with this.  Sometimes I need music to help me get into the mindset and mood.  I was going for like a nostalgic summer love kinda thing. I had actually thought to use a song form the mid-90s because to really make it feel nostalgic and Shanice's "Saving Forever For You" was the winner for that but I decided it was not right for this. Maybe their actual first time, yes.  Then it was a toss up between "Honey Whiskey" by Satica and "Take Me Away" by Sinead Harnett/EARTHGANG and the latter won given the situation. I'd recommend giving it a listen below (or any of the songs listed) to get the mood I was going for while writing the sex scene. I really thank you for reading my ramblings if you've gotten this far. I just want to give the readers the best experience to my stories and how it was intended when I wrote it.

A loud commotion outside interrupts the moment and you both realize you need to get dressed before someone finds the both of you.  He pulls out of you and you both quickly get yourselves together. You hop into the bathroom inside the bedroom to clean yourself up. When you walk out, you see Jax sitting on the bed smoking a cigarette with all his clothes and hair in place, like he had been sitting there this whole time and didn't move from his spot when you first walked in.  He glances over to you and you're reminded of how his handsome charming face is something you miss so much.

"I should probably go before someone starts looking for either of us." You walk out of the bathroom and towards the front door.  Jax grabs your hand and pulls you back to him.

"Hey." He stands up, cups your face and looks at you. "It's really good to see you again."

Suddenly you both hear the door knob rattling and then a knock following it.

"Jax, are you in there, honey?" You both hear Gemma on the other side of the door. 

You both separate and smooth yourselves out and Jax walks over to open the door. 

"Honey, what are you doing in here? Tara--" Gemma's facial expression shifts when she spots you. She looks at the both of you suspiciously. You both thought you were so slick when you were younger but if there was anyone who knew what you both were up to, it would be Gemma. Nothing slips past her. In fact, she’s always secretly hoped you two would get together. You were born into SAMCRO, making you MC royalty. The Princess of Charming.

"Oh, I didn't know you were in here too. I'm very sorry about Opie, sweetheart." 

"Thank you, Gemma." You walk closer to the door and Gemma pulls you in for a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Where's your fiancé?" Gemma asks curiously.

"Fiancé?" Jax glances over at you.

"I came by myself this time," you answer. "We're kind of on a break." You wrinkle your nose.

"I'm sorry to hear that too. Must be one hell of a break." Gemma's knowing eyes are boring a hole into you. "Lyla tells me you're staying a while?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna help her out with the kids for a week or so until she can figure it out.  I know you and the club will be a big help, but with everything going on, I think her and the kids can use another familiar face."

"Family is important and I'm very happy to see you here." Gemma's eyes shift to Jax with the same knowing look she gave you. "Well, whenever you're ready, Tara's looking for you."

"Thanks, mom." Jax runs his hand over the top of his hair. Gemma glances at you both again once more before she walks away.

You start making your way out the door when Jax pulls you back in.

"You're engaged?" Jax asks with wide eyes.

"Was," you reply. 

"Was it to that pretentious English prick you brought back with you last time?" Jax snarls.

"Ray is a good guy and he treats me really well. We're just going through a bit of a rough patch right now," you tell him. "Also, the last I heard, you're married with two children, Teller."

Jax just looks at you, knowing he has no right to be upset about you being with another man.

"And I believe your wife is looking for you," you say before walking away from him as you see your nephews and niece running up to you. "Hey guys!"

Jax takes a drag of his cigarette while he continues watching you as you kneel down to greet the kids.

A few days later...

The sun is beginning to set and Jax is at the clubhouse. Most of the people have already left. He needs some quiet and alone time after spending a few days earlier in the week not just watching his best friend get killed, but also saying goodbye and laying him to rest. He climbs up the ladder onto the roof of the clubhouse, one of his favorite places to think and reflect quietly while smoking.  What he didn't expect to find is someone else had beat him to the spot.

"I didn't know you were here," Jax says as he walks over and sits next to them. "You've been avoiding me like the plague all week."

"I miss watching the sunset," you reply without looking at him.

"The sun doesn't set where you are?" Jax asks as he lights up a joint.

"It's not the same."

Jax takes a long drag and then offers it to you. 

You look at it for a moment and form a small smile before taking it from him.  The roof was also a place you both frequented in your youth to smoke pot, away from your parents and the adults. Eventually they figured out your secret spot, but it didn't stop you guys from coming back. You take a pull and hand it back to him.

"I also miss this.  There is nothing like California-grown weed."

Jax takes a hit and blows out the smoke from the corner of his mouth.

"Do you ever miss me?" Jax looks over at you and passes the joint back to you.

You look over to him and squint an eye to prevent the sun from blinding you.

"Yeah, sometimes I do."

"Does your English weed taste like fucking tea and crumpets?" Jax jokes.

"Oh, I get the best shit there is over there. Trust me." You chuckle. "But... it's not home."

"So why don't you come home?" Jax looks back at you with the same squinty face.

You look at him for a moment deciding what you want to say. "You know, that's the reason why Ray and I put the engagement on hold. With everything happening here, I wanted to be closer to family. Figure my shit out." You take another drag and return the joint back to him.

"There's more than family that would love to see you back home too." Jax reaches for your hand and squeezes it.

"Jackson, what happened the other day, we both acted out of impulse. We were both just... vulnerable.  I'm sorry if it gave the wrong impression."

Jax shakes his head, then takes another long pull of the joint. “Ope was like my moral compass, kept me grounded and always pointed me in the right direction, and now he's gone, because of me."

"Jackson, you can't--" You start shaking your head.

"You’re the closest thing I have left of Ope. I need you." Jax holds your hand.

"Jackson, in your heart, you always knew what was best. You don't need me." You push a loose chunk of his blonde hair away from his face and tuck it behind his ear.  "I know you're hurting, but I can't fill the void that Opie left. Nothing ever will. Just focus on what's important to you and you'll figure it out.  You always did." You smile at him while caressing his cheek with your thumb. "You got this." He closes his eyes and leans in to your hand, soaking in your touch.

"You still have too much faith me." He turns his head slightly to kiss the palm of your hand.

"Yeah, maybe. Besides, our boat sailed a long time ago," you add, pulling your hands away from him and looking away. Jax takes the last drag of the joint and tosses it off the roof.

"Maybe that boat can make one last stop before sailing away for good?" Jax gently grabs your chin and turns your head to him to look into his slightly droopy eyes.

Even all this time, it's still hard to not get lost in his baby blues. It's even harder with the perfect setting: the firey orange sky, the slight California breeze, the clubhouse rooftop. Maybe it's the weed, but it feels perfect in the moment. It's all taking you back to the summer when you were 14, when the only care in your worlds were right in front of each other. It's also the perfect setting for cruising around. Jax use to "borrow" one of the bikes from the clubhouse and take you on joyrides, basking in the sun while the wind hits your faces.

He slowly leans into you, and you close the distance, pressing your lips against his. Jax immediately responds and kisses back, his tongue slipping between your teeth. You can taste whiskey mixed with a faint linger of cigarettes and marijuana. Jax cradles your neck and pulls you in closer to him.

The loud roar of a motorcycle driving by and backfiring breaks you up.  You both are brought back to reality that you are both still on a rooftop and a bit baked.

"Come on, let's get inside." Jax jerks his head towards the latch.  Jax helps you down the ladder first and he follows behind.  He quickly makes a sweep and doesn't see anyone except for a few guys at the bar with their back turned towards the both of you.  Jax grabs your hand and leads you back into the spare bedroom you both were in earlier in the week. This definitely feels like you both are hormone-driven teenagers again, sneaking around the clubhouse. 

Once Jax closes and locks the door, he turns his attention back to you but he stops in his tracks to really look at you. All of you. He never thought he'd ever be with you or see you like this again.  What happened the other day was different.  Like you said, it was a moment of weakness, an impulsive move on both of you because of shared pain.

This time, there is no urgency, there is no hurt, just the two of you re-living a moment the two of you wish you had the opportunity to experience over and over again. This time it's intentionally and purely for the most selfish reasons. He walks over to you and presses his lips onto yours, taking his time to actually taste and feel your soft lips on his.  He pulls you in close to his body as his hands explore yours.

As the both of you continue to deliberately and slowly make out, Jax grabs your ass and presses himself against you, feeling his erection through your clothes. Jax pushes you backward towards the bed and you fall back when you feel the edge hit the back of your knees. He falls on top of you and expertly starts disrobing you while making out with you.  In one quick swift, Jax pulls your shirt over your head, leaving you in a satin black bra.  He takes his time with you, starting with his lips on your neck, licking and kissing it, even nibbling at it.  He's always wanted to leave a hickey on you, letting all the guys know you're taken. He then makes his way down to your collar bone, the top of your chest and then pulls down your bra on one side to reveal a nipple.  He puts his mouth over it and swirls his tongue around it.  Jax looks up to see your reaction and find you looking back biting your lower lip. He smirks and pulls down the other side of your bra and gives that nipple the same attention, making you arch against his mouth. 

"Oh, Jackson," you moan.

He lets out a low growl.

"As much as I want to hear all the sexy noises coming out of your mouth while I'm pleasuring you, you gotta keep it quiet, darlin'." He kisses you while he unhooks your bra and tosses it aside. He then unbuttons your pants and backs himself off the bed. He slowly slides your pants and thong off your hips and down your legs. He licks his lips, excited to unwrap you like his present. You watch him as he lowers himself to his knees and kneels at your feet to help you with your boots and removes the rest of the clothes off your body.  Suddenly feeling a bit exposed and shy like it's your first time with Jax, you keep your legs together. Jax places his hands on each of your knees and coaxes them open. He looks at his gift and licks his lips.

He dives in between your legs while looking up at you. His soft lips and warm wet tongue are licking and sucking you on all the right places and his beard tickling your inner thighs.  That's new to you.  He barely had peach fuzz in his teens. You feel him slip a finger inside you as his lips are pulling at your clit.  Your breathing is getting shorter and more shallow.  Jax inserts another long finger in you and finds your g-spot, rubbing circles on it.

"Jax, I..." Feeling your orgasm building, you are rendered speechless. Jax continues sucking and stroking you until you come undone into his mouth and on his fingers. He watches you squirm and thrash as you scream quietly in ecstasy. He doesn't stop until you are sensitive to his touch and you push him away.  He wipes his beard and smiles at you, proud of his accomplishment. Jax surely still knows his way around your body.

You glance up to him as he gets to his feet.  You watch him strip his clothes off, first the kutte, then his shirt pulled over his head.  He kicks off his sneakers as he takes his time unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his jeans.  You're glad he's taking his time though because it allows you to soak up and remember every second you have with this gorgeous man in front of you.  He finally pulls his jeans and boxers down.  Besides from the other day, the last time you and him were this intimate, the both of you were shorter, slimmer and clearly less experienced.  Now you’re both grown, gained curves and muscles and are far more seasoned in the bedroom.  He's also certainly grown in other places as well.

"Back up," Jax nods his head as he climbs onto the bed and  hovers above you.  You scoot back so your whole body is on the bed.  Jax lays on top of you and smashes his lips against yours again, cradling your neck and grinding against you.  You can feel the head of cock teasing your opening.

"Maybe we should use a condom this time," you tell him in between kisses.

"I'm not gonna lie.  You did feel amazing without one the other day," Jax admits.

You and Jax had always been careful and taking the right steps when you were younger, using condoms at all times so that time was the first time you both had sex without one. Thankfully you are on birth control and both are STD-free, but you know you shouldn't take any chances.  

You give him a knowing look.

"Anything for you, darlin'." Jax gives you a kiss on the cheek before getting up to put on a condom.  He climbs back on top of you and looks at you as he caresses your face, still not believing that you're beneath him.

You gently grab his face with both hands and kiss him deeply. You then feel him slip inside you. All of him.  You moan into his mouth and move with him, both of your hips slowly thrusting in unison. Jax grabs your hands and brings them above your head. He intertwines his fingers with yours and thrusts deeper into you.  He watches you while you relish in the moment, as he pulls these lost emotions from you with each deliberate push.  You wrap your legs around his waist and it encourages him to pick up the pace.  You try to do the same and meet his rhythm.

Jax releases your hands and reaches for your legs behind him and brings them in front of him to rest on his shoulders, deepening his access to you.  His hand reaches up to cradle your neck as he pounds into you. You then feel his thumb slide over the front of your throat.  You start to feel his fingers tighten slightly around your neck. This is also new for you and Jax, but you're loving it.  You can feel yourself getting closer to achieving another orgasm.

"Jackson..." you pant.

"Come for me, darlin'.  I know you're there," Jax grunts.

You close your eyes and feel bliss as you let yourself go, letting your body take over you.  After your orgasm subsides, you open your eyes and find Jax is no longer making love to you, but just smiling at you while still inside you. Now it's time for you to show him a few tricks you've learned.

"Get on your back," you tell him.

Without any protest from Jax, you both switch positions.  Jax lies on his back with this hands behind his head, waiting for you to take the wheel.  You straddle him and take your time sinking yourself onto him.  You feel a lot more confident about being on top than you did when you were younger.  You were shy and inexperienced.  Now? You're going to ride him like the sexiest Harley you've ever had the privilege of sitting on. You slowly start riding him, rocking back and forth, grinding on him and teasing him. You enjoy the feeling of him filling you up to the hilt as you push down on him.

Jax looks up at you, watching you take charge and own his dick.  He definitely notices you're a lot more comfortable in this position than he remembers.  He reaches up and runs his hands over your breasts, massaging them and caressing your nipples as you enjoy the ride. He's certainly enjoying the view.

"You are still as fucking beautiful as the day I fell in love with you," Jax says, mesmerized by the image in front of him.

You smile and then lean back, placing your hands behind you on his thighs. Jax looks at you curiously. You roll your hips and start sliding up and down on him, giving him a clear view.  He looks down and watches himself disappear in and out of you.

Jax groans and runs the palms of his hands over your thighs and settles on your hips.  One of his hands then slides over between your legs and he starts rubbing circles on your clit with this thumb. You moan and gasp. You then lean forward, placing your hands on the pillow of each side of his head and lean down closer to him.  You start bouncing your ass up and down as you look down on him, your hair forming a curtain around your faces.  Jax grabs your ass and starts thrusting up to meet your movement. The only sounds echoing in the room are your pants and your bodies slapping against each other.  Jax speeds up and watches your face as it distorts.  He knows you've got another one inside you and you're very close.

"Come on, darlin'. Let it go." Jax coos.

You let out a loud moan as your legs shake and feel like a firecracker exploded inside of you.  Jax clamps a hand over your mouth as he continues to drill inside.

"There you go, Y/N." Jax smiles watching you fall apart on top of him.  He then swiftly flips you onto your back and roughly drives into you a few more times until he finally gets his own release.

As he slows down, you both look at each other, savoring the moment and then kiss softly.

Suddenly the door knob starts to rattle and the person on the other side is banging on the door.

"Yo, hurry it up! I gotta take a shit!" an unrecognizable voice shouts.

"Hey asshole, the bathroom is further down!" You both hear Chibs shouting. You place your hands over your mouth as you start to laugh.

"Shh!" Jax puts a finger over his pursed lips as he tries to suppress his own laughter.

SMASH CUT TO BLACK

A/N: I never put notes at the end but I figured I'd let you enjoy the fic first before mentioning I currently don't have plans to expand this story. I might in the future, but not in the near future.  I originally intended the first part to be short and be a one off, but I just kept writing and writing and there were so many places and opportunities to keep expanding. Same for part two.  There were so many directions I could have gone. I had a bit of struggle with this for some reason. It's not quite exactly how I pictured it ending but it works for what it is.

If you haven’t read it yet, I wrote two short scenes titled “Carry Me Home” and “Joyride” which are like flashbacks in this universe.

undefined

[sunkensubtext]

hello it's 12:23PM and I've been awake since yesterday but I just finished penchant and I wanted to let you know that your writing has been living in a corner of my mind rent free for several weeks now. your blend of comedy and emotional impact is superb and I never thought I would enjoy a piece of writing about a trip to ohio so much. apologies if this is approaching incoherence and thank you for your service goodnight

AAAA this is so kind (and completely coherent, no worries!! Lmao)

I'm so happy to hear you're enjoying my fics so far!!! I never expected anyone to really like a piece about a trip to Ohio either, to be honest, & I'm thrilled to know people are still actively reading it 😭🥺💞

(My one regret is that I missed the opportunity to have Aizawa experience eating at a Waffle House for the first time. I feel like it would have been an out of body experience for the poor dude.)

ANYWAY, this ask absolutely made my day!! As a thanks, here's a snippet from the end of the original 'getting together' scene that didn't actually make it into Ledges because I had gotten stuck and decided to rewrite it entirely.

& this was originally, too, when I had planned to bump the rating to an E, but then I decided to make it soft instead of horny. Part of me is still torn on whether or not that was the right decision for these knuckleheads, but that's just how it goes~

//

Shouta stares for a moment, eyes sweeping over Hizashi's face a few times, pupils still blown. He's speechless, Hizashi realizes, and he can't help the slight smirk that makes its way onto his face.

"Shut up," Shouta mumbles, hand coming up from where it was hanging loosely at his side to cup the back of Hizashi's neck, drawing him into another kiss. It's slow this time, much less desperate than before, and Hizashi hums contentedly, bringing a hand up to touch Shouta's face. He grins at the feeling of faint stubble he against his fingers. Shouta pulls back too soon, eyes still closed, the ghost of a smile lighting up his features.

Hizashi thinks that Shouta here, a smile on his face and standing as a dark contrast to the wildflower backdrop of the suite is probably the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He has the urge to tell him so, to let loose and tell Shouta everything he's ever stifled, to wax poetic about him until his voice gives out, but Shouta speaks first.

"I think," he breathes, and Hizashi feels the words against his lips, "that we should have done this a long time ago."

"And I think," Hizashi quips, smirking, "that we've got more than enough time to make up for it, if that's the route you'd like to take."

Hearing the startled breath that Shouta hisses out through his nose is well worth the brief absence of his mouth on Hizashi's, he thinks; but then suddenly they're kissing again and Hizashi's torn at which is more satisfying.

But of course, of course, a loud knock at the door tears him violently out of his thoughts and crashing back into reality.

Shouta blinks, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth, and huffs in displeasure.

"We can ignore it," Hizashi offers, pressing his mouth against the side of Shouta's exposed neck. Shouta hums contemplatively, tilting his head to the side to give Hizashi better access.

"She has a key," he replies. "She'll just come in anyway."

"Not if we barricade the door." Hizashi laughs against his throat. "Better yet, not if she hears the noises I'm about to wrench out of you."

"You're the worst," Shouta mutters, and Hizashi can't tell if he sounds more amused or exasperated. He seems to genuinely think about it for a second, though, and Hizashi laughs again when he sees him glance over at a heavy oak bookcase slotted against the wall.

"Alright, alright," Hizashi snickers, stepping away and putting his hands up in mock surrender. "Building a functional barricade would be a bit of a mood killer anyway, all things considered."

He's lying. He knows it, Shouta probably knows it, and the bookcase definitely knows it.

"I'll tell you what, though," he continues. "Because I like you so much, I'll handle answering the door. You just hang out over here and keep looking...exactly like that, actually. If you could."

He punctuates the statement with an overexaggerated wink. Shouta rolls his eyes, but he's betrayed by the way the corner of his mouth twitches upward at the admission. He quickly shakes some of his hair into his face to hide the expression, an old quirk that Hizashi isn't even sure he's aware of, and Hizashi allows himself to stare fondly for another few moments before the third knock comes and breaks him from his trance.

:)

[johnsamericano]

𝓓𝓪𝔂 10:

кιм נυиgωσσ

23 days of NCT masterlist.

taglist: @notbeforelong @silent-potato @whathamelon @unknown5tar @ajhdr @mrcarbonatedmilk @curieouscapt

warnings: unprotected sex (reader’s on the pill), y/n is kinda odd but in a good way, thigh riding (? Sort of.

“Please, Yuta. I need you.” You pleaded, falling onto your knees as you held onto his hand.

“Stop, people are watching.” He pulled you up, slightly vowing to the students staring at the little scene. “I’ve already told you I’m too busy with my own projects.”

“Yuta.” You whined, feeling like you were running out of options.

“I have a couple friends that might be willing to help you, but I can’t promise anything.”

As expected, all of them rejected you. Everyone was too caught up with their own work to care about yours. But one magnificent day, you found your muse. You met him at the cafeteria, he was simply eating pizza, yet he looked like a model.

He pretended not to acknowledge your piercing gaze, but as you started walking to his table he couldn't help but blush, playing anxiously with the pages of his textbook. Why was the goddess of the art department walking towards him?

“Hi, I'm y/n.” You casually sat in front of him, extending your hand towards him as if this wasn't the first time you'd seen him.

“I’m Jungwoo.” He was literally the epitome of cuteness, his pretty cheeks tinted pink and his brown locks casting shadows over his forehead.

“What’s your major?” You rested your chin over your palms, eyeing the book on the table.

“Mechanical engineering.” He surely didn't look like an engineer, but that sort of made him even more attractive.

“That's cool. So listen- wait, before that, can I grab a French fry? I'm starving.” He nodded, his eyebrows knitted together. “Thank you.”

You chewed on the savory fry, moaning at the flavor.

“So, what were you saying?”

“Oh, right!” You cleared your throat. “So for my final project, I have to paint a human portrait, but it turns out, none of my shitty friends wants to help me.” He couldn't help the small laugh escaping his lips. “Unbelievable, right? So I had no other choice but to hunt down the perfect muse by myself. I was about to give up just when I saw you, sitting here all by yourself like some mysterious rom-com guy.”

“Do you want me to be your muse?”

“Well since you're offering, I'd be more than happy to paint you.” He was about to object, but you resumed your nonstop chatting. “Of course, I’d pay for your time, not too much though, my part-time job doesn't pay that well.”

And that's pretty much how he ended up meeting you every Tuesday, sitting for two hours straight while you painted his gorgeous face. The mood was always cheerful with you around, always making small talk and provoking some smiles from him. He got to know you better during the month you spent together. Jungwoo realized you were the most authentic person he'd ever met, maybe that's why everyone on campus was so enamored by you. On the other hand, he was nothing like the shy boy you first met at the cafeteria. He was so bright, his laugh so pretty that it made you want to hear it every day.

“This is our last session.” You announced as soon as your canvas was fixed in place. “Time goes by so quickly, don't you think?”

“Yeah, sure.” You noticed the saddened expression on his face.

“What’s wrong, woo?” He loved the nickname you decided to give him on your first session, it made him feel closer to you.

“It’s just a pity that we won't get to see each other as often anymore.”

“Who says we won't?” You started moving the paintbrush over the canvas, adding the final details to your portrait.

“You still wanna hang out with me?”

“Of course I do! You're finally opening up to me, I won't risk losing the progress we've made.” His heart felt like it’d escape his chest any minute.

“I thought you were just using me for your project.” You gasped, approaching his seating place with the paintbrush still between your fingers.

“How dare you, Kim Jungwoo?” There was a dramatic pause before you painted the tip of his nose.

“You didn't.” You wiggled your eyebrows, running away from him as he stood up. “Get back here!”

“Stop!” You threatened him with your brush, back pressed against the wall. “I won't hesitate to paint you again.”

“Scary.” His chest was touching yours, faces barely centimeters away.

“Where’s the shy Jungwoo I met?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” His knee positioned between your legs, pushing against your core. “What is it with that face?”

“Have you been deceiving me from the beginning?” You tiptoed, trying to hold back the small whine threatening to fall from your lips.

“No.” He raised his knee, this time, the imminent whine managing to get past your mouth. “I really was shy around you, but you're so easy to be with. I feel like I can be myself when I'm with you.”

“By yourself, you mean your horny self?” He started moving his limb back and forth, making sure to apply pressure on the right spot.

“I wasn't planning to do this, I didn't even know you wanted to see me after your project was done.” His finger pads danced over your neck, causing goosebumps over the sensitive skin.

“Well, then, are you gonna kiss me or should I take The first step?” He giggled before attaching his mouth to yours, a variety of new sensations growing at the bottom of your stomach. “God, I wish my project would've been related to nude portraits.”

“I would've definitely called the cops if you had asked me to be your nude model.”

“Mean.” Your face inched closer to his lips once again, slightly biting into his skin.

“Are you alright with this?” He lightened up the pressure on your heat, making sure you were both on the same page.

“Yes. But I don't know about making love in a classroom, though.”

“Making love?”

“I don't like the way ‘fucking’ sounds.” He chuckled. “Would you rather have me calling it sexual intercourse?”

“Stop talking before my dick gets soft.”

He lifted you with ease, sitting on the stool you usually used with you on his lap. His hands rubbed the sides of your thighs affectionately, slowly lifting the fabric of your purple dress to reveal your panties. He wasted no time on moving them to the side, quickly using his digits to make sure you were wet enough.

You helped him undo his jeans, clumsy hands struggling to get the zipper down.

“Allow me.”

“Be gentle, alright?” You placed your hands behind his head, toying with his brown locks as he aligned himself with you. He nodded. “I need verbal confirmation, woo.”

“I promise to be gentle, y/n.” You felt his tip prodding at your small hole, bracing yourself for the imminent pain. “Look at me.”

He started sliding inside you, your fingers accidentally tugging his hair. He didn't complain, though, too immersed in your face to even notice. You glanced at him, noticing how handsome he was from up close. His eyes looked like they carried the stars- no, the whole universe, you'd definitely have to paint them one day.

“Can I move?” You nodded, holding back the smile creeping up your lips as he started thrusting upwards. “Not even in my wildest dreams would I have imagined we'd end up like this.”

“Well, I'm glad you accepted to be my model.” You let out an open-mouthed moan, his dick hitting your G-spot.

“Pill?” You nodded, letting him do all the hard work while you enjoyed yourself. “Pretty.” He kissed your throat, holding your glutes to push himself further into you.

There were no words needed to know you were both incredibly close to release, just a few more thrusts had your pussy pulsating around him, his warm cum coating your walls.

“This is the best love-making session I've ever had.” You let your body fall against his, causing him to lose balance and almost fall down. “Sorry.”

“Well, we can always repeat this. Maybe I can actually be your nude model for your next masterpiece.”

“Who is this guy?” He chuckled, the corner of his eyes picking the image of the recently painted portrait. “Don’t look!”

But he was already admiring the product of your hard work, and it was amazing, to say the least. It was a picture of him smiling, sunlight coming in through the large window panel beside him and directly hitting his face.

“If you don't get an A, I'll write a complaint.”

“I like your way of thinking. I'm getting the feeling that you and I will be a power couple, only if you want that too, of course.”

“Let’s go out for dinner and I'll think about it.”

[akayoko]

nights like these

summary: kenma falls asleep in the backseat of kuroo’s car while he waits for the two of you to finish shopping

a/n: just some soft SLEEPY kenma for the soul,, i actually listened to cavetown while writing this, hug all ur friends really made me feel things but it also inspired me a lot hehe please enjoy cuz i had a lot of fun writing this :)

pairing: kenma x gender neutral reader (and kuroo kind of, but mostly kenma)

genre: fluff! 

warnings: none

word count: 1.6k

it’s another one of those nights, accompanied by muffled giggles and random banter bouncing off the walls of your cramped apartment. humming a random melody as you hold a warm cup of tea close to your chest, you lean back on the couch, glancing at your friends’ softly illuminated faces under the dim lights. closing your eyes, you listen to kuroo’s remarks at the movie you chose as he clings on to a tired kenma lying between the two of you. i could do this for an eternity, you think, inhaling the delicate scent of the chamomile tea between your palms.

“he is SO dense,” he exhales dramatically, sipping on his drink. “she obviously likes him!”

you laugh at his antics as you snuggle closer to kenma, both you and kuroo making sure to keep him warm and shower him with the love and affection he deserves. he claims he hates the kisses you occasionally place to the top of his head, but he never pushes either of you away. even if he does, he never means it anyway.

“stop that,” he mumbles when kuroo tries to boop his nose.

when he actually pulls away, kenma turns to frown at him, just as if he didn't reject him mere seconds ago. it's a lovely sight.

in the middle of the movie, you reach for the chips only to realize you have finished the third and last bag that night. kuroo looks at you knowingly, and in the blink of an eye, he’s unwrapping kenma from the pile of blankets, telling him you are going for a drive.

kenma of course protests, but you’re persistent. you grab him by the hand, promising you will cuddle him later if he comes along with kuroo and you, to which he scoffs.

“you think that’s enough to convince me?” he grumbles.

“i see you’re already putting your jacket on,” you throw his socks at him. “i think i have my answer.”

--

you leave the store with bags full of snacks and kuroo by your side, enjoying the crisp air biting at your cheeks. you take a deep breath as you look up at the sky sown with stars, admiring the numerous constellations adorning it. dragging your feet against the concrete, you wish you could stay in this parking lot longer. the tranquil midnight darkness reminds you to relax your shoulders, finding reassurance in the way the gloomy hues seem to engulf your senses. 

a faint sound of a car honking in the distance wakes you up from your trance, bringing your attention back to the gentle winter breeze. you sigh as you watch the broken street lights flicker, barely illuminating the vehicles driving under them. midnight trips to the store have always been your favorite, and you’re more than happy you get to spend them with the people you love the most.

“bet kenma’s fallen asleep,” kuroo chuckles, breaking the comforting silence.

“you think so?” you giggle, turning your attention to your friend. the truth is, you did manage to get kenma in the car after you had somehow established a middle ground. he however refused to enter the store, saying two people were more than enough to get food. you decided not to push him anymore given the fact that he was right, so you left him in the backseat of kuroo’s car.

actually, one of the reasons he wanted to stay home was the fact that both kuroo and you were very indecisive when it came to choosing snacks, and he wanted to avoid the trouble of mindlessly walking through the store longer than necessary. so, when you tell him you won’t take too long, he doesn’t believe you one bit.

rightfully so, you think to yourself when you get to the trunk of the car and check the time, realizing that almost an hour has passed. you feel the guilt stinging at your stomach so you place the bags on the ground and ask kuroo to put them in the trunk for you.

you peak through the window to wave at kenma, only to notice that he was sprawled on the backseat of the car. just as kuroo predicted mere seconds ago, he had indeed dozed off. you grin as you tell kuroo to be quiet when entering the car, to which he laughs, realizing what happened.

you do your best to close the door behind you as silently as it is possible for, well, a car door, turning around to look at the boy you oh so adored. his lips are slightly parted, emitting soft snores, and you can’t help but notice how uncomfortable he seems in that position. just as you are about to take your jacket off to cover his shivering body, he shifts in his seat, raising his head to analyze his surroundings. when he recognizes the interior of kuroo’s car he rolls his eyes, letting his head fall again.

“hi, kenma,” you wave at him, flashing him a soft smile. “i woke you up, i’m s-”

“can you come here?” he cuts you off, meeting your eyes for a second before looking away. “i’m, uh, kind of cold.”

he doesn’t need to ask twice. you immediately move despite the urge to tease him, since this side of him was definitely not something a person could see every day. you love him too much for that, though, unable to bring yourself to make fun of him when you see the way he fiddles with his fingers. his lips are pressed in a thin line, and he looks just a tad too small in his oversized jacket. perhaps he’s blushing too, but the darkness doesn’t allow you to notice it.

the moment you step foot outside the car, kuroo finishes what seems to have been a phone call, placing his hand over his chest when you reach for the doorknob of the rear door.

his eyes widen. “you’re leaving me all by myself-“

“shut up,”  you snort at him, moving quickly to sit beside kenma who has straightened himself up to make space for you. resting his head against the window, he flinches when kuroo enters the car, slamming the door shut.

you stare at him, to which he shrugs. “what? he’s up.”

ignoring his response, you extend your hand towards kenma as an invitation to your arms. he takes it only for a brief moment, before placing his head on your lap, turning his back to you. your hand immediately travels to his hair, the other rubbing his back. “sorry we’re late,” you murmur, squishing his arm.

it’s nights like these that allow kenma to let loose, relishing the familiarity of your scent. a fuzzy feeling travels all the way to his fingertips, which completes itself the moment you link your hand with his. he lets his eyes close shut, the sound of the mellow radio tune lulling him to sleep. what’s that perfume you’re wearing? it’s comforting.

somehow, everything clicks for him. he tries to recall the last time he felt this way, and he huffs when he can’t remember.

you hold his cheek before tucking his hair behind his ear, and he hums against your touch. “aren’t you uncomfortable like this?” you ask. kenma doesn’t respond, which leads you to assume he’s drifted off to sleep.

your question resonates in his ears just scarcely, that being the last thing he hears before his grip on your hand grows weaker, proving your assumptions right.

you turn to look outside the window, counting every lamp post you drive by. this time you can’t see the stars but you know they’re out there, shining in their full glory. you’re not certain if it’s because of the heating kuroo has turned on, or maybe because of kenma’s steady breathing on your lap, but keeping your eyes open gradually turns into a chore and you’re quickly nodding off, too; your heartbeat slowing down to reach a steady pace. you run your tongue over your dry lips as you part them to ask kuroo if he has a bottle of water somewhere in the car, but he doesn’t respond. wait, did you ask him anything at all in the first place?

the rest of the night is a blur; the only part you remember is kuroo practically dragging you out of the car and into the apartment, complaining about how lame his friends are.

he doesn’t let it go the following morning either as he taunts you at the dining table, claiming that falling asleep so early in the night wasn’t a part of the plan.

“let’s discuss the movie, shall we? oh right, we can’t, i forgot you two fell asleep again as soon as we opened the snacks.”

he’s exaggerating, yes, but you still apologize and lean over to give him a hug, when both your and kenma’s phones light up simultaneously. you pull away, glancing at the groggy boy as he idly rubs his eyes in the seat across you, freezing in his spot abruptly.

you reach for the napkin to wipe your hands as you hastily unlock your phone, only to be greeted by a picture of you and kenma sleeping in the car, your hand placed on his back as the other one supports your head against the window. kenma is curled up with his head on your lap, his hands resting close to his chest.

kuroo snickers at the scene unraveling in front of him, waiting for a response from either of you. kenma’s ears heat up at the sound of you chuckling, eyes boring into the wall behind you. you tilt your head just enough to catch them, playfully snapping your fingers in front of his face.

“kenma i might be wrong, but i think you’re blushing,” kuroo chimes, propping his chin on his hand.

you turn off your phone, lightly kicking kenma’s legs under the table. “we look cute though, don’t we?”

“if you say so.”

“call me crazy, but i think i’m kind of third-wheeling right now.”

“you definitely are.”

[dormarunt]

hm, i think flashbacks in s3 and s4 are more or less chronological within the season, no way did the kiss & goodbye happened before the wedding and then at the wedding everyone was just acting normal and happy. my thoughts were i guess more about how did andres go from the champagne scene™ to admitting to martin he's not that oblivious to the nature of their relationship and simultaneously bidding him goodbye. how long were they even in the monastery? months for sure, years? did andres know he was ill when he and martin began living at the monastery? when did he learn that? he went from obviously very happy generally, as many people mentioned on here, he was living the life, working with his brother and his... partner on heists, enjoying art, clearly enjoying his relationship with martin whatever it was - to suddenly confronting martin and rejecting him from his life. and I simply don't buy the interpretation (that apparently many people bafflingly have) that andres was the straight guy rejecting his gay best friend bc they can't be together. I am more inclined to agree with the interpretation that he was rejecting martin bc he didn't want him to suffer after andres died. sorry for the long ask. and i don't mean all the questions for you specifically more general questions about the show.

I don't think the flashbacks are chronological since some of them are split up among episodes (like the whole forking scene, it's in 2 episodes). I may be cynical but I think they literally wrote in scenes that they needed later on. I am set on the kiss happening after the wedding (although the absence of the wedding ring could mean that it did happen before that) because I think that Martin left the monastery that very night (after drinking, crying etc). But that's just my interpretation! Yours is just as valid! <3

And yeah, I don't think that Andres was straight and he rejected Martin because of that. I'm thinking maybe bi in denial, if anything. He was so comfortable around Martin, and that kiss was-- passionate, undeniably so. I agree with your interpretation, he sent Martin away to spare him the suffering of watching him die (I think I wrote it as such in 99% of my fics). IDK, their time in the monastery is a mystery, definitely months for them to have settled in like they have, to have that much... stuff lying about, and for them to be so comfortable around the monks.

I do think that Martin knew about his illness; I don't think Andres was bluffing when he said that "everyone knew" about it. But I have no idea when he found out.

Maybe the element that made him aware of his and Martin's relationship, and esp of Martin's feelings was indeed Sergio telling him about it. Not that he was blind to it; I don't think he was. But maybe the fact that even Sergio noticed it made him ponder it more seriously.

The way I write it in fics; he realizes that he doesn't have long enough to actually do the bank heist (because of his health) and Sergio's plan is closer to being put in action, so he has to make a choice. So he chooses to do that, and to spare Martin of suffering the loss of both his loves - Andres and their plan.

But, to put back my cynic hat, I think the kiss scene was just put there because they needed a reason for Martin to not be in the picture for the Mint heist. It's as simple as "the plot demanded it, so they wrote it in". But ofc Martin was written to be in love with Andres and their love not requited - as evidenced by Nairobi telling him that he never had the guts to say anything about it. Which can be read as she didn't know OR they didn't write/film that part yet. XD

As for how long between platonically riding each other and then non-platonically kissing? I'm thinking months, at most. I don't know how long Sergio was with them for, I think he came there primarily for the wedding, whether he was aware of it or not (I don't remember how Andres brings up Tatiana when Sergio enters the monastery?) but Sergio also comes with plans for the Mint (I'm assuming - and maybe? maybe I remember when Sergio sleeps in and Andres wakes him to take him to breakfast outside where Tatiana is already there and there's a box that says Fabrica National de Timbre y moneda?) So - maybe months?

I'm sorry of this answer is a mess, I have a tornado in human form around me. <3

Thank you for your ask! You have very very valid questions and I'll have to think of the whole chapel scene as before the wedding now. As much as my brain rejects it, lol, since I literally never thought of it like that (ironically, the kiss being at the end would make sense chronologically? but? I don't think we'll ever know unless Netflix does a timeline like they did with The Umbrella Academy s2 and The Witcher s1)

[echo-three-one]

Whatever It Takes : RELOADED

Abducted in a decent hotel room. That's the summary.

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter : Lurking in the Shadows

Chapter 19 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

forgive the piccrew ;-;

Vlad the Janitor

Samantha Coleman

Happy Traveler Inn - Room 240

Moscow, Russia

"Room Service!" Someone knocked at the door and something in Russian followed. Samantha assumed it's the same thing but in Russian. She carefully eyed the three men whom she knew were secretly armed. They were members of Shepherd's secret force, the one he calls "Shadow Company".

She's tired of being held hostage, she just wanted to live a normal life. And if Alex was correct, she can't believe that she chose to forget him just to get another shot at a normal life. She felt stupid. And she actually missed him. Even with all the jumbled and altered memories, her heart reacted to his presence.

The three abductors looked at her threateningly as the janitors entered. She knew she wasn't supposed to act suspicious or she's dead.

"We don't need cleaning!" One exclaimed as he shoved the janitor to the door, out of surprise the two janitors immediately grabbed mops and brooms and began fighting the abductors.

Samantha described it as a scene straight out of the movies, the trio worked together, hitting enemies until they were knocked down by severe hits in the head. They quickly disarmed and bound the abductors.

The tall janitor approached her, his eyes felt familiar but Samantha was reluctant to accept help. She eyed his name tag which said "Hello I'm VLAD"

"Thanks, Vlad?" She guessed, Vlad quickly removed his hat and face mask.

"Aw come on, Samantha. It's me!" Alex smiled, behind him, Roach and Soap stood and looked happy to see her.

Samantha's heart skipped a beat. She was right. He did go to the ends of the world for her multiple times. That meant that whatever they shared back on her memory lapses were far too significant for him. She hugged him tight and he reciprocated it quickly. She wanted to kiss him already but in their situation, it was better to keep it for later.

"Here you go, Alex." Soap tossed him the abductor's uniform as they quickly changed from janitors to bodyguards as they escorted her back to safety.

"Ghost this is Alex. The package is secure. Prepare for exfil."

"Roger that, pal." He replied as they effortlessly exited the hotel, leaving a message to Shepherd that he should not mess with them.

The elevator ride was the most awkward place for Samantha. The tension between her and Alex were reaching new heights. Their eye contacts felt more intense and small grazes from their hands felt like small jolts of electricity. Her heart raced so fast that she bit her lip.

"Thanks for saving me guys. For a second I thought you were never going to find me." She breathed as Alex slowly locked his hand on hers. She felt her cheeks warm up as his touch sent her on an ecstatic feeling. Was he really like this to her?

"You're still our priority, Samantha. Disbanded or not." Roach grinned as the elevator dinged upon reaching the Parking lot. In front of them was Price, driving the van and Ghost slowly sliding the door open.

"Welcome back, Samantha." The masked man greeted them as they entered the vehicle.

~

Safe House 110197

Brazil

Alex somewhat expected familiarity or nostalgia from Samantha, but all she remembered was the name of the safehouse. The number combination was somewhat familiar. She felt guilty and frustrated once she stepped foot on the house, as none of the items rang something from her memory while Alex took effort in recalling everything they did during their stay there, things that Samantha didn't expect she'd do but wanted to feel all over again.

Amidst the stress of the things happening around them, Maxine and Francine were getting along as they prepared a little feast once they heard that Samantha's on the way here. Maxine cried as she hugged her best friend and Samantha couldn't help but also shed tears.

"I missed you. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" She asked, those same words also came out of Alex's mouth earlier, guess she was that important to the two of them?

"I'm fine, Max. They didn't hurt me or anything. Shepherd was actually out to use me as a bargaining chip so that my Dad would help him." The room fell silent. This was what they needed to hear. Intel.

Before lunch was even served, they already gathered around the dinner table. Alex finally sat beside Samantha, and that meant Ghost was the only one without a partner.

Samantha discussed the case at hand. How Shepherd would give Nero an IP Address in exchange for blueprints of an EMP Nuke. He'll then use such machinery to combat Nero's assault as well as avenge 30,000 of his defeated troops in Afghanistan. He also has his own elite troop called Shadow Company, which were trained the same way as the 141, but they had strength in numbers.

The rest of the evening was devastating. Now that they had information on Shepherd, Price and Jack started to call in some favors and prepared for the best window to fight back. Ghost got a text from Agent Ryder of interpol that she was too late to stop the trade of funds and now Shepherd has put the remaining 141 as most wanted people. Laswell also called Price that the initial plan of creating a task force was not going to work considering they're already fugitives and they should be more careful outdoors. Everyone else looked like they saw this one coming, they already knew the risks of the things they've done and proceeded to live their lives.

Samantha caught a glimpse of Max and Roach sprinkling each other water while washing the dishes, Soap and France arguing about how the word 'whimsy' was supposed to be used in a sentence and Ghost was always on his command center. She felt that she was never gone.

"How are you holding up, Love?" Alex plopped beside her, giving her a glass of water. Samantha smiled and raised her eyebrows.

"I don't remember you calling me that." She questioned, as she noticed the faint smell of Alex that she began to admire.

"Of course you don't. That's why I'm helping you." he grinned, tucking her hair behind her ear. She giggled and inhaled once more.

"You smell good today… Are you still trying to win my heart? I thought you already did." She mused, blushing as she ran a hand across his strong inked arms. She was always scared of heavily tattooed men, but this guy was an exception to the rule.

"Well, I wore clothes from two different people today… so… but nevermind that reason. Is it working? To you…? Are you… smitten?" He wiggled his eyebrows in an attempt to be seductive and Samantha just laughed. Was it possible to fall in love with a guy whom you already love? If so, then she's all for it.

"I can't say for sure, Vlad." She teased as he quickly fished his wallet, revealing a letter inside a small ziploc container. He gave it to Samantha as she uncrumpled it and started to read the contents.

"What's this?" she asked, looking at her own writing, she started to feel scared and nervous about the letter.

"You left that note to me before you forgot me… I tried to keep it for as long as I could, to the point that I almost wanted to throw it away." he held her hand while she held the letter.

"My Dearest Alex…" She spoke softly. Her hands began to tremble as he gently tightened his grip on her, making her feel more at ease.

"...In a span of three weeks, you managed to make me feel love once again. You allowed me to realize that even after a horrible loss, I could still open my heart and feel the joy of falling in love." This was clearly her creation, she slowly turned to Alex as he smiled and nodded his head to continue.

"...I always told myself that no matter how painful it is, I'll never forget your face, your smile, your eyes and all those memories we shared together. I actually convinced myself that we were a happily married couple back in that safehouse, an illusion I made because my heart felt like it. It was a good feeling, and I want to thank you for it." She leaned on his shoulders, looked at him once more and mouthed "Sorry".

"It looked like I forgot…" tears started to well on her eyes and Alex smiled. He wasn't the crying type but his eyes were already starting to get wet.

"I can't help but think about a lot of things, one being that if we were destined to meet and not end up together, it would be better if I don't meet you at all. I'm sorry to say this but I do love you so much and I know I promised, but I think my heart couldn't carry the idea of you existing and not within my grasp. It's utterly heartbreaking." she sobbed, hot tears fell from her cheek and Alex immediately wiped them off with his thumbs as she continued reading, her voice was shaky.

"So, your office offered me a chance to alter my memories of meeting you, along with the memory that made Nero look for me. You were on a briefing and I wanted to talk to you personally, maybe feel your warmth one last time. I'd want to kiss you too, but I guess the world didn't want that to happen." She looked at Alex one more time, then their lips met, it was a small peck, their lips immediately parted upon contact. She looked back at her letter"

"So I took the offer, and by the time you read this, I'm already on my way home to resume the life I've lost. I'm sure Maxine misses me right now...

I know you'll agree to this because I feel you always want what's best for me. If our paths would cross again, I hope you'll remember me the way I remembered you before I take this operation, A good memory that's supposed to last forever.

Apologizing in advance if I don't remember you anymore.

Don't you dare forget about me,

- Samantha" Teardrops splattered across the paper as she folded it and reached for Alex's mouth, this time they went all out. Like teenagers who shared their first french kiss, sloppy, needy yet satisfying. They didn't care about their surroundings. All they both cares about was that they were within each other's grasp after a very long time.

"I guess you kept my word. You never forgot me…" She exhaled as they broke the kiss.

"It's because I can't… and I told myself that I won't." Alex replied as they kissed once again. This time, they could hear Maxine and Roach cheering in the background.

"Geez! Get a room you two!" A loud Scottish yell was heard from the distance. But despite all the noise, the two of them didn't mind.

~

Samantha was brushing her teeth when Alex snuck up from behind, wrapping his arms around her. She remembered how she admitted to the letter that they acted like a married couple, maybe this was always their thing for weeks. She was happy as they both swayed harmoniously, looking at the most handsome man in the world, hugging her.

"Do hmm haa hoo heemmmi hoo?" She mumbled while her hands brushed her teeth.

"We don't. But if we had one what would you think it'd be?" Alex mused, turning to her. He already knew what she meant despite it being inaudible. She spat the contents of her mouth and finished brushing her teeth before turning to him, all while still under his warm embrace.

"Have you heard of Way Back into Love?" she asked, Alex's reaction was a very wholesome smile.

"Like from that movie? Yeah." he chuckled, minty breath traveled to her nostrils.

"All I want to do is find a way back into love…" she sang softly, her singing voice made Alex smile.

"I can't make it through without a way back into love…" Alex sang or more specifically, said the words near the tune. Samantha giggled as they swayed to their little song.

"And if I open my heart again

I guess I'm hoping you'll be there for me in the end" They sang together, Samantha doing it in tune while Alex sounded like he's narrating the song. They both were spinning around on the small area in front of the sink, enjoying the moments that they were together once again. Samantha wishing that she'll never get separated from Alex ever again.

Next Chapter : Undying Admiration

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