#it feels like i step through the 7th circle of hell every single day when i come in here

[vibe-check-boyz]

i swear to god. i swear to FUCKING god on all that is holy and good i JUST want to scroll through vanny/fnaf sb tags WITHOUT seeing proshippers ship vanny and gregory i'm gonna shit myself. on god i will. out of sheer rage. gregory is a **CHILD** and vanny is a WHOLE ASS grown adult, shipping them is condoning a crime and its GROSS

[fallingoverharrypotter]

If We Make It Through January 7th

Draco and Harry on the wrong side of the holiday season, making the gloom a little bit brighter. Also on AO3 here.

I’m barely through the front door of the place before I catch a glimpse of the man behind the counter and freeze up. Right there in the doorway.

A frustrated cough comes from behind me, and I hear a rude “excuse me.”

I swear. “Sorry,” I move out of their way, back onto the icy cobblestones: the patron flicks me an insincere smile as they hurry into the warmth of the bakery, and the door shuts in my face with a clang. The noise of the store, regular café sounds and music with it. That’s unfortunate, as Diagon still has Christmas jingles incessantly twinkling across the cold brick back and forth down the alley on this side of the new year, and that’s… only one part of the reason I want to enter.

Surely there are other places on Diagon that sell hot drinks and buns this late on a Wednesday. But… I know there aren’t. Even in muggle London.

Going home empty handed on Monday was one thing, but going home empty handed on Wednesday seems out of the question.

The cheerful drawings of smiling faces and steaming pastries on the glass are mocking me - there’s raucous noise of laughter just from the other side of the windows. I’m drawn up close and shivering in my winter robe, and it’s so cold that the warming charms keep wearing off. There are the sludgy remnants of snow on the cobbles, and I had to save myself from a couple of falls on the way down here. The blush on my cheeks is definitely from the embarrassment of the wobbles, but thankfully it’ll be passed off as the bite of the air. He probably won’t realise a difference anyway.

I take a deep breath, and go to reach for the door again, but then my hand stops, barely within my control. I close my eyes and try once more. Breathe deep, hand out to grasp the handle. I pretend not to think about whether any patrons of the bakery are staring at me through the glass. I hypothesise that if this takes me longer than five minutes, I’ll get an Auror called on me for drunk and disorderly, and wouldn’t that truly make my day.

Suddenly, it’s too much. I don’t even want to see his face. Wednesday pastries will just have to go without. It’s a silly tradition anyway. Surely if I’m ever allowed to forgo a habit, it would be as a new year’s resolution. It was his neurotic practice anyway. Probably one of those things I should toss out like I did all the rest of his stuff.

I take another deep breath and point my chin up, stare challengingly at one stupid smiling figure on the glass, and turn to make my way down to the other apparition point at the end of Diagon.

Stupid ex-boyfriends and stupid bleeding-heart holiday seasons. I manage to keep my feet reasonably stable as I walk down the almost icy path on this darker end of the street.

Unfortunately for me, however, a loud noise startles me and I completely wipe out.

A loud grunt expels itself from my chest as my back hits the ground. Thankfully my neck and head seem to be pretty well protected by the thick green scarf I’ve got wrapping me up, but my ass doesn’t fair all that well. “Fucking hell,” I mutter, and groan as I roll over onto my side. I wince when a sharp twinge in my back is set off with my movement.

Thankfully I’m not alone in my predicament, because the noise that startled me was an initial slick sharp sound of a slip against the icy cobbles. I tilt my head up and see heavy black boots, worn just slightly at the sole, and the figure of their owner, a man in amongst a mountain of sludgy snow that someone had just moved to the side instead of vanishing. I mutter to myself about the absolute travesty which is Diagon without proper foot traffic. People here get bloody careless this time of year.

I push myself up by my gloved hands, now soaked, along with the backside of my cloak. “Are you alright?” I half-heartedly direct to the man who I can hear angrily muttering to himself in his current position. I have to pay direct attention to getting my feet under me so that I don’t make another trip, but I do finally stabilise myself. I sigh crossly. My penance for getting so startled is that I don’t immediately get to grab my wand and dry myself off.

The man sighs too. His reply is muffled, but I think I can make out a “yep”. Charming.

He’s not moving though, so I huff out a breath impatiently and wander over to where he lies carelessly under an awning, face shadowed from Diagon’s twinkling lights. Good King Wenceslas chimes out of the charms on the street, and seems to mock me, and I have to force myself to think of how best to rectify this. I hope this guy isn’t drunk. Or maybe I hope he is, so that I can just call the aurors to deal with this.

“Are you pissed?” I ask, just to know.

“I wish.” Is his muffled reply. “Would be a bit less embarrassing if I were, I think.”

I roll my eyes. “Can you get up?”

“Yep.” He repeats, and then groans again as he pulls himself out of the soaking wet, dirty grey cushion, that is the snow bank.

My mouth drops open. “Potter?”

And, yep indeed. It’s Potter. He’s leaning back on gloved hands when he looks up at me quickly and then he groans. Throws his wet haired head back, and those green eyes look up at the awning like he’s berating whatever trickster god pulls his strings of fate. Or, so I assume.

He leans his weight on a single hand and stretches out the other in my direction.

For a second, I think he’s extended it so we can shake hands, before I realise that he just wants a hand up. I flush and hasten – carefully – over. A quick pull from my hand and he does the rest of the work, but he has to grab at my shoulders when he’s upright, a little wobbly.

He looks at me and grimaces. “I’m a danger to myself and others.” His hands release my shoulders, but only, it seems, to brush off bits of snow and dirt off of my coat.

I huff, my breath making a cloud of vapour in the space between us. “Well, I won’t disagree with you on that. Do you need me to go and get someone for you, or can you make your merry way to your reserved bed at Mungos?”

He laughs just a little. “It’s always a pleasure, Draco, honestly.” He’s joking, so I reserve the right to kick him until later. Maybe when he’s a bit less pathetic from the slip. “Are you okay?”

I scowl, and don’t answer his question. “It’s bloody 6pm on a Wednesday. In the middle of winter. After a snow storm. Who’s honestly buying wands this time of year?”

He smiles, winks slightly. “Gotta be made, don’t they?”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, I get it. You’re chained to your desk. A snowstorm fit for the arctic circle could blaze through here and you couldn’t be moved.”

He laughs. Harry laughs the same way he’s always laughed, and I blush just a little bit, as I’ve always done. I feel a shiver start to come upon me, but I keep it away by share force of will as he continues. “The new year is good for the thestral tail hair.” A dirty glove subconsciously comes up to rub at his wet hair, and he grimaces when he feels it. “Decay, new life, you know. The Death-horses and Winter going hand in hand.”

I smirk as he tentatively tries to rub his dirty glove off against a cleaner part of his cloak. “Cruel of them. Not taking the time to consider your plight.”

“Well,” he challenges, “I doubt it’s a major concern. It’s actually not every day that I slip and fall on the pavement. I survive my walks, mostly.”

“Well,” I answer, “I never slip or fall.” I raise a haughty eyebrow at him, and I can see the humour dust his eyes a little bit more. “Don’t go blaming me for this.”

He rolls his eyes and grimaces. “Why are we still so wet.” He flicks his hand and a wave of annoyingly familiar magic crests itself over my figure until the dirt and the moisture are driven right away. I flick a warming charm over him in thanks.

He seems to pay a bit more attention to his surroundings now that he’s dry and warm. “You just come from Finch-Fletchley’s? You mind reminding him that if the other shops are closed down for the holidays that it’s his job to vanish the snow after a blanketing?”

I avert my eyes, drawn to the bright lights of the bakery. I scowl. “You can tell him yourself, thank you very much.” I take a deep breath, and straighten my back. Keeping some decorum, hopefully. “We’ve broken up.”

Potter’s eyebrows are up when I glance quickly back to his face. He looks at me, and his face is very controlled. He looks at the bakery. “When?”

I swallow. “Week before Christmas, if you can believe.”

He can’t seem to stop himself from whistling sympathetically. Then he winces. “Sorry.”

I shrug, casually. “No matter.”

He snorts.

“I’m serious” I say, pointlessly.

He crosses his arms and looks hard at me. “Oh yeah? What are you doing here, then? Surely not too many muggleborns turning 11 around this time of year.”

Not to back down, and turn to face him properly and cross my own arms. “You know full well that’s not all I do, Potter.”

He rolls his eyes. “Like my point doesn’t still stand. What? You doing a lot of muggleborn house calls the week after new year’s?”

“Not every muggleborn celebrates Christmas and New Year’s.”

“Sure, technically. In reality, though?”

I turn away, and don’t answer his questions. He snorts, but then steps a little closer. We’re facing the bakery, because of course we are. O’ Holy Night plays above us. I wonder who chooses these songs.

I hear him take a deep breath in and out. “I really am sorry.”

I sigh, too. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“It’s only been two weeks, Draco.”

Two weeks and 5 days. If we’re counting. I don’t say this though.

He bumps my shoulder. “Not to pick at the wound, but what areyou really doing here.”

I consider lying to him again, but we’re not really in the business of doing that. It’d just be a bore. And he’s always been… good about things like this. “Christmas.” I swallow. “It gets lonely, you know.”

He hums.

I kick out at the ground with my foot and it slides a little bit too far, and I end up having to take a step forward to balance myself again – Potter grabs at my arm.

He laughs, a little anxiously. “Never slip and fall, huh?”

I ignore that, my face flushed and hot. “We had a tradition. Wednesday pastries at the bakery. I would assume it’s common decency to let someone know in advance if you’re going to break up with them. So that one can plan for these moments, right?” I close my eyes against the lights of Justin’s bakery, feeling unwelcome. “I apologise. I’m morose. It’s not exactly the post-holiday cheer I’m sure you want on a nice evening.”

He chuckles. “I wouldn’t call this a nice evening.” My warming charm wears off, and he flicks his wrist for another one to settle over us. He lets go of my upper arm, and puts a hand on my shoulder – drags me around a bit to face him. “Fuck him, right?”

I roll my eyes. “He’s not a bad guy, Potter.”

He rolls his eyes right back, and then looks quite serious. “Be a little indulgent with yourself sometimes, Draco.”

I look back at him. He’s only just shorter than me, and I’ve always cherished that fact, but now he almost seems to be towering over me, even with a bit of a slouch to his stand. His messy hair and his shadowed cheeks and under-eyes the likes of which I only really see during the summer break when I’m chaperoning muggle families and their muggleborn children to get their first wands before September. Working too hard. Chained to his desk.

“Do you want to have dinner with me?” I blurt out.

His eyes widen. So do mine. The heat in my face expands to a blaze, and I groan as I drop it into my cold gloves. “Merlin, I’m sorry. You just said the indulgent thing, and I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Hey, it’s fine.” He grabs at my wrists lightly and tugs a bit, but I don’t budge. “Draco.”

A clang mutely sounds from just up the street, the usual echo of the door in the cobbled street trapped by the snow. “Draco?” I hear, and look up. Startle, because that’s definitely Justin at the door, surrounded in the glow of the lighting. I take a step back almost without thought, and Harry’s grip on my wrist unfortunately makes me lose my balance. I go right down, and he follows. Right on top of me.

I groan loudly, my head and back and arse all once again wet and cold. Harry groans too, and his warm weight gets off me very quickly, tugging me up by my hands, and then a hand tight on my waist to right me. I don’t step out of his grip immediately, too overcome with the situation. Ready to take another crack at the cobbles and see if this time I brain myself.

“Hell, Draco,” Harry mutters, and then grabs his wand to get the wet and the dirt off the both of us again. Another of his beautiful warming charms settles over my body. “We’re even now, okay? No more falls, for god’s sake.”

Justin has wandered a bit closer by the time I look away from Harry’s face, a little consternated. “Draco? Are you okay? Merlin, what are you doing standing out here?”

I don’t respond. Harry coughs. “That’ll be me. I basically tripped him earlier, and we got talking.”

Justin’s eyes widen just a little, and he looks at Draco in concern. “In this weather? It’s freezing! I’ll grab you mug of spice cider, alright?”

“No,” I say, finally finding my bloody voice again. “No, I’m fine. And anyway.” I shoot a glance at Harry. “We’re tied one-for-one.” Harry smirks.

Justin continues when I look back to him. “Dray, come on. A cup of cider, a bite to eat.”

I shake my head, wanting this day to be done with already. “I’ve got plans.”

Justin eyes get just a little softer. “Come on, please?”

“He does. Have plans.” Potter says, and my neck twinges with how fast I turn to look at him. “We’re going to dinner.”

Justin goggles, just a little, looks between Harry and me. There’s a certain part of me – a different part to the one that’s processing whether or not Harry means what he said about dinner – that’s a little vindictively pleased about Justin’s reaction. “Oh!” Justin says. “Okay, no… No worries!” He meets my eyes, and I flush. “It was good to see you. Please, do come around. The staff miss you, you know.”

I smile politely. “Thanks, Justin.” I stand a little taller, and nod to him. “Take care.”

“You too.” And he grins kindly, lifting a hand to Harry and me, before hastening back into the warm sanctuary of his bakery. The door does its little muted clang again as it closes. My mouth – still sitting in a polite smile – relaxes, leaving a little pain in my cheeks.

Harry hums. “Do you ever think that we’re all a bit toomature now?”

Surprisingly, I laugh loudly at that. I’m nodding even before I get the words out. “Yes. I’d almost wish to be fifteen again and have a real proper tantrum about this.” I sigh, laugh a little again. “But, you know. Fifteen-year-old me? Good riddance.”

“I don’t know…” Harry trails off, “there were some redeeming qualities. He was certainly a creative sort.”

I goggle at him, and immediately stop when I realise that I’m imitating Justin to some extent. “Stop having me on.”

Harry… laughs. “Yeah, I’m having you on. You were a right bastard.”

I shake my head, and turn away from the lights of the bakery, and start walking. He’ll surely catch up.

“I was serious.” Harry says, and I turn my head a little to let him know I’m listening as I walk. “About dinner.”

“I assumed so,” even though that’s a bit of a lie.

“And,” Harry catches up. “I mean ‘dinner’ as in. A date.”

I’m not proud of this, but I slip. Just a little. “Fuck,” I say as I try to catch myself. Thank goodness that Potter’s a bit more onto it, though. He just grabs my arm, and an arm around my back. Straightens me up.

“Bloody hell, I should have talked to him about the snow vanishing,” Harry’s saying as I brush off my cloak to hide my flush. “It’s all the Diagon Business Association talks about during winter, I don’t know what he’s on-”

“Harry.”

He stops and looks at me. Christmas music is still playing, and its still grating, but goodness the lights work well on his complexion. And his eyes.

I smile, just a little. “We’ve got dinner plans, I thought? We could talk about this there, surely?”

He laughs.

[h-o-l-l-i]

You’re My Punisher

Frank Castle x Reader

Word Count: 5k

Warnings: PTSD, Language, angst, smut (shower sex) ((18+ ONLY)), unprotected sex, dom!Frank, slight injury and mention of blood

Author’s Note: This is my entry for @negans-lucille-tblr follower celebration; go check that blog out and thank me later! The prompts that I chose will be in bold below. Requests are OPEN! Let me know if you would like to be added to any of my tag lists! Feedback is always welcome and very much appreciated.

“Frank, just let me help—” your voice boomed though the cell phone you held to your swollen purple cheek.

“Y/N, I’ve pulled you into too much of my own shit to begin with. I can’t—” his deep, rough voice command you, his voice thick and intense.

“Like that has stopped me before, Frank.” You retorted back to him, your finger pressed the button on the screen putting the call on speaker and continued to gather your things.

“Why are you so Goddamn stubborn, Y/N?” He spoke, you could hear the small smile he had on his face now.

Your hand gripped the smooth, cold metal clip and jammed it into your pistol, “I have to give you a run for your money somehow, don’t I?” You smiled.

His ears perked up at the very familiar sound that he knew all to well; the sound of a gun cocking back, “Okay; I’ll meet you in a hour; 7th and brick.” He paused, “Don’t make me regret it.” The call went dead.

Your heart skipped a beat within your chest, you smiled widely with intense pride in your small success this time with Frank, “When have I ever let you down, Frankie.” You said under your breath as you finished packing your bag to head out to meet him and give him a hand.

You skipped out through your thin door into the hallway, the heavy bag swinging from your hand and heavily bruised knuckles; you strutted down the dank hallway rounding the corner to the stairs. Your jaw tightened due to the adrenaline that began to fill your veins, you took a deep breath in through your nostrils and sped off.

You pulled under the bridge, before you exited your car you gathered everything you would need for the job. Once you had everything together and read for action you slid from your seat and you gently closed the car door, careful not to alert everyone around you to your whereabouts and keep your cover intact. You pressed the button on the side of your phone, the screen illuminated briefly for just a moment before you concealed it again. The screen read, 02:08 am. Your old, warn boots silently crushed the small patches of gravel that littered the length of the dimly lit alleyway, your breath creating small puffs of white that quickly dispersed in the cool night air as you began to walk to your rendezvous point with the punisher.

The hair on the back of your neck instinctively stood on end, your ears picking up the small sound of someone walking behind you, making your body tense up and quicken your pace slightly. Suddenly, there was a pair of strong arms that tightly wrapped around your slender torso. Your instincts kicked in and the copious amounts of adrenaline dumped into your bloodstream again; you released the duffle bag from your hand making it hit the pavement hard with a loud clanging.

The hooded man’s muscular arms hoisted your small body up off the ground; your years of military combat training caused your body to effortlessly to spring into action and easily get loose from the perpetrator’s hold. He lunged at you, your fists jabbed sharply at him, your left fist connecting to his jaw harshly rocking him backwards, his hand came up to cradle his now injured jaw. At the same time your hands smoothly came to the small of your back to retrieve your 9mm, aiming it at the man very quickly, catching him off guard.

The moonlight peaked through the sparse clouds that hung in the night sky to illuminate the man’s face, as soon as you saw him you dropped your gun and rolled your eyes, “What the fuck, Frank!” You swiped the hair from your face and panted, putting the gun back to it’s rightful space at your lower back.

He laughed, “You’re getting off your game, Y/N.” He smiled, “Still got one hell of a hit though.” He wiggled his jaw, you shot him a look of amusement, “C’mere.” He stated with a smirk and pulled you into his broad, strong arms.

You wrapped your arms around his toned body, taking in his scent “It’s great seeing you again—” you hummed, “it’s better this time now that you’re not bleeding out on my fire escape.”

“Hey! I told you I didn’t need to hel—” he began.

“You’re welcome.” You interrupted, you leaned down to grab your bag; the hem of your shirt lifting, Frank’s eyes struggled to stay focused making him shift his weight and grab his belt buckle. “Admit it, you came to me for help, Castle...I’m a field medic, I was your unit’s field medic.” You paused, making eye contact with him once more, this time was more intense, “And I wasn’t going to lose you again; not when I just found out you were alive.” You cleared your throat as your emotions threatened to choke you.

There was a prolonged silence that lingered between the two of you. “Here.” He grunted at you, extending his arm out to grab your bag. You nodded and handed it over and you walked together down the alley.

It was a few hundred feet before he spoke to you again, “I appreciate everything you did for me,” He paused cautiously before elaborating, “over there…” your eyes wandered to his face but he stared straight ahead. “you know that, right…and I only came back because I heard you weren’t taking care of yourself—”

At this point you stopped walking, he continued a few steps before turning to face you again, “Curt told you;  he told you everything didn’t he? That’s why you showed up with him that night?” you paused, your mind began to flood with the last memory that you had with Frank before he came back from the dead; the one that you lived with; that changed you… “I held you in my arms and I watched you die, Frank! A—-and I couldn’t do a single fucking thing about it.” You choked down your tears, “I never told another man that I loved him…no one—but you; I told you…” you whispered, “Frank, the blood; Y-you looked up at me and remember what you told me then?” Tears began to flood your eyes, your voice cracking with every word you spoke, you lips began to quiver as you relived that moment again with him, “You said you’d grow old with me.” He released the bag from his grip and took a half-step towards you, “Don’t fucking come near me.” You snapped at him, halting his movements; he lowered his head and furrowed his eyebrows, keeping his distance, respecting your wishes.

A few tears trailed down your bruised face, your hand wiping them away quickly, “When I got back, I couldn’t do anything without seeing your face. Curt tried to help me and he did for a while but the pain just wouldn’t stop; my head just wouldn’t—” Your temper flared, he remained silent, allowing you to feel, “Everyday I wondered what it’s like to be loved by you.” You sobbed, “On one of my worst days; you show up with Curt…and you were alive.”

“Y/N.” His voice was low and filled with pain, “I never wanted you to get hurt.” He stepped closer to you cautiously, still wanting to respect your boundaries. “I lost something that day too and everyday until I saw your face again that night ten months ago.” He opened up, you gazed into his eyes where some tears formed. “You weren’t supposed to find out that I was still alive. Curt told me that you were in rough shape and you were always blaming yourself about what happened but I couldn’t stand the thought of you carrying that shit on your shoulders alone.” He took a long deep breath, this time when he spoke his voice wavered slightly, “That shit fucking hurt me; to lie to you, make you think I was dead—I had to let you know I never left you.” His hand rubbed your back.

“Why’d you come back then? I was doing fine on my own, Frank…” You asked.

He answered you without hesitation, “You weren’t, Y/N. And I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain. Nothing else matters when I’m with you; it’s only you and me.” He took your bruised face into his rough, calloused hands, “I had lost everything, but in the end I still had you.” He paused looking deep into your eyes, “I wasn’t going to lose another woman I love.” He pressed his forehead onto yours lovingly. “I’m not going anywhere, you hear me?” His voice rumbled in his throat, his lips pressed passionately onto yours, “You hear me, Y/N; I love you. So much.” 

Your hands grazed up to rest on the back of his neck when you kissed him back, “I love you too.” You whispered onto his lips. You broke from his kiss, he leaned forward craving your lips, “If we don’t go now, Frank.” You stared to the building where your target was held.

“I know.” He bowed his head, “Are we…good?” He raised an eyebrow as he glared at you through his thick eyelashes and cradled your hand delicately in his, his thumb tracing circles on the back of your hand.

You wiped your cheeks dry again, “Yeah—” you laughed, “Damn it Frank, I hate crying!” You shoved his shoulder, making him chuckle slightly back at you.

“You are an ugly cryer.” He teased you, a wide smile etching on his slightly bruised face. “You going to be okay to take care of this?” His voice asked you cautiously, “Because I can do this alone; you don’t have to—”

“Did you bring all of that up to try to talk me out of this?” You tilted your head at him and retrieved your weapon again. “Francis David Castiglione.” Your tone flared, “That is low…” you scolded him.

“First, don’t call me that.” His jaw lowered, his finger pointing upwards. “Second, I just don’t want you to get hurt again, because of me.” He justified himself.

“I’m a big girl, Castle, I can handle myself…” you snapped back, “You should know that from our last tour in Afghanistan, yeah?” You kneeled down and unzipped the duffle bag, grabbing the various parts of a gun and began to assemble them.

“Yeah,” he agreed, he placed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, he stared down at you with hooded eyes, “You handled a lot more on that tour too…” his voice rough like gravel making a wave of warmth wash over your body at his insinuation.

You clicked the butt of the AR into place and stood, slipping the strap over your shoulder, “Play your cards right Castle and you might see if you can still handle it…” you cooed, a smirk curling upon your bruised lips, sending your mind to travel through all of the memories and brushed past him.

“Yes, ma’am.” He said biting his lip as his eyes grazed the curves of your body, he happily followed your lead.

___

“Can you?” You whispered quietly, your head nodded to the building. His eyes abandoned his viewpoint and he jogged over to you, “Thanks, Frank.”

“Yeah.” He grunted, folding his hands together to create a platform for your boot to hoist you up; his muscles flexed as he effortlessly boosted you up far enough for you to grab the edge of the metal floor and pull yourself up onto it.

Once you were up on the small metal perch, you rolled over onto your stomach and stretched your arm down for him, “Come on.” You urged, wagging your hand at him down below. He abided and tossed you his small bag before his hand gripped your forearm tightly. Your muscles tensed along with his biceps that flexed beautifully in an effort to pull himself up to meet you. His hand lingered on your skin for as long as he could without making the situation more uncomfortable; he was clearly craving your touch. Your eyes stared at his hand caressing yours for the few extra seconds before he reluctantly pulled away your eyes lingered on his, your heart quickening inside your chest.

“It’s uh, just right up here.” He cleared his throat, obviously feeling the complex tension between the both of you build another layer on itself. “I’m sorry, Y/N” he gently grazed his blistered finger on the skin of your cheek, his jaw tightening fiercely as his temper flared. “I shouldn’t have asked you go with me that night, I knew it was dangerous—” His nostrils flared.

His sentence was cut off short by your soft lips kissing his, the stubble of his beard gently scratching along your face. You pulled away and furrowed your eyebrows at him in confusion; you released your hands from the back of his neck and took a half step back, “Shit. I’m sorry, I thought—” this time it was you who was cut off, his lips passionately kissing you, his hands same to the small of your back to pull you closer to him, needing to feel your body against his. You were stunned at the intensity of his kiss, dazed you brought you hands to run through his thick hair and deepened the kiss, you could feel the generous growth become increasingly hard in his pants. You leaned into him closer, decreasing the narrow space between you and him, teasing him with more friction. He grunted deeply when he tossed his head backwards, you carefully moved your mouth to the exposed skin of his neck and peppered him with wet kisses, his voice was deep, rough and sexy, “God, I missed you, Y/N,” he paused, “but we need to finish this later.” He said breathlessly and then frowned as your body became absent from his.

You closed your eyes and nodded your head against his chest, “I missed us too, Frank.” You kneeled down and changed the subject to distract from the encounter you just had “Loser buys breakfast?” You said smiling, raising your eyebrows up at him and retrieving your now assembled AR and strapped your ammo belt tightly around your small, toned waist. He chuckled and ducked through the strap of his own weapon, pulling the strap so it fit perfectly to his athletic body.

___

The two of you crouched down and stealthily crept down the edge of the building, your free hand raised to signal behind you to him; he came out around you as you quickly swung around the corner with your gun raised. He took point, his weapon ready; his large foot smashed harshly into the door bursting it open widely. The two of you rushed through the door and began to file through the rooms, looking for your target. Billy.

The darkness was broken up with the bursts of light that erupted from the ends of your guns, their dead weight dropping down to the floor. “Frank!” You screamed, your eyes fixed on a swarm of men that cascaded down the two stairwells.

Franks eyes snapped from them to you, “Down! Now!” He shouted before charging closer to them, his finger pulling the trigger with every step he was taking. He slid behind a small mountain of boxes for cover and to reload quickly.

Bullets whizzed by where you were sheltered from the enemy fire, there you waited for the right moment to spring up from cover to shower them with bullets and to give Frank some more time to reload. You screamed fiercely as you shot accurately back at them, taking a few enemy men down. Your ears alerted to the sound of your bullets running low in your clip; you stepped out from your cover simultaneously pushing your AR out of the way and raising your two 9 mm pistols and began to unload on them as you walked closer to where Frank was shielded.  “Fuck!” You shouted as a bullet grazed your arm; Frank’s wide eyes connected with yours, he nodded slightly signaling you that he was ready for more. You dove behind the same cover and scooted over so you were shoulder to shoulder with the punisher. 

“Shit, Y/N.” Frank’s hands pushed against your arm where blood began to seep and stain your shirt.

You nodded to him, “It’s a flesh wound. I can fight.” You affirmed him. Your fingers slid down and easily found the nob and released your clip and it was replaced in expert time.

“You good?” His eyes frantically looking you over from head to toe. You nodded rapidly, your hands mindlessly refilling the empty spots of your pistols. “Let’s finish this.”

The two of you stood quickly and shot in unison at the enemy, dodging in and out of cover to avoid more of their bullets. You and Frank pressed forward, working together as a unit; Frank’s eyes followed a small crowd of men that shielded your target, “Russo!” He yelled as he attempted to clear the men that surrounded him, only killing one before they were out of sight, blocked by the large cement walls. He shielded himself from the returning fire as Russo got away, his gun turning to the others when he got the chance. Your gun popped off the remaining men that where still alive in the room, you stood and assessed the minimal amount of damage that you had endured during this raid for Russo.

You gently walked to Frank’s side, kicking some empty casings; the sound standing as a loud reminder that Russo escaped. You rested your forearm on the butt of your AR that was strapped around your body; he turned his face to towards you, disgust heavy in his eyes, “He’s gone, Castle.” You paused, trying to find the right thing to say to him; it was like dodging mines in a minefield sometimes. “It might not have been today, or tomorrow, next week even. But we will get him and he’s going to pay for what he’s done, Frank.”

“It’s my f—”

“It’s not.” You stated firmly.

“Why?” He grunted and sat down, leaning against the bullet hole ridden concrete wall. He gently brushed away empty bullet casings, clearing a spot for you, prompting you to join him.

“I had the shot…” you said, picking your fingernails, you could feel his deep brown eyes burrowing into you but you were too scared to look back to him. “I— I’m sorry, Frank.” You cleared your throat and shook your head slowly, “I just couldn’t—I’m sorry…” you stammered.

He sighed heavily, releasing all of his frustration and brought his long muscular arm around your shoulders and pulled you in closer to him, “We’ll get him, Y/N…” he paused, “We will.” He said kissing the top of your head.

___

“Get in, loser.” You said reaching over and opening the passenger door of your car with your uninjured arm. He contemplated for a few seconds, “Frank…” you raised your eyebrow at him. He submitted, you turned your wrist, starting the engine as he shut the door and you drove back to your apartment.

“I owe you breakfast” his voice broke the silence of the car ride.

You glanced over to him and chuckled a little, “I’ll give you a pass, Castle. Just this one time.” You cradled your bloody arm and turned down your street.

“Since when do yo not want food?” He tossed his head back, his hood falling from his head exposing the shocked expression on his bruised and bloody face.

“True,” you agreed, “but have you seen me? And you?” You said sarcastically.

“I know, I can’t stop looking at you.” He smiled sarcastically through the words. You playfully threw a light punch onto his chest; he laughed and blocked catching your hand in his, holding it, making you heart flutter and another wave of warmth engulfing you.

Your pulled into the parking garage and took the key out of the ignition, “You can just make us food and I can take a shower then you can; sound good?” A flicker of lust filled your eyes for a moment before he saw your eyes wander his body.

Your jimmied the door open and it squeaked before it hit the back wall with a loud thud; there was a small round dent in the drywall from its repeated contact from the door handle. Frank followed you and closed the door, latching it closed tightly. He turned around, the sun beginning to peak through your dusky windows; the small rays leaking into the studio apartment illuminated your body as you sauntered your way over towards the bathroom, you began to slide out of your clothing, the warmth of the sun washed across your bruised skin. Frank’s eyes traveling from bruise to bruise, following them like a map all over your body.

You started the water and finished stripping down, gently tossing your clothing into the basket in the corner of the small bathroom. Frank watched out of the corner of his eye the several pieces of clothing that were once on your body now flowing over to the corner. He heard as you pulled the shower curtain and stepped into the tub. He took off his boots, sweatshirt and shirt and wandered to the threshold of the bathroom, your ears perked at the sound of him approaching. “There’s clean clothes for you on he corner of my bed…”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “How did you—”

“We’ve been doing the same thing for months—years even if you count over there.” You peered around the shower curtain to him. He was leaning against the doorframe, his muscles of his body were slightly bruised and tense, he took in his bottom lip at the thought of you in the shower just a few feet away. He tugged off his long, black socks and pulled down his pants, stepping out of them quietly.

His hand came up and withdrew the curtain, you turned to look back at him. His eyes stared intently at you; silently asking you if it was okay, you moved over to allow him more space. You pulled your hair to one side, his hands gently gripped your hips; he leaned his head over your shoulder, the water pouring down over his dark hair, his lips kissed your shoulder of your injured arm and up the side of your neck.

His muscular arms spun you around, you tossed your head back surprised with his sudden need for you. The water washed down on your face; you gasped loudly when he started planting sloppy kissed on your neck, “Frank!” You whimpered.

He brought his hand to the sides of your face and pressed his wet forehead on yours, his lustful eyes looked at you for a moment before he kissed you hungrily. His hands wrapping around you, pulling you closer to his body. “I need you, Y/N.” His deep voice rumbled, sending a wave of warm to settle at your core. His fingertips wandered eagerly down your body, his tongue tickled along your lips begging for entrance. Your hands trailed down his broad shoulders, down is toned abs, your delicate hand wrapped around his thick member making him clench his jaw as you steadily began pumping your hands, feeling a smile stretch along your lips with his satisfaction. His hands wrapped around your thighs and hoisted you up with ease making you shriek with anticipation, feeling the tip of his cock at your soaking entrance. He lowered you down slowly, you tossed your head back and bit your bottom lip to stifle your moan at the feeling of being filled. He buried his head in the crook of your neck feeling how tight you were against his dick.

“Please, Frank.” You cried out, needing more friction to tighten your coil that began to form inside of your center. He chuckled slightly at how needy you sounded for him. He gripped your ass tighter, you were sure there was going to be bruises added to your collection but you didn’t care, all you wanted was him. His hips began to thrust up into yours at a fast, hard pace; you bucked your hips against his, meeting his hips.

“Fuck. Y/N.” He stammered, your hands gripped his broad, strong shoulders so tight that your knuckles blanched white and your fingernails created small caverns in his skin. The water sloshed around with your bodies moving together, the coil becoming red hot in your center. “Come on.” He coerced, thrusting into you at an increased pace making you moan loudly; he leaned his head forward to you, kissing your mouth deeply. You angled your hips allowing his cock to slid into you, hitting you at the right spot sending you over the edge, your walls clenching down hard on his cock, coating him in your orgasm. His thrusts soon became out of rhythm and his breath hitched in his throat, he bit down on your shoulder causing you to cry out as the pain mixed with the pleasure as he fucked you through your climax; his hot climax spilled inside of you as he moaned your name.

You both remained still for a few seconds, panting hard, coming down from the hight you both just visited. He released his grip allowing you to slid down slowly until your toes made contact with the floor of the tub. His hands still remaining on your sides; one of his hands lifted your chin and he pulled you into a soft, passionate kiss. His head lingered near yours, you could feel his love for you pulsate with every beat of his heart.

You turned back around to face the water again, “The water is cold now.” You chuckled making him smile behind you.

Frank grabbed the sponge and lathered it up in soap and began to wash your back, “then we better hurry then.”

___

“Still three eggs over easy, side of bacon with sourdough?” You hummed, fastening the apron behind your back and spinning the spatula in your hand.

Frank set down a coffee filled mug in front of you, furrowing his eyebrows at you, “I thought I owe you—” he sipped his black coffee.

“I love you, Frank but your cooking…”your voice trailed.

“Hey, come on!” He smiled at you, “It’s not that bad.” 

“Yeah and it’s not the best either.” You bantered back at him.

“You’re cooking was always better.” He paused, brushing your wet hair from your face and nestling his chin on your shoulder, kissing your cheek sweetly. “I love you.” His rough voice whispered into your ear.

“You really love me?” You froze and asked him quietly.

“Mmhmm.” He nodded and peppered kisses along your neck, you leaned into him and smiled contently.

You lifted up onto your toes and spun around to face him, his large hands resting on your lower back. His head bowed down to meet your soft lips again. “You, Frank Castle. The punisher, loves me?” You said sarcastically.

“Do you want me to shout it from the empire state building or something?” He laughed, “Because if that’s why my girl wants—I’ll do it!” He grumbled and acted like he was going to leave. Your smile faded instantly with his words, making him increasingly nervous. “Wha—”

“You’re girl…” you repeated his words back to him, “Frank,” you said, his deep eyes looked down at you cautiously.

“Yeah, I love you.” he shifted his weight, “You’re my girl.” The side of his mouth curled slightly into a proud smile.

“I love you too.” You smiled back to him, “and…” you ducked under his muscular arm, “If I’m your girl then that makes you my punisher…”

“Really now?” He sipped his coffee again, his deep brown eyes sending shockwaves through your body.

“And it’s up to you to decide if I’ve been good or bad…” you bit your lower lip seductively. His tall body slowly walked over to you, his warmth of this body radiating to you, your hand reached down and pulled at the hem of his grey sweatpants, batting your thick eyelashes and gripping his hand in yours pulling him towards the couch.

“You’re going to be the death of me, Y/N.” He laughed and happily followed you, he flopped down onto the couch that was in the center of the open room. “Nah uh, Y/N.” He quickly turned your over and pressed his body onto yours, holding your hands above your head, “I’m in charge and you’ve been very, very bad, Y/N.” His eyes became darker as the lust pooled within them.

“Punish me, Frank.” You whined beneath him, “Please.”

The encounter was cut short by an ear piercing alarm, Frank hopped up from you on high alert, you soon followed him. “Shit!” You scoffed at the sight of smoke billowing from the pan with a small fire at the center of it. Frank jogged over and took the fiery pan off of the stove top and dropped it in the sink. “Under the—” you pointed, advising him where the very thing he was looking for. He pointed the nozzle into the sink and pulled the trigger, killing the fire.

He gazed over to where you were leaning against the edge of the sofa, “Why don’t we just go somewhere and get some breakfast?” He laughed, brushing his hand along his buzzed head and then extended his arm out to you, “Come on.” He smirked.

You walked over to him, “What? You don’t want to eat that?” You said sarcastically.

“If I eat that I’ll die; I’ve got too much too much to live for now…” he smiled and kiss the side of your head.

[venusxxlangdon]

Dance With The Devil. Part One. Invitation

summary: Michael is in hell, his Father is deeply disappointed in him, but instead of demolishing his son to ashes he lets him become a keeper of the 7th, 8th, and 9th Circles with a couple hundred demons in his service. Michael spends his days in boredom and taking his anger out on his subjects until one day Purson, a demon of all secret things of Earth, appears before him and makes an intriguing offer. Once upon a time, a woman made a deal with Satan, but did not pay her debt, passing the burden of it to her granddaughter. Before taking what is his, Michael gives a ball, and makes sure that the reader attends it in the first place.

warnings: for this chapter — a graphic description of hell and demons + there’s a nasty scene of Michael sending the reader a pie with worms, outpost!Michael, fem!reader

Smut is for desert aka the 2nd part

A/N: special thank you to @langdons-rep for discussing Dante with me

Words: 4550

The sound of boots clicking on the marble floor echoed in the corridor where the only source of light was the touchers hanging on the stone walls. A tall man dressed in a burgundy velvet jacket and black slacks was on his way to a big wooden door decorated with ornate monograms. At first glance, one might have thought they were made of the fine metal, hammered by the most skillful blacksmith, but in fact, it was the live cobras, slowly crawling up and down the door and curving into the shapes of spirals and waves. They stopped moving, as the man approached them and confidently wrapped his ring-clad fingers around the gold door handle. The blood-red rubies on his rings blinked dangerously in the dim light.

“So everyone is here?” his voice roared through the Great Hall immediately drawing the attention of the present. They stopped talking and fell silent, cautiously looking at him. “Brilliant. May I wonder why, my dear friends? Why are you all here doing nothing instead of outraging the humanity?”

A deafening silence followed his question. He put his hands behind his back and slowly, as if he was a predator on a hunt, made his way to an empty throne in the center of the room. It was sat atop an elevated marble platform and covered in textured and layered designs. There was a gold skull next to its right leg, and a green snake was wrapped around the left one. It lifted up its head and hissed at her master when he approached the throne, greeting him. The man did not pay any attention to it and took his seat on a thick pillow adorned with the intricate needlework, crossing his legs. He placed his hands on the arms of the throne and skimmed the room with a pretentious glare.

“What? Have my Father finally cut your tongues off?” his full lips were pursed in disgust.

Everyone bent their knees before their master, and only one demon dared to answer:

“My Lord, why are we suddenly fell out of your favor?” Furfur, a Great Earl of Hell stood up straight, facing the man. His usually rough voice sounded fawningly in attempt to sneak leniency from his master. But everyone knew he was a liar unless compelled to enter a magic triangle where he gave true answers to every question, so none of his words should have ever be taken seriously.

The man on the throne snarled.

“You should be the last one to raise your voice, Furfur”, he twisted his wrist, and the snake beneath the throne started making its way up his leg, to his thigh, and then higher to his chest to finally settle on his shoulders. “Did you really think that I wouldn’t find out about the debauch you and Naberius...”, he paused, moving his gaze to a three-headed monster who immediately bowed his head as his name slipped off the man’s tongue. “Had made?

Furfur clapped his raven wigs behind his back and submissively shook his disproportionately big head, having nothing to reply with.

“Do you know that because of your imprudent behavior we had to completely demolish a couple thousand souls?” the man started stroking the head of the snake with the tips of his fingers.

Noberius, being cunning in all arts by his demonic nature, clearly had something to add, but preferred to bite his tongue and remain silent for his own good. However, one could tell that he was angry by the way he clenched his metal claws around the silver rod that he was holding in his hands. He knew that it wasn’t the matter of him or any of the demons in the Hall who somehow had managed to disappoint the man on the throne. Michael Langdon, their master and the spawn of Satan himself, was simply bored. Nothing “entertaining”, as Michael referred to it, had been happening for months, so the young man started taking his anger out on his servants.

Even his morning strolls to the Ninth Circle didn’t bring him the usual satisfaction. A large frozen lake named Cocytus had always been his favorite. Those who were guilty of treachery against those with whom they trusted, in other words traitors, were trapped in the ice, each according to his guilt. Michael especially loved the temperature. It was 60 times lower than the temperature in Antarctica, and it felt like with every breath he took, his lungs were getting covered with a thin layer of ice. Fascinating. Although, the other day he got extremely annoyed by his servants, tiny demons of the lowest arcana with grey wrinkled skin and two gaping holes instead of their eyes, that his head seriously started hurting him.

“Leave me alone and shut the hell up!” he screamed out throwing his hands up in the air. With his movements, a ricocheting wave pushed the exasperating servants back several feet away from him. Whimpering and groveling on their knees they backed off without lifting their gaze up at their furious master. The harrowing screams from the concentric rings of the lake were no longer to be heard as well.

Michael sighed tiredly and closed his eyes, enjoying the silence, but the relief didn’t last for too long. The pain in his temples intensified, and the inhuman growl was drown from his throat. He swished and flicked his wrists once again, this time more delicately, and the ice in the lake started to crack. His anger washed over his body in hot, flushed waves making him clench his jaw. The feeling of pure frustration was creeping under his skin.

He could not forgive himself for failing his Father’s will. After the witches defeated him, Michael found himself home before his Father’s throne. The look on Satan’s face was unreadable, but the way he talked to Michael made it clear that Langdon had disappointed him. Michael clenched his fists so tight, his knuckles turned white at the memory of him sprawled out on the floor before the throne made of bones and metal. The only good thing was that the Demonic Quorum felt genuinely sorry for him and convinced his Father to send Michael to the castle not far from the lake of ice and let him become a peace guardian of the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circles instead of demolishing him to ashes. Naberius and Furfur followed along. Ever since that day, Michael was trying to do something remarkable so his Farther could forgive him.

His anger was like a supernova exploding deep inside him. The grand wave of ice and dust from the lake rose into the hellish sky. He wanted to ruin everything, every suffering soul that wasn’t even able to scream anymore. Only after there was nothing left from Cocytus, and the new lake started to regenerate, he felt like his work was done there. He turned around on his heels and without looking back went to the Eighth circle, blond shoulder length hair, styled in soft curls, bounced with every step.

“So”, he beckoned a creature carrying a bottle of wine and a cabernet glass on its back. It almost stumbled on its way to Michael, but, fortunately, managed not to spill a single drop of the drink. He wrapped his slender fingers around the tall glass, brought it to his nose, and slowly inhaled the smell of wine. “Who wants to tell me their pathetic excuse? Who wants to be the fir-....?” he cocked his eyebrow, looking unamused.

But before Michael could finish his sentence and continue humiliating his servants, he got interrupted by the sound of trumpets in the distance.

“Damn, why now?” as Michael expressed his discontent, a man with a lion’s head and a Viper in his hand appeared before him.

Purson, a Great King of Hell who was served by twenty-two legions of demons, didn’t feel the need to bend the knee. In his opinion, Michael was some sort of a misfit who had managed to seek his Farther’s mercy and somehow hadn’t got completely destroyed. He ran his bony fingers through his messy mane and gave Michael a discreet nod. Purson wasn’t a frequent guest at Langdon’s castle, and he never notified about his visits in advance, as he preferred to come unexpectedly, catching Michael off-guard. He stuck his red, inflammatory tongue out and licked his bottom lip.

 “What a tremendous surprise”, Michael stood up and spread his arms as if he was going to hug the guest. The corners of his lips twitched, but the look in his eyes remained suspicious. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Still trying to figure out how to please your Daddy?” the demon shamelessly ignored Michael’s attempt to seem courteous.

Michael rolled his eyes. Other demons were watching the two of them amusingly, thirsty for bread and circuses.

“What does it have to do with you?” he took his seat on the throne. Michael never understood how the demon even dared to come to his place and start making fun of him. What for? Was it on his weekly bucket list?

Purson shrugged and curiously looked around, unconsciously admiring the floating candles in the air. Damn kid had taste indeed.

“I was thinking that I might’ve been really tiresome to bear the burden of Satan’s disappointment”

“Cut the bullshit”, Michael quickly forgot about formalities. It was always difficult to keep his cool around Purson because the demon was a good empath even when it came to the feelings of the former Antichrist. He could read him like a picture book. “What do you want from me this time?”

Purson smiled carnivorously and clapped his hands excitedly.

“As the one in charge of all secret and divine things of Earth”, a self-satisfied smug spread across his scarred face, as he spoke, “I came to offer you a deal, my Lord”, Michael winced at the mockery.

He made another sip of wine.

“If you are implying that you’ve been fishing for somebody else’s dirty secrets and came to sell them to me, I must say that the answer is no”.

Purson’s red eyes widened. Who was this piece of scam to degrade him like that? Michael basically called him a quidnunc. The demon’s nostrils flared with anger. Most of the time he wished the Quorum sentenced Michael to demolition.

“I came to inform you that the time has come”, he retorted spitefully, “the time for a Limbo bitch to pay her debt to your Father”.

Everyone in the room started whispering frantically, even the tiny creatures dared to crawl a bit closer to Michael’s throne in order to overhear what the demon was talking about. Everyone, but Michael, seemed to be aware of what was going on. He raised his index finger up in the air, shushing his subjects.

“What do you mean?” he genuinely had no idea, and it was surprising to see Purson nearly bounce with exhilaration.

The demon covered his eyes with his palm in disbelief.

“Are you kidding me?” he shook his head, but as the look on Michael’s face remained stern, snapped his fingers. An ancient scroll appeared in his hands. Purson unfolded it and cleared his throat ready to read it out loud. “I’d like to enlighten you, my Lord”, he glared at Michael, “if I may?”

Michael nodded and leaned on the back of the throne, crossing his arms. He wished Purson could stop saying that stupid “My Lord” all the time.

“A long time ago one of our fellow believers had an unrequited love for a man she went to church with, but no matter how hard she was trying to get his attention he had his eyes on a different woman. Therefore, she made a deal with Our Highness: the man would marry her and they would live happily until death did them apart, but in return, she would sacrifice her soul. Our Lord, being a generous master that he is...”, Purson’s hoarse voice was loud and clear, “did everything she begged him for, but when it was time for her to join other sinners in hell, she sought the help of some witch who performed a very powerful ritual which helped the woman avoid the blessing of burning in Gehenna.”

He took a pause and looked up at Michael. The blank expression on his face made Purson shrug his shoulders disappointingly. To be honest, he wanted to make quite a show with his speech. Michael looked deeply unamused.

“Okay, where’s she now?” he finally asked.

“In Limbo”, answered Naberius from the corner of the chamber. Purson nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes, she’s forever trapped in Limbo, and we are unable to get her out of there. However...”, he smiled, “we could have taken her daughter...”

“But she had a fucking son”, barked Bifrons, interrupting the demon. The string of salvia was dripping down his fangs on the thick carpet.

“I would really appreciate if I weren’t interrupted all the time”, Purson demanded, looking really annoyed. “Yes, she had a son indeed. That’s why I said that we could have taken her”, his eyes glistened mischievously, “but her son has a daughter, and now she’s old enough to pay her precious grandma’s debt”.

The Great Hall exploded with applauses and triumphal whistling. The demons were excited about an act of good revenge. Sinners came in packs to hell every day, but those who fell the victims of their relatives’ karma were quite rare.

“Silence!” Michael shouted at them. He did not like the fact that Purson managed to steal his subjects’ attention. “And what does it have to do with me?”

“Here’s the deal: you bring the girl here and win the trust of your Father. Besides, my resources notified me that you’d been bored lately? Well, that’s going be fun.”

Michael narrowed his eyes. “Trust nobody” had been his motto on Earth, and since he got back to hell it pretty much stayed the same.

“You do realize that I’m not going buy the idea of you helping me to get along with my Father without anything in return? What are the stakes?”

Purson looked pleased. If Michael started asking questions, it meant that he got his interest even though the young man was trying to look unimpressed.

“I want to use her soul”, he made a dramatic pause, “for my own pleasure, but I can’t bring her to hell myself, that’s why I need your help.”

“Why so? I don’t want to do the dirty work for you”, Michael frowned.

“Because her grandmother had tricked no priest, for she fooled Satan himself. We would have placed her in the Ninth Circle with other traitors if she hadn’t been so sneaky. You are the keeper of this circle thus her daughter is technically yours ”, the demon stepped closer, and the snake on Michael’s shoulder threateningly hissed at him. “You don’t have to do it yourself. Just send your outcasts”, he nodded at the tiny monsters, “to her house. They’ll do the work…”

Michael listened carefully, and he had to admit to himself that the deal seemed very intriguing. From the corner of his eye he noticed that Furfur leaned forward to Naberius and started whispering something in his ear.

“And I’d be perfectly fine with visiting her once in a while by Cocytus”, Purson finished his speech.

Michael hummed. What was so enchanting about the girl’s soul that even one of the kings wanted it? He looked at the demon, thinking that if he helped him with something like that, Purson would owe him forever. The demon probably understood it himself; otherwise, he would not have come to Michael.

“Show me the soul”, he ordered.

Purson snickered and in one swift motion threw his hands up in the air. A strong wind immediately blew off the candles, etching the Great Hall in charcoal. It was so quiet — Michael could even hear the dust storm outside of the castle. But then a sudden burst of light erupted from the tips of the demon’s fingers, making the others growl disapprovingly. It was the kind of brightness that seared into the retinas of the ones, who possessed a pair of eyes, making them cover their faces with either their hands or their wings (that is what Furfur did). Michael watched it reach out to him, but once it touched his hand he hurried to get it off the armrests of the throne. He carefully examined the burn. His pale skin turned pink for a second, and then quickly healed itself. He couldn’t explain the vibe he felt from this light — it reminded him of something. Something he had experienced on Earth, but he did not remember what exactly was that feeling. Something long-forgotten.

“What was that?” he asked as soon as Purson finished his performance. The shock on Michael’s face was speaking louder than words. The demon smiled, satisfied with the drawn reaction.

“This is what I’m looking forward to getting if you help me”

Michael shifted uncomfortably in his seat thinking if he really wanted to do it. The bastard before him was right: how many more days he was going to handle this insufferable state of being rejected by his own Father? His life on Earth was one hell of a service to others: warlocks, Satanists, whoever wanted to use and manipulate him, and he expected it to be different in hell. It was his home after all, so why was he settling only for some mansion and a couple of legions of demons under control when he could rule all nine circles and be his Father's right hand?

“If I help you”, he said, and Purson’s face immediately lit up, “promise me to never appear in my castle again.”

Purson chuckled.

“As you wish”, he bowed his head mockingly and snapped his fingers, evaporating as unexpectedly as he had appeared earlier. The scent of burned flesh and Michael’s devastated mood were the only things the demon left behind.

Bifronos, a demon of science, the virtues of the gems and woods, who was silent all this time spoke first:

“My Lord, I think you should have discussed the decision with...” his lipless mouth barely moved, making it hard to understand what the demon was trying to say.

“With you?” Michael growled lowly, cutting him off. He turned his head to Furfur and Naberius who were still talking quietly. They noticed his gaze and slavishly bowed their heads.

Michael stood up, and the demons kneeled before him. His words vociferously roared in the Great Hall, as he proclaimed:

“Let every dead and living soul know that their Master will be giving a ball, and I expect all of them to attend it. May every pathetic creature in the farthest corners of hell witness what a splendid soul will soon be trapped under the ice of Lake Cocytus.”

xxx

She didn’t know when exactly all these weird things started happening to her, but something was definitely wrong with her mental state. First of all, she had never had any trouble with sleep, but lately, insufferable insomnia took over her mind and she could lay in bed for hours at night without sleep. In the morning she felt wrecked and drained out, but still had to go to classes and somehow manage to concentrate on the lectures. By the end of the day she felt dizzy, it seemed like her head was about to explode and none of the meds she had taken really helped her. She even bought some sleeping pills, but they made the situation even worse: as she drifted off to sleep, a horrible nightmare woke her up, and after that, she was wide awake on purpose in order not to go back to a surreal world of horror.

From time to time, she could sense a very unusual smell. The smell of burned hair and rotten eggs. It was so weird because the first time she sensed it, she was in a flower shop where it was impossible for something to smell that bad. She figured that she was imagining things because of lack of sleep.

Then sleep deprivation started causing her hallucinations. It was a normal Friday: she woke up tired (this condition had already become a part of her regular routine), took a shower, disappointingly examined her face in the mirror noticing that dark circles under her eyes looked even worse, and tried to cover them with makeup. The lilac color couldn’t be hidden under any concealer.

She made her way to a small kitchen and opened the fridge, thinking that she wasn’t even hungry. But she remembered her grandmother (“May she rest In peace”, she thought to herself) always telling her that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, so with a deep sigh she decided that maybe a piece of blueberry pie she had bought yesterday from a small bakery by her apartment building wasn’t such a bad idea. She opened the fridge once again, took the plate with the pie and dragged her feet to a comfortable armchair in front of the TV. She turned it on for the sake of background noise and closed her eyes tiredly. Maybe she needed to see a therapist. She looked at the digital clock on the shelf.

8:08 am

Interesting. For the past two months, she kept seeing the same numbers. Whenever she glanced at the clock or her phone display, the time was either 11:11 or 9:09 and so on. Even when she took the train to see her friend in the neighboring city her ticket said “platform 11. Train #7766”.

She forgot a fork for the pie, but figured since nobody was watching her, she could eat it with her hands. Bite by bite she started savoring the blueberry pie, absentmindedly staring at the TV screen. And that’s when it happened.... When she was about to take another bite she looked at the plate and rapidly knocked it off. Her favorite dessert was stuffed with worms. They were crawling out of the berry stuffing, wiggling their boneless bodies.

“What the fuck?” she shouted and rushed to the sink to throw up. At the thought of what she just saw her insides quivered as she kept vomiting.

After a while she wiped off her mouth, shaking violently. With her hands on both sides of the sink, she tried to calm down and took a deep breath. The smell of vomit filled her nostrils making her nauseous. She rinsed her mouth and slowly turned around on wobbly legs. Cautiously approaching the mess she had made, the girl looked at the broken plate.

There were no worms. Only the unfortunate blueberry pie crashed on the floor. She stepped closer not being able to believe her own eyes.

That Friday she called a therapist.

xxx

Her own scream woke her up in the middle of the night. She dreamed that she was running from someone, but she couldn’t understand who it was. The only thing she knew was that every cell of her body was shaking with terror at the thought of the man getting his hands on her. She opened her eyes panting heavily. It was so hot in her room! She ran her tongue along her dry bottom lip, trying to calm down. Her hair clang to her sweaty forehead and she brushed the damp strands off, disgusted by the overall feeling of exhaustion that flushed over her. She sat up in her bed and looked at the clock.

6:06 am

Well, at least it was not midnight. The alarm was set for 8am and she growled tiredly because she could have had at least an hour of sleep more!

The air in the room was extremely humid, almost suffocating. She kicked off the blanket and stretched her left arm trying to reach the AC remote control, but as she started pressing the buttons, it didn’t work.

“Goddamn”, she cursed, crushing back on the pillows. She covered her face with her palms and groaned in frustration.

Strange noise from the corner of her room suddenly drew her attention. She pressed the button on the lamp on her nightstand, but nothing happened. Confused, she tried once again, but the room remained dark. And then she sensed that familiar stench, this time it was more intense. A shiver ran down her spine, as the sound of rustling became louder. She grabbed her phone and turned on the flash hoping to see what was causing the noise.

Her eyes widened at the sight of six creatures crawling up onto her bead. She wanted to scream, but no audible sound came out. They were of the size of a small cat, completely naked with bones sticking out of their deformed bodies.

“What are you?” she gasped in shock, trying to cover up her bare legs with her nightgown. The creatures growled at the sound of her voice, showing their brown crooked teeth.

Tears started streaming down her flushed cheeks, as she helplessly grabbed the lamp off her nightstand and tried to hit the monsters with it.

“Get away from me!” her animalistic scream ringed through the dark room. They were getting closer, stretching their anorexic arms to her trying to grab her by the ankles.

She didn’t know if it was another hallucination, but she could swear that they were whispering something like “Master wants to see you, Master wants to see you”. She cried in pain when one of them managed to reach her feet and pierced her skin with its claws. The girl tried to kick it off, but the monster was holding on tight, smearing the stains of her blood on the white sheets.

It was a lost battle. They clang to her body like monkeys, wrapping their arms around her waist and arms making it impossible for her to move. She felt nauseous when one of the creatures crawled atop her chest and pinned her to the mattress. They possessed the inhuman power for the tiny complexion of theirs. She wished it had been just another nightmare, but as the creature grabbed her face and forced her to look at it, she knew it was a terrifying reality. It was staring at her with its lifeless, jet black eyes.

“Please, don’t....” she whispered barely moving her lips. Her body was shaking with fear. She tried to move at least one muscle of her body, but it was paralyzed. She shut her eyes in order not to look at the monster in front of her face, but it slapped her cheeks forcing to oblige. As she stared at the dark abysses, she felt a weird sensation, making her tense muscle go numb. The thought that these weird creatures were draining the life out of her rushed through her mind.

“Master wants to see you” were the last words that she heard before darkness possessed her subconsciousness, and she blacked out.

Taglist: @langdons-rep @lovelykhaleesiii @babypinkstyles94 @sammythankyou @sojournmichael @kaigitana @ms-mead @sebastianshoe @langdonsdemon @iloveziggystardust @chaoticevillangdon @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26 @kahhlo @coloursunlimited @storminmytwistedmind

People who might like it @wroteclassicaly @langdonsoceaneyes @divinelangdon

[littlefaerose]

you’ll never walk alone

WHO: Sam Evans and Marley Rose

WHEN: Friday, June 7th, 2019

WHERE: around the NYADA campus

WHAT: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Who better to walk it with than someone who’s done it before?

WARNING(S): Heavy subject matter mentions ahead - depression, death, self harm, eating disorders, drug use, suicidal ideation, blood, violence.

Marley fiddled with the end of her dark braid again, using her free hand to reach out and knock on door #201. It had been a few weeks now since she'd last seen Sam. Since... everything. But while it was easier to lock herself away in her room or root herself in front of Saltus for hours at a time, neither did her any good. Or did anyone else any good either. She could talk from a safe distance but at some point she needed to actually face people. And right then, the safest person to face was Sam. She smoothed out her faded green t-shirt and took a step back when the door before her finally opened. "... hey," she greeted after a beat, deterred for a brief moment by the lurch of something uncomfortable in her chest upon seeing his face. "I don't have a place or path in mind, just... walking. I hope that's okay."

Sam was partially looking forward to getting to see Marley but also slightly apprehensive about what he wanted to say to her. He could see a lot of how she was responding to what happened in himself. He could relate to it even though the situations were so different. Having come from the darkest place imaginable to being where he was now, he hoped he could help her somehow. Hell, he was certain he still had his moments. But if Sam could help her, he would do what he could. When she knocked on the door, he made sure he had his wallet and keys before opening the door. "Hey." He greeted her with a small smile before he closed and locked the door behind him. "Yeah, no problem. Walking is good." He said as he indicated for her to lead the way.

Marley nodded and turned, leaving it at that as she led the way down to the main level of Eurus and out onto campus. It didn’t matter how many times she had walked through campus since the night of the Promenade, it still jarred her to see so much damage inflicted on the buildings around them. It made a fist-sized ball of dread sink into her stomach. But she kept them going at a slow pace, wanting to stretch out the time as best she could. She needed it to keep her from circling right back to staring at the downed trees. “... I think I lost my job,” she finally commented, crossing her arms over her chest as they walked. “Temporarily, anyway. So much of JIH Marketplace is under construction now. Did you get any notices in the mail?”

Sam found it difficult lately to go on his morning runs. It made everything that much more noticeable, when no one was awake yet to see the damage, how it looked at night. He couldn't imagine how Marley felt to look at it, especially with the damage to the forest. He kept his steps slow, not wanting to rush anything. It was a way to spend time with a friend, but also give her the time to open up and say anything she needed to. He frowned hearing about the shop. Sam couldn't imagine how that felt and he felt guilty that he even had a place to go still. "I'm sorry to hear that," he spoke honestly. "The art store is still open. Somehow they didn't get damaged much." He wondered how it was possible, maybe just certain areas were affected more.  "Maybe you can see if one of the other shops still open can give you a place for now." He suggested.

“Maybe,” Marley murmured, though finding another job was admittedly low on her list of priorities. “Maybe it’s better if I just lay low for a bit though.” She could only imagine the hesitance another business on campus would have to seeing her application. She fell silent again as the rounded the path and Undique Stadium came into view. It hadn’t appeared to sustain too much damage, unlike other areas on campus. She slowed a bit as she caught sight of their reflection in a window, then immediately averted her gaze. “How did you do it?” she asked quietly several paces onward later, almost reluctant to ask as her gaze flickered back over to Sam. “I know we haven’t ever really sat down and talked about it but... how did you get through everything after the Brownstone incident? How did you ever move forward? Because right now I feel like I’m-“ She cut herself off as the words bubbled up her throat and out her mouth, bursting forth before she could censor herself. She could feel her hands shake even as they gripped her arms tighter. “-I feel like I’m drowning. And I don’t know how to come up for air.”

Sam knew how easy it could be to lay low and pretend like the world didn't see you. Having done it for months, closing himself off from everything he knew only made it worse. He was still trying to get back on his feet. He sighed softly, knowing how she felt. "Honestly, that's exactly how I felt. It was like the what ifs constantly kept playing on repeat. I would see the same scene in my head over and over. I didn't handle it well, to be honest." he found himself saying without stopping himself. He needed her to know how bad it could get but that she couldn't go down that road. "Actually two days after it happened and before I met with the Cardines, I...I went for a long walk and I found myself at a bridge. And all I could think of looking down at how high I was, all I could think of was how easy it would be to-" He didn't finish his sentence, shaking his head to prevent himself from going back there. "And I stopped taking care of myself. I wasn't eating. I would get scrapes or cuts and...I would let the pain consume me. I wouldn't heal. I didn't feel like I deserved to heal. That I betrayed my magic and all it stood for. I put myself in a really dark place. I think the one person who saw through it was Blaine. He knew what I was doing and it still took me a while to wake up and see I still had worth. And that doing right by the people I hurt, their families, was better than sitting in a cold, dark room. When I went back to my dorm, it was because I was sick and tired of doing nothing. I couldn't be in that dark place anymore. My dorm, the one I've always had, it has memories that remind me that there is still good and I can have it. I just do have to remember who I'm doing it for." He turned his gaze to her. "The one thing I do know is that being alone, it pretty much killed my relationships with people. Tina, Mike, Elliott, you. It killed me how my behavior affected the way I acted with everyone. It was like I let the self hatred consume me. And eventually I realized I couldn't do that anymore. I needed to be strong, not just for myself, but for the ones I owed it to. So I could make amends and do better by their community." He knew how heavy it was to talk about it, but they hadn't before and it was, unfortunately, the one way he knew that he hoped she could glean some insight from.

They were already moving slow, but Marley's pace petered off that much more as Sam began to open up about everything. Frankly, it scared her to think that he'd existed in such a dark place for so long without anyone noticing. Scared her to see so much of herself in what he was saying. It rocked her enough that at first, she couldn't find the words to say. What could she say? She couldn't take back the way she'd treated him or ignored him through all of it. The tough reality of the words just seeped into her skin, settling uncomfortably inside her. Flashes of moments across her brain leave her feeling dizzy - staring at a freshly picked belladonna leaf, waking up on the floor of her room willingly poisoned, her own blood spurting onto the floor of the Sanctuary room… she reached for his hand and grabbed on tight as the feeling  in her chest overwhelmed her, pausing their walk for the moment. "I thought I was going to die," she admitted, unable to look at him as she did. It hadn't gotten any easier each time she told someone. If anything, in this case, it made her feel shame the instant the words left her lips. "I lived for years thinking that night was the night I would die, and... and after... I can't even number the times I've thought to myself since then that I wish I would've. That I had let myself bleed to death and the earth swallow me up as the earthquake rolled in." She pursed her lips against the sting in her eyes as one admission brought with it a bubbling up of so much more. "I'm trying to.... I'm trying to not shut down, to not shut people out again, but the whole world is in chaos right now, things have become infinitely worse for LN, I've effectively pissed off everyone, Olivia is missing, and I can't even face my own girlfriend because every time she says she loves me and that we're going to have a future outside of all of this someday, I just want to crawl out of my skin because how - how can she look at me and all of the choices I've made and all that's become of this and still think I'm worth it? I don't even think I'm worth it!"

Sam held onto her hand, squeezing it gently but also firmly, wanting to give her some ground to hold onto. He could see she was drowning, just as much as he had been at one point. While he knew this situation was different, one difference was he was there for her. She may not have been able to be there for him, and he understood completely, he was going to be there for her. "Hey, I get it, okay? I'm here for you." He put one hand on her shoulder, gently squeezing it while the other still held her hand.  "It's hard when the whole world is against you. Or at least it feels that way. But you have support even if you don't think you deserve it. Because the truth is, you do. And that girlfriend of yours does not give up on someone if they mess up big time. She was literally there for me when I thought for sure I didn't deserve it. Because she still saw something in me that I didn't see. That I didn't want to see because of all of the mistakes I made. And she is doing the same for you because she loves you and she cares about you. And I still see my friend Marley in there. Because deep down you still want to make things better. Did things get royally messed up? Yeah, they did. But the hard part now is figuring out what to do next. You can do that with the people who love you and want you to be okay. That can start with Dani and I, if you want." His stomach dropped at the mention of Olivia, thinking of his own friend who had gone missing so long ago. Aether, how long had it been now? "I know you don't feel like it but I am so glad you survived. Because now you can show them that you are worth something and that you can make things right. I know right now it might be hard to know what that is. Trust me, it took me months to finally figure out what I needed to do. But at that time, I had only myself. You are a step ahead of me because you got me. Dani. You have us. We're not going anywhere."

Marley looked up when Sam grabbed her shoulder. Though it was hard to hear - hard to accept when everything in her head screamed the opposite - she couldn't discount what he said. He'd been there and back. He'd survived. And if she knew nothing else about Sam, it was that he was loyal. Even going through hell, he still stood by his friends. By what mattered most. If he could survive... if they had all survived this, then she had no other choice. She had to at least try. Or try harder, in this case. "I do want to make them better," she nodded, reaching up with her free hand to wipe away at the moisture on her cheek. "I just don't know how to yet. There's so much... there's so much wrong to be fixed." And not enough of her to fix it all at once like she wanted to.

Sam understood where she was coming from. It was hard to see what to do next when there was too much that needed to be done. "Sometimes the easiest thing to do is start small." He thought of the monthly donations he still made, how they never wavered from going to their recipients. "And just work your way up.  But the first step is to take care of yourself and not pull away. The answer will come eventually. And you'll know what the right thing is."

It was hard to see what the right thing could be at that point - or that anyone would want anything from her at that point - but Marley could do small. She could take baby steps, however futile or frustrating they might feel. She could start at home. She could starting by going home. “Thank you,” she murmured and squeezed his hand again. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see how low you’d gotten. I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this, almost got you killed.”

Sam shook his head gently, "Hey, it's okay. You had every right to feel how you did back then. I don't blame you at all for not seeing it. I didn't want anyone to see it. I felt like I deserved it. Just...having you here now, that's more important to me. And now I can be here for you." He wrapped her up in a hug, wishing he could help more. "It's alright, Marley. It's over and done with. It's just time to move forward now. That's all we can do."

[gilbertandanne]

Abaddon

n. a place of destruction; the depths of hell.

Fancast | Tracks | Spotify

AU: Ever since he broke up with his girlfriend, Lucas Friar has been stuck in a perpetual state of purgatory.  One night, he shows up outside of her apartment, desperate to escape the emotional paralysis that’s held his soul hostage for over a year.  What he discovers eventually sends him on an emotional journey through Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell as depicted in The Divine Comedy.

Pairing(s): Rucas centric, but Joshaya are dating in this AU.

Rating: M - there is nothing graphic, but there is some language and some adult situations, so I’d rather play it safe.  If it were a movie, it’d be rated R due to the fact that fuck is said more than once.  This is an angsty/dark fic, but there are dashes of fluff, too.

Flashbacks are in italics. Quotes from The Inferno are sprinkled in and notated.

Chapter Word Count: 6,862

Tagging: @naelacy @iwantyoutochooseme @madelinecoffee@fireawayniall @katherinefrays if you want to be tagged, let me know

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.” - Dante, The Inferno

Prologue | Limbo | Lust | Gluttony | Greed | Wrath | Heresy | Violence | Fraud | Treachery | Epilogue |

Chapter One: Limbo

‘When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray. Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was, that savage forest, dense and difficult, which even in recall renews my fear: so bitter – death is hardly more severe! But to retell the good discovered there, I’ll also tell the other things I saw. I cannot clearly say how I had entered the wood; I was so full of sleep just at the point where I abandoned the true path.’ (Inf. I. 1-12)

The last 24 hours felt nothing short of surreal for Lucas Friar.  It still didn’t feel real, even after he boarded the afternoon bus to Connecticut.  Maybe it was because at this particular point in this life, nothing seemed to surprise him.  Maybe it was because over the course of the last year, he found it hard to care about anything at all.  And, he learned, if you didn’t really care about anything, you couldn’t ever really be surprised.

So, he pondered as the bus pulled out of the station, if he no longer possessed the ability to care about anything, why was he on a bus to Connecticut—to Farkle’s parents’ ski cabin?  Sure, he used to enjoy snowboarding, but why did he have the sudden urge to spend the next several days gliding down the slopes?  He hadn’t had any desire to do anything evenly remotely considered fun in over a year.  Why now?

Because he knew that it had nothing to do with snowboarding and everything to do with who else would be there that weekend.

She was going to be there, and after the previous night, he knew that he had to be there too.

The same she that he swore to himself he’d stay away from.  The same she that invaded every single one of his senses the moment she fell onto his lap on the subway when they were in 7th grade.  The same she who had occupied every ridiculous dream he had ever envisioned for himself.  The same she that he left behind on her 21st birthday.

Lucas pressed his forehead against the slightly frosted window as the New York City skyline slowly faded away.  Had it only been a year since that dreadful night?  It felt like a lifetime ago.  He was a completely different person back then.  That Lucas had hope for the future.  That Lucas had goals he wanted to achieve, and was well on the way to making all of those dreams a reality.  That Lucas had a clear direction for his life.

Above all else, that Lucas could feel.  Back then, he was capable of experiencing every human emotion under the sun: joy, sorrow, anger, pain, but above all, he knew what being in love felt like.  And God, he loved her more than he ever loved himself.

And yet, it was that version of himself who broke her heart.  He broke up with her hours after she turned 21.  Even now, a year after the fact, whenever he closed his eyes, he could picture her standing in the middle of her bedroom while he told her that he wanted to end their six year relationship.  Over the course of the last twelve months, he had become haunted by the anguish that shown in her beautiful brown eyes.  He could also pinpoint the precise second when her heart broke, because that was the exact moment his did the same.

Seeing her crumble right in front of his eyes—and knowing that he was the one who caused it—had to be one of the most gut-wrenching moments he would ever experience.  Almost immediately, he tried to take it all back.  He didn’t want to break-up.  He never wanted to break-up.  He only wanted everything to be better.  He wanted her to be happy.  The moment he saw the first tear slide down her cheek, he knew that he had made a horrible mistake.  He desperately tried to take it back, to fix everything he had just done, but it was already too late.  She promptly kicked him out of her apartment and out of her life.

The moment his legs carried him away from her apartment, every incredible feeling he had ever felt with her faded away.  The pain that had overtaken every nerve in his body intensified with every step he took away from her apartment.  When it all became too much—when the weight of his actions and his own heartache became unbearable—a new sensation overpowered him: numbness.  When he realized that he no longer felt suffocated by what he had done, a tidal wave of relief washed over him.  In the back of his mind, he knew that it wasn’t right—that pushing down all of this self-inflicted pain would only be detrimental in the end—but he didn’t care.

That was the entire point.  

He simply didn’t care about anything anymore.

Until last night.

Lucas wasn’t sure how long he paced outside of her door.  

He wasn’t even sure what he was doing there.  

He hadn’t heard a word from her in over a year.  She refused to speak to him.  She refused to see him.  Even though he found an alternative way of handling the pain of the break-up, he still wanted to try explain the situation to her, perhaps even salvage their relationship, but apparently, he was the only one.  She ignored every single gesture he made the month following their split.  When winter break drew to a close, he knew he had to leave.  Even though he transferred to Cornell, even though he was now in the same state as she was, he realized that he had to give her what she wanted.  

After all, it was the least he could do.  

He wanted to fight like hell for her—for them—but the fact that she wouldn’t even talk to him sent a very clear message to the stoic Texan: leave her alone.  The fact that he now felt completely numb to the entire world around him made that choice a much easier one to make.  The old Lucas wouldn’t have given up so easily, but this new Lucas realized that she deserved something much more than what he had been able to offer her for the last three years.

With that in mind, he ceased all attempts at communicating with her.  He didn’t call, didn’t text, and deactivated all of his social media accounts.  She knew nothing about his life just has he knew nothing about hers.  

So, why did he end up outside of her apartment—the one place he swore he’d never return to?

Because it had been over a year since that horrific night and he still couldn’t feel anything.  He had become completely detached to the world around him.  Logically, he knew that it was no way to live—that he had somehow detached himself from his emotions in order to cope with what he had done—but he couldn’t help but to wonder if this coping mechanism had become permanent?  Maybe his brain was still trying to protect his heart from facing the emotional consequences of what he had done.  Maybe it was because he had not idea how she was doing.  Every time he talked to Zay or Farkle, he was tempted to ask about her, to see how she was, but he never did.  He knew he lost the right to know anything about her life a long time ago.

And yet, here he was—about to disrupt her life just to get a glimpse of the woman he had foolishly left behind that frigid night.  Maybe if he saw her, maybe if he knew that she was ok, that she had moved on, he’d be able to feel something again.

He had been selfish with her once before.  It was how he ended up exactly where he was now.  He knew that if she wanted to talk to him, she would have reached out by now.  He knew that he had absolutely no right to barge in on her life anymore.

He knew that he was being selfish once again, but her apartment was the first stop he made when he got back to the city.  It wasn’t even a conscious decision.  Somewhere between leaving his apartment in Ithaca and arriving in New York, he shifted into autopilot, but instead of ending up at his parents’ place, he ended up outside of her apartment.  That had to mean something, right?  Maybe it meant that enough time had finally passed.  Maybe it meant that they could act like adults and finally sit down and talk this whole thing out.  He had no expectation that anything would return to normal or that they would even part as friends, but he also knew that he couldn’t even begin to repair himself until he saw her—until he knew that she was ok.

Maybe somewhere deep down, she felt the same way.

Before he could second-guess himself for the tenth time since he arrived at the building, he knocked on the door.

As Riley loaded her bags into Farkle’s SUV, she was hit with an incredible sense of dread about the weekend ahead.  She groaned as she tried to squeeze her bag in with the other luggage and groceries piled underneath it.  She wasn’t sure why she was suddenly feeling so anxious about the trip.  It was ridiculous.  They had planned this little vacation for nearly a month now, not to mention the fact that being able to escape the city for a few days was the only thing that pushed her through finals.  

It was going to be fun.  

It had to be fun.

She knit her eyebrows together as she continued to wrestle with her luggage.  She knew that it would also be the first time she had gone back to the mountains since the breakup.

Maybe her sudden bout of anxiety was just a side effect from seeing him the previous night?  She paused as a flash of him outside of her door came to mind.  She shook her head as she tried to quickly chase the mental image away.  No.  That wasn’t it.  That couldn’t be it.  Lucas Friar no longer had a hold on her.  He broke up with her over a year ago.  He dumped her on her 21st birthday.  That was it.  That was the end of their story.

So, if that were true, then why had she thought of little else since she saw him through her peephole last night?  An even bigger question she had for herself was why she let him come inside in the first place?  Why did she pretend that everything was perfectly fine when she felt anything but fine?  Why did every single feeling she had spent the better part of last year trying to free herself from come charging back at her the moment she looked into those brilliant green eyes again?  Why did her legs quake when the right corner of his lips turned up into that charming little half smile?  Why did her heart race at the sound of his voice?

But why, above everything else, did she ask him to stay?

“Need help with that,” Farkle chuckled from behind her.

Riley spun around as she faced one of her best friends.  Her frown deepened when she noticed that he looked completely bemused at her frustration.  ‘If you only knew,’ she thought to herself as she handed him her bag.  She said nothing else as she walked toward the passenger side door.

She mentally chastised herself as she opened the door and climbed into the black SUV.  As soon as she buckled her seatbelt, she leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes.

She should have never answered that stupid door.

Riley groaned as she leaned her head back. She rubbed her aching neck as she looked back down at the chemistry book that sat on her coffee table. “I hate you,” she muttered. She had always been pretty good in her science classes until she came face to face with an organic chemistry class the fall semester of her senior year of college. She glanced at her phone. ‘12:35am.’

She yawned as she slowly stood up and made her way to the kitchen. It was going to be another all-nighter. She needed coffee—tons of it. As soon as she put a K-cup in the Keurig, she heard a knock on her door. She frowned at the sound, and briefly considered ignoring it all together, but her curiosity quickly got the better of her. Maya was spending the night with Josh, so unless something catastrophic had happened, she knew it couldn’t be her roommate.  Besides, Maya had a key.  She wouldn’t knock on her own apartment door.

Riley frowned as she peered into the peephole.  No.  This couldn’t possibly be real.  Her mouth ran dry as she closed her eyes and leaned forward in order to rest her forehead against the door.  It was the last person she’d ever expect to see outside her door in the middle of the night.  She had no idea what he was doing here, but she knew that she couldn’t see him right now.  Not only was it the first time she had seen him since that night, but also, she was in the middle of preparing for a hellacious exam that she had to take in seven and a half hours. Maybe she could just walk away and pretend that no one was home? Maybe she could force herself to forget all about the guy who stood on the other side of the door?  

She leaned away from the door, fully prepared to turn around and walk away from him just as he did to their relationship, but instead, she found herself unlocking the door.  She shook her head at her own weakness as she opened it. Even in the middle of the night, even when she looked like a complete mess and was stressed beyond belief, some small part of her demanded that she face the past.

As her tired chocolate eyes met his shiny emerald ones, it felt as if she were teleported back to when they first met that fateful morning on the subway ten years ago.  Despite the fact that she could hear her heart pulsate in her ears and could feel her legs quiver at the mere sight of him, she tried to act casual.  She knew she had to.  She couldn’t let on that he had any sort of physical affect on her.

In order to mask her quaking form, she leaned against the doorframe as she crossed her arms over her chest in a protective stance. God.  She hated her body.  She hated how it always seemed to betray her in situations like this.  She cleared her throat as she forced herself to focus on the fact that her ex-boyfriend had showed up outside of her apartment in the middle of the night. “Lucas?  What are you…when did you,” she took a deep breath in order to steady her rapidly unraveling nerves, “It’s after midnight…what do you want?”

Lucas had rehearsed what he was going to say the moment he realized where he was, but as soon as he laid eyes on her, his entire speech went out the window. He couldn’t help but to take in the spectacular picture that had always been Riley Matthews. The girl of his dreams, the one who got away, the one who still haunted his every dream, even a year after their painful breakup.

The corner of his right lip lifted into a smirk—his first attempt at a smile since the breakup. “Are you wearing my shirt?”

Riley looked down at her apparel. She wore a blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows.  The denim shorts she wore could barely be seen underneath the oversized shirt. Her long brunette tresses were piled on top of her head in a messy bun with a pen to hold it all in place. “I-I don’t know,” she lied, “I can’t remember where I got it from.”

The truth was that she could recall every detail of the moment that he gave her that shirt, but she wasn’t about to let herself go down that road.  It was another lifetime ago.  They were different people then.  She hadn’t spoken to him in a year.  She didn’t know anything about the guy who stood in front of her.  He was nothing more than a stranger to her now, and while at one point, the thought of Lucas Friar becoming a stranger seemed impossible, Riley refused to allow herself one second of remembering him as anything else.  

It was easier that way.

Before the silence that hung in the air between them completely took control of the situation, Lucas knew he had to just come out and ask for the impossible.  “Can I come in?”

Even though she was surprised to see him outside of her apartment, she was floored when he asked to come in.  “I-I don’t know,” she stammered as she crossed her arms over her chest once more. “Why are you here?”  She knew that she wasn’t mentally prepared to handle the situation that was beginning to unfold in front of her. She hadn’t seen him, let alone talked to him, since their breakup.  Even if she didn’t have that final in a few short hours, she wasn’t sure if she was ready to see him—or even if she’d ever be ready to see him again.

“I know it’s late,” he began as he began to fidget with his fingers, “but I just got into town and I…well, I…I know it’s late, it’s just that…I…um…” He eyed her from head to toe once more. His memories of her did not do her a shred justice. She was still completely and utterly hypnotic. “I had to see you.”  Before he could stop himself, before he could back peddle and accept the fact that he had caught her at a bad time and leave, he told her the one urge he forced himself to bury for the last year.  He needed to see her the moment he left her apartment that night.  Every day, every hour, every minute since then he had to stop himself from doing exactly what he had just done.  He thought that after being away for a year, after accepting the fact that he was no longer of capable of feeling anything, that it would be easier to see her—to know that he made the right decision that night, but now, as he stood in front of her, he wasn’t sure how he had ever managed to utter those words to her.  It was the biggest lie he had ever told anyone, and he said it to the one person he swore he’d always be honest with.

She swallowed under the scrutiny of his gaze as she tried to ignore the slight pang in her heart at his words.  Why did he need to see her?  Did he want a first hand look at the ruins he left behind?  Was this some sort of ploy to placate a guilty conscience?  Riley didn’t want to know.  She had learned over the last year that, perhaps, some things were better left unsaid. “I…um…I have a final in the morning.”

He nodded slowly as a wave of disappointment flashed across his features.  He should have known that she was busy, not to mention the fact that it was late.  If she weren’t in the middle of something important, then she’d most likely be asleep.  He should have been more aware of the time.  He should have talked himself out of this whole thing long before he ever reached her door.  He had been able to do it every day for over a year now.  What made tonight so different?  “Oh. Well, I…um…you don’t have to…you probably don’t want to, but is there any way I can see you sometime over break…maybe this weekend?”

She bit her lower lip as she considered her options.  This whole thing was completely unexpected and to say she was thrown by it would be a complete understatement.  She had no idea what he wanted to say, and quite honestly, Riley wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear it.  She wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to engage in any sort of conversation with him ever again.  She knew that if she did, that night would inevitably come up, and she had no desire to relive a single second of it. “I’m going to Connecticut this weekend.”

“Connecticut?”

She looked down at the ground next to his feet. “Farkle’s parents’ cabin.”

He nodded. “Oh.”  How could he be such an idiot?  Zay had mentioned something about going to the cabin a few weeks ago, but much like most of his thoughts, that little piece of information completely vanished the moment he saw her.

“Yeah. I mean…with everything going on…graduating in a few months and everything, Farkle wanted to go…and I need to…” She took a deep breath as she tried to control her chaotic thoughts.  “I need to get out of my head for a little bit.”  She turned her head to the side as she looked back in the apartment. Her gaze immediately landed on the bane of her existence, which taunted her from its position on the coffee table. She wanted nothing more than to throw the book and all of her notes out the window. When she turned back to Lucas, a completely insane and desperate idea came to her. “You aced organic chemistry when you took it sophomore year, right?”

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, but chuckled at her question nonetheless. “Yeah.  I took an advanced course last spring, too.”

Why was she even entertaining this notion? She was absolutely certain that this was a terrible idea, one in which she would question during the following days, but right now she was desperate, and once upon a time, before everything got complicated and they completely imploded, they were friends. And friends helped one another, right?  “I know it’s late, but if you aren’t doing anything and aren’t jet lagged or something…would you mind helping me study? I’ve been struggling with it all semester and the final is half of my grade…and it’s in seven hours.”

He never thought that she’d even open the door to him, let alone ask for his help with something.  Desperate to spend any amount of time with her that he could, he gave her a small smile.  “Of course.  You know I’d do anything for you.”

Riley opened her eyes when she heard the driver’s side door open.  She reached for her purse as Farkle slid into the driver’s seat.  ‘Yeah.  You did everything but stay,’ she thought as she put on her sunglasses.  She knew she had to get out of this funk before they reached the cabin.  If Maya suspected that Riley even saw Lucas last night, let alone the fact that she spent a few hours with him, Maya wouldn’t ever let her hear the end of it.  She didn’t want the whole weekend to be focused on every single detail of the few hours she spent with her ex-boyfriend.  Despite what had happened the previous night, Riley believed that their romantic relationship was exactly where it belonged—in the past.

Farkle frowned as he looked over at one of his best friends.  “You ok?”

“Yeah,” she lied as she leaned her head back against the headrest.  “I guess I’m just burned out from finals, you know?  It’s…been a very long semester.”

Farkle nodded.  It had definitely been a rough couple of months.  He had spent the better part of it interning at Minkus International.  Between that and his classwork, he barely had any time left to see his friends.  He was hopeful that this weekend would somehow reconnect everyone before they scattered for good after graduation in the spring.  “At least it’s over now though, right?”

“Yeah,” she sighed as he pulled away from the curb in front of her apartment building.  “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be more like myself once we get there, you know?”  More like herself?  What did that even mean?  Riley was fairly certain that she hadn’t been ‘herself’ in years.  She wasn’t sure where that bubbly little optimist was anymore.  She lost bubbly somewhere in the middle of freshman year and her optimistic nature had slowly diminished the older she got.  Now, she was just stressed-out-exhausted-and-way-too-busy-to-allow-herself-to-think-about-much-of-anything-else-Riley.  Maybe this weekend would offer her something that the last year hadn’t—a moment of peace.  She looked over at one of her best friends in the world and gave him a small smile.  “Let’s get some music going and I’m sure I’ll decompress on the way there.”

When Riley reached forward to turn up the volume on the radio, Farkle’s frown deepened.  He had known her for seventeen years.  He knew when she was stressed out.  He knew when she was upset.  He also knew when her mind was focused on something, rather someone, else.  “Are you sure it’s not anything else?”

“I’m sure,” she easily lied before she changed the radio station.  “So, where’s Zay?  I thought he was riding with us.”

Farkle knew when to take a not-so-subtle hint.  He learned a long time ago that just because he knew she was hiding something from him, he didn’t necessarily have the right to call her out on it.  She had changed the subject and he knew that he needed to respect her desire to talk about something else.  “Finishing up his last final.  His stuff is already loaded up.  We just need to swing by one of the performing arts buildings to pick him up.  After that, we’ll be on the way.”

‘And just as he who unwills what he wills and shifts what he intends to seek new ends so that he’s drawn from what he had begun, so was I in the midst of that dark land, because, with all my thinking, I annulled the task I had so quickly undertaken.’ (Inf. II, 37-42)

The two-hour trip to Connecticut felt more like ten hours to Lucas.  While he still felt emotionally disconnected to pretty much everything around him, the time he spent with Riley the prior evening had revealed several cracks in his emotionless foundation.  For the first time in a very long time, he felt something—perhaps a twinge of nervousness—at the prospect of seeing her again.  He wasn’t sure if she knew that he was coming.  He had no clue if Zay had warned her or if she was going to be completely surprised by his presence.  

He spent the majority of the previous night with her as he helped her study for her exam.  For the most part, they kept it strictly about the material, but his thoughts couldn’t help but to drift back to her as the wall he had built around his heart began to crumble.  In the few hours they spent together, he was reminded of every single reason why he fell in love with her in the first place.  She was easily the most captivating person he had ever met.  By simply being in her orbit, he felt lighter.  At one point, he even felt something akin to actual happiness.  Even though they spent most of the time studying, her mere presence had more of an affect on his emotional state than anything else in the prior year had.

He told himself all along that if he showed up and she seemed ok—that it appeared as if she had moved on from their relationship—then he would force himself to finally let her go.  He would attempt to shuffle through the rest of his life and be content enough with the knowledge that somewhere out there, she was happy.

But somewhere in the midst of studying for organic chemistry, he realized that she didn’t seem to be happy.  It was late at night and they were studying what had to be her least favorite subject in the world, (not to mention the fact that her least favorite person was helping her), but even with taking all of that into account, she still didn’t seem quite like the girl he fell in love with.  Melancholy and despondency clung to her in much the same way that it did to him.

As he approached the bus station, he began to think that perhaps he was wrong in his assessment—that maybe he only saw what he wanted to see.  He knew that if he saw only a slight hint of sadness in her eyes, it would push him to do the one thing he should have done a year ago—fight like hell to keep her.

It was nearly 2am before Riley’s fourth cup of coffee that night began to wear off.  She and Lucas had been going over the material for well over an hour by the time first yawn escaped her exhausted lips.  She squeezed her eyes closed in an attempt to offer them a brief moment to recharge.  She knew she couldn’t stop and go to sleep now.  It finally felt like she was getting somewhere.

When she opened her eyes, she looked over at Lucas, who seemed—amused?—by her sudden drowsiness.  “I think I need another cup of coffee,” she admitted.

“I think you probably need to get some sleep,” he commented when she yawned once more.  As much as he wanted to spend more time with her—even if it was just to help her study for her final—he also knew that at some point, she either knew the material or she didn’t.  Riley seemed completely exhausted.  All of this studying wouldn’t do her any good if she fell asleep during the exam.

“I’ll be fine,” she grumbled as she stood up.  “Do you want some?”

Lucas was too captivated by her simple movement to fully comprehend the fact that she asked him a question.  He couldn’t help it.  It had been a year since he had seen her.  In that year, he had forced himself to forget how he felt by simply being in the same room as her.  Even though he could tell that she had changed in much the same way that he had, she still had this uncanny ability to make him forget about everything that existed outside of the space they shared.

It scared the shit out of him.

He thought that he was so far gone that even Riley Matthews wouldn’t be able to infiltrate his stone cold heart, but there she stood, completely unaware of the fact that she was threatening to dismantle the walls he subconsciously constructed the moment he left her apartment that horrible night.

“Lucas,” she curiously asked as she slightly tilted her head to the side.

“Hmm,” he answered as the sound of his name on her lips slowly brought him back to reality.

“Do you want some coffee?”

“Oh, s-sure,” he stammered.  When she disappeared into the kitchen, he turned his attention back to the book in front of him.  He began to fidget with the pencil she gave him earlier as he looked back down at the book in front of him.  He slowly inhaled as he forced himself to remember what happened the last time he was in this apartment.

No matter how she made him feel, he knew that he had no say in whatever path their relationship would take—or even if they would have any kind of relationship after tonight.  He was well aware of the fact that they weren’t even friends right now.  They were barely acquaintances, strangers more precisely, although he knew he would never be able to classify Riley Matthews as a stranger, no matter how much distance was between them.

When she reemerged into the living room, two steaming cups of coffee in hand, he could feel the distance between them as a result of the selfish decisions he had made in the name of love and for the sake of the utopian future he had always dreamt of with her.  The irony wasn’t lost on him.  He did what he did in order to preserve the wide-eyed optimistic brunette who flew into his arms one fateful day on the subway, but instead, his actions had forced both of them to grow up and grow cold.

When she offered him one of the mugs, she gave him a small smile.  Most people wouldn’t think twice about it, but Lucas immediately noticed the significant amount of effort she put into that forced little smile.  He could always distinguish her genuine smiles from her fake ones, and this was no different.

At least she tried.

It was more than what he had been able to offer anyone in the last year.

When he reached for the mug she held out to him, their fingers brushed against one another—the first time they made physical contact with one another since the night of their breakup.  He swallowed as he felt a dull pang deep inside of his chest.  It felt more like a thump than anything else.  Still, the sensation was more than anything else he had felt in a very long time.

Judging by the way Riley’s eyes immediately fell to their still slightly interlaced fingertips, he could have sworn that she felt the same sense of longing that threatened to demolish the emotional barrier that guarded his tortured soul.  If she looked back up at him, if those gorgeous brown eyes met his, he knew that everything he had tried to protect himself from would immediately flood him. A year of suppressing every painful second of that horrific night and a year of self-hatred—mixed in with the consequences of spending a year without her—would completely engulf him, and while he wasn’t sure exactly what would happen next, he knew that at the very least, he’d crumble to his feet in front of her.

He never got the chance to find out, because instead of shifting her downcast eyes up toward his desperate gaze, Riley flinched as she pulled her hand back and tucked her hair behind her ear.  Her gaze fell to the floor behind her as she turned away from him.

Neither breathed a word about it.  Neither acknowledged the way their hearts jumped at the sensation.  Neither wanted to admit the truth that threatened to suffocate them.

They’d both prefer to choke on their respective heartaches than to admit what the absence of the other had done to them over the course of the last 12 months.

Besides, they both reasoned as they edged back into studying, they hadn’t spoken to one another in so long.  Neither knew what the other’s life held—or even if there would be room for them in it—and what, if any, role they would play.

Lucas gripped the mug as he sipped the piping hot contents.  As the dark liquid burned the inside of his mouth, he slowly fell back to earth.  This was his reality.  He chose to become a spectator, and until she indicated otherwise, he knew he had to respect that.

Right?

Riley was grateful that neither one of the guys seemed overly enthusiastic to maintain any sort of conversation as they made their way up to the mountains.  If her mind had been a little less foggy, then maybe she would have noticed how uncharacteristic it was for Zay to not be fully immersed in the stereotypical high-energy road trip spirit.  Riley was too preoccupied with being grateful for the fact that she had a couple of hours to think, to try to find a way to get that surprise encounter with Lucas out of her mind.  Whenever she found herself analyzing any part of their interaction, she quickly reminded herself of what he did to her on her birthday.  The guy she knew—the guy she once loved—would have never done that.  He would have fought for her.  He wouldn’t have shattered her heart, especially in the manner that he did.

When they reached the cabin, the trio unpacked the car in silence for the most part.  Riley was grateful for the fact that Maya and Josh had apparently left the cabin in order to do something somewhere else.  She knew that would buy her a little time to unwind from the drive and from the last several chaotic hours of her life.

She busied herself with unpacking her clothes while the guys took a quick trip into town in order to pick up a few last minute items from the grocery store.  The mundane task of putting her clothes away became cathartic as her mind slowly drifted away from Lucas and toward the excitement of the upcoming days.  Riley knew she’d analyze every millisecond she spent with him at some point, but for now, she was on vacation.  She needed to get out of the city and get out of her own head for a while.  Being in the mountains always offered her peace.  She wanted to spend the next several days completely immersed in the moments that surrounded her.  She wanted to create lifelong memories with her best friends and not dwell on one interaction she had with her ex-boyfriend.

Still, she was also well aware of the fact that this was the first time she had ever gone to the cabin without Lucas.  When she first caught sight of the house that held so many memories for them, she briefly thought that this whole trip would be one huge mistake.  How could she possibly not think about Lucas if everywhere she turned, she’d come face to face with a memory of him?

Surprisingly, and gratefully, Farkle switched up room assignments, so instead of staying in the room that they shared during the last few trips, Riley’s new bedroom was located on the opposite side of the cabin.

Perhaps that was why Riley was able to have a few moments to pull herself back together.  She knew that she could do this.  She could enjoy a long weekend in the mountains with her friends and not think about her ex-boyfriend.  After all, she had been doing just fine for the last few months.

When she heard someone knock on the door, she half-expected it to be Maya and Josh.  As her fingers gripped the doorknob, she failed to remember that Farkle had given the couple a key to cabin a few days earlier as Maya and Josh arrived earlier that morning.  So when Riley opened the door and recognized who stood on the other side, her grip on the doorknob instantly tightened as her knees nearly gave out from underneath her.

She opened her mouth and closed it twice while her brain tried to reconcile what was happening.  Was this some sort of dream?

Standing in front of her, with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, was the one person she was desperately trying to forget about this weekend.

Riley blinked several times as she gripped the doorknob even tighter.  Her chest constricted as she felt the onset of a cold sweat forming across her entire body.  This couldn’t possibly be real.  Was he actually here right now?  “Lucas?”

He gave her a small smile as he adjusted the weight of the bag on his back.  He wasn’t expecting her to answer the door.  He wasn’t even sure if anyone was there as there were no vehicles parked in the driveway.  He only knocked as a courtesy before he grabbed the spare key, which resided underneath a flowerpot placed on the side of the house.  “Hey.”

“Hi,” she automatically answered without even thinking about it.  She didn’t possess the ability to focus on the fact that she had slid back into their old greeting.  She was too floored by his presence to comprehend anything else.

“Hey,” he easily replied with a pang of nostalgia.  It was the way they used to greet one another in middle school, back when they thought things couldn’t possibly get more complicated between them, and yet, here they were—eight years later and they couldn’t possibly be any more estranged from one another.

“Why are you…w-what are you doing here?”

‘Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d: To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon ye who enter here.’ (Inf. III, 1-9)

[futurewriter2000]

Too much (Young Sirius Black x reader)

A/N: I have been writing this for ages now. Sorry for not posting for so long, just a little writers block and stress and that shit but I’ll try harder. Also I don’t have a computer so its harder to write. Anyways I hope you like it.

Request: Hi, could you write a young sirius black x reader where she’s really sick and over works herself until one day she passes out and sirius is with her in the hospital wing saying she needs to let people take care of her? Just really comforting? Thank you in advance if you decide to write it!

xx

Taking N.E.W.T.’s in your sixth year was exhausting. You were constantly in your room, surrounded by books or found in the library, stressing out. It never ended for you. You had exams, O.W.L.’s, N.E.W.T’s, taking notes at class, trying to listen in class, but most importantly trying to understand the class. That was only your sixth year. Now you were going to your 7th year in Hogwarts and since the beginning of term you decided you are going to do everything along the way. Of course that never happened. There were Quidditch matches you loved to attend, parties at every other hause, Hogsmeade and your hobbies. But N.E.W.T’s were apporaching and you haven’t had got the time to look at the book at all. 

You were sitting in the library, taking over the whole table with your notes and books. You haven’t slept in two days and coffee was your only food. You were looking at four different potions, trying to remember everything you learned in sixth year. You haven't got a clue, you completly forgot everything about 6th year. But knowing yourself, you are going to spend every single night if it meant passing N.E.W.T’s.

“(y/n)” 

Everything was perfect. You passed your exams, had the highest score in your N.E.W.Ts and was just about to get an award from Dumbldore himself.

“(y/n)”

Someone was calling you. You turned around in the Great Hall to see who it was, but it was becoming blury. Dumbldore beside you disappeared into thin air and you were left alone in the dark. It became darker and darker.

“(y/n), love.” you heard the same voice over and over again.

You opened your eyes lazily, seeing a blury figure standing next to you. When the figure became clearer, so did the surroundings. It was dark and you were in the library. You fell asleep. Your eyes widened and you quickly lifted your head up, getting a small virtigo.

“Thank god you woke up. I thought you were dead.” teased the dark figure and took the piece of paper, which was appereantly stuck on your cheek.

“Sirius?” you asked as you saw his black curly hair blocking his grey eyes.

“The one and only.”  he sat down with a wide grinn.

You looked around, noticing you and Sirius were the only two left in the library. It must be late. You just overslept most of the noon and you still didn’t know the ingridients to the four potions. “Shit!” you said outloud and started gathering your papers. “I need to go to my dorm and start studying this. I can’t believe I spent the whole noon sleeping instead of studying. N.E.W.T’s are coming in two weeks and I- I am still not ready.”

“Calm down, Einstein.” chuckled Sirius. “I brough you dinner.” he said and tilted his head to the plate of your favorite meal on the table.

 "Oh thank god, I’m so hungry.“ you said sitting down and started stuffing the food in your mouth. 

 “Damn, what did that food do to you?” he asked as you were basically almost done.

“I need to go study. I can’t fail this. I really can’t. My parents would kill me and imagine being the only one who failed the N.E.W.Ts.” You started worrying.

 "You are not going to fail.“ he comforted and reached out to your hand. “You need to take a day off. Get some sleep, eat and relax.“ 

 "Are you mad!” you yelled, your voice cracking a bit. ” I had a lot of days off when I was saying it will be easy to study all of this.“

 ”(Y/n)…its just one day. You can continue the next day and I can help you.”

“ You stopped eating and started packing your notes. "No you just don’t understand. We don’t even take most of classes together. I NEED to study for this. I NEED to pass. You maybe don’t but I didn’t grow up in a powerful pureblood wizarding family like you.” you snapped and stormed off.

 —

 The next day you lost your voice. It hurt like hell and you could barely talk. But you still decided to stay up in your dorm instead of going to breakfast. ‘It’s not like the last time. It’s probably just a cold.’ you thought.

Sirius was looking at your house table hoping to see you and talk to you. He wanted to appologize, even though he knew he was right. He never saw you coming in but he did see your friends walking and sitting down. He came over to them and asked. “Where is (y/n)?“ 

They looked at eachother, thinking if they should tell him. Than one girl with curly hair and brown eyes, who was also your roomate, spoke up. "She is not feeling well.”

 "Whats wrong?“ asked Sirius, getting worried.

 The girl wanted to answer but.. "Mariah.” shushed one of the boys and she shut up. She gave Sirius an apologetic look and walked away.

Sirius walked back to the boys and sat down. “We need to break into (y/h) girl dormitory.”

The other just stared at him for a moment and then continued to eat their breakfast. Lily who was the only one shocked here was looking at Sirius like he just lost his mind. “Are you seriously ignoring this?!" 

 "Oh my Lillyflower. He doesn’t mean it.” said James wrapping an arm around her. 

 "No guys I’m serious. I need to break into (y/h) girl dormitory.“ 

Remus put down the newspaper and started laughing. "Sirius you know what happened the last time we tried to break into Lilly’s dorm?”

"You tried to break into my dorm?!“ Lilly yelled and looked at James. James stopped eating and sent an angry look to Remus, who only smirked at him. 

 "Yeah I know. It turned into a slide. But it was fun, right?” smiled Sirius.

 "No, it was not fun.“ replied Remus opening his newspaper again. 

 "I broke my arm.” said Peter next to Remus.

 "You guys are not my friends anymore. I don’t know these whimps.“ he said, standing up and walking away.

“What a drama queen..” mumbled Remus and opened his newspaper again.

Lilly was still staring at James. “Honey, stop staring at me. You are making me feel bad.”

“Oh am I?! You wanted to break into my room!” she said standing up and walking away.

Remus and Peter started laughing, making James mad. “See... Look what you do when you open your mouth. Sirius was right. You two really are the worst.” he said and stormed after Lilly.

Remus and Peter high-fived eachother and continued to laugh. “You can see the Sirius in him.” added Remus. 

 —

 He was leaning on the wall, waiting for your class to be over. When it rang, the class started coming out and soon after the big group of students, you walked out the last, looking worse than yesterday. Your eyes were red and buffy, dark circles around them, your skin pale and lips dry. He walked over to you. "Hey.”

 You gave him a smile. “Hey Sirius.” you replied and looked into his grey eyes, which looked worried. “I’m fine Sirius. I just have a cold. ” you said with a raspy voice. You then put a strand of hair behind your ear and squeezed the books against your chest. “I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday. I was just a bit cranky and I swear I’ll go to sleep now. Just don’t worry for me, okay?”

 "But-“ You put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him again. 

"Okay? I am not used to Sirius Black worrying about me.” you smiled.

 "I don’t think I can keep this promise.“ he said, grabbing your hands. 

You looked at your hands and slowly pulled away. ” Than at least try.“ and with that you walked away.

After you disappeared he ran his hand through his hair and looked around. He noticed brown eyes lurking around the corner and he immediatelly recognised them. "Hey! You!” he yelled making her scare away. He quickly ran after her and catching up. 

 "I can’t help you Sirius.“ she said quetly, walking towards the library 

 "What’s wrong with her?” he asked her.

 "I can’t tell you.“ she replied and started to walk faster. But her short legs were not compared to Sirius’ long steps.

 "Please. I need to know." said Sirius, stepping in front of her.

 "I promised.” she looked at him innocently, almost tearing up. She couldn’t look up to Sirius. She didn’t want to lie.

And suddenly it clicked. He knew. He leaned on the wall, sat down and started staring at the distance. “It’s not just a cold is it?”

 "I’m sorry Sirius.“ she replied softly, coming closer.

 "Please, tell me. I need to know. I need to know how to help her. She, she, she - I- I love her .”

"We all love her Sirius. How can you not.“ she smiled and sat down next to him. "Last year, when she was taking her N.E.W.T, she was always studying. We thought it was normal until she spent most of her time in her dorm and was always behind the books. She got a soar throat at first and we thought it was just cold, but it wasn’t. She got sick. Really sick.” she sighed and a tear escaped her eye. “I was so afraid. So afraid of what happened. Luckly for her it happened right after the exams but she spent a long time recovering. I try to help her but she doesn’t want my help. She tries to bare it but it’s too much for her." 

 — 

 The next day he was waiting for you after class again. He was worried. He really did care for you and he didn’t want you to get sick again. When you walked out, looking even worse than before he quickly ran over to you. ”(Y/n)! How about you and me, today after Transifiguration.“ he tried to play it subtle. He forced a big smile, trying to hid his worried expression and you bought it.

 "I wish I could but I have my first N.E.W.T in two days so I can’t. ” you said and walked towards Transfiguration.

 "That’s even better. You can relax before it, you will think better.“ he smiled. 

 "I can’t Sirius.”

 ” Of course you can. You can’t refuse this pretty face.“

 "Yes I can Sirius.“ you said, starting to get annoyed.

 "Come on, why are you being so stubborn?”

 "Why are you being a dick! “ you snapped at him. 

“I’m worried (y/n).”

“I told you not to worry about me!” 

“How can I not worry (y/n)! You look like a ghost. Your eyes dark, your skin pale, your voice is almost gone!” he started yelling

“Oh wow Sirius! Just what every girl wants to hear from you huh! Well I am not just any girl! I need to work hard to get where I want to and you are just in my way!” you yelled back, turning around and walking away.

“I am just in your way, huh? All I’m trying to do is help you!” he shouted, running after you.

“I don’t need your help Sirius, don’t you get it! I don’t need you going to the library and bring me food! I don’t need you asking my friends if I’m okay! I don’t need your prying eyes watching me and I don’t need you waiting for me after class! And I especially don’t need you in my life!” you yelled, loosing your voice completely.

“You don’t mean that.” he said, feeling like you just crushed his heart into a dust. 

“Yes I do, now leave me alone.” you said really quietly.

“What about that Quidditch match?” he stuttered.

“Don’t pretend like you care Sirius. I am just like any other girl you made out with. After 3 weeks of dating you would probably throw me away for another one.”

“That is not true!”

“Oh really? You sure about that?” you turned around and walked in. Your throat was now burning and the pain was inbearable. Soon, he walked in, glowering at you and angrly throwing his books on his desk, next to James.

You sat next to Mariah. To be honest you didn’t know what you would rather do: Punch someone in the face or just start crying. ‘Why did he have to say that. He knows how important this is to me and he knows how hard I’m trying. Why doesn’t he just support me? Why is he pretending like he worries about me? It’s not like I’m the only girl he snogged after the Quidditch match.’ you thought as you were pretending to listen to McGonngal. 

After half an hour of listening and taking notes about Animagnus’ you felt a slight pain poking you in the head. You tried to shake it up. ‘It will pass.’ you told yourself. You looked over to Mariah, who was staring at your shaking hand. She gave you a worried expression. “I’m fine.” you gave her a smile but she still didn’t change her expression. 

“I think you should go back to our dorm.” she whispered. “You don’t look well.”

“I’m fine.” you replied, a bit louder than intended, but even you didn’t believe yourself. 

The pain grew stronger and started spreading through your entire body. The surroundings became blury and it kept getting darker. ‘No not again. Not now.’ “Miss (y/l/n), are you okay?” said proffesor McGonngal.

You stood up from your table and leaned on it. You felt dizzy and you tried to keep your balance.“I’m fine…” you said, your knees barely keeping you up. “..I just feel a bit dizzy..” you said quietly, your knees giving in and the picture slowly getting darker.

“(y/n)! (y/n)” someone yelled and it was the last thing you heard before it went completely dark.

—

“I am not leaving!” shouted Sirius at madam Pince, crossing his arms and glowering at her.

“Mr. Black! She needs to rest, I don’t want you here!” argued madam Pince.

“Someone needs to be here when she wakes up and I am not leaving. !” he insisted, sitting down next to your bed and taking your hand. He then looked at madam Pince and sighed. “Please. I can’t leave her.” he said, tightening the grip. 

“Fine..” she gave in, leaving the room. 

“Really?” asked Sirius surprised.It wasn’t normal for madam Pince to just let a student stay, when she clearly said not to.

“Don’t jinx it Black or you will be thrown out.” she said sharply. 

You opened your eyes slowly, feeling a strong weight on your eyelids. You looked at Sirius, who was still holding your hand and gently rubbing his finger on the back of it. He was staring at your holding hands and a tear escaping his eye. “I’ll never leave you.” he said quietly and looked over to your eyes. When he realized you were awake, his eyes widened and he quickly brushed his tear away. “You’re awake?”

“You’re here.” you smiled..

“Of course I’m here. I’ll always be here.” You moved yourself a bit, gaining control of your body and slowly sitting up. “Take it easy.” he said, helping you with the pillows.

“Thanks.” 

“I swear if you mention anything related to N.E.W.T’s, I will chain you to this bed.” he said seriously.

You chuckled and put your other hand on the top of his. And without a Word a  tear escaped your eye. You looked at him, his hand still holding yours. “I’m sorry Sirius.” you started crying 

He got up from his chair and set next to you, wrapping his strong arms around you and pulling you against his chest. “Hey…it’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is. I’ve been working myself hours after hours and you tried to help me but I only pushed you away. I can’t do this. I can’t. It’s too much and I can’t do it. I feel like a complete idiot. People keep staring at me like I’m the biggest idiot in the school.I'm exhausted and tired and I just want to drop everything and go.” you sobbed into his chest. “ And I lied. I do need you waking me up in the library and bringing me food. I do need you waiting for me after class, because it makes my day and I do need you in my life because you are the only one I look forward seeing in the day.” you cried, gripping his shirt in your hands and pulling him closer.

He kissed your head and pulled you even closer (if that was even possible by now). “ You are not an idiot (y/n). If anyone is an idiot here it’s me.” you smiled a bit. “ You are overworking yourself. You are smart nd intelligent and one of the cleverest girls I ever snogged after a Qudditch match. But you need to let people take care of you, (y/n).” he then slowly lifted your head, cupping your cheeks and brushing aways your tears with his thumbs. “You are not dropping school. At least not when I’m still around.”

“I know. But it was all too much. the pressure, the worrying, the staring…it was too much and I became angry and I took it all on you.”

“Well you shouldn’t worry about that. You’re hot when you are fisty.” he joked, making you laugh through your tears. 

He pulled your legs on his lap and the two of you just sat there  like that for minutes, not saying a word. Suddenly you remembered your test in two days and you needed to tell him that, but felt kind of awkward. “Hey Sirius?” 

“Yes, love?” he asked calmly.

“I don’t want to make you mad or anything but..” Without even finishing your sentance, he got up and threw you over his shoulder. “Sirius, what the hell?” you laughed, your rubberband falling of your hair and making them fall in front of you.

He started walking, holding you around your knees and opening the door. “We are going to  chain you to the Whomping Willow because that will be the only way I will be satisfied.” he joked.

“Put me down Sirius or you will be facing no attention from me for the whole three days and we both know you can’t get through that long.” you tried to bargain with him, still laughing.

He put you down, making your hair fall in front of your face. You both started laughing while he was trying to put away your hair from your face. You tried to help him, but you haven’t brushed your hair in so long it was literally impossible untangling them. He finally moved them away to see your beautiful (y/e/c) eyes. He brushed his hand on your cheek, tucking strands of hair behind your ear. “I missed these eyes.” 

You looked down and then back up again. You blushed as you heard those words. You threw your arms around his neck, your fingers playing with his hair. “You know Sirius. This kind of reminds me of the last time at the Quidditch match”

He put his hands on your waist and you just slowly leaned left and right for a moment. “Oh, how’s that?”

“There is you, me...and this clock tower. But I  get the feeling there is something missing.”

“Oh, really? I wonder what that could be?” he said sarcasticly.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was raining last time or..” Before you could say anything else, his lips were on yours, his hands pulling your waist closer to his and your hands running through his dense black hair. You felt your heart beat faster. It wasn’t like the last time. It felt different but the good kind of deifferent. 

“MR. BLACK!” yelled  madam Pince from behind. She walked over to Sirius and grabbed his ear. She dragged him away from him and continued to yell in his ear. “I told you she needs to rest and then I find the bed empty with  no sight of the two of you!” 

“Madam Pince. We wanted - ouch- some fresh air.” said Sirius being dragged by her down the stairs. 

“I’ll give you some fresh air.” continued madam Pince. Just before she disappeared around the corner, she turned to you and gave you a threathning stare. “And you better be in bed when I come back.” 

“I’ll see you later, love!” yelled Sirius and then he was gone.

You giggled and turned towards the hospital wing. “Sirius Black. Who would have thought.”

[milkshake-fairy]

A Decade and Forever (SN Fic)

Author: Milkshake-fairy (https://milkshake-fairy.tumblr.com)  (AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11180394) 

Paring: Sasuke x Naruto (sasunaru)

Rating: Explicit

Summary: "It had been years, a lifetime, of knowing this man. He had watched Naruto grow, mature, evolve, yet keep the same beautiful heart he had always had as he became the legend he is today, and Sasuke had loved him each step of the way, more and more."

Notes: For me, chapter 698 was the true ending, and I don’t consider most things after that as canon lol. This is an after ending canon compliant fic. Also note that Sasuke’s arm has been healed.

It’s a quarter till midnight, and the messy stacks of papers piled high on Naruto’s desk have not gotten any smaller in the past hour. He leans back in his chair, rubbing his tired eyes before attempting to re-read the document in front of him, hoping to finally be able to grasp the content of the paper instead of scanning mindlessly through the large chunks of single-spaced paragraphs.

The office of the 7th Hokage is dimly lit by a lamp at the corner of the table and by several cylindrical candles placed in various places around the room. With the windows left slightly open, a light breeze is flowing in, causing the curtains to wave gently and the candle flames to flicker. The peaceful ambiance of the room is not helping Naruto fight against the haze of drowsiness clouding his mind, and his head almost falls to rest against the document he’s failed to comprehend yet again when he hears the creaking of the door opening.

“Sleeping on the job again,” a low, warm voice, deep and familiar, carries through the room. “Usuratonkachi.”

Naruto lift his head up so quickly he as to brace himself against the desk by a surge dizziness, but the smile on his face grows wider as he meets his husbands eyes. Pushing the door closed, Sasuke walks up to the desk and moves his cloak back to reveal his left hand, along with the three large red roses clasped in it.

“Happy anniversary,” he says, holding the flowers out to Naruto. The roses were in full bloom, their petals a dark red and their stems cut short, held together by a white ribbon. Naruto could smell the strong sweet fragrance permeating from the flowers even before he reaches out and takes them from his husband. He glances up at the clock. It’s midnight, which mean it’s officially the day of their anniversary, a decade since the they had gotten married. Naruto grins, warmth radiating inside his chest and thrumming though his veins as he buries his nose in the soft rose petals.

“Happy anniversary,” he replies, looking up at Sasuke, the roses still pressed against his face. He can hear the tremble of emotion in his own voice. Damn Sasuke. Each year, somehow or another, he managed to catch Naruto off guard. Caught up in a particularly complicated mission, Sasuke had been away for almost two weeks and wasn’t due back until later. Two weeks was not nearly the greatest amount of time that they had spent away from each other but being apart never did get easier. Actually, it seemed to get progressively harder as the years passed, and the last two weeks had been especially taxing for Naruto. The grueling duties as a hokage were somehow even more draining without the support and presence of his husband and closest friend.

Though it was their anniversary, he had not expected Sasuke to return so soon. Just this morning he had received a note from husband saying there was no way he could make it back to Konoha until at least three or four more days, and Naruto had wondered for a moment if Sasuke had remembered the date, though, of course, they both prioritized their shinobi duties. In retrospect, it was a stupid thought. When had Sasuke ever forgotten anything even remotely important to their relationship, much less their 10th anniversary?

“Lying bastard,” Naruto mutters, standing up and meeting Sasuke at the side of the desk. He pulls Sasuke into a hug, burying his face in the crook of his husband’s neck, melding himself against the familiar warmth as the pent up tension in his body ebbs away. Strong arms wrap around his middle, pulling him closer before he feels his husband’s calloused hands reach under his shirt, resting his palms against the skin on Naruto’s waist.

Sasuke turns his head to bury his nose in Naruto’s hair. “It’s called a surprise, usuratonkachi. I thought you liked surprises. Why do you smell so nice?”

Naruto lifts his head, pulling away to sit on the desk behind him as Sasuke stands between his legs, his hands still lightly gripping Naruto’s waist.

“Went home to eat dinner with the kids and took a bath. I thought it’d wake me up, but I havn’t been able to focus since I came back.”

Naruto lifts a hand to lightly graze a new but fading bruise on Sasuke’s cheek, finally studying his husband’s appearance more closely. Pale skin, dark eyes, long dense lashes, and his sharp, defined features were set together in a beautiful yet handsome face. While Naruto had let his own hair grow out, now curling just past the top of his nape, Sasuke had cut his, the back trimmed shorter, long bangs pushed back.

The bastard’s somehow getting even more attractive with age, Naruto thinks, running his fingers through his husband’s hair.

“You look a lot less busted up than I was expecting you to look after a mission like this.”

“Well, you look like shit,” Sasuke retorted, “When’s the last time you slept more then three hours?”

Lifting his hands to Naruto’s face, he traces the deep-set dark circles under Naruto’s eyes lightly with his thumbs.

“It’s been hell the past few weeks with work.” And without you.

Naruto does not verbalize the last sentiment, but it’s clear from the way that Sasuke catches his eyes, his expression softening, that he understands.

Hands under Naruto’s knees, Sasuke slides him closer before leaning in for a kiss. First a peck on the lips before he moves up to press his lips under each of Naruto’s eyes.

“Sap,” Naruto laughs, “you really missed me huh?”

His laughter is cut short as Sasuke pinches his hip.

“Hmm I’m about to show you just how much,” Sasuke mumbles before taking Naruto’s lower lip into his mouth, sucking gently.

Naruto opens his mouth to deepen the kiss. It would be a lie to say that his whole body wasn’t screaming for Sasuke. One would think this hunger for each other would fade over the years, but it had only intensified. Their bodies had memorized each other’s completely, every scar, every mole, every weakness. They had become dependent on each other, past the mental bond and the ever growing emotional connection, there was a blazing, carnal need that persisted despite the passing years, an addiction.

Naruto hears himself moan. Really, two weeks is far too long.

Breaking the kiss, Sasuke presses their lips together one time before trailing light pecks along his jaw and down to the side of neck, where he starts a hickey. Wrapping his legs around Sasuke, Naruto tilts his head back, fingers entangled in his husband’s soft hair.

“I’ve got work to finish,” he mumbles with no conviction, feeling the slight pain from where Sasuke is sucking shooting ripples of arousal though his body, accumulating at his groin.

Standing up straight, Sasuke pushes Naruto’s legs off and walks away.

“Wait what? Come back.”

“I thought you just said you have work to do,” Sasuke smirks, walking to the drawers of the desk to rummage though the one on the lower left. He pulls out a small tube before walking back to a pouting Naruto and placing it beside him.

“Calm down, usuratonkachi. I assume we’re going to need this?”

Wrapping his legs around him once again, Naruto grins and pulls Sasuke down for a kiss. Mouths still connected, Sasuke brings one hand up to run his fingers through Naruto’s hair and hold the golden strands in a loose grip while his other hand unbuttons the orange shirt his husband’s wearing.

“I’ll help you,” Sasuke murmurs, in between kisses.

“Hm?”

“I’ll help you with your work. Tomorrow.”

Undoing the last button, Sasuke tugs Naruto’s shirt off and pulls away from his lips to suck at the base of his neck, hands now preoccupied with the unfastening Naruto’s pants.

He leaves a trail of wet kisses across Naruto’s shoulder before pushing him back to lie on the desk and he pulling his pants off.  He stills, hands under the other’s toned thighs as Naruto’s calves wrap loosely around Sasuke hips, to observe his husband, to take in the sight that he knows so well but can never quite get used to.  

Sasuke’s eyes roam over the golden blond hair, thick yet soft, clear blue eyes that changed shades slightly depending on Naruto’s mood, now a darker hue, and the expanse of bronzed skin, spanning over the long, lean, and toned body.

It had been years, a lifetime, of knowing this man. He had watched Naruto grow, mature, evolve, yet keep the same beautiful heart he had always had as he became the legend he is today. Sasuke had loved him each step of the way, more and more. He still regretted how much time he had spent running from his own feelings, denying something that he knew in his core perhaps from the very moment he and Naruto had met, the bond he had tried over and over again to destroy but failed. Thank God he had failed.

Naruto was staring up at him now, eyes burning into Sasuke’s own, filled with lust, love, and slight confusion at Sasuke’s hesitancy.

Lifting Naruto’s legs up, Sasuke rests the back of his husband’s knees on his shoulders and starts a trail of kisses down his inner thigh.

For all the time he spent hurting Naruto, hiding from his love and hiding his own love, Sasuke would spend the rest of his life balancing it out, pouring out his heart and soul into this bond that saved him, this man that went against the world for him. It was not a debt that he could ever really pay back, but he had vowed to try for as long as he lived since the day he slipped a golden ring on to Naruto’s finger.  

He reaches the joint of Naruto’s thigh and sucks gently on the tender skin, biting down softly as he feels Naruto squirm beneath him before moving to start another hickey close to his member.

Sasuke hears a sharp intake of breath before his husband’s hand fists into hair.

“Why are you being so slow?” Naruto’s voice is slightly strained, fighting back his moans.

Hands wrapped around both of his husband’s thighs, Sasuke pushes them further part before kissing the hickey he just finished creating and rising up to smirk at Naruto.

“I was trying to take some time building things up. Forgot patience isn’t your thing, usuratonkachi.”

***********************************************************************************************

More than two hours later, they’re lying naked on the worn yet comfortable couch in the corner of the office, Naruto asleep on top of Sasuke, covered with Sasuke’s cloak.

Massaging the tips of his fingers on Naruto’s scalp, Sasuke watches the slow rise and fall of his back, mind wondering once again.

He couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with Naruto. There was always some sort of pull towards the blond, a call from his very soul that yearned to reach out to Naruto’s. Perhaps he had been in love before he knew what love even meant, before his mind could begin to process the depth of his emotions. His body, heart, and soul knew before his brain did, and they guided him.

Sasuke recalls the battle with Haku, and how his own body had moved instinctively to save Naruto. Some part of his soul knew, with absolute certainly, that he wouldn’t, couldn’t, live in a world without this person, this boy that held the sun in his heart, that shone light into every dark crevice of Sasuke’s existence.

If there was such thing as a soulmate then Naruto was Sasuke’s, and if there was a such thing as a God then Sasuke thanked him with every fiber of his being for making it so.

Naruto shifts in Sasuke’s arms, pulling him out of his thoughts and nuzzling into his neck.

“Shit, what time is it?” Naruto’s voice is rough with sleep.

“Almost three in the morning.”

Groaning, Naruto moves to fold his arms on Sasuke’s chest, propping himself up.

“So we’re spending the night here?” He leans forward to press his lips against Sasuke’s.  

“We’ll go back home before the kids wake up.”

Naruto nods and then winces. “Fuck, you bastard. I’m sore in literally every part of my body.”

Sasuke rubs gentle circles on his husband’s hips, imagining the bruises from his fingers that would’ve appeared there and the amount of hickeys and scratches that now covered Naruto’s caramel skin.

“Who was it that was screaming for me to go faster a little while ago? You better hope no one was in or around this building.”

Dropping his head in Sasuke’s chest, Naruto touches the bruises blooming on his own neck.

“Ugh, I have to find someway to hide these again. You and your stupid need to put lovebites in places people can see, and some of those people happen to be our young children.”

Sasuke shifts to gently slide Naruto off of him before propping himself up on one elbow to look down at his husband.

“Oh yeah?.” He tilts his head back and points at his own neck. “What about these?”

Grinning, Naruto studies the series of hickeys scattered across Sasuke’s neck and collar, decorating the pale skin with red, pink, and purple.

“I was just trying to get back at you. We can call it even now,” he laughs.

Sasuke rolls his eyes before leaning down to kiss Naruto’s forehead. He moves off the couch to stand, hearing the other whine and grab at his arms.

“Give me second.”

Naruto has a clear view of Sasuke’s muscular back as he walks towards his discarded clothes lying on the floor near the desk. Heat rises to his cheeks and ears as he observes the angry red scratches covering the fair skin on his husband’s back.

I need to cut my nails more often, he thinks, pushing his face into a pillow cushion.

“Hey.”

Sasuke’s voice prompts Naruto to lift his head, sitting up in surprise when he sees his husband kneeling in front of the couch with a small box in his hand.

There are so many things Sasuke wants to tell Naruto, so emotions he wants to express, so many thoughts he needs to convey, but he’s never been good with words. Luckily, his better half has always understood him, read his heart more clearly than he himself could.

Naruto is looking down at him now, eyes filled with surprise and affection, staring straight through Sasuke’s entire being like he always does, with a smile on his lips.

Opening the box and lifting it towards his husband, watching as his blue eyes fall on the platinum ring inside it, Sasuke clears his throat and opens his mouth to speak.  

“Uchiha-Uzumaki Naruto, please let me stay by your side for the rest of my life.”

********************************************************************************************

Hope you guys liked it^^

[weloseeveryweek]

16/17 season review

It needs to be said that Bristol Rovers aren’t a successful team. In fact, Bristol as a whole has massively underperformed in football considering that cities like this have Premier League clubs knocking about. That’s the way it goes, and both clubs have somewhat accepted that neither of us will never be the best in England. 

That’s practically the city of Bristol in a nutshell. You can look at places like Cardiff just across the bridge: when they want something, they say they’re going to get it and they do. In Bristol, the lads here say they want something, say they’re going to get it, and two appeals, five years and a court case later the project is “looking at other options”. It’s exactly the same with football here. 

But what can you do about that? Really? 

Because City have spent the season hanging around the bottom of the Championship, and two years ago Rovers were relegated into non-league; humiliation and heartbreak echoing around North Bristol. 

City weren’t amazing that season either. 

It was a bad season for football in Bristol, but at least City didn’t have the overhanging embarrassment of leaving the Football League entirely. 

Rovers, however, spent the summer playing the role of a lost child, unaware and needing constant reassurance. Sack the board and Clarke out were all the gasheads could mutter. It was a travesty, and it was the first time it had ever happened to us. 

The season started shaky, a couple of draws, a loss here and there, wins scattered across the board. That was just the beginning, and all we could do was hope for the best and not expect anything. 

Soon things picked up. We won. A lot. We went 22 games without defeat and broke the longest unbeaten streak record for the Conference. We thought we’d get automatics. Of course it’s the Conference and only number one can certainly escape, but we nearly had it in the bag. A win at Dover and a win on the last day would’ve sorted it. But we don’t like doing things the easy way her apparently, so we drew at Dover and a seven nil thrashing of Alfreton wasn’t enough to knock Barnet off the top spot. 

We picked ourselves up and glided through the playoffs: a 3-0 aggregate win against Forest Green Rovers, a local derby. And Wembley was stressful as well. Grimsby Town vs Bristol Rovers. We took 30,000 and they took 17,000: a record. From the thirty minute mark to the end of extra time, it was 1-1. Penalties were a blur: John-Paul Pittman kicking straight over the crossbar, and Lee Mansell slotting home the winner. 

Relief. 

The main emotion at the blue and white end of Wembley. 

Relief. 

And so the 2014/15 season came to close and the new season began. 

In our low league minds, it was the comeback of the decade. 

Bristol Rovers, little Bristol Rovers back in the Football League and ready for the next step. 

A promotion campaign that doesn’t end until the 7th May 2016. Dagenham & Redbridge at home. A win and results to go our way to steal 3rd place. 

It was only luck that Accrington didn’t win. 

But it was pure resilience that we won, 93rd minute and Matty Taylor hits the post and Lee Brown pounced on the rebound. 

That wasn’t relief; it was ecstasy. Because this time, we weren’t escaping; we were achieving. 

And that was just the prologue.  

2016 was almost an excuse to calm down. Relax and not stress out. We were back in our comfort zone of League One. I think i read somewhere that if you averaged out our league finishes since we entered the football league, we’d be around 15th in League One. 

That just sums up Rovers really: 15th in League One. 

Anyway, as long as we weren’t threatened by relegation, we didn’t really mind what happened. 

We lost our first match because we always do: a 3-1 loss at Glandford Park. Ollie Clarke and Tom Lockyer both get booked, the silly bastards. Our first and second most disciplined players respectively. 

That was alright, we’ll bounce back. 

And we did, obviously, because The Memorial Stadium is our own and too easy to win at. 5 yellow cards, and that’s excluding the two that sent off Oxford’s Sam Long. 

 Up until January, our results were hit and miss. We won a few, lost a few, drew a few. I reckon the 5-1 battering at home at the hands of Charlton was the highlight. 

We won our boxing day match and our News Years Eve match. Granted, they were both at home, but 2-0 vs Wimbledon and 4-1 vs Coventry were cracking games and we deserved to win them. 

We went into the New Year feeling confident. 

We took a big knock away at Charlton, them winning by a large margin once again. It was vaguely embarrassing really. Our away record was shocking all season; we only won about five games away. It was home record (which was genuinely the best in English football for three years) that kept us in the top half of the table. 

Northampton at home was supposed to be fairly easy because they were soft and mid table and one of the only teams we’d beat away. 

And fairs to us because we beat them 5-0, with a banger of a Billy Bodin goal, a seven minute hat trick by Ellis Harrison, and then another Harrison goal later in the game. This lead to some quality Harrison propaganda, and Rob Page getting the sack after calling the game “men against girls”. 

Classic sexism. 

(He got the Wales u21 manger job a bit later on so it turned alright for him in the end.)

 Then we were blessed with a couple of 3-1 away losses in a row. Bit of a shit two weeks for the gasheads really. We were all sick of our shocking away record, and I dreaded away games, especially when i wasn’t going. That might sound weird, but watching us be shite live is better than suffering whilst refreshing twitter and seeing us concede every ten minutes. 

 The last game of January was a Westcountry derby: Swindon Town vs Bristol Rovers. It’s a derby that used to have a history of Rovers fans going into pubs with bats and smashing up a few Swindon fans, and then them lot glassing us back. 

Now it’s just us singing inbreds and roundabouts and them nicking City’s song about hating gas scum. 

Swindon were playing shit all season and our home run was quality so their wasn’t much doubt of us winning. Also, when we played them at the beginning of the season, after the called off match and the ticket price fiasco, we pulled a comeback out of our arses with a penalty and an own goal. 

Billy Bodin scored what would turn out to be the only goal of the match and it was classic Bodin magic like always. 

It’s a BTEC Bristol Derby, but because that never happens anymore, it’s was decently entertaining, if anything fairly stressful. 

 31st of January was the day that us Rovers fans were humiliated and angry. 

Fucking hell were we angry. 

Matty Taylor, our top goal scorer, who’d scored 61 goals in all competitions across three seasons, the bloke who played a massive part of our back to back promotions from the Conference and League 2, the lad we took from Forest Green and essentially made him relevant, decided to pay us back by moving to Bristol City on the last day of the transfer day. 

Bristol City. Our fucking rivals. The only team that every gashead hates. 

Taylor produces a great explanation of “it was too hard to resist” as if there aren’t actual contracts out on his life. 

It was shambles. We had no idea what to do and we had no chance to pull ourselves back together. We had about four hours of the window left and no one to buy. 

We were fucked essentially. And it was more than that. 

I heard about it at school. I kept hearing whispers about Matty Taylor and i didn’t properly realise what was happening until last period. 

The City fans were piping up and I felt sick, because we were about to lose our debatably best player to our local, and more importantly major, rivals. 

School was going to hell, even though it’s in a village just off of North Bristol and in theory, my school should be full of gasheads. It’s not though because half of this city are glory hunters. 

None of us though we’d fare well for the rest of the season, what with us not having a consistent goalscorer and all. It was just another excuse for other teams to take the piss out of us. 

 We found options though. 

Ollie Clarke got his big break, which still makes me laugh considering he’s been here since he was about 14 and has always had bags of talent. He’d been in the squad for most of the season, and starting the majority of them. Ollie has 128 apps and 12 goals to his name and a good 11 of them were absolute worldies. He pulled one out against Oxford at the beginning of March, our first away win since October. My lad got one against Scunthorpe and a 40 second banger vs Chesterfield.

Billy Bodin became the main man. CR7 is just a poor mans BB23 really. He scored more goals than our actual strikers. We’ll be so lucky if we can keep him this summer. 

Speaking of which, Luke James massively failed. The poor bloke didn’t score a single league goal in his 23 apps for us during his loan from Peterborough. He’s a lush lad, and his baby’s really cute, but he just can’t put the ball in the back of the net. Babber even had a straight penalty given, and it got saved straight out. (It was a pressure penalty and he shouldn’t have been taking it anyway so I’m not sure if i can be blaming him for this one.

 Bolton away was such a crease it’s unreal. We should’ve won. We practically beat Bolton in their own backyard and we were disappointed. Darrell Clarke said in the post match interview that it shows just how far we’ve come that we’re disappointed in a draw at Bolton. He’s not wrong mates. 

Our playoff push managed to last until the penultimate weekend, where we go full circle and pull a Bristol Rovers by losing 4-2 at Peterborough. 

Quality. 

 Millwall at home was our last game of the season. They had to win to secure playoffs, and our result didn’t matter because we’d finish top ten either way, but we wanted to mess with Millwall’s play off party, and if all else fails, watch them get battered to fuck in the playoffs. 

The first two goals they scored were textbook offside and that’s just a fact. The Mem was the loudest it had been all season even if we were leaking goals like a tap. (Ryan Sweeney not in the squad makes a massive difference apparently. Better than England u20s international Jake Clarke-Salter definitely.)

Anyway, we get one back, and then they get another, and then we get another one, and we go into half time 2-3 down. Us over here was thinking we were gonna lose 6-2 in the second half was decently wrong. 

Our attacking force was mental and Millwall didn’t have a chance. Eventually, we get a free kick in a dangerous position. Bodin can take free kicks apparently and puts it top bins. 

Southend were winning, and if we could keep that draw Millwall we’re out of it. 

Course, they scored 85th minute, but we had our brief moment of glory. 

There were upsides to Millwall making the playoffs (and eventually winning them) like not having to play them next season, more specifically going to The Den. 

 And that’s the season over. 

A season that considering the circumstances, was very successful. We finished in our highest position since 1999 when main man Ian ‘Ollie’ Holloway was our manger.

Two years ago and if someone told me we’d be cracking it in League 1 I’d’ve twist your wrist in. 

We’re not a big team, and we never will be, but Bristol Rovers is enough for me. 

(as long we get into the championship soon and that uwe stadium starts happening @wael)

[writeherewrite-now]

hmm

When they are at their wits’ end, what motivates people to live?

Hope?

My naive, innocent child, for most, there’s no hope. If there is, I’d very much like to find it, too.

People are always reluctant to change the status quo, especially when extra effort is required. (Why do you think organ donation is an opt-out scheme? It used to be opt-in, but obviously, the people who signed up for it were few and far between. Now, conversely, not many people bother to opt out. The people sitting on the fence will just go with whichever is easiest.)

But if you choose to live while on the brink of death, it’s definitely not because you’re sitting on the fence and going with whichever is easiest, or whichever option you were given (see: life), not when every step is torture, not when every step feels like a living hell.

Why live, then?

If it’s not the carrot, it’s the stick. Let me rephrase: What’s worse than living?

We’re all afraid of the afterlife, about what happens then - if I take my own life, will I make it to heaven? Worse still, is there extra punishment, a special circle of hell for people who take their own lives? Will it be worse than life on earth? (Dante condemns suicides to the 7th Circle, as they contravene the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”, and Dante possibly believes it to be an even deeper sin than murder, as it constitutes a rejection of God’s gift of life. - I wiki-ed this haha.) If you believe in heaven/hell, if you believe in God, maybe that will motivate you to live, because “letting yourself die” is akin to murder. I mean, I could deliberately choose not to eat for 2 weeks, but that could effectively earn me a 1-way ticket for the highway to hell. (It might not, but do I want to take that risk?)

(I guess sometimes people worry about the physical pain of dying, but if you’re already so far gone, I can’t imagine that being a huge consideration.)

2/4/17

I thought about it again, today, about dying. I thought about it in the cinema, and I was so ready to go.

I step onto the ledge.

but I thought of a certain someone, (and these are hugely egotistical thoughts), but I thought that person might never be able to forgive himself, would spend months re-reading old messages and wondering: when exactly did she start to fall apart?

I thought of that person going home and crying openly, unable to hide his pain from his mom, unable to stop crying long enough to explain what’s wrong, unable to explain what’s wrong anyway, because saying the words would make it real: she’s dead, She’s dead she’s dead she’s dead.

I thought of him in class, trying to teach his students, then remembering the lesson in the bar, remembering questions like “why don’t all STEMIs have reciprocal changes?” and “when do you look for ST depression?” and remembering that confused, puzzled look, eager to learn, that brilliant, brilliant student with the astounding memory and the eyes that light up when she finally understands what you’re teaching her, eyes that will never light up again.

And then he breaks down in front of the class, unable to continue, and rushes out of the room—

I thought of that person crying, hysterical, broken, shaking, refusing to eat, unable to function, and with tears in my eyes, I step back from the ledge.

A single tear runs down my cheek.

I want to go, will you let me?

If I leave, and you can’t function, what then?

But I want to go. I want to go. Would you release me? Please? I’m begging you.

Now tears flow freely from my wide, unblinking eyes. (so thankful it was dark in the cinema)

When going over means pulling someone under, can you do it?

If I had no one left to love, if I had no more bond to repay, if there were no more consequences, I would leave anytime.

You’d forgive yourself, right? You said you should make things easy for me too, you said you’d be fine. #lastsupper I remember, clear as day.

I once pictured a scene where Jesus placed a gun on a long white table and said, “If there were no consequences of your death, if everyone managed to move on and live well, and things that were supposed to happen because of you are somehow still completed, what would you do?”

I picked up the gun. I picked up the gun.

Some days, I waver. Maybe not today, I tell God. Maybe not today. I don’t know what I’m living for, but sometimes I tell myself “today wasn’t so bad”, or “there’s something to look forward to”.

Would I live for my first paragliding experience? (I don’t mind, it’s not too far away.) Would I stay alive for my M4 elective? (I promise to try my best, the Harry Potter sets look amazing)

But on days like today, my answer is: I would go. Without a doubt, I would go.

So I pick up the gun, and I fire.

and then I have to force myself to think of my bond, think of the people who would not be okay if I left today (short list, but some people on said list have been going through a hard time and don’t need my help to make things worse)

I force myself to consider: you can’t do this the week before exams, that might affect someone’s grades. You can’t do it this week, not the day before your sister’s birthday, nor the week your mentor is getting married. Don’t be so selfish - you are not the most important thing in the world, the world doesn’t revolve around you, don’t ruin their grades, do NOT ruin their honeymoon.

When going over means dragging someone under, can you truly do it?