#its been grey and rainning the whole month

[paupelou]

[lavenderspence]

A runaway kitten | A.H.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x fem!reader

Content warning: fluff, cuteness overload to be honest. 

Word Count: 1.5K

Summary: A troublesome kitten prompts quite the meet-cute

Request: May I please request a meet cute with Hotch? Maybe they become new neighbours or reader has a child jacks age and they meet like that? I honestly don’t mind I just love the cuteness that comes from first interactions 😫💛

A/N: for once, I'm not really sure what to say...except, I forgot this blog's three-month anniversary, so...happy over 3 months? writing's been a bit hard recently, but I do hope it's going to get easier. enjoyy

Request are closed!

“Olive?” You called out, setting his water bowl down. You clicked your tongue a few times, hoping he’d come out of hiding to drink some water, or at the very least, show you he was slowly acclimating to the new space. 

Olive was your very pretentious, borderline-dramatic, six-month-old kitten. You’d found him near your old apartment building 3 months ago, cowering in fear and shivering because of the rain.

One look at him, and you knew, this little fella was your new roommate and cuddle buddy. You’d brought him inside, bathed, fed him and the rest was history. 

But Olive did have a flair for the dramatic, at least that had been the case for the last three and a half weeks, ever since you’d moved into your new apartment. 

The moment you’d opened his pet carrier after moving in, giving him a chance to look around and get familiar with the space, he’d turned his small head around a few times, hissed, and walked back into the carrier. 

He’d spent most of his time inside, venturing out for only a few minutes to investigate the space, and then making it inside again. He did slip into your bed every night but still refused to explore the space or get used to it.

He started looking around more the last few days, sometimes spending some time in your closet or at the back of the couch, but that was about it. 

“Olive?” You looked around. He might hate the space, but he always showed up when you called for him. No meows, no movement, and no kitten in sight made you worry a bit. You checked the places he usually visited, if for a little while, and then you checked everywhere else just in case. 

No sight on him, not a peep anywhere. And that’s when you saw it - your bedroom window was open. You ran towards it, head ducking outside to check. You looked around frantically, looking for any sight of him, and finding none. 

But there was a small ledge outside the window, running around the whole building, and any neighboring windows. It was a big enough ledge for Olive to walk across and make it to your neighbors’ apartments. 

You closed the window and ran towards your front door, straight to apartment 123. The lady who lived there always greeted you with a smile, and this time was much the same. But a frown, and a sad one at that made its’ way onto her face when you told her about Olive, and she replied with a shake of her head. 

Olive hadn’t made it to her apartment, all her windows were closed. 

You made your way to apartment 121 and knocked on the door. Your heart was pounding, worry overtaking your senses. Thoughts, about whether he’d made it to apartment 121, or if he’d fallen down. Thoughts about him missing and you trying to find him and failing. 

Deep in thought, you didn’t hear the lock click, or even the door getting opened, until a man stood in front of you.

He was handsome - black hair sprinkled with a touch of grey, chocolate brown eyes. Dressed in jeans and a fitted polo shirt, his hair was messed up like he hadn’t expected any company. He was fit, not overly so, and his posture was a little guarded. 

You remember seeing him, once or twice just in passing, but he hadn’t been dressed that casually. No, he’d been sporting formal attire - a suit and tie, dress shirt, and slacks. You’d barely glanced at each other then, but now standing at his door, you could fully take him in.

You watched him arch a brow, waiting for you to speak up. You shook your head the tiniest bit. 

“Hi.” You started with a small voice and equally a small smile on your face. 

“Hello.” His mouth barely moved, but you caught the small lift of his lips.

“I know this is going to sound very strange. Do you, by any chance, have a grey kitten that showed up out of nowhere, possibly getting in using any of your windows?” You were fidgeting, picking at your cuticles as you waited for his reply.

He relaxed a little, an actual smile making way for a row of white teeth, and the most adorable dimples you’d seen. He chuckled. “Well, I may have an even stranger answer for you. Why don’t you come in?” He moved aside and pulled the door open. 

Upon walking in, you took in the place. It was tidy, with minimal decoration, but also full of personal touches. Throw pillows and a blanket over the couch, pictures on the walls, and photos neatly arranged on the bookshelves. A blond woman, beautiful, smiled in one, her eyes striking. 

A photo of a small, adorable boy, no more than three, holding a small plush koala decorated another shelf. A small carbon copy of the woman. 

A chest of toys sat close to the bookshelf, and a lone toy truck was on the coffee table. 

“Sorry about the mess.” There was no real mess, to begin with, just a laundry basket full of clothes waiting to be folded and put in their rightful places. “This way, please.” He led you towards the back of the apartment, his strides small. 

The hallway was well-lit. A child's drawings were framed and put up, making the space homey. 

You made it to a half-opened door, “Jack, buddy?” Your neighbor called out, pushing the door open. On the floor next to the bed sat the same, cute boy from the picture in the living room, and close to him, lying on his back, paws in the air, was Olive. 

“Oh, Jesus.” You laid a hand over your heart, willing your heartbeat to slow. The little troublemaker was okay. 

“Who’s this daddy?” The boy, Jack, asked as he reached to pet Olive’s tummy gently. 

The man turned towards you, opening his mouth, but you beat him to it, “Hi, I’m Y/N, your neighbor. And this bad boy you have there is Olive.” You missed the soft look the man gave you when you introduced yourself to his son.

“Oh, he’s yours?”

“Yes, this little devil is indeed mine.” You shook your head with a chuckle.

“Why did he walk through the window then?” He asked, expression earnest and sweet. This might just be one of the cutest kids you’ve ever seen. 

“Jack!” The man, whose name you had yet to learn, crossed his arms and shook his head, sending you an amused look.

“Well, I left the window open, and he’d been very vocal about not liking the new apartment much, so he decided to go on an adventure.” You kneeled, getting to his level where he still sat on the ground. 

He looked like he was thinking for a second before he smiled, “He’s been liking my room, maybe he should stay here?”

A choked laugh fell from the brunette behind you, “Jack, no. You can’t say stuff like that.” 

“It’s okay.” And it really was, because Olive was still flat on his back, looking at you in boredom. 

“Worth a try.” He grinned back at you, one of his front teeth missing. You laughed in earnest, overcome by his cuteness.

“We better get going, we’ve taken enough of your time…” You trailed off. 

“Aaron.” He reached his hand forward, offering it for a handshake. 

You accepted his handshake with a timid lift of your lips, watching as his big fingers enveloped your smaller hand. You swore a small spark went through you at the contact - the feel of his skin on your own. Like a zap, an electric current - even your heart skipped a beat. 

There was something about his touch, maybe him as a whole, that you reacted to. A nice reaction. 

“Nice to meet you, Aaron.” You said, repeating your name to him too. 

His eyes shined just a tiny bit in wonder, he wanted to know more about you, to get to know you. As his new neighbor, he hadn’t paid you much attention, any at all. But now? Stood in his son’s bedroom, in search of a troublesome kitten and speaking softly to Jack as if he was the most precious thing ever? He felt a small piece of his heart crack, making space for a new person to enter - a new person to get to know better. 

You clicked your tongue, calling for the kitten again. He turned on all fours, looking bored, and started walking towards you. 

Just when he was mere centimeters from you, he stretched, his whole body shaking. Aaron expected the grey creature to walk up to you, but instead, it stopped at his feet and stretched again.

This time it stretched up his leg, his small eyes widening in plea.

You laughed, and Jack’s small giggle followed. 

“Well, maybe Olive does like it here.”

“Maybe he does,” Aaron added, looking at you. Your kitten may have liked his apartment, but Aaron liked seeing you both in it just as much.

comments & reblogs are greatly appreciated!

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

The idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw.

Quick summary: After one too many drinks, you find yourself unable to think of anything but a certain smart-mouth detective who is in desperate need of a release.

Word count: 11K (I'm sorry)

Warnings: This is basically just SMUTT with a lil feelings (if you squint) sprinkled in there; kind of angsty at points (mentions of canon-typical death and violence (hellooo they're homicide detectives); gets a bit existential at points, watch out; pretentious.

A/N: YAY! I had this obsession with True Detective S1 all throughout October (watched it at my nan's house lmao), so enjoy the lovechild of that. This is just for fun, so, please, nobody be angry at me if they don't agree with Rust's characterisation, or any of the weird philosophical chat, lalallalal, OKAY ENJOY!!

***

The night air is sluggish and humid with the remnants of a warm summer’s rain, pressing down thickly, close, clogging, simmering just below the surface.

A few times, I’ve interviewed people who live in these sorts of places: motel-types, the “in-between”, where folks stay when they’ve either got no money, no choice or nobody. Other residents include passers-by who’re looking to save money on accommodation, skipping on the fancier places. Not that Louisiana really has any “fancier places”. Places without the paint peeling off walls like dead skin, I guess. A bed and breakfast in the nicer suburbia, with a view overlooking a subpar daydream of a ghost town centre. 

I’ve leaned up against the crooked, metal railing, felt the influence of my weight almost sending it and myself crashing down onto the faded parking lot beneath. I’ve leaned up there—after knocking—and waited, waited for a grey face to peer through a crack in the cracked door. I’ve smiled and remarked about how the beat-up, brass numbers up there are hanging by a thread. Sometimes, people are real stingy – they slink out and close the door behind them, or they remain in that little slit, just an eye visible, or they plain shut it in my face. Most let me in right away, maybe a little intimidated by the shiny badge clipped up in my jacket – I’ve sat across from ‘em, felt that mud in the room’s air seep into my pores, inviting me under its still swamp. 

Seems like the sort of place for him.

Too many a fuckin’ time, Marty’s come grumbling and muttering into the office kitchen, rolling his eyes, scoffing, huffing, the whole lot. And when I ask him why the strop?—“Ancient fuckin’ philosopher fuckin’ Rust Cohle on it again. Birthday’s comin’ up: get me earplugs and a generous bit o’ duct tape for my dear partner over there, would you?” 

Or somethin’ along those lines. 

For all his apparent talk about us silly, little “biological puppets”, this seems like Rust’s sort of place. Temporary existence, temporary living. Purgatory?

Whatever.

If you ask me, Rust Cohle’s head is so far up his own ass that it’s no wonder his outlook on life is so dark. 

If I was more sober, maybe I’d be thinking about it—about him—less—but this night out has had me so drunk I was maybe even hallucinating at some point. Rust?—sure, he’s been in the back of my mind for some part of the last few months – I have to see him most days I go to work, don’t I? – but, sometime in the space between my third and fourth shot of straight vodka, he was suddenly at the very front of it. I’d seen a guy who smoked like him: cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, a simple, deep drag. I’d thought it was him, but then I realised his face was shrouded in the smoke that he’d exhaled, and I recalled that Rust never seems to do that. Never seems to exhale. All the tar and shit stays in. 

With a twist of my keys, the engine rumbles off into more-or-less silence. Fuck, it’s a bad idea, yes, just being here. If he likes to keep his distance, well—he’s entitled to that choice. 

I glance over my shoulder, out the window, out at the complex which is all yellow and shining, illuminated by buzzing halogen light bars and, of course, the occasional bug zapper. It’s clean enough. The lines of this parking space were white enough. Apartment 11A, said Marty. Second floor. 

“Are you drunk?” he’d asked – Marty, not Rust.

I’d replied, “No,” pressing closer to the phone box in attempts to remove myself from the swarm and bustle of the ladies’ bathroom. And it was an honest reply. Sort of. Despite his scepticism, by that time, I’d long stopped drinking, and all that remained from it was a sort of numb tingle in my fingertips—as far as I was concerned. 

I don’t think I’d be in this parking lot, stepping out of my car, if I wasn’t still a little bit gone. 

Marty’s sigh had crackled through the receiver. “Don’t bring any o’ tha’ party-this-party-that attitude to ‘im, alright? He’ll hate it.” I’d told him okay, my stomach spiking up with excitement. “Fact is, I don’t think you should go at all. ‘f you do, should be a work matter. This a work matter, detective?”

I’d lied, said yes, perhaps with a slur to my voice. 

He clicked his tongue. “Okay, buck, whatever you say.” Then, he’d hung up. 

There was something disapproving in the manner of the conversation. I got the feeling that he was talking to me in the same voice he used to lecture his daughters. The only reason I’d called him was to get something from him, sure, so that I could basically get something from Rust, his partner. I could see how that sort of thing might’ve upset someone. Not that Marty Hart should have any right to judge, not when he’s coming into work in the same clothes as the day before, stinking of sweat and God knows what. The unsaid agreement of everyone in the office is to turn a blind eye. I’ve met his wife. Someone should cut off his damn dick. 

Quiet, now. Hell, who am I to talk? Marty’s fun to chat with, makes a slow day at the office a little brighter. ‘Course, there’s rarely a slow day at the office.

And I’m at the top of the stairs, now. And I knock—one, two, three—on the pilling, forest-green door. Dulled down 11A. Blinds are determinedly shut, slats flat. For a second, I think maybe I’ll be waking him.

Then I remember Rust doesn’t sleep. 

A grey face appears as the door swings just a little ways open, grave and sunken-tired. His expression isn’t so pissed-off as it is just his usual expression. 

“Rusty,” I say to him with a small nod, words scraping out dryly. 

He doesn’t respond right away – ‘stead, he leans his body out partway, eyes absent like he’s searching for some hooligan criminal in the night.

“Marty told you my address?” he asks lowly. It’s more a statement than anything, but I amuse him with a nod anyways. There’s a cigarette flaring up between his fingers. His hand twitches a little like he’s wanting to take a drag, but his eyes are fixed on my shoes, now, like he’s still coming to terms with the fact I’m a foreign body in his domain. 

My toes curl up tight in my shoes – there’s that prick of anticipation again. Ice-cold, you could easily mistake it as dread. 

Rust doesn’t exactly subject me to an imploring look—not really his style—but he bows his head down just slightly – that’s sign enough for me. He wants to know why I’m here, and he no doubt wants to know the quickest way to be rid of me. 

I sigh. I ask him.

My body trembles, and he notices it, records it, stores it away for later reference, for some other time he’ll find that it and me will contribute to his purpose. 

Rust has a face of stone. I get to know it well as I search for a sign there that might let me know what lies beneath. But, of course, a statue is solid through and through. Sharp angles and smooth planes carved hollow. If he’s cold to the touch, I’d like to reach out and be sure. Is he cold where a man ought to be warm? Christ, it makes my pulse jump just to think about it. 

There is no greater purpose or cruel intention underlying my words, as far as I’m concerned. Rust, however, lingers there, with his arm up on the door, barricading the entrance, while he peels back and flits over every layer of possible meaning, his attention fixed absently on my left ear.

He then looks at me—briefly—in the eyes, with a sort of paralysing intensity. Even the tingling in my fingers ceases to be. 

It takes a moment, pregnant with the chorus of cicadas, crickets and other night-creatures, before he steps back neatly to allow me in.

The door clicks softly behind me as I enter into a room that’s bare as bare can be.  

Rust grunts, coming up around me and into the kitchen area. “Want anything?” he mumbles around his cigarette, other hand shoved in his pocket. He’s still half-dressed in his work clothes, his tie strewn on the counter, his blazer slumped over a rickety picnic chair perched up in front of a wall of crime scenes and dead bodies. My eyes linger there—how can they not?

“A beer,” I tell him, still looking at those photographs, then at the stacks upon stacks of books. Philosophy, ethics, religion. Names I’d expect only those with PhDs to know.  

“Don’t think you’ve had ‘nuff to drink already?”  

I shoot him a look. “I think I can handle it, Rust.” He straightens up, raises his brow. I snort, reasoning, “I’ll only have one.”

“One,” he agrees, opening up the fridge and having a rummage around.  

White walls and all of them empty, like some sort of psych ward. Half-sure Rust actually did do some time in that type of care, though, so—shouldn’t make any quips about that. I don’t want him thinking I think he’s crazy – he gets enough of that, I’m sure.   

Back at my place, though, I’ve got posters or drawings or paintings up around every corner. My niece’s drawing of a mermaid sits on my dresser, and photographs of my family are displayed in the hallway. One up by the TV, I painted myself when I was in high school. About two years after I graduated, they asked if I wanted my portfolio back, and I’d obviously said yes. And I love my stuff! Some ‘cause it’s pretty, others because of memories and whatnot. Guess some people don’t have that creative trait, or they lose it. Or maybe they detest the sentiments, those strings that have been, are and will be attached to things. When my cousin broke up with her boyfriend, she cut her hair and burned his clothes. “I just want to forget him,” she’d snarled. I’d sputtered a laugh into my tea.

Rust plants a Corona down on the counter, already cracked open.

There’s no mirror in here either – I can’t check whether I look as desperate as I feel. When I focus back on him, Rust is taking a swig from his own beer, turning to glance at the crucifix pinned above the messy mattress on the floor. Huh. Didn’t peg him as a Christian.

His honey-blond hair doesn’t look cold to the touch, that’s for sure ‘n’ certain. Wonder if he just wakes up like that or what. Once, Marty had been teasing him at work, even cracking a smile out of the old guy. “Ain’t them just the prettiest curls y’ever seen, buck?” he’d remarked, nudging into me, cooing at him. Silently, in my head, even then, I’d agreed: prettiest curls I’d ever seen. Rust hadn’t looked up to chart my reaction, but, if he had, he’d maybe have seen my fidgeting fingers or hitch of breath. Or maybe he felt it, heard it. 

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” I offer pathetically through a nervous smile. 

He blinks, takes another swig, leaning over the counter that separates us. “No, y’aint.”

Jesus, I have to turn my head and shut my eyes for a second. I don’t particularly believe in God, but I ask Him to please give me the strength to resist my urges and act like a normal damn person for at least a few more minutes. And then I apologise for only praying out of convenience. In the face of temptation. This is why people shouldn’t drink – still, doesn’t stop me from downing a good part of my beer.

I turn to the wall and try to turn myself off a little bit. It’s not hard – Rust still has Dora Lange (rest her soul) pinned up on his wall, naked, blue, stiff. I don’t want to know why, so I don’t ask him. 

His eyes are adamant on the side of my head. Funny how he never seems to look at me at the same time I’m looking at him. Pisses me off a lot of the time – not just him, but in general. A lot of people share this same fear of not being heard, not being listened to and not being cared about. Men in particular, I’ve noticed, have a tendency to raise their voice over others’, to yell or shout or hit things or push ‘n’ shove. Marty’s that way – a lot of men at the precinct are, too. Women who are raised to be the listeners sometimes act out in the same way, frustrated at all the things they have to care about that men don’t, burdened with manners and politeness. I used to hate having to listen, to wait for the man who interrupted me to finish speaking. Rust always lets people finish their point, for better and for worse. Pisses me off in a different type of way. I can feel his judgement seeping out of him, so potent that’s it’s tangible, lapping at my feet.

He doesn’t push and shove – he’s a listener, too. Of course, he has that male privilege where his silence has a gravity, a magnetic pull, where mine is simply as is. At least he pays attention. Sure, on the surface, it might look like he doesn’t care at all, hunched over a case file at his desk, back turned to me and the rest of the lot, but proximity has its power – assigned workspaces put with his personality, and he knows what’s like and unlike me better than my sister. He’s reading into my refusal to talk, to face him – unlike me.

“So, you’ve given this some thought, then,” Rust says matter-of-factly, and my tummy bubbles up.

I snicker nervously, heart racing. God, I’d expected surprise, disbelief, outright refusal, maybe even a little disgust, but, when I manage to turn around and look at his face again, it just seems to me like a calmness. Stoicism found in the affirmation, maybe, of his expectations. It’s like I’m walking right into one of those little theories of his: a proved hypothesis.

I take another sip from my beer, feeling too shy for my liking. “Well, yeah,” I drawl, slumping over the kitchen counter and propping my chin up to look right back at him in a surge of liquid confidence. “I always think ‘fore I do anything that’s anything, Rust.”

Almost immediately, he retreats, standing up straight and resting the small of his back against the lip of the sink behind him. He hums, glances away. “We both know that’s a lie,” he combats, hands tucked into his pockets, chin tilted up, eyes down. A mouthful of beer numbs the sting of rejection. “What you mean is you think you can justify all your decisions. You think you can justify why you knocked on my door and said what you said—” he elaborates quietly, eliciting a snort from me, “—but, at the end o’ the day, all your decisions boil down to what you feel is right, not what is right.”

“‘n' you think you ‘n’ you alone know what’s right?”

Slate-grey eyes flit up and down my face, like I’m a specimen on a slide.

“I think that the girl who’s stumbled up on a fella’s door asking him to fuck her is less inclined to know, without bias, what’s right, yes.”

I swallow thickly, sucking the remaining flavour of beer off of my tongue before going in for another swig.

Christ.

Not a single bat of his eyes. Not a quiver of his mouth, not a twitch to his nose, not a morsel of natural, human hesitation. Does he have to be so crass? I did the courtesy of making it palatable, at least to my own ears, with a euphemism. But when have I ever known Rust Cohle to water anything down? No drink I’ve ever consumed will match his body’s preference of alcohol content. He’s nursing his beer close to his chest, but who knows what poisons lay dormant in these cabinets?

“Rusty,” I say lowly, maybe asking for a break – I close my eyes for just a second, part because I couldn’t bear it if I caught some sort of disapproval on his face, and part because it’s just past two o’clock in the morning.

Late nights have consumed my life recently, what with that sicko rapist connected to a Christian fertility cult. Children of God – “go forth and multiply”. His confession had turned my blood cold. Johansson had offered to sit in the box instead, but I did it anyway. I went home and cried over it, then came into work the next day to talk to some press and then receive my new assignment.

He hums, taking a drag from his cigarette, swallowing the smoke down. Rust knows how it is. To be honest, I’m probably the one who doesn’t know the half of it. One night at the office, he’d casually confessed to his insomnia, like he was just commenting on the state of the weather ‘n’ nothin’ else. So, I guess I won’t pretend to get it.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “Are you into that whole abstinence thing?”

The weak light above flickers gently as he pauses, turns the question over in his mind. Anyone else would’ve surely laughed.

“I believe that man is susceptible to desire, yes—but he can resist it and its consequences should his willpower be stronger than the false promises posed by that temptation.

I snort again, because, now, I really am tipsy, and I can’t hold in my attitude any longer. It’s not that I think he’s lost it or whatever. It’s just—he’s so—objectively—absurd. Well—“objectively”. He’s got points, but those points lose all meaning in the spiralling darkness of overthought and deep contemplation wherein he’ll explain that everything really means nothing—and he’ll be right about that, sure, but also unintentionally prove a point about himself. I’d ask him what it means when, in a world where everything means nothing, a child will give their friend a flower found on the way to school, but I feel like his answer would be too morbid for my liking. Does that make me an unreliable source? The fact that I want to live?

He's absurd. He’s also a little bit awry in the head. Don’t know what he’s lost or what he’s lookin’ for, but it’s not a good look on him. He’s honest, yes – that’s a good trait. But honesty without kindness is cruelty. And he is kind – underneath, he’s kind, and I know that because of how hard he works to weed out evil people in this world, most times at his own risk. That’s kindness, albeit unconventional, whether he realises it or not.

The kindness almost cancels out his arrogance.

“So, what?” I challenge under the guise of a teasing grin. “You can go mouthin’ off for hours on end about how up themselves religious people and all’at are, but you can’t draw the similarities between their philosophy and your philosophy? How does that work, Rust?”

While I was working that Children of God nightmare of a case, he just couldn’t seem to restrain himself – every bullshit word that left him revealed to me his hubris. Now, I’m not angry, and he’s not stupid – we’re not arguing. In fact, he seems intrigued, lean body shifted toward me. He sets his beer down on the counter, crosses his arms over his chest after securing his cigarette between his lips, and lowers his head as if to listen to me better.

I sigh, continue. “D’you know what I think? I think you oversimplify humanity. You’re a great detective—‘nd I guess you know it—and, within the confines of your job, it serves you well, makes you good in the box. But your assumptions are too general. People are who they are, sure, but they also decide to be those people. By their environment and those who surround ‘em, people make the decisions that define ‘em. A lot of the time, their circumstances ain’t fair. People born into badness are trapped by the badness—either physically, or up in their heads—and they have a tough time escapin’ it.”

Rust inhales the smoke again, the only evidence of it happening being the soft whisp that curls away from his nose. I wonder to myself how his lungs are still standing.

“‘s that how you explain that—homicide case you’re workin’ on?” Three-year-old boy died of neglect, his siblings found locked in cabinets, one in a dog cage, by their mother and stepfather. Rust’s eyes flash silver. “Killer had a tough time?”

Asshole.

I narrow my eyes dangerously. “Don’t be mean, Rusty,” I scold, and he blinks in concession. “I think evil exists. I think it’s complicated. I think you summarise things that ought not to be summarised.”

He’s silent for a heartbeat. Then, his hand comes up to pinch away his cigarette, and he waves it in a small flourish, explaining, “When I say “people”, I mean society. Human culture.”

“Last I checked, Rust, you don’t know everybody on the planet. You don’t know their “culture”, or experiences.” That seems to shut him up. My eyes wander to his broad shoulders, trail along the meat of his arms beneath the cheap, polyester shirt that hugs close to the muscle, and they linger there like the quiet that settles between us.

He nods slowly, once. “Our decisions define us?”

I bob my head, unabashedly staring at the elegant column of his throat, his neck, and the stretch of tan skin that is settled beneath the white undershirt revealed by the first one, two, three buttons which have recently been undone.

He’s quieter when he asks me, “Well, how does this decision define you, then?” There’s nothing malicious about the way he says it, or even lustful – just a calm curiosity.

“Ain’t it obvious?” I grin again, laugh a little, blush hotly. “I’m horny!” I hide my face in my shoulder, trying to compose the hiccups of laughter in my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I snicker, wiping my palm over my brow, my eyes. “This probably isn’t very attractive to you.”

“You’re a very pretty girl,” he replies. He mutters my name solemnly, like we’re in a formal meeting or something.

I glance up, check whether he’ll offer me eye contact again, but he doesn’t – he’s staring at the wall, lost.

I scoff. “You’re a very pretty guy, Rust.”

God willing, none of the boys at the precinct will ever find out about this. If Marty lets it slip that I even asked for Rust’s address, then I’ll never hear the end of it. Worse, everyone’ll think I’m dead-gone over him. Guess I don’t really fit the standards expected of women around here: “wife”, or “whore”. Or “dead”. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously going about pretending I’m not interested in sex at all. Once sex comes into the equation, I’ll be reduced to that and nothing else. 

Anxious, I start flicking up under my fingernails. Is Rust already starting to think those things, too? I’m a great detective, but that’s the only capacity in which he’s really known me. 

I wring the neck of my bottle. “I should explain—”

He holds his hand up, stating, “I don’t need you to. Do you feel the need to?” 

Curious, wary, I watch his face, a blank slate. Still waters run deep. My eyes drift down, to where his hands are together in front of him, one relaxed beside him the other curled around his wrist with two fingers resting on the pulse.

“No,” I reply. 

“You thought it over,” he says, eyes tilting up at the ceiling, aloof, bored, maybe. His words are sort of monotone, like he’s reciting a passage from a book that he’s just recently read: “You chose me because you know me. You haven’t been sleeping well. You’re stressed, you’re scared, you’re frustrated.” He blinks. “You’re attracted to me due to some—unfortunate trigger beyond your control in the reptilian part of your brain.” Brief as the flicker of a candle in a still room, he looks over me, brow raised slightly as if daring me to tell him that he’s wrong. He pauses again, takes a short puff. “It makes you think I can take care o’ your needs.”

Look at the state of him: sallow and wilting on the inside. Reducing me down to a sentence or two, and being right about it.

“Well, can you?” I ask weakly, feeling small. He looks over me, blinks blankly. “How do you take care of your needs?” No reply. “You do have needs, don’t you?” I remark, tapping the rim of my bottle to my warm temple. “Programming ‘n’ whatnot.” 

He tilts his head away in dismissal. 

I smile, more to myself than to him. “Beat off in the shower, is it?”

For a second, Rust is still. My eyes grow heavy, admiring the strong profile of his nose. He then nods helplessly, like there’s no point in trying to lie.

I hum, a soft, self-satisfied smirk edging its way onto my face. “Must feel like a sin,” I snicker.  

He squints slightly, like he disagrees with my logic, but does not interrupt to protest. 

“I remember takin’ baths as a teenager and double-checkin’, triple-checkin’ I locked the door,” I confess. “Couldn’t take my time. ‘S that how it is for you, Rust?” I probe, tilting my head to the side, losing his eyes as quickly as I catch them. “You ever let yourself enjoy it? Let yourself want it—?”

“I don’t want it,” he snaps quietly.

“But your programmin’ says you do, right?” I point out, scrambling to hold onto the flaw in his argument. I search his face, my own bright, eager.

He quirks up a miraculous smile, and I myself burst into a wide grin. Still smiling—though, you’d have to admit, it’s such a strange sight, sort of gratifying, almost patronising—he shifts his weight between his feet, scratches at his nose with his pinkie, sniffs, takes a long drag of his dying cigarette. I know he must feel disjointed, though he doesn’t show it: he’s misstepped, and I’ve caught him. And how often does Rust Cohle misstep? I should’ve checked the news for a blue moon tonight. 

Interested, now, is he? Breathing quietly, rolling his jaw – he’s entertaining the competition I have goin’ up in my head. From the looks of the gentle smirk on his face, he’s enjoying it, too. 

“No,” he corrects with a dry husk to his voice. “No, I know what I want, and, when I think those things are necessary or useful, I know how to get them.”

In this type of context, I’d like to see him try. Though, he is an undeniably attractive man. Thick, solid all the way through, like a rich wood. But he’s got these brittle eyes: fraying.

He continues: “Most of the time, though, what we want is born out of dangerous feelings, like rage or lust. Ruminating on the consequences of those potential actions seems to me the more sensible thing to do than to just leave it and find out.” I sniff. “Desire is inescapable for most, including the sexual kind. I feel it—“ he eyes how I wriggle beneath my skin, “—you feel it. But it can be resisted. You’re lettin’ it dictate what you do ‘n’ say. If I do to you what you want me to, have you thought about how it might affect things down the line? Tomorrow, next week, next month—?”

“Yes,” I hiss, a little too emotionally, such that a gleam of satisfaction crosses his grey eyes at the strain and stretch of my voice. Christ. Desperate much?

I take several seconds to think before allowing myself to speak again, all while staring at him straight on and refusing to look away: I’d just die if I let him catch me out. “Well, how can you be sure of the fallout? How do you know the good won’t outweigh the bad? Not “you” specifically, but, also, yeah, “you” specifically. I can think about something morally ambiguous, and I can evaluate the potential consequences, and, just as you are satisfied to observe, I will decide to follow through with this somethin’ and deal with what I gotta deal.”

He sighs. “Because decisions define a person?” 

I tuck my hair tight behind my ears. “Yes.”

And he hums – that beautiful noise resonates in my stomach before sinking down there, low, its weight a comfort. “I agree with you in that respect,” he admits. 

A laugh erupts out of me like the sputter of an engine. Luckily, I’m easy to laughter – it’s like me, as is my genuine grin. “Rust Cohle’s agreein’ with me on somethin’?—Call the police!” 

“We are the police,” he replies smartly, watching me snort and smile and grow flushed in the face. I feel very grateful to that beer – at least my giddiness can be blamed on the effects of alcohol and save me from embarrassment.  

As I simmer down, he looks away, adds, “I agree to an extent. People all think that they’re one-of-a-kind. That they make these—amazing decisions. They speak and do and walk and play and work and fuck and eventually die – all of ‘em.”

“You’re part of the people,” I argue.  

He hums, nodding in acceptance. “Yes.”

“If a person acts due to their instinct, whether it’s succumbing to it or fighting against it, then isn’t man simply his programming?” He lowers his head. “You can be aware of it, and you can be a part of it, too. Who are you to deny yourself the good parts?”  

He fiddles with his cigarette, svelte fingers nimble and acute. I cross my legs, flex my hips; he notices. 

“Because of the consequences,” he replies, a soft whisper.  

I thought that everything meant fuck-all?

For someone who sees no meaning in life, he sure seems to spend a lot of time contemplating it. Here, I thought I’d have hot hands sliding all over me, gripping, spreading, pushing, but instead find myself defence in an unprecedented debate. 

Rust is breathing slower, deeper, almost unable, now, to look me in the eyes, even look at me in general, whereas, before, it had been a choice, whether that choice be conscious or unconscious. His cigarette burns weakly in his fingers, forgotten. The muscle in his jaw flexes, his expression hollow. 

My body buzzes with want, leaves me scrambling for breath like I’ve just run a race. I want. I want, I want, I want. The rough pads of his fingertips, the surest and most confident I’ll have ever known. Sharp tongue, quick and precise. Something about how he smells. All my compliments to pheromones – even in the heavy musk of the bar, I’d smelled him, ashy, warm, alive, and now it’s wreathing all around. Or maybe that’s just me – it’s like when you try to take someone’s pulse with your thumb, and all you’re feeling is your own heartbeat.

I want – my breath trembles with it.

“Rust,” I say softly. He shakes his head a little, looking away still, vulnerable like a wild animal. I sigh, gnawing at my lip. “I really want it. I—I’ve—it’s not just a rash decision,” I explain. “I’ve wanted it for a while, now.”

He shudders – I notice. “Since when?”

I huff out a sheepish laugh, fix my eyes on my restless hands. “You won’t remember it—”

“I will.”

His voice sounds clogged. It sobers me right up. 

“A year back,” I tell him. “You were working at the office—late, in the dark. You called me, and I asked you why, and you said—it was because you were tired and thinkin’.” I glance up to check if he’s maybe looking, but he’s not – he’s turned his head even further away. The soft, gentle curls of his hair tempt me. 

Blindly reaching for the bottle, securing it almost immediately, he finishes the rest of his beer, then sets it back down. 

“I—” he begins, scratching his nose, “—I was—tired.” He pauses to re-thicken his voice. “And—thinking—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, but the both of us know what he said that night: Of you. Thinking of you—of me .  

My stomach flips, leaving me almost nauseous, just like it did when I first heard those words. At first, I thought I’d misheard, that I was so tired my mind was playing tricks on me. Then, I thought he was being cruel, or maybe he was drunk. Those two instances weren’t—aren’t—unlike him, but he never, ever calls to be mean or to be stupid. He’d been quiet and warm through the phone after that, a presence so thick I could’ve sworn he had his arms around me right then. I hadn’t slept well for a time, then, of course, and that made it all the more vivid. His voice had made me shiver all the way through as he told me he had to get back to work. 

When I saw him the next morning, I couldn’t look at him. It was the first time I couldn’t, not wouldn’t. It was also the first time I felt him paying attention to me.  

I shift, ask the question I’d wondered since that call: “Why?”

A pause. 

Then: “You brought me coffee that morning,” he explains softly, speaking to the wall opposite. “I was—looking at the mug on my desk – it was yours. Green one you like to use.” He sniffs. “And…” He teeters on the precipice of that word but does not finish the thought. 

Hmm. That’s something to think about. Rust Cohle thinking about me and not picking apart why and why he shouldn’t be. It had been a mindless enough gesture – it’s not unheard of me to be makin’ coffee for other people in the office, not because I have to but because I like to. For the people I can stand, that is: Johansson always, and him for me; Cathleen;   Marty, when I’m not pissed off at him; and Rust, from time to time. Everybody knows that green mug is mine, though – nobody touches it, not even the boss. Rust reads far too much into things. Most of the time, he’s dead-on. I should’ve known from the moment I placed that coffee on his desk, from the sharpening of his eyes (that did not spare me a glance) that lingered on my lingering hand on his table, that he knew. Figured out something I hadn’t even quite figured out myself. Not until later that night. 

I wonder if he’s ever thought of me when fucking his own hand. I wonder if he thinks about me sometimes, when he can’t sleep, in between horror stories and brutal blows and uncovering the secret truths of the universe. I do, sometimes. 

When I push myself back to my feet, stand up, Rust’s attention springs back, and he watches me, looks at me.

Quietly, I relish in the satisfaction of his stare, crossing on light feet to toss my empty beer bottle in the bin. He steps aside to let me open the cupboard under the sink, his hand curled in a loose fist by his side. I’m not trying to tease him – I grant him the space he so clearly needs, retreating about five paces back, leaning slightly myself against the counter. 

I could say anything right now, no matter how insane, and he’d treat it with total and utter respect. I could reveal to him the reaction my body has to seeing his fingers fiddle like that with his cigarette, and he’d manage to identify the cogs and wheels in what, when you step back, actually turns out to be a hidden machine. Christ, I could probably remove all of my clothes, stand naked in front of him, and he’d look on as one would look on at a piece of evidence at work. Going over the details, once, twice, scribbling it all down in that big, leather ledger. 

Here’s what I think: he needs it. For all his talk about how unoriginal, how predictable mammals are at the end of things, he probably knows that himself. The tension in his jaw, the perpetual tightness of breath. That clipped way of talking he has, wound so tight around himself, like a compressed spring fighting its natural urge to let go.  

I could make him let go. Maybe. I wish he’d let me try. It’s nothing possessive, really: wanting to be the one to unravel his tightly coiled body. Just—the release of seeing him be. No thinking in particular – just being.

He is still, however, uncommonly mute, avoiding my eyes.

I sigh. I ask him tentatively, “You think I ought’a be ashamed o’ myself?” biting down on the fleshy inside of my cheek.  

“No,” he contradicts.

“But—you think I should be findin’ my fun elsewhere, with—some other guy?”  

He sort of pins his hands behind his back, pressing his weight against them there at the edge of the sink. He looks a lot taller from this angle. “I think there’s a lotta fellas stumblin’ over themselves to be with a girl like you.”

“Maybe,” I scoff, “but my reptilian brain don’t want none of ‘em.“ I blush warmly when I glance up and he’s there watching me, though there’s no bashfulness at all on his side of it. 

I expect him to maybe dart his eyes away again, like he does, and then walk me to the door, maybe even to the car if I haven’t offended him too badly, and then call it a night. I could stuff it in; I can compartmentalise. Monday would carry on as it always does, except now without the wondering and the yearning and the delusion. Did he have to be so good-looking? His cheap, wrinkled shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows—like they are now—and those lean forearms braced up on the table, caging in the neatly set-out notes scrawled up in his ledger, like they have mind to escape. And he’s—beautiful. He’s tall. Out-of-place sort of tall, where he has this bend to his neck, sometimes, as to not draw attention to himself. Other times, though, he stands to full height, regal, elegant, authoritative, like when he comes out o’ the box.

He sees into people. He feels it all so deeply.  

And he’s looking at me, seeing into me, deeply. His eyes are brittle like china pieced back together with store-bought glue. The low light casts long shadows down his neck and harsh face. 

“Come here to me, Rust,” I say to him, beckoning him over with a tilt of my head. To my surprise, he does. He does immediately, peeling himself off the counter, eyes drifting somewhere just behind me as if disinterested.

He stubs his cigarette out on an old plate, abandons it there officially, before stepping slowly towards me, feet never dragging, dodging my searching eyes like the plague.

Hmm. Maybe I made a good argument “for” to his “against”. Or maybe he was never “against” to begin with. I’ll watch him carefully tomorrow and see if there was anything I missed.

I reach up and touch his face gently. I used to do this with my husband before he passed, and he’d close his eyes and whisper my name and lean into the touch, tender, loving – my fingers shake slightly with the memory. Rust Cohle does none of that, because he is nothing like my husband. He’s perfectly rigid against my fingertips; his stare flits briefly up right into my soul, his mouth pressed in a hard line. Everything about him is so sharp. The ridge of his cheekbones, the defiant slant of his nose. The lean muscle of his arms and shoulders, slightly sinewy just beneath the skin. 

But when I brush my thumbs up along his eyebrows, easing the sharp line between them, he sighs and closes his eyes, neck bowing down, still as stiff as before, just—different. A small gap, an opening, to that locked room of his upstairs.  

“Rust,” I whisper, nose brushing his. He hums again, lowly, eyes shut. “What do you think of us havin’ sex?”

“Sex,“ he replies softly, “is the illusion of connection constituted by the release of a mess of happy hormones, simply by touching all the right places—and nothin’ more.”

I hum and watch the look on his face grow brittle as our breaths mingle closely. God, he’s so near to me that my head swings in a bout of lightheadedness, heady, vision centring in on him and only him, such that I wouldn’t know if this place was burning down all around, even if the flames started eating us alive.  

“I think you’re full o’ shit, Rusty. Know how I know that?”

He sighs shakily. “How?” It’s like the word is dragged right from the pit of his chest, barely a breath to show for the effort of it.

“I can feel you against my leg.” 

He swallows thickly, but he does not blush, and he does not open his eyes. And, contrary to what he might seem, Rust is not cold like stone. When my fingers grow more confident, when they trace and drag lightly along the line of his cheeks, he is warm there. His pulse, when I find it, exists and is hot and slightly erratic, a fact that leaves my mouth dry and open. I can feel the inflexion of his throat as he swallows again, the shift of the skin and the rhythm of his heartbeat, the gentle influence of his breathing. 

I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. So, I ask him, “Can I kiss you?” ever so gently. 

Softer still, he replies, “Yes,” with that slight Southern whistle of his, barely moving. 

Give me strength. Give me strength. 

That look on his face is filling me with a delicious, vibrating power. As I stretch my neck up to brush a kiss against the corner of his mouth, my eyes are open and watching him, charting him: Rust breathes strongly out of his nose, eyes still determinedly shut, like he’s absent and meditating. He is not tough as stone – parts of him are soft. He barely returns the kiss, but, as far as my brain processes, his lips are soft. Hesitant, maybe. 

Then, these soft lips part, and he is sucking in a hot, shuddering breath, capturing me in a deep kiss, as if to breathe all of me in, a strong hand threading through my hair. It hurts a little at first – a small noise escapes my throat at the slight shoots of pain tugging at the roots – but Rust doesn’t seem to notice. Not at first. No, he’s still breathing me in. His lips are dry, rough, a push and tug, a twist, and he’s kissing like a punch, knocking the breath right out of my lungs. Whatever oxygen I manage to hold onto is sucked out of me promptly. 

I whine, my body going all slack and tired as he smooths the hair out of my face, palms dragging clean back across my cheeks. Those hands cradle the back of my head, making it impossible to keep my eyes open.

Content, I sigh, eyes succumbing to the sensation and falling shut. The last thing I see is his own eyes slipping open to look at my face.

Boy, he’s a good kisser. Must be that lizard brain he has such a distaste for.

My fingers blindly reach and fumble at his belt, hooking into the waist, pulling him flush against me. Rust must forget what he’s doing for a moment, and he pauses where he is, in limbo, eyes far away. When I begin to unthread his belt from its quietly clinking buckle, he goes stiff again, blinks rapidly before perceiving me. 

Holy shit, he’s gorgeous.

His hands hover over my shoulders, not quite committed to the contact. 

He’s seeing me—really seeing me—as I unzip his trousers and spit crudely into my palm and curl around the length of him, warm, tight. I begin to understand the gentle throb and strain he feels, a delightful thrill running rapid all through my insides. He feels deliciously alive. 

But then he turns his head away, neck straining up, breath choked back in his throat. His hands come away, raised, it looks like, as if trying to seem non-confrontational, trying to come away unscathed from a bad situation. 

My stomach burns with desire. “Let yourself like it, Rust,” I mumble against his cheek. “Are you here with me?” 

I can feel him swallow.

“Yes,” he responds. I guide his face to me, stroking his cock confidently once, twice, as encouragement, maybe. Temptation. Whatever you want to call it. My mouth waters, my head goes airy, when I feel his sex twitch in my embrace. 

“Kiss me again, then.” 

And he does. Brows furrowed as if in pain, he does, with the tip of his nose dragging and pressing into my cheek. He kisses me sweetly once, then again, and then pants down hotly into my mouth, hovering there before sliding his tongue deep inside, close, smooth. 

I let myself love it. I let myself let go with every kiss he blesses me with, growing looser and easier and lighter each second. 

The weight of him in my hand inspires a beautiful urge to have him lay down and let me feel every part of his body. Even though his hips stutter, he doesn’t buck up into my fist, doesn’t whine, doesn’t moan, doesn’t curse. Not yet. He just breathes and breathes, and kisses me and kisses me, like it’s all he was set on Earth to do. All he’s allowing himself to do.

Desperate, perhaps, my thighs are pressed against his, feeling unnaturally weak and warm. The throb between my legs coincides with my heart rushing in my ears, a steady ache, impatient. Part of me wants to drag this out as long as possible, because what if this never happens again?—and another part wants to push him inside me already, have him fill me up, fuck me stupid. 

This thought stuffs me up to the brim, like cotton punched down into a pillowcase. I whine shallowly and try to slot his thigh between my own. 

A switch in his brain must flick on. 

It’s like he’s inside my head, like he’s in on my desperation, like he can see and feel every sinful image and thought circulating my alighted brain. He knows it all so well, such that he uses his hips to press us firmly against the counter, spreads my legs with the nudge of his foot between mine, and immediately pushes the rough pads of his fingers right where I need it, through the fabric of my skirt, letting me grind myself against him, hips and all. He circles there generously. I can feel my need dripping from me. He can too, no doubt. 

I sigh, he breathes. I gasp, he breathes. My eyes flutter open and shut, but he looks on, eyes half-lidded but stare immovable. 

He then lifts his knee to place against my cunt. 

“That feels good, don’t it?” he says gently, rocking me over his knee up and down, back and forth, fingers digging into the soft skin of my hips.

My legs widen. When I gasp out weakly, he raises his brow and scans my face, like he had predicted the shaky, wordless nod that I offer to him too late in return. 

“Did you want it like this, girl?” His voice is low, intimate, a hit of something just shy of addictive. “Or did you want somethin’ else, too?” 

He kisses the hollow of my neck. 

His other hand grips at my ass, up my skirt, kneading the flesh there, manipulating it, and his fingers ghost my slit, spreading me around his knee. He fucks up into my hand. I slide my fingers through his hair, which is soft and warm like butter. 

Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid, pretty curls. I’ve proved my point: regardless of whatever act he may try to put on afterwards, we’ll both know that Rust isn’t as numb as he wants to be, that I made him feel good, that I made him want me, and that he’s hot-blooded and thrumming with life. I can feel how alive he is . I hope he thinks of this again some time, whether by himself or surrounded by people. I hope it drives him a bit mad, remembering this. 

A hot, sharp breath fans out across my cheek, his mouth slotting back over mine, open, daring me. 

I rut against his knee, my fingers teasing the wet head of his cock. I look down between us, at my hand on him, with half a mind to drop onto my knees and make him cum down my throat.

Rust lets out a grunt and swallows hard again.  

Then, he gently grabs my wrist and pulls my hand out of his pants, leaving me dazed and confused. With nimble fingers, he unzips my skirt, pushing it over my hips and dragging his hands over my bare skin. He asks me, “You want the bed?”

I step out of the pool of fabric around my feet, slide my shoes off. “‘s not a bed.” 

I slide my fingers beneath his sweaty, white undershirt, feeling the taut muscle there, feeling the steady breaths that contradict his racing pulse. He holds my eyes, dipping slightly when I dip, tilting when I tilt. “Seems like one to me.”

How unlike him. 

A smile spreads over my face, and his pupils blow wide, dark, imploring. “You wait ‘n’ see what happens when the dust-mites turn up.” 

His eyes on me alone are enough to leave me breathless, chest caving in on itself. Of course, when he kisses me softly, it only makes things worse – his long fingers curl around the base of my throat, watching me watching him, and his other hand slides up under the hem of my blouse, palm spread over my bellybutton. 

I sigh, try not to squirm. 

“You want the bed?” he repeats, heavy, rough. I bite back a needy whine that sits at the back of my mouth. His fingertips press down slightly into my pulse, tightening my breathing. 

I nod. “Yeah.” 

Think of all the times I’ve sulked over his lack of eye contact with me. Was I annoying? Uninteresting? That, obviously, was an immature way of looking at things, definitely not improved by my distinct femininity undergoing some kind of unspoken disapproval by most I met on the job. This is the most present he has ever been in a moment with me around.

As he pulls himself away, steps back, his eyes are darting over my face, less like he’s judging me and more like he’s trying to find and memorise every detail. I do that, sometimes: if I pay well enough attention, it feels like I’m re-living the moment when remembering. 

His hands slot sensibly into his pockets as if his cock isn’t blushing and poking out of his fly right now, belt undone, hanging low about his narrow hips. 

Legs don’t fail me now. I slink out of the glowing kitchen and carry on to where the mattress lies in a dim, blue corner, the strange crucifix watching over, a long shadow cast over the empty wall upon which it hangs. He follows shortly behind me, his warmth radiating out onto my back. 

I pause and look out onto the darkness revealed behind the half-open slats of the floor-to-ceiling blinds that shield the room from the window to the outside world. 

Rust’s presence is intoxicating behind me. He smells like cigarette smoke, still, enticing. I’m trying to quit, but he makes it damn hard. His nose is just shy of my hair, his body so close to enveloping me into him – the prospect of it makes me shiver in delight. I must hallucinate his fingertips along my spine. 

I unbutton my blouse with slow fingers, then slide it off and undo my bra. 

His breathing is level and grounding by my ear as he comes close, sliding his strong, wide hand up my stomach, along my ribs, and cups under my soft breast. He rubs over my nipple in gentle circles before squeezing over me warmly. He then comes around to pinch the creamy tissue gentle between his fingers and thumb, closing his hot mouth over, drawing along his feverish tongue. I sigh, stroke his hair, let him press soft pecks and kisses to the curve of the soft flesh and to my sternum.

My fingers, cupped around the nape of his neck, dip under the collar, cool. This touch, for some reason, causes him to make some sort of breathless, pathetic noise against me. His eyes are half-shut. 

“Anything else philosophical y’wanna get out before we fuck?” I quip smartly (though, not feeling so smart altogether), hand placed innocently on his hip. 

He lifts his head, removes his hands from my body – he looks so tragically beautiful in this light. “You want me inside you?” he asks genuinely, seemingly aloof to the fact I’m naked in front of him, open and wanton and pressing my thighs together, his eyes never drifting from mine.

“What do you want, Rust?” I whisper. 

He seems to really think about it – he’s always thinking. Briefly, his eyes flit down to my mouth. Then, he looks away, scratches at his forehead. 

After a moment longer, he swallows thickly and tips his head down over to the bed, tells me, “Lie down on the mattress,” in a gentle, decisive tone. He’s so soft-spoken – it makes my toes curl. 

I do as told, transfixed by the dark shadow in his eyes, and sink down to sit and then recline back on his coarse mattress, coarse bedsheets, with my weight on my forearms and chin tilted up towards him. He watches me, tucking his thick cock back into his underwear.

Still fully dressed in his work attire, he takes a step forward, looming over me, powerful, assertive. Saliva pools in my mouth—again—as I play with the thought of him sitting heavy on my tongue with his stomach tight, shaking, hands in my hair, fucking down my throat. I would let him. Hell, I’d probably let him do anything he wanted to me at this point. 

Does he know that? Maybe. I don’t know.

As he reaches his hand out too smooth the hair out of my face, I try to figure it out, but I can’t – he seems too wrapped up in his own desire to be thinking anything at the moment. I feel a flicker of satisfaction jump up in the pit of my stomach. Or maybe that’s something else. 

“Lie back, girl,” he tells me. 

My cunt flexes. 

I thump onto my back, breathless. “Take off your shirt, Rust.” 

Without replying, he sinks down to his knees in front of me, my thighs. Instinctively, I prop myself up and watch him unbutton that wrinkled shirt all the way down, shrug it over his broad shoulders. I could fuck myself silly just over the thought of those shoulders, I remark inwardly. He tugs the wifebeater over his head, lean muscles catching the low light, strong, study, solid, and tosses the thing to the side thoughtlessly. My hands reach out to touch him, to feel him and know him. When my fingers press into his skin, glide up his neck and down over his chest, he sighs deeply. He then carefully removes my hands, urging me to sprawl down under him.

“Said lie back, didn’t I?” 

Rust doesn’t say another word before placing his large hands on my knees and easing them apart, lowering himself to press pecks and slow, open-mouthed kisses to my thighs, closer, closer, stroking my sensitive skin gently. I almost flinch at his every touch, like it burns. His face is awful serious, like he’s concentrating. I wriggle in anticipation, eager. 

“Rust,” I whisper purposelessly. He looks up, hums, searches my face for anything the matter. 

I watch on desperately, on the brink of feral distress. A sob clogs my throat as he kisses my fluttering stomach, ducking his head down and curling his forearms, his hands, around my thighs. The dark stamp of his bone-bird tattoo curls over his arm. I realise he is waiting for my attention to return to him, his eyes patient but glazed over with something cardinal. Hungry.

“Can—?”

“Yes.” 

He hums. And then he breathes hotly over my underwear before pressing his nose right there into the damp fabric, inhaling my scent there. I whimper at the pressure he applies with the strong bridge of his nose, at the wetness of his open mouth against me. He breathes heavily into me, groaning slightly beneath it all – I can’t tell past the thrumming of my heart in my ears.  

“Rust,” I whisper again, my shoulder straining with the task of keeping me up and looking down at the sight of his sweet head buried between my glistening thighs.   

“Lie back.”  

He kisses me through my underwear, dutifully kneading the flesh of my hips, my inner thighs.

I thump back against the mattress, helpless, keening into his touch as this grey man roughly tugs my underwear down, down, all the way down, until they’re clean off my body, long gone, and then returns his nose to the cleft of my pussy, unseaming me with his tongue, opening me up, breathing me in. It’s enough to draw a shallow, hoarse cry from me. He doesn’t say anything, and I can’t say anything, biting down on my white knuckles.

Rust licks warm over my clit, sucking gently on the bud of nerves (then not so gently), before sliding down, down through my very centre.

Whining breathily, the twist in my stomach tightens and spasms as he presses my hips and thighs right down against the mattress, slow, strong, giving me time to notice it, realise it, give into it, deny the natural instinct to curl my limbs tight all over his face, his neck, his mouth. 

Holy fuck. Rust Cohle has his face buried between my legs right now. I have Rust Cohle’s tongue pushing deep into my cunt – he sighs softly, a sound with its own powerful gravity a black hole to envelop me in, and grinds his hips against the edge of the mattress for a split second, just once. My mind pulses with the thought of making him cum. I wonder if he feels the same hunger. 

Then, he’s sinking his long, elegant fingers into me, one, then two, and just the knowledge that those fingers belong to him makes my thighs quiver and shake, makes me sigh again. Thick, confident, they curl inside, slow like an experiment, right up to the knuckle. When he taps up against me, when I squeal and crimp up into his hold, he returns himself to mouth dutifully over my clit.  My hand threads itself into his hair, holding him steady – I offer a breathless moan when his grip across my hips loosen, an invitation to begin rolling myself up over his pretty face. He pulls his fingers out of me, wet and hot, and encourages my thighs upon his beautiful shoulders, clinging onto them urgently. He shudders a little, I think, when I lock them firmly around his head and grind myself shamelessly against his mouth, his nose. He moves his jaw, his face, in tandem.

I cum after a while like that, because how can I not? The searing buzz reaches a roiling static.

I go loose, moaning softly, melted down flat, and stroke fuzzy fingers through Rust’s pretty hair as he sucks my clit still, as he inhales again and sighs again, reduced to something primitive and needy.

Thick, my heartbeat throbs and echoes like a drum in my skull, threatening. I feel so full that I could mistake the beat of pleasure for nausea pressing in my throat. It was silly to think that this could all be satisfied just from one time. My eyes closed, Rust’s light touch over my abdomen, up to my throat, is acute and heightened, like a million tiny, individual sparks. His fingers fumble over my jaw, then press lightly over my pulse. 

He retreats just as I’m playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck, coming to stand to full height above me, unthreading his belt from his trousers with quiet, precise hands. I press my shaking thighs together, watching him breathe strongly through his nose, trying to remain somewhat respectable in the presence of the darkening look in his eyes that is locked down on my body.

He pauses, wipes some shine from his nose. Before he can continue with whatever, I find myself sitting up on my knees, grabbing his hips hard enough to bruise all pretty and purple, shoving the trousers down to his knees, and palming him through his boxers. 

We don’t have to say anything. He just watches me passively, pushing my hair back again, behind my ears, my shoulders, rolling my earlobe softly between his fingertips.

I remove his underwear, take him into my mouth, thick and long and wanting; he sighs, holds my head with two steady hands.

When was the last time someone helped him like this? I honestly couldn’t have told you, even given a loose theory, prior to this moment: Rust is simultaneously the hottest and most non-sexual being I’ve ever come across in my life. He just happens to be beautiful; he just happens to inspire these sort of feelings choking up inside me. No overarching intention that he’ll ever admit to, no vanity, no preening. So strict to himself, so tight, like a piston, something that fights and pushes and hurts.

So, as I hold him firmly and suck at the head of his blushing cock, kissing him, I watch his face, savour the tart taste of him, and press my thighs together: he’s becoming warmer, looser.

Still, as much as I want him, I know he’s wanted me. However vague he tells it, he’s wanted me. Good Lord, he looks even more stressed now, somehow, than when we had just been talkin’. Hands gently cradling my skull, he tilts his head away, watches the cross on the wall, as he succumbs to it, maybe, and begins to gently, languidly fuck my face. I tuck a hand between my thighs, and I love him, my other with the fingers digging into his hip, his ass. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll leave some sort of mark, just to remind him I was here, so that, when he’s being all indifferent again, with his eyes lowered to the floor as he shares a report with me at my prim, little desk, we’ll both know that we were once in this room together, here like this.

Rust breathes and breathes, almost mechanically, and slides his cock further into my mouth. The weight of him in there drives me half-insane. If I could consume him, envelop him, and we could be one and the same, I’d readily allow it. When he sinks deeper still down my throat, I sigh around him, rub myself the way I like.

His eyes are determinedly shut, like some part of him refuses to be here. 

Before I can make him cum, he shakes his head and tugs my hair back a little bit, mumbling for me to stop and sit away. 

For all his mouthiness just a half hour ago, would you look at him now?—Rust Cohle, plundered by the human sensation of speechlessness. I’ve never seen him out of his element before. When he comes down and cages me with his body, hot skin flush against hot skin, I don’t mean that in a bad sense. Shit, he’s far from it. But there’s nothing to say. Nothing of note, nothing to pick apart, no deeper meaning, no theory. Just an itch that has to be scratched. He wants, he is, and it’s heaven to see. 

In the dark, he sinks in to me as he is, eliciting from me a soft moan that curls over the shell of his ear. I have to bite down on his shoulder when comes the push, the stretch, the sink, the comfort of him inside. I curl my legs around his waist and grab at his ass, willing him deeper still. He shudders silently over me, thick ripples of pleasure rolling through his lean body.

I curse, but I’m sure it barely registers with him. 

His head lifts and his eyes clamp shut as he braces an arm against the wall, lifting one of my legs up over his hip and fucking into me deeper, slipping out and in, and again, and again. I know what I’d see if I took a look down, saw his cock pumping into me, but I can hardly do anything but buck my hips up to meet his effort, my stomach stuttering with that building pressure, hands gripping desperately around his neck and shoulders. 

Though, I’m not even sure it is effort that’s driving him. 

I mumble into his shoulder, dumb, focussing on the feel and press of him in my belly. I doubt he’s really aware of anything more than the sensation of it, evident from the small grunt that passes his lips as he fucks deep in me. His stomach presses heavier down onto mine, crushing a delicious pressure there, teasing out a long, breathy whimper. He snakes an arm around my hips, pushes his free hand to the back of my knee, tilting my legs back a little more, and then pulls me wider. Tight, he moves me how he wants me, my flesh dipping and carving, fucking himself raw with me, with my hot cunt. His mouth moves over mine, not kissing me, not speaking, just there, present, hot, panting. He doesn’t open his eyes, so I close mine, and I breathe.

Rust stutters and cums and spills over into me with a grunt. He pants sharply, harshly, rhythmically into my mouth, tense again, and then he collapses over my body, and he lays there. I lay there too, burning on the far inside. 

I think he only really remembers I’m there when I shift under him.

His eyelashes brush against my cheek. “Sorry,” he murmurs, but the sound of his voice scrapes directly against my brain with the shock of a flesh-wound. 

I assume he’s referring to the thick cum that I can feel leaking out of me now. He shifts his hips, adjusting himself in the grip of my cunt. My fingers wrap around his arms, squeeze as I feel him easing out. 

“It’s okay,” I reply. 

He glances down between us and guides himself out with a lewd noise, swallowing hard. I shiver. 

Quiet, sedated, he shrugs his trousers, his underwear, off of his ankles, slipping the bedsheet over both our naked selves. His hand spreads and flattens warm over my abdomen, feeling the gentle swell and sink of the breaths I take and release.

[catiuskaa]

the poem about home.

sum: redamancy: (n.) the act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full.

wc: 1.1k

[☆★ 🌌 ★☆]

there’s a silence that falls down the room, even if it’s not as fast as your tears. it’s impendent gloom had threatened to carve a hole in your chest for days, the weight of it looming over you like a curse you couldn’t get rid off, a lump in your throat that dried off your mouth and tightened your chest.

and ultimately, it had fallen.

you were welcomed by his shoes in front of the door, a view that while it made you cheerful inside, excited to see him again, made the aforementioned feeling seep in deeper, simmering with worry.

he was not supposed to be there.

why would he be there, when you both had agreeded that this, that it couldn’t work and that the best choice was leaving something that hadn’t started?

it’s a memory that you cannot run away from, because ever since then there it was, casting its grey over you because you had accepted said fate and that if that was what he wanted you were okay with his choice thinking you couldn’t miss him if you hadn’t already kissed him.

what a lie.

you throw your umbrella to the floor and you kick your shoes off, and it feels like the fastest you’ve done so in ages, not bothering for a second about the wood that could get stained or scratched or how you’ll probably regret merely throwing your jacket off.

you scan the whole appartment, and ultimately, to your confusion, he’s nowhere to be seen.

those are his shoes. you know it. you’ve seen them in front of your door for months as you walked in, welcoming you with a familiar feeling almost as warm as his embrace.

you can’t help but bring your hands to your face. worry. desperation. confusion. there’s no order in your mind as your feelings rain on you, forgetting about whether how good had they been locked up and bottled in the back of your head.

that’s how you break, tearing up once more. but before you give yourself time to sob, there’s a soft knock on your door.

you approach it softly, scared that maybe there’s a chance you’d wake up. you don’t want to, because the last time you’d seen him had also been a dream and maybe having a nightmare is also worth it if it could mean you’d see him again.

so you open the door. unprepared, afraid, a shivering mess.

your eyes widen when he hugs you as soon as the door is away.

“hannie.” you whisper, your arms not able to follow orders just yet, your body freezing against his warm embrace.

He just hugs you tightly, like a sailor tying his boat to a piece of land, so it can’t float away and leave him astray, to keep him safe and sound, a rocking home that he can return to. a lighthouse. a safe space.

“instead of apologizing, i’ll say i love you.”

his voice is low. broken. a murmur that travels through the air, sounding terrified at the thought that its waves could be interpreted, heard and understood. a whisper to let out what seems to be the same feeling, haunting him just as much as it had been to you.

because no one could have prepared you for what missing something you’ve never had felt like. no matter the fights, the ups, the downs and the inifinite amount of in-betweens. no matter what anyone else said except the both of you, because, because, and because, because you love him, because he loves you, and there could be nothing wrong with that, because how could it, when it’s love?

and maybe you’ve been mad, terribly worried, kept in the dark for so long, away from his thoughts, his dreaded dark piece of mind hidden and rotting inside him inside a chest with no lock for you to find the key.

“thank you for worrying about me. i love you.”

the tears that had been holding on to a red thread could only last for so long, the tears falling down your cheeks and the red thread finding its place on your fingers. it is only then when you hug him back, an embrace tighter than the ones in airports and hospitals, in funerals and memorials, and even birthdays and weddings. a hug full of words you couldn’t say because they hadn’t been created yet, despite how you knew it in your heart. even if love creats poets there may not be words enough to develop sonets about or beloveds.

so you cry and hug him tighter, because there’s nothing else you can do.

“thank you. i love you.”

you don’t have it in you to say anything. you wouldn’t know what to say. and his voice is weak. powerless. you don’t know what happened and maybe you never will, but the source would never mind if its outcome was this, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind, and there’s no clue to what you’ve done or could do.

so you shake your head no and hug him tighter.

“i love you so much.”

his arms threaten to fall to your sides due to how he disarms himself, falling unexposed, falling, falling and falling and letting himself fall because in the end it doesn’t even matter if it’s your arms he can land on.

so he hugs you tighter, the sheer force almost making the both of you end up on the floor. his voice isn’t shattering, nor is it quivering. it’s low, as if it’s set on night mode, a gentle, monotone, deep hum filled with air.

“i love you inmensely.”

and he does. his tone doesn’t matter, nor does the setting, the time or the circumstances because the only truth is that same conclusion.

“i love you endlessly.”

he needs to continue. he’s started, and he can’t stop now.

“i love you completely. I love you so much. I really love you. I love you the most. I love you the most in the whole world. I’m completely and madly in love with you.”

there are no dramatic pauses in between his statements because he doesn’t need them. your love fills him, the tightness of your embrace not crumbling, your eyes failing to look at him through your tears, so your sobbing dims to at least be able to hear him.

in one way or another, love turns us poets. maybe it’s the goodbye that scares us, so that’s why we leave it to airports, hospitals, memorials and funerals. maybe it’s because we’re scared that love is leaving us. maybe it’s because it could never return, leaving us away from what once tasted so sweet, and punishes us for letting it go once them presumptuosly attempt it one more time.

so you hug him tighter, because you love him too, even if in that moment you find no ways to put it into words.

because just for a moment icarus touched the sun, and here you are, basking on his warmth, your sun, your moon and your stars. hugging him tighter and tighter just in case you do end up waking up.

it takes love to be a poet, and so you love, love and love, like a ship with its anchor, carrying your love for him everywhere you go, giving the ship the world to love. you love him the same way a hearth loves fire, with enough passion to make it a home. like a candle in the light who falls in love with darkness, its monsters that creep surrounding it, drowning him. your little star. and you recognize those monsters, and you hug them too.

because you found a home in him, and you want him to find a home in you too.

[☆★ 🌌 ★☆]

~kats, who saw this reel in instagram and started absolutely dissolving her pillow in tears

[heli-writes]

Seven summers, part 6.

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x female!reader

Summary: Every summer, Draco and y/n meet. First, by pure coincidence, then intentionally. Unbeknown to Draco, y/n's a muggle who has no clue he's a wizard. With the rise of the dark lord, how long can this go well?

Disclaimers: Make-out session, allusion to sex, no full-on smut (they're still minors, y'all!)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Series Masterlist

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sixth summer, July.

The weather in England has been cold and rainy lately. It doesn't seem to be July at all. Y/n longs for those warm, long summer nights outside in her parents' garden, playing cards and drinking bubbly lemonade. Instead, she's clinging to her umbrella and making herself as small as possible so that she doesn't give the wind too much space to attack her with its whipping water. She's waiting for Draco near the entrance of Diagon Alley. She watched several wizards enter and leave the place, but no Draco so far. Y/n wonders if he will actually show up. They've been exchanging letters via owl, as usual. At the beginning of the school year, Draco's letters have been arriving quite frequently but there were less and less letters the last few months. Y/n knows there's been some arguments with his rival Harry and a new teacher. Draco was appointed a certain position in a Club or something. He didn't really tell her what's it about but ever since he's been more reserved than before.

Y/n waits for almost an hour before she gives up. She walks through the pouring rain back to the bus stop. She stops by a Costa and treats herself to a hot cup of tea on the go in an attempt to warm herself up. On the bus, she plugs in her headphones and stares out of the window. She tries really hard not to cry and hopes that none of the other passengers notice th water dwelling in her eyes. When she gets off the bus, her head's pounding from the oppressing of tears. Y/n walks straight home and up to her room, without taking off her jacket and boots. She can hear her mother complaining about the water on the floor, but she doesn't care. She's just dropped onto her bed when she hears the soft clank of Draco's owl on her window. Y/n gets up and sniffs. This guy has some nerve, she tells herself as she walks up to the window. She takes the letter from the owl and throws some dried meat in its direction, a habit she picked up a while ago. She leans back on a chair and reads.

Dear y/n,

I won't be able to make it today. I'm really sorry but there have been some issues in my family recently and my mother needs my support. I hope the whole situation dissolves itself soon.

I'll send you a letter when it's possible to meet again. I hope you can understand.

Draco.

Y/n folds up the letter and puts it in a box beneath her bed where she keeps all of Draco's letters. She writes a quick response and hands it to the owl who is patiently waiting outside. She watches the owl fly away. I must've just missed his message, y/n thinks. Yet still she can't shake the feeling that something is off.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Draco lets y/n wait for two weeks. Y/n got antsy with every passing day without hearing from him. Eventually, he sends her a letter and proposes a meeting in Windsor Great Park for a stroll and coffee. Y/n is nervous all morning and has to redo her makeup twice after ruining her eyeliner. Again, y/n is the first to arrive. She walks up and down the entrance of the Savill Garden.

"Hey", she suddenly hears behind her. Draco is standing right next to her with a loopy grin on his face. It doesn't reach his eyes, y/n thinks. She smiles at him nonetheless and opens her arms to hug him. Almost hesitantly, Draco hugs her back. It's a bit awkward. "Do you want to go inside?", y/n says and points to the garden. Draco nods. They take the tourist route but there aren't many other people around. It's probably because of the grey clouds that hang low above their heads. They walk along the path between rows of bushes and other plants.

Draco doesn't make an attempt to start a conversation, so y/n does. "So, how's your family? Everything alright? Your letter sounded quite serious.", y/n asks him. Draco shrugs and doesn't answer immediately. "I guess, we're alright. Things haven't been resolved but it will be ok.", he tells her. Y/n nods reassuringly but she feels that Draco does not really believe that last part. "If you don't mind me asking... what happened?", she asks carefully. Draco kicks a stone out of his way. "My dad has been involved in some stuff. He's temporarily contained.", he tells her. Y/n stares at him with big eyes. "Like jail?", she blurts. Draco gives her an angry look. "Yes. My mother did not take it too well.", he replies. "Oh.", is all that y/n manages to say. They walk in silence for a moment. "What about you? How do you take it?", she asks him. Draco shrugs again and does his best to look somewhere far ahead. "Draco...", y/n mumbles and touches his arm. "I'm fine.", he says harshly, "My mother needs all the support she can get. I can't be weak in a situation like this". Y/n steps a bit closer to him and rests her cheek on his arm while taking his hand. "It's not a weakness to feel bad about a situation like that. It only shows how much you care about your parents.", she tells him. Almost instantly, she can feel Draco's shoulders slump down. He turns to her and finally pulls her close. He hides his face in her hair. "I must do everything I can to clear my family's name. One way or another.", he points out. Y/n thinks about this for a moment. "It's not your responsibility. Support your family as much as you can, but don't let the weight of it pull you down.", she replies. Draco shakes his head. "You don't understand... my mother...", he starts. "...is an adult. We're only sixteen, Draco. There's only so much we can do. Somethings we must let the adults handle.", she points out. Draco shakes his head again. "No, my mother can't handle this. I'm the one who has to fix things. I've been chosen.", he tells her. Y/n frowns. "Chosen? By whom? For what?", she asks him. Draco lets go of her. "It doesn't matter. The point is I'm going to handle this. Don't worry.", he says coldly. Draco walks a bit ahead and y/n stares after him. She's got a really bad feeling about this but it's clear that Draco isn't ready to talk about this.

She jogs after him. "Alright, let's not talk about this anymore. We haven't seen each other since Christmas and I really am happy we're spending time together today.", she announces and gives him a bright smile. She holds out her hand to Draco and looks at him expectantly. Draco sighs and then takes her hand. They continue their stroll and y/n tries to distract Draco with silly stories about school and her friends. She updates him on Olivia's situationship and manages to pry some stories about Blaze and quidditch out of Draco. The atmosphere loosens up a bit and soon she finds Draco genuinely smiling again. They wander deeper into the garden and don't notice how the clouds above them get darker and darker. They're laughing about one of y/n's stories when the first drop landed on y/n's cheek. Draco wipes it away carefully. They look up and notice how armageddon is right above them. Within seconds, it's pouring. Draco pulls her close and uses his wand as an umbrella. However, the wind whips raindrops onto their sides. They rush along the path, deeper into the rows of trees ahead of them. They're almost soaked when they finally find shelter in a stone pavilion.

Y/n is shivering but glad there are still some parts of her that are dry. Draco sits down next to her and puts an arm around her. Y/n nuzzles closer into his side. Draco leans his head against hers. They don't speak and when y/n finally looks up, she immediately meets Draco's gaze. He must've been staring at her for a while now. Immediately, he leans close and they meet in a kiss. For a moment, everything outside the pavilion seems to stop existing. Y/n kisses him back feverishly and grabs his collar. Draco's hand is tangled in her hair and his other hand wanders down her side. Y/n presses her upper body closer to his and Draco pulls her onto his lap. They kiss until they can't breathe anymore. Y/n leans her forehead against his as both of them catch their breath. There are no sounds besides the pouring rain outside.

"Draco?", y/n breathes. "Hm?", he mumbles in response. Y/n's heart leaps in her chest. It takes all her courage to say: "I think I love you". Draco leans back and looks at her with surprise in his eyes. Clearly, he didn't expect a confession of love. Immediately, y/n feels embarrassed. She wishes she could take the words back. "Y-you don't have to say it back. I just thought...", she rumbles but doesn't get to finish her sentence. Draco puts his hand onto the back of her head and pulls her lips against his again. He gives her a deep, longing kiss which leaves y/n breathless once again. When he lets go of her, he looks at her longingly and strokes over her cheek. Then he presses a kiss on top of her head and pulls her into a hug. Y/n feels warm and fuzzy inside and she almost forgets that Draco did not return the confession.

They stay in the pavilion until the heavy rain fades into a soft summer drizzle. Only then, they start wandering back to the entrance of the garden. They part ways rather quickly since the rain started again after some point. However, y/n proposes that he should come visit her soon. Her parents will be visiting her grandparents all the way up in Keswick and will be gone for a couple of days. They put y/n under house arrest for the time being (considering what happened last year), but allowed to have a friend over. They probably thought about Olivia but when y/n asked her, Olivia immediately declined saying that y/n simply must invite Draco. Draco is a bit hesitant to accept the invitation and says that he will have to see how things at home. They both decide to write soon.

On her way back to the train station, y/n has mixed feelings. On one hand she's over the moon about meeting Draco finally again, on the other hand, she's also worried about him. Having a father in jail is already troubling but it sounded as if Draco was ready to do anything to fix that. She wonders if that included more than giving a testimony in front of a court. One way or another, he said. She hopes Draco is smart enough to not do anything stupid, or illegal.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sixth summer, a few weeks later.

Anxious. That's how y/n feels as she waits for Draco at King's Cross. Y/n and Draco have been writing back and forth for the last couple of weeks. Draco's been really quiet about his father's situation and y/n didn't push too much. However, whenever y/n brought up Draco coming over, he kept saying it probably wouldn't be possible and that too many things were going on. Which clearly indicates that things haven't been resolved. Surprisingly, Draco sent her a letter a few days ago saying that meeting her would be possible after all. Apparently, his mother and his aunt visit a family friend, giving him a chance to slip away. When y/n got Draco's letter saying that he would be visiting after all, she immediately called Olivia who immediately rushed over. Giggling, they wrote lists and prepared the house for what y/n's parents assumed was a sleepover. It also leads to her parents being quite relaxed about leaving y/n alone for a few days.

Right now, y/n is waiting for Draco to arrive at King's Cross. Obviously, Draco does not take a muggle train. He arrives via floo powder somewhere close but they agreed to meet at the station from where y/n would take him home. Y/n nervously scans the crowd in front of her. Suddenly, she feels a tap on her shoulder. "Hey, there pretty girl.", she hears Draco say behind her. When she twirls around, he is mere inches from her face. "Draco!", she laughs and throws her arms around him. Draco almost drops his bag while trying to keep his balance. Y/n quickly retreats. "Sorry!", she says. Draco puts down his bag. "That's alright.", he tells her and pulls her close by her arms. He hugs her close and hides his face in her hair. Y/n's heart skips a beat. When he lets go of her, he looks over his shoulder nervously. Distractedly, he says: "So, uh... is your house close by?". Y/n tries to see what's behind him or what he's looking for but when he turns back to her, she gives him a bright smile. "We'll have to take the bus.", she tells him and takes his hand. Draco sighs behind her. "You don't happen to have a fireplace, do you?", he mumbles. Y/n laughs. "No, sorry! We have central heating.", she says as she pulls him along with him.

While Draco feels visibly nervous in the station, he relaxes once y/n and him have entered the bus. When y/n asks him why, he tells her that there are probably no wizards here who could see them. Y/n nods understandingly. It's a short walk from the bus station to y/n's house. Her house is one of these terraced houses with white, wooden windows and a small front garden. It's nothing special really but her parents had to save up for it for quite some time and they're really proud to call themselves 'homeowners'. Y/n thinks it's a bit ridiculous but then again she's never bought a house and doesn't even know how much it would cost. Y/n pulls out her keys and opens the door.

She holds the door for Draco. "Ladies first. You can put your shoes over there.", she tells him as she quickly pushes him inside. Ever since they made a turn into y/n's street, she's been the one looking over her shoulder. Can't have the neighbours see her sneaking a boy in. She's pretty sure that the nosy old lady from across the street would just love to tell her parents all about that. Y/n quickly closes the door behind her and pulls off her jacket. Draco is standing in the hallway looking around and feeling a bit out of place. Y/n points past him. "Go on, straight through that door. There's the kitchen", she tells him. They enter the kitchen together and y/n quickly puts the kettle on. "C'mon.", she tells him and leads him to the room to the right. It's the living room which has a small conservatory attached to it. It's her mother's favorite room since it's always bright and open. In the middle, there's a large couch with pillows and blankets. On the left is the telly and a coffee table. "It's cozy", Draco notes as y/n leads him to the coach. "Sit down. I'll make the tea.", she tells him as she rushes off back to the kitchen.

She prepares a tray with tea, mugs and some biscuits. When she enters the living room again, Draco still sits in the same position as she left him. I guess he feels a bit awkward, she concludes. After she pours him a cup of tea, she asks him: "So, what do you think? Is this how you imagined muggles to live like?". Draco laughs and rubs his head in embarrassment. "Actually, I'm not sure what I expected. But it's really nice. I like this room.", he says and points to the conservatory. Y/n pulls one of her legs under the other and takes her tea cup. "Hm, you really had no image in your head how I live like?", she asks. Draco shakes his head. "How do you imagine I live like then?", he replies. Y/n thinks about that for a moment. "I guess I imagine a big house, maybe a villa. An old one, maybe Victorian? I imagine a big staircase right when you enter. Old, but classic and high-quality furniture.", she explains. Draco looks at her surprised. "That's actually not that far off.", he tells her. "I can't imagine your room though. I feel like I can imagine your dorm room better than your room at home.", she says. Draco takes a sip from his tea. "Do you want me to describe it?", he asks her. Y/n nods excitedly. He crooks his head. "Let's see. My room is upstairs, in the East Wing. It has a window facing the East as well so that I can see the sunrise every morning. My walls are painted in a greyish-blue. My furniture is black. When you enter the room, you're standing in front of my bed. Opposite the bed is the window and in front of it is my desk. To the left of the desk, is my wardrobe which is always messy and to the right are some shelves with books.", he describes. Y/n tries to imagine the room. In her head, the room is kind of empty besides the furniture Draco described. "Is there anything else in the room?", she asks. Draco names some quidditch equipment and some other tokens that y/n has trouble imagining. Draco tried to explain quidditch to her one time but y/n fails to truly understand the game. Probably, because she's never seen a person riding a broom.

"Would you like to see my room?", y/n proposes and Draco nods. They walk back to the hallway and up the stairs that are on the left. "My room is all the way up, beneath the roof.", she tells him as they climb up the stairs. Y/n's room is the only room on the last floor. When she opens the room, there's her bed to the left and behind the door is her closet. Right in front of the door are three windows. In front of the middle one, is her desk. On the left is a little reading niche and on the right is a dressing table and a cupboard. A chain of lights is strung from one side of the room towards another. Y/n makes some space for Draco to enter. He looks around the room in silence. "So, what do you think?", she asks. "It suits you. I don't know how I'd imagine your room but this fits you perfectly.", he tells her. Y/n giggles and drops onto her bed. "You think so?", she says. Draco nods and turns around in her room before joining her on the bed. Y/n thinks the sight of him in her room is a bit strange. Like he doesn't quite fit into it. He's dressed in black (like always) and her room is dominated by beige and pastel tones. "Yeah, it's bright and warm. And girly. And cozy.", he replies. Y/n snuggles up to him. "You like it?", she asks him. Draco pulls her closer to him. "Yes. Actually, I like your whole house. Everything is very home-ly.", he murmurs and kisses the top of her head. He pulls her back and they fall on top of the comforter of y/n's bed. Draco turns to his side, pulling her closer to him. Y/n takes in his scent and puts her head on his chest, just beneath his head. Draco's hand finds its way into y/n's hair and he scratches the skin of her skull a bit. Y/n feels how the three magical words lay heavy on her tongue again, begging her to speak them out loud once more. She swallows them down quickly, however. She doesn't want to make a fool out of herself once again.

They lay there for a while and y/n is not sure whether or not she may have dozed off a bit. The room's colour faded to grey indicating that the sun was about to go down. Draco stretches next to her and sits up. "Are you hungry?", y/n asks him. Draco shrugs but y/n knows him well enough that that means yes. They end up ordering pizza and watching y/n's favourite movie. Setting up the telly, Draco is fascinated by the technology and asks a bunch of questions about how it works without magic which y/n definitely can't answer. She lets Draco choose a movie afterwards and they spend the evening rotting on the couch. Eventually, the titles roll and y/n sits up stretching. She peeks over to Draco whose eyes are closed. Did he really fall asleep?, she thinks and pokes his cheek. He wrinkles his nose and opens an eye. "Sleepy? Wanna settle for the night?", y/n asks and Draco yawns and nods. They get up and climb up the stairs to y/n's room. After brushing their teeth, they climb into y/n's bed and Draco pulls her close. Y/n leans her head against his and lets her hand rest on his chest. Draco gently strokes over her back and places soft kisses on her forehead, her cheeks and her nose. Y/n crooks her head and meets him in a soft kiss. It's slow and sweet. Draco puts his hand into her hair and pulls her face closer to him, deepening the kiss. Y/n's heart starts beating faster. They kiss like this for a bit until Draco rolls her over so that y/n lays flat on her back. Draco hovers over her while continuing to kiss her. Y/n puts her hands behind his neck and one of Draco's hands runs up and down her sides. Y/n feels goosebumps forming all over her body. Draco's hand finds the hem of her shirt. His fingers dip under it, softly circling the skin of her hip. He leans his head back for a moment. "Is this okay with you?", he asks. Y/n nods breathlessly, not trusting her voice to say yes. She's expected it to happen tonight. Hell, she kinda hoped it would. Draco pushes his hand under her shirt exploring the warm, naked skin underneath it. Y/n lets her hands run down his back and pulls his shirt up a bit. Draco sits up for a moment and pulls it over his head. Y/n stares up at him in awe. He looks even more pale than usual with the moonlight hitting his skin the way it does at this moment. She sits up a bit and runs her hand down his chest. Draco gently pulls on the neckline of her shirt, silently asking for permission to take it off as well. Y/n swallows. She's nervous. "We don't-", Draco starts but y/n cuts him off by pulling her shirt off as well. Draco doesn't say or do anything for a few seconds. Then he slowly traces a line from her shoulder over her collarbone down to her chest. He leans forward again, kissing her deeply while finally cupping her chest with his hand. Y/n lets herself fall back on the pillow.

She won't worry about anything tonight. Not about her parents or Draco's parents. About whether or not a wizard and a muggle can be together. By the time Draco's hands wander down to her pants, she has forgotten about most of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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[Please leave a note if you'd like to be tagged too.]

[isa-ah]

so heres my pitch for what happens before dimple shows up in the icmhwau:

teruki and mob are hanging out in the middle of one of black vinegars soccer fields. its after school and the sky is heavy and grey, but it hasnt started to rain just yet. mob snuck a milk carton on his way out so he could come see one of the stray cats that sometimes wander onto the school grounds. this one he knows from sitting by for terukis soccer practice over the last few months.

while hes bent down, making soft sounds and petting it, teruki is standing behind him, hands jammed in his pockets and sneering bc he doesnt do. exactly great. not being the center of attention. hes tapping his toe and waiting for mob to get it over with so they can go when theres this big crack of thunder overhead and the cat goes skittering off toward the trees- just as the sky opens up and theres one of those heavy late spring downpours.

teruki is taken offguard, bracing for the rain, when he realizes hes still stood there dry. mobs got a hand up, having thrown a barrier over them reflexively, and humming his disappointment. he stands, dusting his knees off, and when he turns around teruki tries to look like he hasnt just been standing there watching the whole time.

"can we go now?" rude. but no more rude than he usually is, so mob doesnt really mind. he hums his affirmation but pauses, and then shakes his head. teruki frowns and turns fully toward him in response.

mob kinda stands there, hands flexing and unflexing cause hes really not good at putting things into words in this au. it drags on long enough that teruki is just starting to pull away with a scoff when he is stopped cold like he took a stone to the head.

"teru."

that gets his attention in a big way that makes his stomach roil. mobs never addressed him like this before- maybe a soft hanazawa-kun when he needed to, but the nickname cuts straight to the core and he is on guard immediately.

"i.. was thinking."

and now he is feeling outright defensive. a thousand scenarios playing out right like is mob sick of this? is this going to be bad news? is he trying to sugar coat it? and then, worst case scenario; mob steps forward, and starts to reach for him. his hands are small and bruised, little scars and bandages wrapped around his fingers. teruki put those there, and it feels like an intimacy too sacred and mortifying to be broached.

so teruki panics.

"DONT TOUCH ME!" slapping his hands aside. "you just laid hands on that disgusting vermin, its probably diseased."

and mob stands there looking so shocked teruki feels a thrill of success. derailed. whatever was about to happen has been successfully derailed. he preens, starting to turn to pull the lead before mob can recover, but mob speaks before he can get very far.

"cats are actually very good at grooming." tone flat, dry. it gets under terukis skin. mob never objects.

"yeah right. like im going to hear about hygiene from a brute like you." baseless, and mean, the kind of cutting comment he throws around easy but it seems to catch mob off guard this time.

hes frowning, brows turned down and his hair ruffled by a wind that cant reach them through his barrier. teruki sneers and mob shoves him, hands splayed into his ribs in frustrated defiance. teruki scoffs and pushes him tumbling back onto his ass, standing over him.

& its just instinct tbh, at this point, learned experience from watching teruki get backed into corners with his mouth, when mob mutters, "youre mean." and when teruki looks surprised, he continues. "youre a very mean person."

which teruki is taken aback by. "oh, as if! you dont have a high horse, not when youre just some commoner who happens to listen to instruction better than the rest of them. like you havent picked plenty of your own fights, too." that sort of thing. "its embarrassing that youd even try to come after me when youre just some- some nobody."

& its clearly reaching its mark bc as teruki talks, mobs curling his fingers into the grass and bits of dirt and torn blades are starting to curl up into the stagnant, humid air around them. his hairs started to lift and he looks unhappy.

"oh dont look so surprised. you knew what this was. and beyond that- you dont scare me, kageyama. i could kick your ass and still-"

hes cut off by this dizzying woosh, this spike of energy that makes his head spin, and the vertigo only intensifies as he looks around and realizes the barrier is gone; its not that the rain isnt landing on them, its that the rain isnt landing at all.

mob was definitely not radiating unadulterated power like this last time. he may have.. miscalculated his approach.

& you can imagine it from there. teruki panics and lashes out first, which pushes mob over the edge and suddenly theyre fighting and its UGLY. it makes their initial fight look like a joke. it makes the soccer field look like a battleground. it knocks teru half conscious, held by the throat in mobs sweaty, burning grip with blood dripping into his eyes when hes got an abrupt sense of nausea and something eye piercingly green shoots out his nose with an unceremonious, "oh jesus, kid."

im not like, a writer, but you get the idea. fill it in to be better than i could do it LOLOL mob tried to finally put into words, somewhat, what he feels about teruki, which made teruki FREAK because he doesnt know how to be vulnerable like that, he lashes out at mob, mob lashes out back, the autistic immovable object vs the unstoppable adhd force leading into an rsd death spiral. messy. awful. mob knocks the snot (dimple) out of him lololol

[lvlyghost]

Salvation II

Pairings: John Price x F!Reader

Summary: after a few months since his last visit, john finally gets the chance to see the girl.

Word Count: 1.2k

Tw:angst, fluff, slightly suggestive (not really) but just in case, mentions of abduction but nothing too explicit. kate shows up bc we stan🫶🏻 john being a softie 🥹✨💞also not proofread🐸

A/N: omg i can't thank y'all enough for the love the first part got🫰🏻🥰 I hope you like this part as much! Please remember english isn't my first language, corrections are appreciated as usual🩵

Masterlist✨ | Part I | Part III

The soft sound of rain outside the house, lightning and a thunder shake the windows. Carrying two cups of hot cocoa in both hands as she walks where John is waiting for her in the living room. He's scrolling through his phone and immediately puts it down when he sees her. A soft smile makes its way to his lips.

She figured she'd make something warm for them to drink. The rain had come pouring down unexpectedly at the fair, which made them run to John's car to no avail. They were soaking wet by the time they reached the automobile, laughing and enjoying the presence of each other.

"We should take a bath before we get sick."

He had suggested, as soon as she opened the door. John had tried to shield her with his coat and beanie, although it could only do so much. Her teeth were chattering, still never losing that damn smile he had grown fond of.

So here they were now, engulfed in their pajamas ready to get some rest. The stuffed otter was placed on the sofa across from him. She handed John the mug to which he thanked and took a small sip.

"Probably not as good as your Earl Grey but..."

"It's perfect, love. C'mere." He pats the empty spot next to him. She obliges, crossing her legs as she sits. A comfortable silence falls between the two for a moment when the sky rumbles again.

"Doctor said once I'm able to go back to social life I should try to go on a date you know?" She began, shaking her head as if the mere idea was delusional. Her thumb absentmindedly tracing the rim of the mug. "Get to know people. She called it healing." She scoffs. "As if it was that easy."

Taking a sip, John watches as she bites her lip. He can't help it but a strange feeling sets in his gut.

"Is that so crazy, sweetheart?" She turns to him, studying his features with a small frown. "You deserve to be happy. Every single day, you deserve that and much more."

"I... I-" she stutters. "What if they think I'm weird John? I can hardly be myself. What happens when they ask about my life? I'm scared. Every time I close my eyes I'm back in that place..." she glances up to the ceiling, glossy eyes threatening to mimic the pouring rain outside. "I'm never going to be normal. Never going to be whole again...-

"Are you afraid of me?" He interrupts her, forcing her to turn to gaze at him. Swallowing saliva, she meets his bright blue eyes. He's dead serious. The cup long forgotten as he had placed it on the small coffee table. She shook her head.

"You saved me. You've seen what I've been through, and no,..." she stops him when he opens his mouth. "I know you've read the files. You must've in order to know what you were getting yourself into, John. And not just you but your team. And every time you look at me I see it. You were there when I testified... no one knows better than you... nobody knows me better than you." She's choking on her own words when she's finished, tears streaming down her face.

John wastes no time, pulling her into his lap as she hugs him as if her life depends on him.

It probably did.

Sobbing and hiding her face in the crook of his neck she feels the pain, the tension, the agony subside; John holds her small shaking frame against his body. He was often scared to touch her even if it was something so innocent like a hug. Something like this. Even when he wanted nothing more than to be near her. Be the one to shield her from the bad dreams, when the memories of the atrocious life she was forced to endure came to haunt her. He's tracing soft circles on her arm in an attempt to soothe her.

"I could never be afraid of you." She assures him.

-

"Do you know how many people I had to call?" Kate asks him not waiting for a response. Both looking at the girl sitting in the room behind the tinted window. "Twelve."

"I get it Kate." He grumbles. "Thank you. I owe you." He crosses his arms not losing sight of the girl he recently rescued. "I just wish they had given her more time to heal. She's in a bad shape, can't they bloody see?"

"I was thinking the same, but the clock is ticking. We can't afford to lose more time."

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's barely gotten any sleep since the mission. She had held his arm the entire ride back. Squeezing with all the strength she had left in her system

"What's gonna happen to her once this is over?"

Kate side eyes John, wondering why he cares so much.

"The NCA will take over from here. Most likely be put under witness protection and given a new identity. Just like the rest of the survivors."

"Hmm." Grunting he takes a step forward.

"John?" She quirks a brow.

"I might just need one last favor."

"Of course." She rolls her eyes feigning annoyance. "This is gonna cost you two tickets for the soccer game next week."

John turns to her.

"You mean the football match?" He politely corrects her.

"I meant what I meant."

"All I remember that morning is I was getting ready for high school. Said goodbye to my grandmother and left. We lived in a complex of apartments with an underground parking lot. She had an old red cavalier that belonged to my grandfather. Last thing I recall is opening the door and then nothing. Just... nothing for years."

-

She feels John standing up from the sofa carrying her body in his strong arms. She doesn't have to look, just know he's taking her to the bedroom. Before he can lay her down on the mattress she gets off of him. Bare feet touching the cool wooden floor. John is about to ask what's wrong. Maybe he made it look like...

She kisses him on the lips. It's quick and it takes him by surprise. Her cheeks flush and eyes go wide, he smiles fondly.

"Do that again." He prompts her.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" She asks with pleading eyes.

"For as long as you want me to." She grabs him by the neck and pulls him down to her level.

"It's okay John. Even if I have ghosts I know you'll make them disappear."

That's all he needs to hear. His hands find her waist, all doubt gone. All this time he was terrified that he'd scare her, not wanting to make the first move. John respected her and wanted the girl to feel safe around him. That's why now after hearing those words he lets himself feel her. The soft edges of her delicate skin. Her labored breathing.

He kisses her soft lips, hand coming up to caress her cheek and then, right there he knows she's let all her walls down for him. Letting him in, see all the parts she thought would have to bury for eternity.

He ought to do the same for her. He has his own ghosts. John needed salvation too. Perhaps in a different way.

And if anyone ever dare to try to harm her, taker her away from him...

He'd kill them all.

[candied-boys]

Another - Rio x F! Reader Part 1

When Emma chooses another, Rio has to go home without her... But there's more awaiting him than just forgotten memories...

Themes: hurt and healing, facing the past, learning to love again, aka angst with a happy ending!

Warnings: angst, Rio route spoilers, eventual smut

“Well, I was hellbent on taking revenge for killing our mother, but it seems fate has taken care of that for me, hasn't it, Valerio?" Emidio laughs in a cold voice you remember all too well in spite of your amnesia.

"You were with her for what, three whole years, and she dropped you like a pebble in the ocean for some prince she's known less than a month. At this point, I think I'd rather let you stick around so I can enjoy watching you suffer than put you out of your misery.”

You only nod. You've changed. Being beside her was like being reborn. You have become a very different man — one who regrets the actions that led to the late queen taking her own life. The most dramatic change perhaps being that you agree with him for once. You deserve this. It is retribution for that which cannot be atoned.

The trip to Benitoite takes a week by carriage. Your brothers bicker. The only discussion you participate in is business prospects and politics when strictly necessary. They tell you the court is more divided than ever. It's unlikely to improve until one of you three is named successor. Throwing your existence back into the running is undoubtedly going to cause more friction.

Her voice is ingrained. You should try your best for your kingdom, your people, and yourself. You only ever wanted to try your best for her. What does it even mean to do what's best at this point though?

Too exhausted to let your thoughts fall down the same rabbit hole again, you instead turn your focus out the window. A wretched mistake.

Brilliance. She is the definition of it. The sea stretches on infinitely in its azure glory. Its shores are the place of your dull, grey nightmares. Its reflection haunts you. It is a place you long to love once more, just like the person you had wished to love it with.

The moon is the single royal witness to your arrival. Attendants unfamiliar pay their respects before ushering you to your chambers — now equally as unrecognizable as the servants. You were presumed dead afterall. You should have expected this much. How long will you feel like a guest in your own home when home is where she is.

What luggage accompanied your journey is little; mostly worthless save for being the vessels of priceless memories. With similar emotion you hesitate to remove the clothes you wear. If left out, they will be taken to wash. The last of Rholodite soil to be scrubbed off along with the remnants of her affection. Perhaps it would be best to burn them instead of wearing them devoid of that last hug.

After a long bath you crawl into the bed. Its grand size, though intended to provide comfort, only serves to emphasize your singular presence. In an abyss of loneliness you pray, perhaps for the first time since the carriage accident, for death to swallow you whole.

Instead cruel exhaustion steals you away, leaving you shipwrecked under a familiar gun-metal grey sky. Rain caresses your heart soothing the ache like salt on a wound as you stare out across the mirror of still water.

The oddly familiar sounds of breaking dawn dredge up your consciousness from the seafloor of dreams. A thousand days have passed since last you were here, not a single one beginning with the call of the ocean, yet the cries of the gulls and the crash of the waves at high tide wash through your being as if you had never left.

You lie beneath the dancing reflection of sunlight on water where it seeps through the cracks in your curtains. It should be beautiful, yet with each shimmering lap of the waves upon your ceiling a longing to drown ripples through your soul.

At length, a servant knocks and enters to help you dress. It's been years since you've worn garments so intricate they require the aid of another. Already exhausted before the day has begun, you make your way to the throne room.

Awaiting your arrival there are the king and his mistress — now queen consort thanks to your malice, so vicious that you shamed the previous queen into suicide. You once thought yourself righteous for avenging your mother's suffering, even if you found no satisfaction in the result. Now you think yourself but a mere fool, a cruel monster, a horrible being unworthy to be called a man.

Stepping over the threshold you move swiftly to kneel at their feet. The entire court of one thousand or more looks on at the scene from your periphery. The king and queen welcome you formally, and you raise your head at last to seek their faces. Time has been unkind, you see. Their heads hoary where they were once lustrous. Their eyes duller than you recall. Their youth replaced with wrinkles. You only have yourself to blame.

Restraint evident in their voices and tears welling in their sapphire hues, they tell you how happy they are to have you home. As true as it is that you are relieved to see them, you are not at all happy to be where they call home for that title belongs to her and her alone.

Upon His Majesty's command you rise. Beside each regent stands an attendant — an old minister at the king’s right and a young lady in waiting by the queen consort’s left. As you answer your parents queries you notice her eyes never leave your form. You pay her no mind. She's obviously new.

“And the fair maiden to whom we owe everything for saving your life?” the king’s voice tugs your attention back to him.

Steadying yourself you answer with none of the emotion you feel, “Is to be married to one of the Rholodite princes.”

He insists that wedding gifts will be sent and invitations for a celebration in their honour will be written immediately. You promised yourself that you would stay true, that you wouldn't turn bitter, that you would bear the pain of seeing her with another man. But you know too well that to have them visit as royal guests will either be false happiness or true agony.

“You will dine with your old man and the chancellors this morning, son. We have much to discuss.”

A curt nod is the only answer you can muster before following him out to the dining hall.

Long hours stretch past lunch and into the afternoon while you navigate the bittersweet memories of your life in Rholodite, the complexities of the bell system, the crowning of the new king, the nuances of the internal politics you witnessed first hand, and so forth until other obligations draw your father away.

Drifting down old hallways, tacking a course your body knows in spite of your amnesia, you find yourself standing in front of your mother's chambers.

As the attendant opens the heavy wooden door, you catch the same profile as this morning — now seated at your mother's side, a work of exquisite embroidery in her lap and needle in her hand.

She stands immediately upon the announcement of your presence, curtseying and bowing her covered head while your mother rises.

You are met with overflowing affection, the hugs and tears your mother held back earlier engulfing you like a tidal wave. Every question you've longed to ask her since bits and pieces of your miserable childhood had begun returning to you months ago pours forth. She soothes your fears, reassuring you that beyond the toll that mourning the death of her only son took, she has been very well.

“But, Valerio, why do you only enquire about my health?” she asks, a pained expression tainting her beauty.

Clasping her hands tightly in yours, you reply in confusion, “Who else should I ask about but my dearest mother?”

You follow her sky blue gaze as it is cast aside. A pair of brilliant hues, moist with tears, hold yours expectantly.

“You do not remember her, do you, my darling?” your mother's hushed tone echoes in your ear.

Turning your gaze back to the queen you answer, “I'm sorry, mother. Truly I do not… Should I know your new lady in waiting for some reason?”

“Valerio…” she pauses, her eyes now equally as watery as the young woman at her side. “This is your wife…”

Part 2

[f1a1w1n]

Centre of it all (Cal Kestis x (f!) reader)

Part one

Summary: You, a jedi hides on the most remote plant in the galaxy. No one can find you, or so you think. Enemies to lovers, Friends to lovers etc.

Word count: 1k

Warnings: none

Authors note: I'm writing a new fic. if you have any ideas pls tell me, comment or tel me in the google form at the bottom. love ya pls enjoy

~

Rain. 

A stupid amount of rain. Not that it bothered you particularly or anything, its just your speeder was rusted at this point and left at home, and you were so used to the dry weather and walking everywhere that it had become a habit to walk to the market whenever you needed anything. 

It was a small town that you lived on the outskirts of, on a small planet, in a small system on the outer rim of the galaxy. The town you live in was mainly made of wet grey bricks -now covered in blooming green moss. You stand on the steps of a small grocer, a small shel of wet rock your only cover. The grocer - if you can even call it that, it's just old Syue with her imports and exports of the week, sometimes it's fresh produce and sometimes it's best to stick to the non-perishables. 

As you wait foolishly for the rain to stop you think back to two weeks ago - a strange disturbance in the force, something bright, energetic… terrifying. The small planet was your only refuge, growing tired of moving around - this small gem was your lifeline in a never ending cesspool of politics. That presence in the force was alluring to you, your mind constantly flicking back to it. What was it? 

“Fuck it.” You say. You bolt down the street, groceries clutched in hand. You turn the corner ducking under cover whenever you can. Eventually you reached your small house, on the very edge of town. Surrounded by foliage and dense grass your house stood defiantly against the rain, brave little thing. 

You kick off your shoes and dump the groceries on the counter. You squeeze out as much water from your hair as you can. You glance at the clock. 

“Ugh.” It was time for work. I mean as bad as jobs go, this wasn’t the worst. You can’t really find jobs as a jedi can you? No - you can’t, and working as a waitress isn’t horrible?

Your blanket and pillows still remain on the floor from when you had fallen out of bed this morning, a vivid dream burned into your eyes. A bright red energy in a field of dull grey reaching out to you. “No” you say in your dream. The red energy creeps forward. “Who are you?” No reply. Suddenly the energy takes a vague form, it's a man. You can barely hear him say something. “Pardon?” you say. 

“...who are you…” you barely catch the man say - then all of a sudden you flung from your dream and you wake up on your floor. 

Dreams like this have been clouding your mind for months now. You're barely getting any quality sleep.

~

Jido Kara’s Tavern

For the most part, this evening was the busiest shift you had seen in a long time. Practically the whole town was there. You speculate its cause of the most recent import of alcohol, courtesy of Old Syue.

Wring the rag between your hands as you sit down your boss sits next to you.

“Why don’t you call off early? Rica is coming in to cover your shift.”

“Okay, sure. I’ll just get a drink first.”

He gives you a pat on the back and waddles off to the back. A game of sport is playing on the tiny tv at one side of the bar - close to the door where everyone is huddled. Cries of yay’s and boo’s chorus through the bar as the town's favourite team play. Obviously, you choose the opposite end of the bar to sit. The bartender, Deonor, pours you a drink and winks.

“On the house.” 

You smile gratefully, unable to make small talk. He doesn’t chide you for it. What seems like an hour goes by when you occasionally look at the game and sipping at your drink. Deonor refills it. Then suddenly you see a head of red hair poke through the crowd which surrounds the small tv. He boo’s and cheers with the rest of the group. You wave Deonor over. 

“Do you know that guy?” You carefully point to him. 

Deonor thinks for a second. “Hm yeah, he’s new. He’s been coming in for the last two weeks getting drinks if I remember correctly.”

“Oh right.” You say as nonchalantly as possible.

“Why?”

“Oh, no reason, just curious.” You say lost in thought. Why does he feel familiar? You can’t help but stare at the back of his head. Maybe if you stare long enough you’ll know. 

“I think he was looking for someone.” Deonor says. But you barely hear him, too intent on this man’s familiarity. 

“Uh huh.” you say, taking another sip of your drink. You can barely make out his face, only his hair is visible over the small ground of sports enthusiasts. 

“I think he was looking for you.” Deonor says. 

You almost spit out your drink. “I’m sorry what?” just as you say this you lock eyes with the man. You can almost feel your face flush as his bright eyes scan your face. But just as quickly as he looked at you, you turned around and high-tail for the back exit. 

“Wait” the man says over the crowd. 

You ignore him speed walking back home. Why did he feel so familiar? Just to be sure you reach out with the force scanning the crowd and sure enough, a bright red presence at the centre of it all.

If you want to be tagged, or recommend anything, fill this out. 

[jaeedraszaerysz]

LOVE YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME ☆ TATE LANGDON

Masterlist

Warnings: fluff, angst, swearing, death, Canon typical violence, murder, smoking.

Summary: when you're dead and stuck in the infamous murder House I guess there's no choice but to love you boyfriend till the end of time

Notes: gender and appearance not specified

___________________________________________

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

___________________________________________

The quiet hum of nirvana wandered about the first floor of the murder House, tate, your boyfriend, was sat with his legs hanging from one of the large windows, with a cigarette in hand, silent and calm.

The weather was dim, the california skies were, for once in your dreary existence in the house, grey, not with rain or clouds or snow, not because of a storm or anything of the sort, they were just fucking grey.

It was neither hot not cold, it was a comfortable temperature for a pair of trousers and a shirt, nothing more but nothing less, an equilibrium, your mother would have said.

Running away had never been your best choice, especially not when you ended up living in the murder House illegally and completely unaware of its dark and troublesome history.

It was only after the first month that you noticed strange things. Stuff moving on its own, shadows, giggling, voices. But then it happened.

Hayden McClaine happened.

She appeared, randomly, and stood infront of you. She had a rather large kitchen knife in hand and you had stumbled back immediately, falling onto the dusty sofa when the back of your knees came into contact with it.

She held it up threateningly, brandishing it infront of your face, its shiny surface flashing light into your eyes.

"You can leave." She said, the anger in her eyes prominent. "You can travel the world, go where you wanna go. See what you wanna see. Yet you sit, day after fucking day in this hell hole. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

You had been too confused to say anything and had just stared at her blankly.

"I'm sorry what the fuck do you mean?"

And then she had her first hit, she slashed the blade across your face. A burning rush of blood falling into your left eye and down your face, all the way down to your jaw.

"You're fucking alive, or atleast you are. You won't be soon. And you'll fucking regret ever coming near this place."

You had began to feel rather dizzy and she blurred as another figure appeared next to her. A boy in a striped sweater.

"Hayden, no." He said.

"She needs to understand. They all do." She spat. He held her wrist gently.

"She didn't do anything wrong. She's a good person clearly. You can't just kill people cause you feel like it!"

The girl, hayden, groaned and the boy moved slowly towards you.

"Hey, are you o-" hayden shoved him to the floor, his head hitting the wood harshly. And then came the pain. The sharp, excruciating flash in your stomach, and then your chest.

The last thing you heard was the boys screaming as the room faded to black.

You never imagined to wake up two minutes later and stand, turning around to see your lifeless, grey, body, still bleeding out on the rotting sofa. And you didn't expect the boy from earlier to be holding both of your shoulders as you grapsed the situation before you.

The boy as it turned out, was tate, your future boyfriend. He had don't his best to help you adjust, to explain the house and its occupants you, how the twins were the cause of the giggles. And moira couldn't restrain herself from cleaning which caused things to move around.

You became adjusted, and, a year or so later, your relationship with tate upgraded to only friend in the whole world to boyfriend aswell.

Upon hearing the soothing melody of Kurt cobains voice, you walked towards the room, opening the door gently and spotting the blone boy leaned against the window frame.

You approached him and swung your legs over to dangle next to his. You leaned into his shoulder and his soare hand moved to hold your waist.

"Afternoon." You whispered, taking the cigarette gently from him and inhaling, blowing the smoke up into the matching grey sky.

"Hi." He said. He sounded miserable. You furrowed your brows and turned to face him fully.

"What's up?" You asked. He opened his mouth to answer but you interrupted quickly. "Tate fucking langdon if you say the sky I will literally implode" He laughed and smiled slightly.

You sat in silence for a while, enjoying each others company until tate spoke up quietly.

"Are you gonna leave me?" He asked, staring into his lap.

"What? Tate, no, never. Why on earth would you think that?"

"Well, my mom left me, violet did, I have no friends, I've got basically no one except you and I'm bound to upset you at one point. Just like I do to everyone else." A lone tear slipped from his beautiful eyes and you felt your heart ache.

"Oh love, I'm never gonna leave you, ever. I'm gonna love you till the end of time, my beautiful boy."

"Guess you dont have a choice since we are both stuck here till the end of time."

"But that's not so bad."

You gazed into his eyes and he blinked his remaining tears away. You placed your palm against his damp cheek and slowly leant in, his cold lips meeting yours gently but passionately. They moved in sync and you stayed like that for a few moments before pulling away.

"Definitely not so bad."

[drowning-in-cacophony]

dead and (un)buried

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial Prompt 253: pushing up daisies

[Summary: what's dead won't necessarily remain buried]

“What do you remember?”

Slow blinks, like the sighing of stone statues: an eternity in between every beat, and every one seeming like something impossible. There’s a streak of mud over a porcelain delicate cheekbone; her shoulders are still aching, and now her thighs too from the crouching. Better to be at eye level though.

Time elapses; in time-lapse, perhaps these seconds building to minutes will seem instant. Nature program footage of flowers, slowly unfurling, and those blinks like daisies, opening and shutting for the night.

“Blood.”

The first word; almost the last word too. Bloody- and then it was choked off, speared tuna style, skewered. Blood, and is that a descriptor or half an echo of that last word? A throat works, moisture a long gone thing, dried to nothing months ago. She waits, does not blink: if the blinks are daisies, then her stares are the sun and moon, eternal discs in the sky that watch everything, beyond judgement.

The eyes flicker, flutter. Downwards, with a hand that twitches in the same way. Towards a chest, towards what is neatly hidden under the shirt picked out especially. Washed and starched to a better standard to anything they would wear ordinarily, but that’s sort of the thing with funerals. Everyone comes best-dressed.

Even the corpse.

She nods: less of the moon’s smoothness, more of the tide’s choppy nature, lashing harshly against a beach. Her tongue feels like the sand, the words rough glass-blown shards that stick to the sides of her mouth. “That’s where it happened.”

A confirmation for them. Maybe she should have waited for them to ask – surely that’s what the others might think – but the hand motion, the eyes. That seems close enough for her, and she always has known them best.

Eyes, flitter again. No, not flitter – lash like her tides. Bright and accusing now, volcano feverish. She grimaces, a sour twist in her throat. Words aren’t needed to understand that look: it screams loud enough on its own. An eruption can be heard for miles away, and so could this look. Why, a thousand times chanted, each time a different meaning. The main ones spill down her palms like the spurts of blood that had swam down their chest, off the tip of the sword. Why would you do this, why did it happen, why would they let this happen. You and it and they all flexible concepts. You meaning her. You meaning the person who plunged the blade. Why, and it comes down like the rain, sharp needles to pierce through her flesh until she’s in ribbons. She almost wants to drop the look – glance away in the bubbling pink shame, threatening the edges of her cheeks. Why, and maybe the only real question is why would she agree to do this. The heat curdles under her skin, as painful as the grief, the anger in the seconds minutes hours days months that followed, a reed-grass woven basket of torrid emotion. She doesn’t look away though. She holds it, even as the accusation burns her, hot coals to delicate skin. She’s never been the type to back down; they deserve someone who’ll accept the blame instead of curling under the guilt.

They breathe, a little heavy in their upset. It’s like the heavens kissing her ears.

“Do you remember everything before?” Her next question. A cloud rolls in somewhere on the horizon, as grey as they’ve been for the last week. Funnily enough, they only started to get grey once she’d agreed to this. The whole time before, even in the terrible horror of the funeral, it’d been beautiful blue skies.

Daisy petals quiver as bottom lashes pull up, a faint narrowing of eyes. Not in concentration – that’s a different infliction. It’s a warning, as grave as the stones around them. It’s this isn’t over. It’s I don’t forgive you.

Unblamed for saying, by her. She wouldn’t forgive either.

As grating as the metal’s shovel had been to the cold, hard ground: they nod. Three bobs up and down, each dragging down her spine uncomfortably. She swallows, with more moisture than they’ll have for a while.

“Good,” she says, the guilt stinging the back of her throat. Another swallow won’t do anything; this is a burn she’ll carry for the rest of her life, and whatever comes next if she’s the one on the other end next time. “We’ve still got some work to do.”

She climbs to her feet, slowly and steadily, and extends a hand down to them. The sunbeams, reaching down to grace the flower; they don’t take their slow blinks off of her face when they take it. Not the leaves soaking in the energy, but the ivy choking the life out of another plant just to survive. She hefts them up, standing in the hollow of their own coffin – the only good thing here is how shallow they’d been buried. Like this had always been the logical next step, despite everything telling them no.

When they take their first step out of the coffin, finally over eye level to her, she’s the one gazing up, looking for the sun. Pushing up out of the ground for that bright burst that’s been staining the sky all this time since.

Their eyes stand where the sun should. The sky is still all stormy greys.

[graceisinthelibrary]

Would you do a Siegfried/Audrey kiss out of lust (44)? :)

Not sure, this is what you expected Anon, but I hope you like it anyway... Putting this under a cut, because it's... Well, a bit spicy 🤣

February, 1945

The small lamp on the bedside table spread its surreal light across the crooked walls and the slope of the narrow room under the roof. Outside the windows some lonely snowflakes were slowly whirling in the dark night air. The room was cold for the national lack of coal, not that it mattered to the couple inside said walls.

It was the same Inn they had stayed in for the last five years. The same place, the same day. Not Valentine’s Day, but close enough. 

February was a dark month, consisting of snow, frost, rain, mud, and rare glimpses of sunshine. Lambing season was upon him. A time in which he would barely be able to breathe or sleep, not to mention staying away for a whole night without having to offer a reasonable explanation. 

He held his breath as he watched her unfastening her garter. His eyes were fixed on her tights right where the lace of the delicate silk stocking covered her perfectly shaped leg. It was a strong leg, formed by years of hard, dedicated labour.  The stockings were an expensive, idle garment she only wore for him. 

Once a year. 

She was usually too practical and rational to waste money on lingerie, but for him she bought ridiculously expensive underwear, made of silk and lace. Her dark curls with some soft sprinkles of grey in it, fell over her shoulders. Her hair was longer these days, because he had once mentioned he liked it that way. Whatever she did for her appearance she did it for him. 

The thought made his throat dry and made his balls swell. The way she was standing there, one foot on the bed, the other firmly planted on the floor, made his head spin. She was slowly undressing for him, pretending he wasn't there. Her swift fingers slowly rolled down the stocking, revealing inch by inch of her porcelain skin and then she dropped the incriminating piece of evidence on the floor between them. 

At home she would hide these sinful garments under the linens and towels, where no one would dare to look, because it was her domain and until she would retrieve it, the fading scent of her perfume would linger in the cupboard. 

And still no one would suspect a thing.

There had been a time in his life when he had only dreamt about shamelessly admiring her naked legs and these dreams had usually ended with pyjama bottoms being smirched. 

Unable to restrain himself any longer he dropped down to his knees and touched her silky calf. With his heart threatened to burst in his chest, he led her naked leg to his mouth and ran his lips over her skin up to her kneecap. Goose flesh formed all over her skin as his fingertips gently massaged her leg and found their way inside her knee pit. He had learnt that this was one of the spots that spurred her carnal instincts, that touching her there had her juices flowing and he made reckless use of that knowledge. 

A repressed moan escaped her mouth and when he raised his head he noted with grim satisfaction that she had closed her eyes. Her head arched backwards as her lust spread through her body like a wild, absorbing fire. 

It was the moment he lived for. The moment he ached for while the rest of the year passed by. Those seconds when she came undone because of him. When her body craved him like no other man and he smelled her arousal for him. Her odour that had mixed with her favourite bathing salts and perfume was about to haunt him for the long days and nights to come, in which he couldn’t have her. 

They said the sense of smell was the strongest. It kept memories alive even when old age and senile dementia claimed everything that was worth living for. Her scent would always linger with him, until the day he met his maker. He would die a dirty old man and he was perfectly fine with it. 

He continued the small torture of her leg until her hand blindly found its way inside her black silk knickers. She shivered upon her own touch and he smiled when he released her leg and reached out to undo the other stocking. With deliberate malice he pulled down the second stocking and fondled her thighs while his mouth and tongue worshipped her skin.

Later when her legs curled around him and she begged him to take her harder, because that was after all what she came for, he naturally did as asked. He marked and bruised her for days to come, forcing her to wear high collared blouses and nightgowns. Her shame over her shortcomings would be unmatched by the gratification she experienced in his arms, in this lousy, draughty Inn with its worn out sheets and the thin walls. The bedstead crashed against the walls, keeping their neighbours awake and he muffled her desperate cries with raw kisses. It was one of those nights when she liked her hair being pulled at and insisted on being used by him in every imaginable position until she was sore and spent and hardly able to phrase a coherent sentence. And he did so with gusto although him spilling his lust over her face and breasts left him empty, because deep inside he longed for more than a fleeting night between her thighs. 

This one night every year wasn’t enough. It didn’t sate him and it didn’t make her his. 

As always they would skip breakfast and leave the place as discreetly as they had entered it. He would drop her at the next train station, where she bought a ticket for the next train that would take her to the Lake District. He would be home in time for breakfast and hide behind his Yorkshire Post when the others came downstairs. 

As their silent agreement dictated it, they would meet in the same place in twelve months again. Twelve months of waiting and longing lay ahead of him. He didn’t question the sanity or the righteousness of their deal. It was what it was and if she wanted more, she had to take the first step, because as long as Audrey Hammond decided to go back to the Lakes, he would return to Darrowby without her. It was as simple as that. 

[totkdaily]

Day 57: Yiga in Lanayru, and Akkala

The tower I climbed in the Abandoned Lanayru Mine is a forge, and it's manned by a Steward. I think this is the first one I've seen in the Depths, and only the second I've seen outside the sky islands. 

Another Steward asks me to go to the Central Abandoned Mine - if I do that and come back here, it'll give me something. 

There's a Yiga building here with a journal.

They want to conquer the Depths, but they say they need to find every entrance to do so. The journal ends: "Glory to Master Kohga."

I hope that's just something they say. He fell into- oh. He fell into an apparently bottomless hole. Is he… is he here somewhere?? 

Surely not. But unease follows me as I gather the remains of zonaite in the mine. 

I can't see any more lightroots from here, so I head back to the Ulri Mountain Skyview Tower, thinking to head to Tarrey Town - and spy Dinraal emerging from a chasm! I chase to catch up with him, but I don't have the right gear. I only just grab a shard of his spike and a claw before the heat of his mere proximity threatens my life. 

I drop to the ground and land in the shadows of North Akkala Beach - right next to a shrine! 

I spend the early morning scaling the cliff up to the Akkala Lab. Didn't Robbie say he needed something from here? I don't think I've spoken to him in over a month. Still, I should check it out. I've always loved the Lab. 

I scale the outside first to enjoy the view from the top, but it's a grey and cloudy day. And… that's weird. There's a frog sitting in Robbie's sun lounger. And… it bears the mark of the yiga. I've got a bad feeling about this. 

I look for further clues as I head back down the lab. There's boxes of bananas at the base of the telescope. And from the front, it's obvious - frogs and banana crates everywhere. 

I summon the Sages, ready my gear, and knock. 

It's a closer match than I'd like, but I dispatch the Yiga guards. Inside, there's only a fashionista - Konba. It sounds as though he's been forced to work against his will to make the Yiga's outfits. He gives me the Yiga armor he just finished. I suppose I could use it as a disguise, though I dislike the idea of wearing it at all. Konba points out I'd need the whole set before I could pass as a Yiga member anyway. 

There's a Yiga journal here. They're interested in sourcing Zonai devices, as well as Zelda and myself. Even they haven't seen her. They say they're setting up traps to catch me, but I've only encountered the weird cucco prophecy scam, and that hardly seemed aimed at me. Don't pick up bananas on the road? I'd have hoped I would have spotted that one for a trap without the hint. 

There's a map with Yiga hideouts on it, I think. Let's see…

Here, the Colosseum, somewhere north of Death Mountain and the old hideout in the Gerudo Highlands.

There's also a travel medallion prototype, which I should probably give to Robbie. Was that what he wanted from here?

For now, I head down the hill to the East Akkala Stable, and stop at the shrine on the way. 

Penn's the first person I see at the stable. He mentions the god of horses is near here - I'd forgotten my dream about it! - and the suspicious lab, the mystery of which I think I've probably solved by clearing out the Yiga. But no news here of the Princess, so he's off! That was quick. 

I speak to a few people at the stable. Aya is preoccupied with the monsters on North Akkala beach- I must have missed them, but she'd like me to deal with them, please. Rudi says Malanya's at Bloodleaf Lake, north of here. Rudi would like a picture of Octorok Lake when the water's high and it looks like an octorok. Maybe in the rain? Atin's newspaper says that YunoboCo is restoring Goron City again - that's good. Khini points me towards the horse god, and then goes back to selling buns. I buy and eat one of his Malanya buns, and I feel filled with stamina. 

The korok at the back of the stable wants to go down the hill to meet its friend. I summon Peaches and hook up the wagon for transport. I can probably do this before bed. 

I ignore the blood moon rising behind me as we gallop down the hill. Which means it comes upon me right as I'm fighting off two bokoblins in a cart. 

When the Gloom clears, I reunite the koroks and take the knight's bow the bokoblins had. Then I take both the horses and carts back to the stables to bed.

[bansept]

Ichihime week 2023!

Day 1: Tanabata

Tanabata, "七夕", also known as the "star festival", takes place on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year, when, according to a Chinese legend, the two stars Altair and Vega, which are usually separated from each other by the Milky Way, are able to meet.

--

There is a river in Karakura.

Crossing the Minamikase district, it used to be an uncrossable border splitting her world. The morning would come and she would wonder how he would feel as she got dressed for school. Was he sad, traveling down the path next to the river edge every day? Was this river a cruel reminder of what he believed was his incompetence to protect? Was he angry for the blinding light reflected on the calm water? The night would come at the end of the school day, and she would hope to float down this river, find its source and drench it, empty the sorrows she knew he carried. So many burdens on his young shoulders.

The river reminds her of her brother, of his gentle smile, of his soothing voice, of his laughter, so precious to her heart. Of how she had parted with him in anger and agony the first time. The river had been so agitated that day, so monstrously grey and muddy. For their second parting, she has a feeling the river was calm yet again, just as it was when she and Tatsuki had chased fireflies and gasped in awe at the fireworks.

After graduation, when they were still circling around each other, unsure how to word out their feelings, shy and silly, Ichigo once mentioned how calming the river was to him.

"When mom died... I walked by the bank of the river the entire day, way up to the Kitakawe district." He had smiled, something that was becoming more and more casual for him. "I thought I could find her again if it meant roaming around long enough. But, of course, I didn't. All I found was sadness, and... I don't know. Melancholy, I guess?"

They were sitting on the grass, on the hill by the river, the Saturday morning air gently waving through their hair. She placed a timid hand on his own, hoping to convey some comfort.

"I used to dislike this river, because it reminded me of that day, and the ones after that where a 9-year-old would use his shoes and get blisters from walking all day. But now... I find it a beautiful sight."

Ichigo had blushed deeply, taking Orihime's hand in a successful attempt to make her heart beat faster.

Orihime smiles.

She wished she could be the rain once. The rain that binds people together, that allows one to feel another's pain. She wanted to understand him, help him. She didn't know at the time he too was yearning to help her, shield her from her own tragic past.

Kazui coos in her arms, and she makes a silly face.

"Oh, what is it, baby? You're waiting for Papa, hm?" She raises her arms up to kiss her son on his soft and puffy cheek, which makes him gurgle happily.

She is by the river, watching the calm water sparkle with the dying sun, like oil. It doesn't let the wind break its surface, it stays still and glowing, like billions of gems.

Ichigo is trotting on the bridge to them. He looks so handsome in his two-piece costume, the white shirt two buttons opened for now, his forgotten tie in his hand as he jogs back to them with a dashing smile on his face. His hair is short after a fresh cut, courtesy of Yuzu.

He crosses the bridge separating them hurriedly, as if they have been apart for a whole year.

Kazui waves his little arms at his father, the same smile pulling at his lips. He may have a lot of Orihime's features, like her eyes and eyelashes, as well as her hair, but his smile is the spitting image of Ichigo's.

"Sorry for that, honey." He breathes out, not at all out of breath even after the kilometer he just ran back and forth from their home.

"I would be fine with you not wearing a tie, but since Rukia and Renji insisted on proper clothes..." Orihime teases him, and he winks back at her. "Kazui was growing impatient."

Ichigo kisses his son on the forehead, placing his finger next to the baby's hand for him to grab onto. Kazui immediately takes the opportunity and Orihime chuckles.

"Did I make you impatient too?"

"Of course. 5 minutes without you is enough to make me tap my foot." She jokes, and Ichigo shakes his head mockingly.

"I'll do my best to redeem myself after we visit the Soul Society. Let's get going." He smiles and takes Kazui, offering some relief to the young mother. Kazui is definitely going to get heavier very soon with the way he eats.

They walk together to Urahara's shop, hand in hand, joking and laughing, placing bets on how many people will want to hold Kazui, and how many times people will tease Ichigo for his not-so-new haircut.

She remembers the two lovers from the story. The forbidden love, the punishment. Forced to live separately for a year and allowed only once to see each other again. The weaver princess and her human husband.

Orihime smiles, sending a look at the river. The bridge has been crossed, and their time together is finally here. But never to end.

[fruit-salad-ship]

Got canon nonsense stuck brewing in my head. (read ramblings below)

Notably a big storm rolling in, staff have the place on lockdown, plenty of people have gone home before the boats stopped running between Dotaku and the mainland, its just the skeleton crew while this thing passes, enough to wrangle the pokemon and keep things safe. Peach hasnt been found most of the day, spotted darting between jobs, tying things down, securing windows, tripple checking the more dangerous mons in their areas, soothing those who struggle with the weather, feeding things, making sure the vulnerable types are safe, a list as long as her arm to tick through. Greys got his Gyarados pod on watch for those caught up in strong stormy waters, dragged too far out. Theres a whole host of cautions in place, sea defences, security to stop any pokemon getting lost. He's double checking the backup generators for the labs so the lights stay on and the sick mons have what they need. Plums out herding, the barns being filled with pokemon of all kinds, helping staff with gear, with saftey protocol, the tricky escape artists not getting past her tactical mind, working closely with a few who she's borrowed to speed the work up, Saxon the houndoom, one of Greys mons has kept her and her little rockruff company through this all as rain starts to hammer down.

Things seem fine, Plum and Grey get in, soaked through but from what they can tell, the place is going to hold just fine as the wind batters, throws branches at speed, rain pounding the mountains causing the odd mudslide. All pokemon safe, all staff accounted for...bar one. It gets late, dark, impossible for sound to travel outside, thunder and lightening frequent and harsh, Greys at the window with a hot drink, watching, waiting. Plum calms him, a gentle hand on his arm, assuring him she'll be fine. Peach is...well, she's tough. She's probably out sitting with a pokemon who's scared, they both know she'd do that without a second thought. Even Val is nervous however, a rare moment where she's not with her trainer, she'd been asked to help others in their jobs and lost track of her sometime around sunset.

Midnight. No chatter on the radios, no other staff have seen her, the weathers as bad as ever, serious storm, and by this point even Plums starting to pace a little. They cave, Grey gets Boa's dad, a large and old Garchomp, while the ranger calls for Missy, both given the task to go find the professor. They can handle the weather, dragons manage just fine, and so they both go out into the rain and think about where to start, just about to take off. Its that moment they all, humans included, val too, spot blue light between lightening strikes, Boa's dragonfire, way above in the coulds, her big dragon dad knows that anywhere and takes off towards it.

Above in the impossible weather they watch the blurred Orange of the charizard hybrid fall, catch itself, dodge and roll in air, trying to shake something, somethign so fast not even she can get away. Through the rain it was hard to see, Grey squints, Plums quick to rsh and grab some binoculars, both trying to track the impossibly fast moevement. On Boa's back is their idiot, in her arms a pokemon tucked up under her jacket, one arm holding it protectivley, the other holding onto the riding gear tightly. For a while they cant work out whats around, but Val sees, she's not looking close like the humans, she's spotting the bigger picture. What felt originally like a dark cloud is lit up by another flash of lightening, the sillouette of a legend, something so big and dangerous, it makes all the fur on the back of her neck stand on end instantly. Peach is attempting to outrun a Zapdos, something that had been spotted close a few months ago way out at sea, and seemed to be attracted to or even causing the storm they were currently experiencing.

The dont know what to do, but both spring into action to try to cause some commotion, distract it.

Peach had been working hard, riding back home to buckle down and wait the weather out. The huge form of this bird pokemon cut her route off, flew past without even acknowledging her or Boa, hovering as they both looked to it, watched it swoop, go to grab a tauros, miss and instead settle for the little Combusken with it. So small in its huge grip. Of course they had to do something, it was a trainers partner, it had loved ones and a family, it wasnt just some wild mon who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every fiber in their beings said 'dont chase this down' but they had to. Peach had to convince Boa to fly at it, they had to help. The zapdos was coasting casually, unbothered by the strong winds, be it because of size or power, the charizard having to work extra hard to catch up, stay the course, rain battering them both. A stealthy and tactical swoop from above it to below, one solid blast of dragon fire, and its grip loosneed. The Combusken fell, caught by the professor, and the attention was on them very quickly as it was tucked away under her jacket safely. The feeling of static as they flew away faster than ever before was enough to keep both trainer and rider on edge, hardly able to dodge the electrical blasts in time, a tail, an arm, caught now and then putting the fear of the gods in them both, a direct hit from that would be the end. They fell to try to double back fast, a big bird like that too large to make sharp turns, able to get a couple more hits in to try to deterr it. It was on the dive, cold stinging skin, near blinded from the rain that they squinted over, saw something coming in fast, and then another, and several more, at the very front of the pack Boa's dad, a whole pack of pokemon behind it, some charizard, skarmory, other garchomp, salamance, Missy, the gyarados pod. Enough fire power to push the legend back a moment, a barrage of attacks striking in various places. The rain however was making all parties vulnerable to electric attacks, and it was travelling well to connect to targets. It was a brutal fight, Peach didnt land, Boa's blood boiled with the sheer need to be part of the dragon assault, so they stayed up there, drove the damn thing away, defended the island. You can only imagine the worry Grey and Plum went through, watching from the ground with breath hitched in their lungs over the danger of the situation, they'd not seen one of these pokemon close like this, the island proxiity to the orange islands had its draw backs. When they all finally returned alive, it was heal-up time for the pokemon, Peach thanked them all, they worked so hard, didnt expect that kind of an incident, but they kept the island safe. If it wasnt for her loved ones, you know peach would have helped all the pokemon first, even though her damage was quite substantial.

She ignored the flood of memories she associated with the feeling of static, pushed them away, focused on the Combusken in her jacket who was crying like a baby, thinking it was a snack for sure. both Plum and Grey shed a few tears of worry, plum way more. The pokemon got rest, medicine, care and food, they did amazing. and finally she was able to hobble home and sit down. the severity of the situation hit, she struggled to sleep, needing to be held, between her two beloved people she for a second thought she may not see again at points. honestly I wanna draw some of this so bad, epic storm flights and cool lighting is a hook for me haha

[jmkho]

Thank you @wildbluesorbit @ageofhearingloss @ignite-my-fire @sacredjake @puzzle-gvf for tagging me!

Here are my current fave songs!! Or ones I just cant stop listening to lolol its been a very shitty month so not many upbeat songs lol

No pressure tags: im also gonna tag a whole bunch cause I would love to see what everyone is listening to and for some music recommendations @oliverreedmasterass @joshsindigostreak @writingcold @takenbythestarcatchers @anthemofgvf @joshkiszkas @myfriendtheghost @earthlysorrows @joshkiszkashusband @maud-gone @loser-user-noaccuser @songbirds-sweet @jakeykiszkas @jake-kiszkas-smirk @gold-mines-melting @takenbythemadness @comesofarsomehow