#maybe it means the hospital scene will be padded out?

[class1akids]

BNHA EP 128 preview stills

[inkyquince]

New Years Eve Kiss With Harper

content warning. this is one of two new years presents for @letstalktea, dubcon at worst, nasty harper! asylum patient reader, inexperienced but horny harper.

The Asylum could never be… Festive. Even if they did really try, all the lights and the music would barely be able to hide the general misery. The patients who did actually manage to enjoy themselves, just made the huge amount that didn’t stand out even more. 

Doctor Harper was, however, having a marvelous time. Chatting with the nurses, talking to the patients in an overly slow and carefree manner, even allowing everyone a small cup of champagne as time ticked closer to midnight. You didn’t feel like looking at the sad scene before you anymore, your plastic cup with lukewarm champagne still bubbling in your hand. Setting it down on a nearby table, you slipped away, bare feet padding against the cool tiles. The echoing of naked skin was too loud for you, but you doubted anyone would come and drag you back to the party. Though, if you were lucky, one of the patients might sneak after you. 

Maybe the twitchy black haired one who liked to grope your thighs and then mount you all breathless in the shitty library Harper had installed ages ago. Patients weren’t allowed to touch each other, no, that was saved for the therapy and the showers. Well, your showers. His greedy hands squeezing you as he pretended to be extra thorough with his cleaning. 

You tried to ignore a shiver, the way your nipples stiffened underneath your thin shirt. 

The safety of your room didn’t mean much. It locked from the outside but it still offered some comfort. Your stuff, the blanket a loopy grandma knitted while sitting on the cafeteria table, refusing to be moved. The… Trinkets from Doctor Harper, sex toys, condoms, even a stuffed animal that he tucked into your hands. It wasn’t even that much warmer than the rest of the hospital. It made you want to sneak down to the showers and warm up with a quick clean. The idea grew more and more appealing, glancing out the window to see how dark it was, before biting your lip. Slowly standing up, you glanced towards your door again, seeing if the hallway lit up with the main lights. All still dark, you began to pad back towards the doorway, looking forward to a rebellious little New Years Eve shower, being unregulated and un-groped by Doctor Harper. 

But the dark of the hallway hid what you were hoping to blend in with, had also kept his presence a secret from you. You almost bumped into him, from how close he was standing to the door, obviously having peered in on you as you shuffled around. 

“Oh. Doctor Harper.” You blinked up at the blond, the light from your room making his glasses glint and hide his hungry eyes for just a few seconds. 

“Hello, little mouse.” His white teeth flashed as he talked, using his knuckle to nudge his glasses back up. “You wandered off from the party. I simply wished to check on my favorite little patient.” 

“... I wanted some alone time.” You finally said after a pause. No way in hell were you going to tell him you were going to sneak off for a shower. He’d just invite himself in as well. 

“Very warranted. I too enjoy my alone time, unless when spent with certain people.” His long fingers twitch at his sides, as if they were barely holding back from touching you. 

Silence fell between the two of you. The Doctor just seemed satisfied to gaze at you endlessly, the sight of you nourishing him. Until the chatter from the main room started to get louder in excitement, and you could faintly hear numbers being shouted out. 

“... We might want to head back.” 

12! 

11! 

“No, not if you need your time alone.” Harper answered swiftly. 

10! 

9! 

“It’s fine, I-” 

“Don’t you wish to have your New Year's kiss with the person who cared for you most all year?” 

8! 

7! 

“I-I…” You stepped back but he just took a stepforward. And another, until you were backed up to your bed, the edge hitting your knees and making you fall back onto the hard mattress. The chatter seemed to fade out as his eyes widened greedily, his pink tongue darting out to drag over his soft lips. 

Harper clambered over you, loosening his tie, his hands on either side of your face. Something hard dug into your stomach as his fingers twitched against your skin. His hot breath brushed against your face as his lips parted, his immaculate facade dropping to reveal something hungry and desperate underneath. 

3! 

2! 

Harper lunged down before they ever got to the final second of the last year, his barely experienced lips pressing against yours, licking into your mouth desperately. It lasted longer than it should have, for any quick New Year’s peck. His cock digging into your stomach throbbed as the Doctor slowly began to rock his hips. By the time the fresh champagne bottles were uncorked and people were cheering, you could feel precum ebbing through his trousers as he humped your tummy breathlessly. You could only scrunch up your face as he practically fucked your mouth with his tongue, trying to press it deeper into you, savouring the taste of you. His eager noises of arousal and need made your brain fuzzy, even as you struggled not to get lost in him. He’s trained you too well. Like his fucking lab rat. 

“Little mouse.” He sharply gasps against your lips, even as you just lay there, taking it all. “Oh, you perfect little thing. All mine.” 

One hand desperately slips up your shirt, using two cool fingers to pinch your nipple, cock leaking more just at the thought that he was finally groping your chest properly. 

“This is what the rest of the year is going to be like.” Harper whispers breathlessly into your ear, even as his voice breaks from his own moans. “Even if you get out. I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to have you. You’re my little mousey, my love, and I’m going to have you everyday in every way I want. I want to molest your hole and f-f-fuck you- Oh, god!” 

He couldn’t even finish his sentence, entire body stiffening up as the crotch of his trousers darkened and wetness spread, the scent of cum heavy in the air. His entire body shivered as his hips continued to jerk roughly, refusing to stop rutting against your stomach until his cock began to soften. 

Harper didn’t get off of you. Instead he continued to lie there, over you, hot breath rushing against your neck. He held you, protectively, like a child with a teddy bear, breathing in your scent. 

“... I nearly forgot.” The doctor murmured and hungrily dipped his long fingers down your trousers, needing to feel your hole around him as you came. 

With a quick glance to the soft toy he gave you, with the glinting red eye, Harper was satisfied it was still filming and turned his head back to watch your face as he began to fuck you on his fingers. 

[luna-the-bard]

Skeemus Main Storyline - Act II (Part 1)

The self-indulgent fan oc lore continues! Woo!

Act I <- x -> Te'rra Intermission

Samus’s ship, and, by extension, her living space, is very neat. Being a bit messy isn’t unfamiliar to her, but at large her ship is very tidy & organized. Everything has a place, or at least an “everything bin”; it’s functional. Having someone sick to care for brought a reasonable amount of chaos into this tidiness. Samus found herself cleaning at least twice as often as usual - mostly throwing out used tissues and changing sheets, but also disposing of empty IV bags and syringes and all else that is medical in nature. She had to dig up some old T-shirts and cut them in the back to make them fit around the alien’s wings, because her old clothes had to be discarded both due to wear and tear and for the purpose of decontamination.

A couple days later, after the little alien’s fever goes down, Samus notices her watching, intently, as she goes around her day. The next morning she notices all the used tissues stacked up neatly in little squares at the edge of the bed. Samus appreciates the effort. She makes a mental note to buy a small bin for paper trash to put by the bed once they get to the nearest port - she didn’t really need one before, but it would make cleaning a bit easier now. Since that moment she regularly took notice of the little ways in which her guest tried to be as low-maintenance as possible.

It comes as a shock when one night, about a week in or so, the avian makes a nest out of pillows and blankets and refuses to let Samus leave for the cockpit where she’s been sleeping. Samus has to bust out the drawing pad, because she can’t understand what the little alien is trying to say, yet, and her just aggressively patting the bed could mean pretty much anything. Samus has to make sure everything is okay.

The situation turns out to be a lot more awkward than initially assessed. Turns out her guest noticed not only the fact that Samus has been sleeping in her pilot’s chair, but also the way it had been leaving her neck and shoulders more sore with every passing day. The alien made space for her to sleep besides her - she stopped being contagious as soon as the fever went down, and Samus had just changed the sheets this morning, but she hasn’t had to share a sleeping space since her days in the Federation Police - and even there, she still had an individual bunk. On the other hand, waking up sore every morning was a real pain in the neck… Literally. 

Samus makes perhaps the most uncharacteristic decision of this month - it’s only until Skeets fully recovers and she can drop her off back on Te’rra, what could go wrong?

Besides cleaning, Samus spends her time in passionate research. It takes her a week to even identify the girl’s species - the last publicly available entry on them is dating over two centuries old. Samus feels as if she uncovered an ancient relic. 

She soon learns the reason behind such lack of up-to-date information: Te’rra has left the big political scene almost exactly a millenia ago, cutting all communications and public relations with the rest of the world. It takes Samus another two days to find a textbook on their language - it’s in a private library of some old philanthropist, but to Samus’s luck there's a scanned version of it uploaded online; it even has an audiobook with pronunciation guides and exercises to go along with it. She meticulously follows them all, making good progress - at least good enough to learn some basic phrases and the word “hospital”, since that’s where she was about to take Skeets (they finally got to a planet with a big enough interspecies infrastructure). Although, she also had to learn the words “new” and “clothes'', as she realized that maybe going out in public in just an oversized t-shirt (which was only held together by makeshift ties at the back, at that) might be a bad idea, and the alien’s condition was stabilized enough by now to not need an ambulance ride. As much as Samus hates the idea of leaving someone unattended inside her ship, she has to do a quick shopping run, leaving A.D.A.M. in charge until she could return with some adjustable pants and shirts that would hopefully fit the little bird. (She guesstimates a little on the bigger side, so the alien looks especially tiny in comparison to her oversized apparel. It would almost be funny if only she didn’t look so.. sad and disoriented in an unfamiliar place).

Samus spends another hour or so filling out all the paperwork for Skeets before they go out - names were one of the first things Samus established once she found that textbook, so now she knew at least who she took in, and if Skeets needed something, she could call Samus over. She arranges a taxi from the port to the hospital, so they wouldn’t have to go through the overwhelming ordeal of navigating foreign public transit. 

They come back from the hospital with a portable oxygen machine and a new set of antibiotics. Samus spends the following month feeding Skeets syringes full of medication (she will never admit it, but she almost laughed at the way the little alien’s face scrunched up at the taste), studying terranian, and keeping contact with the Federation officials responsible for rehabilitation of the rescued group. Skeets asks for some textbooks to learn Common and Chozo too, catching up pretty fast with nothing else for her to do on the ship but study. She makes quicker progress with Chozo, finding unexpected similarities to her native language (they’re nothing more than a coincidence, but an advantage nonetheless). By the end of the month they can communicate somewhat well; nothing fancy or too complex, but it makes a huge difference. Skeets helps Samus with pronunciation and vice versa, so learning is going quite well. 

After a follow-up at the hospital, Samus is left with a long list of physical therapy exercises for avian species and a detailed recovery plan. It’s not really a surprise that a full month of inactivity and illness would have consequences, but what it hurt the most was Skeets’s wings - she hadn’t used them since the Space Pirates’s ambush.

They spend evenings looking through various parks and recreational resorts (some of them take up entire planets!), picking and choosing what seemed best for flying. Samus suggests a couple planets with reduced gravity to start them off.

She can’t get the feeling of Skeets’s dry, warm hands in her own out of her head for the weeks to come. They go flying almost every other day - and every time, Samus makes sure to hold Skeets steady at least for the first few minutes, lest a sudden gasp of wind catch her by surprise and lead to injury. She lets go only when she’s confident that the avian is safe. (Skeets is fully capable of flying in harsher conditions, even after two months of forced inactivity. She accepts the help regardless, out of gratitude if nothing else - she doesn’t mind soothing Samus’s worries.)

As they share the bed, the awkward space gap between them grows smaller and smaller; until one night, about half a month later, Samus realizes that whenever she gets cold at night and tries to cocoon herself into the blankets, Skeets drapes one of her feathery wings over her.

Act I <- Act II p.1 -> Te'rra Intermission

[elderflowerchampagne]

150

I didn't realize this was a numerical milestone for me until after the fact, but oh well. Very fitting visit - an embarrassment of riches, and the best I've had since the reopening.

JENNNNNNAAAAAAA. I knew she was back but it was still utterly thrilling to see her step out of the shadows at the beginning of the ball. I've had many many favorites over the years, but for my money she's the most inventive, surprising performer the show has ever seen.

I've developed a fondness for Evan since reopening, and was happy to see him as Banquo, who isn't usually in my repertoire. Crowds were really bad, so the only thing I caught was the death scene, which I saw on my first visit and maybe five times since in the past ten years. God, it's got to be the most brutal one in the show.

Was pleasantly surprised to see Mallory/Hecate, and even more surprised to see that she's got her 1:1s back! All seems as usual in the lair, except I couldn't find the hand statue that figured prominently in Caroline's brilliant 1:1 in days of yore. Put it back. Put her back.

Speaking of things that are missing, I couldn't find my beloved wolf up in the laundry room, but I suspect he's somewhere else up there - maybe in the padded room now that it's open again?

I've never given much thought to the animals in the building - the most I've ever thought about it was years ago when one of my students pointed out that the witches' familiars are a frog, cat, and bird, and then I realized that each SNM witch is associated with a particular animal, which seems so obvious now. I spent a while this visit clocking all the animals in Grace's rooms, and there are a bunch - painting of a horse, Greymalkin whiskey, horseshoes on her door, the crucified frog, and I'm sure others I'm missing.

Which brings me to my next point - who was Grace in love with? The crucified frog is a love charm - for whom?

On a similar but unrelated note, who is the man in the cameo above the box of charms? Looks familiar but I can't place him. I thought it might be Franklin Pierce, though of course there's no reason why it would be.

Last visit, I talked about the hidden faces in all the images above the Macduffs' couch. I wasn't sure if I was seeing or reading too much into things. But this time at the end of the night I sat down on Lady Macduff's hospital bed and took a look at all the papers she's got pinned above it, and it's nothing but faces - all looking terrified, hanging in trees, disembodied, and, most disturbingly, hundreds of them spilling out of a box. And interestingly, all the babies hanging above the crib in her apartment are headless.

There will never not be tourists and I'm glad the show is making money but good Lord the audiences have been rough. I saw someone walking around in what I thought was a pimp coat, but it turned out they had actually stolen Lady Macduff's. Also seems like there's been a big uptick in masklessness - the top one, I mean. In The Before Time I used to stare pointedly at the maskless until they got uncomfortable enough to put it back, but these days I don't bother. I do, however, reserve my right as an American to go on the internet and complain.

[matfmp2]

Evaluation

Media and techniques

Because my game was high fantasy I had plenty of inspiration to look at when designing the game's visuals. But I did quickly find out that most of it was all based on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and so it did mean that a lot of it was very similar. If the visuals and the theme were more of a concern I could have spent more time creating a high fantasy setting that worked to break the tropes and do something more original. The reason I didn’t do this was for this project I was more concerned with creating an MVP that worked and was a functional turn based combat system as I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to learn different ways to program such as using structs and complex UI design.  For this there were many resources available to me to help with creating the system such as premade turn based templates on the Unreal Marketplace. I looked at a few of these and decided to not use them as learning how to use them would have been as much effort as learning how to make it myself but I could look at the code in them to give me a good idea on how I could do it myself. By taking these apart I could figure out my own methods that would work better for me. 

Purpose / theme / concept

I wasn't looking to do anything crazy with the theme, I just wanted something that was quite typical for the genre so I could focus on the code and programming. Having visuals makes the coding process much easier as I have something I can work with that gives me visual feedback to know how well it's working and that scenes are set correctly. Tutorials were my best friend for a lot of this project as what I wanted to do was quite common but I wanted it for a purpose that was more unusual. For example, I wanted a way to target different enemies using a controller, using a mouse would be much simpler but I wanted this to be a game that I could access so the solution I used involved following a tutorial on how to make a controller based pause menu. I knew that if I could target and select different buttons with a controller for a menu I could easily repurpose those buttons into custom events for my game play as well. Another opportunity this project provided to me was the chance to learn how to use structs properly. Each character needed to be replaced and reused while also having different variable  types associated with them; this problem is what structs are designed to solve and learning how to manage these was initially difficult but in the end I was able to make good use of them.  

Outcome

In the end my project did not meet my expectations or many of my ideas as there was a lot I wasn’t able to do with this project due to requiring multiple hospital visits as well as other related medical issues in general. However, I was able to make good use of the time that I did have as I was able to create most of the system needed to make the game, the last thing  required would have been the enemies attacks and possibly a way to generate a turn order. With one more week I could probably have an MVP with just those two things. What I do have though is a proof of concept, as I was able to make a reusable struct that would allow for multiple characters to be made with just a few variables, a system that handles and loads those structs correctly into the scene and the start of a battle system that uses the data in the struct to apply damage. I am also happy with the UI stuff as I am able to select enemies in the scene using just a d-pad and widgets for targeting.

Conclusion

Overall I am happy with what I was able to do with the time that I had. I would have liked more time to work on this project and I feel with just a little bit more time I could have made a complete battle system. If I had no medical or hospital visits this project I would have probably had time to also create the rest of the UI stuff such as equipment, character selection and maybe even save states. 

I did learn a lot from this project though, I feel that I really understand structs now and how to get the best use out of them and for this reason I am glad I chose to make this project from scratch instead of using a third part template as I feel I would have not got the same opportunity. I now also understand more about widgets and creating navigable menus using controllers which is really useful to me as I aspire to create accessible controller based games. My pixel art skills have also improved as I was able to make a new tileset and a lot of different sprite sheets very quickly and I am really pleased with how they look.

[littlespoonevan]

I've been thinking a lot about a scene Eddie calling Chris "our son" while talking with Buck or Chris calling Buck dad I want it to happen so bad Ciara! Do you think, maybe, if you're up for it, u can write something tiny??? It's okay if you can't! I love your writings so much! always feel like you get the essence of these characters!

anon, i'm so glad i saved your message until after 5x02 bc ooh boy does that ep make this even more meaningful!!! apologies for the delay but i really hope you like it! :')

-

“Our son is insisting he can’t turn the light off until he says goodnight to you again,” Eddie says, coming back into the living room. He rolls his eyes but it doesn’t stop the feeling of warmth that spreads through his chest when he thinks about Christopher’s wide eyes and not-so-innocent smile as he’d asked to talk to Buck one last time.

He drops back down into his spot on the couch, reaching for his beer and raising an eyebrow when Buck stays sat there, completely frozen.

“What’s wrong?” he frowns.

Buck blinks, seeming to rouse himself out of whatever daze he’s in and gives Eddie a wary look. “You just said ‘our son’.”

A ‘yeah, so?’is on the tip of Eddie’s tongue until his brain catches up with him and all of his thoughts promptly come to a screeching halt. Holy shit. Holy shit, he just called Christopher theirs. His mouth parts but nothing comes out and he stares at Buck as if he’ll somehow be able to explain how easily the words rolled off his tongue.

Buck bites the inside of his cheek, watching him anxiously before abruptly standing up from his seat. “I’m gonna say goodnight to him,” he says tentatively, like he’s afraid Eddie might kick him out instead. “I’ll uh- I’ll be right back.”

With that, he’s gone and Eddie listens to the sound of his socked feet padding down the hall, listens to the creak of Christopher’s bedroom door as Buck opens it again, listens to the soft hum of their voices and imagines Buck tucking Christopher in, smoothing his hair back and kissing his forehead like he always does.

It’s-

It’s a lot to digest at 9 o’clock on a Friday evening.

There is one thing though, one thing that’s surprisingly absent. Panic.

His hands aren’t trembling, his chest doesn’t feel tight, he’s breathing normally. He’s overwhelmed but he doesn’t think it’s for the same reasons as before.

Buck is back before he’s had a chance to come back to himself, sitting a careful distance away from Eddie on the couch. He’s watching him with a guarded sort of concentration, as if he’s looking for the signs of a panic attack he’d picked up on so easily before.

Finally, Eddie wets his lip, takes a breath and turns to him. “Why doesn’t that scare me?”

Buck starts, clearly not expecting a question. “What?”

“I- Buck, a store clerk called Ana Chris’ mom and I had to be rushed to hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack but I just said-“ he cuts off, brow furrowing as he tries to make sense of what he wants to say.

“It was a slip of the tongue, Eds. It’s not a big deal,” Buck tells him quietly but Eddie can see it hurts him to say it. The way his expression dims slightly, the slight downturn of his mouth, the resignation in his eyes.

And that’s not right either.

“No, but-“ He shakes his head, forcing himself to meet Buck’s eyes. “I already chose you,” he says lowly. “With the will, I chose you because- because you love him like I do and you hug him the same way I do and- and you took care of him when I was in hospital and nobody questioned that. You know his routine and you help him with his homework even if he’s better at math than both of us combined and you take him to the zoo and-“

He looks at Buck, feeling realisation crash over him in waves as Buck’s throat bobs and he seems to swallow down whatever emotion he’s trying not show on his face.

“I already chose you,” Eddie repeats – half a question, half a realisation because- “It wasn’t about the act of Shannon being replaced or not being ready for a new family. It was because I didn’t want that with Ana.”

It was because I wanted it with you.

Buck inhales a sharp intake of breath and the brief jerk of his head gives Eddie a quick view of the glassiness behind his eyes. “Is this- are you-“

He can’t seem to find the end of his question but Eddie nods anyway, shuffling a few inches closer until their knees bump. “Buck, you’ve supported me from the moment you met Chris. You’ve been my partner outside of work almost as long as you have inwork. I trust you with him so much I put it in writing. I’d be kidding myself if I said we weren’t raising him together by now.”

Buck’s expression breaks out into a brilliant, disbelieving smile almost at the exact same moment his tears finally spill over and Eddie doesn’t think about it when he pulls him in. It strikes him as he does it that it’s probably presumptuous to kiss Buck. All of this – even if Buck wants to consider Christopher his kid – it doesn’t mean Buck wants him.

But then their lips are meeting and Buck’s sighing into his mouth and cupping Eddie’s jaw like he doesn’t plan on ever letting go. For all that it’s a charged kiss, it’s a chaste one too. It’s a delicate press of lips that acts as a punctuation mark to everything Eddie’s just confessed. Or a postscript, maybe.

After a beat Buck pulls away, just enough to meet Eddie’s gaze and smooth his thumb across his cheekbone. “I didn’t just choose Chris. I didn’t just do all this for him. I chose you too. I always have.”

Something syrupy and soft dissolves inside of Eddie then and with it he melts against Buck, brushing their foreheads together.

Turns out following his heart and Christopher’s is easy when they both want the same thing.

[soupbabe]

Hsiadviqbje2h2k- uh-If you're feeling up to writing,,, May I request a platonic star dust crusaders with a child stand user on dios side-? Maybe the kid is hesitant on actually harming them and more or less trying to convince them to leave-

You don't have to do this aiahskapow

An Odd Enemy (Platonic! Stardust Crusaders + Child! Reader)

Dio forced you to be sent off with Hol Horse to defeat the Crusaders.

Kakyoin isn't here because this is low-key replacing the Boingo and Hol Horse episodes oops-

Warning (?) : Hol Horse being a jackass and mistreating reader

You've been living in Dio's mansion for a while now. Your mother being a servant of the ancient vampire, you had to come with her by default. To make yourself as useful as a 10 year old can be, Dio questioned what can you do to make yourself worthy to stay here. It was then you revealed your stand to him, only taking form of a sketch pad and a pencil. You drew your best interpretation of Dio. With a stick figure body, long hair, and the heart headband, your stand was able to register what you wanted to create and there stood an eerily similar looking Dio standing in front of the real one. Dio was impressed that your stand could replicate his likeness from a simple stick figure, although if you look at his doppelganger's pupils, they were just messy scribbles like in the drawing.

Dio saw potential in you and a lot of your time was spent with one of his servants training you on how you could use and improve your stand's ability. Soon enough with your training, you were able to figure out that the more detailed the drawing was, the better chance your stand had to manifest the drawings physically rather than it becoming an illusion. With the loss after loss of Dio's stand users, he sent you off on the big task to kill Jotaro Kujo and his crusaders.

Though with you, he paired you up with a cowboy named Hol Horse. He had been getting on Dio's nerves lately and thought to get him back by using his hatred of children against him. Hol's task was easy: look after you and if you come back with any physical injuries and/or you both fail in killing any of the Crusaders, Dio would kill him off. It would be the third time Hol Horse would encounter the group. If he couldn't succeed the third time, he would be useless from here on out.

Hol Horse glares at you, grumbling about how he has to "babysit" you while you both walk out of the building. "Hey cowboy, what are you talking about?" You looked up at him. "Nothin' of your concern, let's jus' move on and get this over with." You both walked around Cairo (you were more so dragged, Hol Horse deciding to do so because of your "short chicken legs") until Hol abruptly stopped and shoved you into alleyway to get out of sight of a familiar tower of silver hair.

The man held a tough grip on your shoulder and he kneeled down to your height. "Alright, here's what's gonna happen. You get out there and do whatever the hell you gotta do to get the French idiot with the bad hair back here. I'll take care of the rest. Got it?" He hardened his grip until you nodded, tears gathering around your eyes. There's bound to be a bruise later on your shoulder.

He gave you a smirk and shoved you out of the alleyway, causing you to trip and fall. The Frenchman you were supposed to distract was walking and talking to another man clad in gold jewelry and a red robe. You didn't think much of it and ran towards them, yelling for them to get their attention. Avdol was the one to see you and stopped Polnareff "Is something the matter?" He looked down at you with a smile. "I-I..." You were at a lost for words as your stress caved in into you. What was Lord Dio thinking? These men could crush you under their palm if they wanted to and the thought of how disappointed he would be in you alone could make you cry; the mean cowboy only making you feel worse. "Spit it out kid, we're on a tight schedule here." Polnareff looked down at you too, his features softening greatly when he saw you crying.

The two giants kneeled down next to you "Wait, kid, are you okay? I didn't mean to come off that mean..!" Polnareff panicked and you shook your head. "I-I can't d-do it...I'm so sorry!!" You hiccupped. Avdol and Polnareff looked at each other with confusion before mentally agreeing with each other on something. Avdol gave you a light pat on your shoulder and gave you a comforting smile, "Breathe with me okay? 1, 2, 3 take a deep breath in...1,2,3 take a deep breath out. Do you feel any better?" You nodded, "Y-yeah, thank you." Avdol gave you a little headpat. "What's your name? I'm Jean-Pierre Polnareff and this is my friend Muhammad Avdol." You looked at the both of them "I'm Y/N L/N."

You explained to them that you were paired with a man named Hol Horse to lure them into a trap. Once his name slipped from your lips, Avdol and Polnareff's face grew more serious. Immediately, they asked where he was hiding and you gladly told them. When you were close to the alleyway, Jotaro, Joseph, and Iggy caught up with the other crusaders.

"Okay Y/N, do you mind to tell me what's going on? You said that you 'can't do it.' Is someone making you do something you don't want to do?" Avdol asked. You looked around for any sign of Hol Horse and looked back at the two. They didn't seemed to be mad at all or have some sort of cold exterior. It was different from the people you had to deal with at the mansion, for the first time in a long time you found comfort in somebody. Even if they were the supposed 'enemy.'

Polnareff whispered to Joseph about what's going on and asked for them to take Y/N away from the scene that was going to be fighting grounds. Joseph looked at you and nodded. Before Hol Horse can get close to you to drag you back, Joseph took your hand and walked off to a nearby cafe with Jotaro and Iggy, leaving Polnareff and Avdol with Hol Horse. They both smirked, more than ready to get some revenge on the cowboy.

On the walk to the cafe, you clung to Joseph's arm, shying away from the large teenager everytime he glanced back at you. You've heard a lot about Jotaro Kujo, he was the one that landed a lot of people you hung out with in the hospital. Although Dio claims that he isn't a big deal, you couldn't help but to have that underlying fear that he was going to hurt you.

Almost like sixth sense, Jotaro sighed. "Good grief kid, I'm not going to hurt you. You can stop looking at me like that." Joseph rolled his eyes "Be nice Jotaro! They've been through a lot today. Besides Y/N, you did a good thing today, you fessed up before anyone got hurt. I'm proud of you." The old man gave you a headpat while you all went to get seated. You smiled. Yeah, Dio has told you that he was proud of you when you were able to successfully hit targets during stand practice, but it never held anything behind it. It felt empty and cold compared to the warmth Joseph's voice had, spoken like a truly proud father.

You all sat around the cafe, talking to Joseph and Jotaro and bribing Iggy with food to get a couple of pets. You showed off your stand to them and told them how it works, using a glass of water as an example. Later on, Joseph asked you about Dio's whereabouts and you were able to give the best mock up of a map to them on a small notebook from Joseph's pocket. Your memory wasn't the best, but it made great progress in their journey. When Avdol and Polnareff returned, Polnareff puffed his chest out in pride, announcing that they were able to "burn that cocky cowboy to a crisp" and went to check up on you.

You all talked some more about yourselves and once they decided to leave, you didn't hesitate to run up to each crusader to give them a "Good luck" and a quick hug. Although Jotaro did push you away, it didn't stop Star Platinum from coming out to give you a hug himself, he even gave a little 'Ora' in goodbye when he was forced to retreat back to his user.

[after-witch]

Close to My Heart [Baby Mine Part 3] [Yandere Overhaul x Reader]

Title: Close to My Heart [Baby Mine Part 3] [Yandere Overhaul x Reader]

Synopsis: He’s drugging you again. The bastard. 

Word Count:

Notes: yandere, stockholm syndrome, medical/drug content

He’s drugging you again. The bastard. The world is too much--too bright, too empty, too heavy and thick. The drugs he’s giving you make you sleepy, slow, heavy. 

And the room you’re in is so empty. Bare walls and a bed and an overhead light. The familiarity--scenes of years ago, of weeks spent in a room just like this one--is gutting. You miss the side table next to your bed with your books and notepad; you miss glancing into your daughter’s bedroom before walking downstairs to get a glass of water in the middle of the night. You miss your daughter. 

You don’t know how long these things have been gone, only that they are gone, leaving you with nothing in their stead.

Nothing but him, anyway.

He’s sitting on the end of your bed again. Staring down at you, mask on, eyes piercing even through the heaviness surrounding you. Your arms aren’t restrained anymore, but every time you move, it’s clear why he isn’t bothering: with all the drowsy-inducing sedatives built up in your system, you couldn’t muster an effective attack even if you tried.

And you’ve tried.

“How are you feeling?”

The same questions, every morning.

You press your lips together and smack them. Your throat is dry. You hope he brought your water cup. It’s the least he could do.

“Where’s my daughter?” You say, finally, voice dry and hoarse.

He doesn’t miss a beat.

“She’s safe. How are you feeling?”

“Let me see her.”

He shakes his head, a small, imperceptible motion.

“Not until you’re better. How are you feeling?”

His voice never loses its smooth, authoritative edge. You can’t say you missed this, missed the way he talked down to you like you were some weak little thing that doesn’t know right from wrong.

You lean back on your elbows, forcing your head to lift up enough to look him in the eyes. You try to muster an expression of disdain, but you don’t know if it’s registering anywhere but your own mind.

“Like shit. Fuck you, by the way.” You can’t help but take the tiniest bits of satisfaction where you can, and it doesn’t matter that your voice is hoarse and your arms are trembling and that you’re drugged to shit, because it gets a reaction fro him.

A small reaction, but still. His lips purse in a frown.

“Dear,” he says, oh-so-disappointed. “Your language.”

You let your arms give way, falling back against the pillow with a laugh that hurts your chest. Potty mouth, you think, I’m such a potty mouth. What did you read one time, some novel set in the American Midwest--better put a dollar in the swear jar.

“Stop being difficult.”

You snort.

Your head stays where it is, eyes following him as he retrieves a tray he set on the only other piece of furniture in the room: a bolted down chair, padded like a marshmallow. You’ve been tempted to point it out, tempted to ask him if he thinks you’ll try to smash your head open on a normal chair--why not pad your bed then, too? But he might just stick you in a straightjacket or something equally restricting if you so much as make a joke about harming yourself, so you don’t.

A rumbling, empty feeling in your stomach, the scratchiness of your dry throat, destroys any temptation to goad him more. He’s not above making you wait for food if you’re being testy, though you don’t think he’d go so far as to actually starve you. Just deprive you a bit, like he has a few times this week. So you force yourself to simply sit quietly and watch as he brings the tray to your bed, unfolding the little legs and placing it down in front of you.

He lifts up the cup of lukewarm water, a large blue cup you recognize from the kitchen. The little white straw peaking out of the top bounces around until you catch it with your lips. You barely listen to his words--’just a few sips, dear’--and try to ignore the tight, tingly feeling all this gives you.

Prickling humiliation, vaguely colored with childhood memories of hospital stays that made you feel helpless and alone, washes over you every time he gives you something to eat or drink. He always insists on holding the cup, on making you use a thin plastic straw--small sips only. He cuts up your food into tiny bites and only gives you a plastic spoon to eat with.

You dimly remember him feeding you thin broth some time ago, spoon knocking against your teeth every time you moved your head; but that was when your sedative dose was higher and stronger and you were so conked out of your mind that you kept calling him a doctor.

But you’ve graduated to rice and overcooked, bland vegetable that you can eat with a spoon. You know who he is, all the time, which honestly makes things a bit worse than when your stuffy mind thought he was someone else. Hooray.

Your fingers tremble as you press your spoon against the lumpy mash of vegetables. You can’t decide if he’s overcooking them on purpose or if he simply stinks at cooking now, having surely been years out of practice. They look even lumpier than normal, covered in a thick sauce; you bite down the urge to snarkily ask him if the sodium content from such a sauce is appropriate for your delicate health.

You’ve been his little home chef for how long now? Whipping up desserts and dinners like it was your profession. Whipping them up with a smile. And, before the birth of your daughter changed everything, whipping them up with a bright anxiety brimming underneath--anxiety for his approval. Did he like it? Was it too salty? The rice was cooked fine, wasn’t it?

And it wasn’t just the food, no. You’d wanted to please him in everything. In the way you cleaned, in the way you dressed, in the way you tried to soothe him after he’d clearly had a rough day while you sat at home, comparatively comfortable, reading books or fussing with the kitchen curtains again.

But true, honest (disgusting, dark, deep-seated) thoughts of pleasing him have been the furthest thing from your mind for years now. You allowed only the vainest of surface pleasantries to remain, for the sake of pretense, for the sake of getting away with the loving act long enough to get the two of you as far away as possible. Long enough to see yourself and your daughter free and happy, creating a new life--somewhere. Anywhere.

Well, look at you now.

A tear drips down onto your tray, running past your lips, warm and salty. The sight of the tear mingled with the smushed vegetables does it, brings you over the edge, and your shoulders shake helplessly as you begin to cry. You can already feel the exhaustion sweeping over you--the mere act of sitting up and crying and feeling something, feeling something so sad, means you’ll be out like a light soon. Your emotions feel so muted lately--the sedatives?--and when you do feel them, it’s so, so tiring.

His gloved hand brushes your cheek, brushes at your tear, and flinch away. You stare at the floor, white, bare. Rugs are a tripping hazard, you assume. Or maybe he wants to drive you crazy with all the light colors, the creams and eggshells and just-barely-there pale greys. 

You sigh, and look back at your tray. Your stomach demands it, so you lift up a spoonful of muddy-colored vegetables and take a bite. Despite your best efforts, the plastic spoon clinks against your teeth anyway. On your next bite, you go slower, steadying your hands--sometimes he insists on feeding you himself, if you mess up enough. You don’t think you have the energy left today to deal with that. So you eat, slow. Carefully. He doesn’t speak, simply watching as the plate of food, the vegetables and rice, slowly disappear inside you.

The sauce is salty and the vegetables are mush, but the rice is fine and you only wish there was more of it so you could stomach the vegetables more readily.

When you’re done, he holds the cup again, positioning the straw near your lips. You sip a little faster, greedy and thirsty, until there’s nothing left inside.

His eyes practically light up at the empty tray, and as he’s taking it away you leans in closer, whispering through his mask, “Good girl.”

Your stomach churns. Maybe the vegetables had gone bad. Or maybe hearing him voice praise that would have made your heart flutter before is making you feel sick.

After he sets the tray to the side, he takes his place--this time not at the end of your bed, but on the side, unnervingly close to you. You watch as he slides his hands behind his ears, slipping off his mask and setting it down on top of your bedspread.

But then he just… watches you.

You’re about to ask him what he wants, tell him to just spit it out already, tell him to fuck off if he’s just going to be a creeper who stares at you, when you feel something. Something different. A blooming, a wave, a strange feeling coming from inside your skin. Bone-deep, blood-deep.

And it’s then that you realize that he’s drugged the food with something new. Something strong. Something that does more than make you sleepy, like the stuff he injects into your arm.

Oh the fucker. Fucker, fucker, fucker. You feel it taking effect like a slow-going tide, radiating through your body. Tingles, light and airy, taking all of the sadness and stress and hate balled up inside you; soaking them up like a towel, until all that’s left inside you is a blissful feeling of forced relaxation.

“What did you do?” You ask, though it comes out as a whisper. Your head lolls a bit to the side. Was your pillow always so soft? You blink away that thought, try to focus on what’s happening: he put more drugs in the food, he put something in the food that’s not just to make you sleep and now your body is tingling.

He takes your hands in his--you dimly realize that you should pull away, but why bother? His grip helps your hands feel less floaty, anyway--and gives a firm squeeze.

“I know you’re still in there. That… untoward behavior with our daughter, none of that was really you.”

You smile. There’s a brief flicker of lightness in his eyes, but when you speak it flies away.

“You don’t know me,” you say, voice free of the snark and bite from earlier, but clearly grating to his ears all the same. 

Chisaki leans forward, and in your relaxed state you don’t attempt to move away. You simply register the closeness and focus on the way your body, your mind, is slowly deflating.

He squeezes your hands tighter. Too tight. They won’t float away, for sure.

“We’ve lived together for years. We’ve shared the same bed. We have a child together. You think I don’t know you?”

You whine--you don’t mean to, not necessarily, but your chest and lungs and throat aren’t cooperating. They’re too light for the sound you wanted to make, a guttural low sound from somewhere inside. Instead it comes across as childish and helpless and you suppose, that’s what you are.

“Lived together…” You laugh, shaking your head against the soft pillow. “But you kidnapped me.” He did, didn’t he, all those years ago. From a life you barely remember, especially right now; from people whose faces are scrubbed from your memory by time and trauma.

His fingers are stroking your hands now. It feels nice--it almost tickles. But the softness of the strokes, the way they tickle the tops of your hands, contrasts against his voice, firm, controlled, a touch of anger brushing underneath.

“I gave you a home. I indulged you in your interests, your hobbies, however silly. I gave you a family. Don’t act ungrateful.”

“M’not,” you mumble, reflexive more than reflecting. Trying to think about what he’s saying is hard, and getting harder by the minute. The tingling has now draped over your head and your thoughts are wrapped in cotton, thick and fluffy. You wish he’d talk softer. Everything else is calm, and the edge of something dark in his voice feels amplified a thousandfold.

“Look at me.” His voice is still too harsh. Maybe you should pet his hands to see if it helps, like it helped yours stay intact.

Before you can do anything, he speaks again.

“Don’t you love our daughter?”

Your head turns too quickly to look up at him, and you’re dizzy, but the words tumble out of your hoarse throat anyway.

“Yes. Oh, yes. You know I do.”

You may not remember the faces of others (your mother, your friends, your mother) but you remember your daughter’s face. Clear as a bell. Bright. You want to be with her so badly.

Another firm squeeze of your fingers. You squeeze back--hopefully it will bring him down to your level, to the cotton and balloons.

“Then why don’t you want to be with her?”

Why is he asking such a mean question? Your lips curl downwards in an unintentional childish mimic of a frown. They feel thick, almost numb, as you half-blubber out the words.

“I do want to be with her, but you won’t let me.”

His hands leave yours--you almost want to reach out, but they lay almost limp on your stomach--and he cradles your cheek instead. There’s warmth on your cheek and you realize that he’s taken his gloves off. Ah. Maybe your squeeze worked, after all; he only takes off his gloves when he’s happy, when he’s comfortable. When he wants to comfort you. 

Fuzzy memories of crying into his shoulder, of weeping openly on a bed in a long-forgotten room, mingled with the sensation of his bare skin against yours. Always soft, comforting. Enduring. Something you could rely on to release the pressure of your emotions and bring you back down.

“Because you’re unwell,” he whispers, voice as soft as the cotton wrapped around your thoughts. “You’re so unwell.”

The way he brushes his hand against your forehead feels nice. Maybe you’re sick, after all. 

You don’t even think about the words before you speak them, instinctual questions now going right from your surface thoughts to your voice and out your mouth.

“If I get better, can I see her?”

There’s a hand cradling your cheek again, and this time, you lean your face into the warmth. There’s that spark in his eyes again, but this time the look doesn’t melt away because of your ill-timed comment. You press your lips together to keep it that way, lest the thoughts flying out your brain make him upset again.

You feel so nice, like this, like you’re wrapped in the softest blankets in the world and there’s nothing, no hardness, no anger, no sadness, holding you down and making you cry. Just him and you and the warmth radiating throughout your body.

Why cry, when his hand is right here, when your body is so tingled and relaxed. Why cry, when all you can think about is how nice you feel, how calm he is, how calm you are.

Why cry, when the next words he speaks make your heart thud against your chest in pure, body-lifting joy.

“Of course you can.”

His hand trails along your chin, cupping it in a way that makes your stomach flutter.

“Now that I’ve found the right medicine for your… disposition, we can start the rest of your treatment right away.”

What he says should scare you. But there’s no room left in your body for anything but forced content and fuzzy softness and the smallest hint of deja vu, a wispy little thing cupping its hands and yelling warnings that you brush away with a smile.

[funtimebunnyblog]

Sureynot is back at it again with some fun requests 😂🤩🥰 Please enjoy!

The Pillarmen with an s/o who's an adrenaline junkie...

(Under the cut for length...)

Kars:

• Kars seriously disapproves of this hobby of yours.

• Mostly because when he met you he was under the impression that you were smarter than to even attempt half of the things you do for "fun".

• Once he found out that your idea of a good time was riding a bike down a rocky mountain at full speed or dangling from the edge of a cliff from a rope like a spider, he was sure you were crazy.

• Perhaps Humans really have regressed after all...

• Just because he could vault himself off a cliff without a care in the world or thought of bodily harm doesn't mean that you, a fragile little Human, should as well.

• If you insist that you're fine because of all the precautions you take when going out to do something risky, it does little to ease him.

• Initially, he tries to forbid you from going out and doing such dangerous things but you offered for him to come along anytime and supervise; which he ended up accepting.

• He'll admit that he feels a little better when he's at least with you just in case anything happens.

• "Isn't this great?" You laugh, peering back to glance at your mate (whom you were strapped to) as you dangled from the base of the cliff by your abs. "Just look at that view!"

• Kars couldn't be bothered to even try to enjoy the sunset scene far, far below when he was laying parallel in the air like this.

• If you wanted to watch the sunset, why not just stand upright ON the cliff?

• "When do we get to the fun part?" He sighed, his underlying bitterness only making you laugh. "This IS the fun part!"

• Should you happen to hurt yourself on any of your solo excursions you can at least always count on him to patch you up when you get Home.

• Showing up with a few scrapes and bruises here and there doesn't bother him very much but if you ever end up breaking a bone, prepare for a scolding of a lifetime.

• He will not let you do anything even close to risky until you are fully healed and from that moment on he makes it clear that he's accompanying you on ALL of your trips and supervising the scene.

• It's kind of funny, in a way he has fallen right into your trap; spending more quality time with you rather than staying cooped up in his office doing work all the time.

Esidisi:

• It takes Esidisi as a surprise when he finds out about your little hobbies.

• He never realized that doing such risky, heart palpatiating stunts was considered enjoyable to some Humans.

• His curiosity piqued, you'll find yourself dragging him along to one of your most favourite activities so he can watch and maybe try his hand at it.

• You've created a monster.

• An adrenaline pumped, 7ft tall, inhuman, older than dirt monster.

• He LOVES this sport. The sights, heights, the high-speed action, the spine tingling, the rushing going to his head; HE LOVES IT.

• It all puts a much hotter fire burning in his blood.

• Soon, he starts dragging YOU along to watch HIM do extremely risky activities and stunts.

• Like watching him bungee jump off the tallest building in the country while chugging 2 energy drinks at the same time as he records the whole thing for YouTube.

• Despite his newfound love for the most extreme of extreme, he's also content to just spend some time doing simpler risky activities like white-water rafting or rock climbing with you.

• If he ever gets injured (no matter how bad) it doesn't bother him in the slightest of course.

• However, if you get seriously hurt on the other hand, it sends all kinds of alarm bells off for him.

• He thinks that maybe he's to blame and that he's been a bad influence on you and your mortality.

• "IT'S MY FAULT!!! IT'S ALL MY FAULT!!!" Esidisi sobbed loud enough that his voice rang off the Hospital walls. Endless rivulets of hot tears left your shirt absolutely soaked where he clung to you like a limplet in the bed.

• You could only sigh, your gaze peering past the dense curls of the floof of his hair blocking your vision to your propped up leg and the clean white cast that had just been put on it.

• "Esidisi, this is NOT your fault." You told him, hands instinctively going to rub his back as the tears kept coming and coming. "I should've checked the tire on my bike before driving it down that hillside, it was just an accident. It's just a broken leg."

• (*bike crash* Fred voice: MY LEG!!!)

• Thankfully, his tears ebb when you tell him that he can sign your cast.

• He might even offer to take you across the world to sight see and do some more thrilling activities to make up for it when you're all healed if you're up for the adventure.

Wamuu:

• All of this started when Wamuu noticed that you had a bunch of strange gear in storage.

• When he asked you why you needed so many helmets and ropes and knee and elbow pads, you happily indulged him about your adrenaline seeking hobbies and how you liked to jump off cliffs.

• You definitely have some more explaining to do.

• Admittedly it takes Wamuu a good few minutes to wrap his head around it all.

• "So... you do all of these dangerous things... for a thrill?" He questioned, eyebrows knitted together. "To prove yourself?"

• As you nodded, grinning hugely, he realizes that he shares a similar trait by fighting worthy opponents in the arena.

• The most brutal, sweat inducing, heart pounding fights gave him great tenacity and you experienced the very same when climbing somewhere high or going fast.

• He wants to try this with you.

• Next thing he knows he's all geared up with a helmet and a harness and a rope, standing at the bottom of a HUGE Rockwall.

• "First one to the top wins," was all you said before starting to climb as fast as you could with the Warrior right behind you, a fierce gleam in his eye and a fang revealing grin.

• Though keeping mindful of your safety, he likes to challenge you and both of you find yourselves often pushing each other's limits.

• Who could climb the fastest? Row the fastest? Bike the fastest? Set up camp the fastest?

• If you happen to hurt yourself while playing your thrill little games together he's always prepared and will most definitely put a bandage on you when needed.

• Even Wamuu knows that the Hello Kitty ones heal the best.

• If you're ever unfortunate enough to do yourself enough damage to break something, that care shown for you doesn't change.

• In fact, he commends you for being so strong and will praise you even more when you talk about jumping right back into it when you're properly healed again.

• He won't let you go anywhere until that day comes though, no matter how up to the challenge you think you are.

• All in all, your determination and your fiery spirit is what makes him absolutely adore you afterall.

Santana:

• Like many things he faces, Santana is quite indifferent to heart-stopping stunts.

• It was no surprise really, he was an apex lifeform; there was nothing that could do him harm and he had faced many dangerous things in his life alone so there wasn't much that got his heart pounding.

• However his curiosity is piqued when he learns that you deliberately partook in risky activities just for the fun of it all.

• Be prepared for many questions as to what exactly you enjoyed doing and the benefit of doing it for you.

• If you should ask him to accompany you on an activity, he won't say no but he prefers to observe you rather than partake himself.

• He views every outing with you as a learning experience.

• He gets to learn all about the activity, its History and any gear you happen to bring along and then watch the ins and outs of it all first hand as you and maybe a few other Humans do it.

• He finds it interesting that Humans would take such risks when they are already the most fragile and flawed race in existence.

• He wasn't sure whether it was carelessness or maybe just plain not realizing your own mortality.

• If you happen to coax him into actually gearing up and doing an activity with you, don't expect any major reaction on his part when you get there.

• Whether it's skydiving, rock-climbing, white water rafting, poking a sleeping bear with a stick, you name it; you can't quite piece together what's going on in that head of his.

• He just looks almost bored the entirety of the time.

• "YEAHHHHH!!!" You squealed with glee, the air whistling in your ears as wind all around you whipped and whirled, plummeting straight from the sky.

• Santana was dead silent, arms folded and practically glaring at the ground where it sat miles upon miles away below you both.

• The only thing he was looking forward to after the parachute chord was pulled and his feet was on solid ground again was going to grab a bite to eat...

• However, while the activity doesn't, any injuries you happen to sustain from doing them spark a reaction in Santana.

• He doesn't like seeing you hurt, no matter how minor it is.

• That being said, the chances of you getting seriously hurt are very, very low with Santana always on watch while you're off having fun.

• If he has to, he'll throw himself under you and let his body go to rubber to give you a soft landing and prevent you from breaking something.

• All in all, he doesn't really mind your extreme hobbies. You alone give him a thrill by teaching him much new things.

[sunflowerheartsandstarryskies]

The Devil and the Mermaid - Chapter Six (Lucifer x Mermaid!Reader)

Author’s Note: The inspiration here came from a dream of mine, also one of my favorite shows “The Legend of the Blue Sea” has some heavy inspiration here as well. Thank you so much for the support of the series! I will also create a tag list for this story since I saw people interested in that. Again I love reading your guys’ comments and if you want to be part of a tag list for this series please let me know :)

Warnings: hospital scenes, heavy makeout session, yelling

Taglist: @th3gl1tt3rgam3roff1c1al, @magnet-girl​ , @roxytheimmortal​, @danielle143​

Prev Chapter

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You woke up to a blinding light reaching your eyes and you felt like you were swimming in the ocean for a brief moment with how dizzy you felt. You tilted your head to the side and felt a jolt in your body as you processed what happened to you. Someone shot you, and it was aimed at Lucifer but you managed to save him, that reminder is what calms you down.

*I saved him, that’s all that matters,* you thought. 

When you have settled back into the hospital bed, that’s when you finally take in the surroundings of where you are. You were in a hospital with a hospital gown on and a needle stuck in you, when you realized that it had started to itch and you reached to pull it out of you.

“Hey don’t mess with that, darling, wouldn’t want to hurt yourself even more,” said an achingly familiar voice.

You looked up and saw his beautiful face looking at you as he entered the room with a Styrofoam cup in his hands.

“Lucifer,” you breathed out. You relaxed much more into the bed now releasing the tension that you hadn’t realized had been as strung up as it was. You felt even better when you saw him with you again.

“Oh, love, why did you have to go and get yourself hurt?” he asks you.

“You shouldn’t have gone and provoked the main suspect,” you teased.

He got flustered for a second while dramatically putting his hand to his chest in a fake offended motion.

“I’m glad you are doing better… To be quite honest with you I was terrified of losing you. I've become quite attached to you, my little mermaid,” he confesses to you.

You felt your get watery and your face heated up at his confession. ‘Maybe he really does love me, but I’m scared, what if he found out I didn’t tell him the whole truth?’

You saw his face scrunch up in thought but when he saw you look at him inquisitively he gave you a small smile.

“Now my dear, what’s inside that head of yours hmm? Your thoughts are getting too loud that I can hear them,” he says.

You get flummoxed at that and you sputter out, “but that’s impossible you can’t hear my thoughts! Can you? Or was that just a human expression?” 

He just smiled at you and said, “You gave me quite a scare, love, the doctor told us that you are surprisingly healthy even with you just being shot. Which we haven’t even started to discuss, but anyway you are already fit to leave by tomorrow.” “Wait really? How long have I been asleep for?”

“A week”

“A week!?”

“Yeah and you had me worried about you the whole time.”

That made you smile slightly because you at least know now that he was thinking about you during your time in the hospital, but the thought of your fate about what might happen to you if he died still haunts your thoughts. 

When you looked up at Lucifer he had a concerned expression on his face.

“Is there something that’s been on your mind the whole time?” Lucifer asked.

You shook your head no and he just hummed in response. The rest of the visit consisted of him filling you in on what happened after you were shot, how the case was closed and how Chloe and Dan were worried about you and how Lucifer was basically stuck by your side during your whole recovery. 

-----------------------------------------------

The next day came and you were released by a bewildered doctor on your fast recovery and found Lucifer waiting for you at the lobby and you eagerly hugged him tightly as you thanked him for meeting you here and taking you home.

He laughed and replied, “Of course, (Y/N), now let’s go home”

The cheerful exchange had ended at the hospital as when you left the hospital and Lucifer was driving, your mind was drifting back and forth on how you could possibly tell him about what might happen to you if you stayed on land. You noticed Lucifer’s hands gripped tighter on the steering wheel, and you started to get more nervous as you got closer to LUX. 

*What’s happening?* you thought as you followed close behind Lucifer.

Lucifer had escorted you up to his penthouse at LUX and had pulled you towards the balcony of his place. You stood across from him with a worried expression on your face as you hugged yourself waiting for him to talk.

“When are you going to tell me?” Lucifer asked.

You looked at him in surprise as you dropped your arms to your sides and said, “I don’t know what you mean?”

“You’ve been hiding something from me for a while now, I just don't know what it is. What is going to happen to you if I don’t love you the way that you need me to? What would happen if something happened to me? You never explained that part to me. Was there a reason for that?”

You just kept staring at Lucifer thinking of a way to tell him about your fate, and you decided to say it in your thoughts because he couldn’t hear them.

*If anything happens to you, I can’t live on land anymore. My heart only beats for you, that’s how I got to be on land was my love for you, so without you, I will die, that is how the transformation works. My heart has limited time on land, and so if you leave me or this world I will die unless I can return to the ocean. My heart will harden, cool, and stop. Without you, that is how I will end up.*

“Wait, wait, love, what was that? You’ll die?” Lucifer asked.

Your eyes widened in surprise, he wasn’t supposed to hear any of that. “What?” you said.

“Repeat all that you said, your heart will harden and you’ll die?” he tells you.

All you could do was take a step forward and ask him, “You could hear my voice?”

“Tell me, (Y/N). You said your heart will stop. Why?” 

“When did you start hearing my voice?”

“Why are you going to die?” He yelled at you with tears in his eyes. 

“You! When did you start hearing my voice? Tell me!” You yelled back. 

“Since the beginning! So please just tell me, if anything happens to me, if I die, you’ll die?” 

“If you can really hear my true voice then you already know the answer to that, Lucifer. I’ll die if you die, so I can’t make any promise to you that I will live happily with you gone. I can’t. Since I got my legs I was also given a new heart, a heart that beats on land, a heart that beats for you,” you told him.

He let out a sharp laugh at that and he turned his back to you and ruffled his hair as he turned back to you as tears fell down his face. 

“So then why did you get shot by me? I would’ve been fine! I can't be hurt by mundane weapons! I told you already I wasn’t human!”

“I couldn’t take the chance, I love you! You know this already, but I’m in love with you! I love you, Lucifer, and so I couldn’t take the chance to see you get hurt,” you explained to him as you stepped closer to him.

His eyes got wild and you saw a flash of red in his usual dark brown eyes as he then lowered his voice as he said, “And what made you think I could?”

You got taken aback by that as you dropped your gaze from him and just whispered, “What?”

“Oh my dear, (Y/N), what made you think I was able to see you broken like that? I was so scared, I was petrified, I didn’t know what to do, I even prayed to Dad! For hell’s sake, I am in love with you, my darling (Y/N), I had begun to realize that a while ago but I was too scared to put what I was feeling into words, but when I saw you collapse and hurt to protect me, I realized that I had nothing else to lose to put what I felt into words.”

You felt tears pool up in your eyes but you didn’t want him to see you like that, so stared at the floor still as you asked, “Really? Do you mean what you said?”

He puts his hands on either side of your face as he gently lifts your face up to meet his gaze. 

“My love, my darling (Y/N), I love you, I love you (Y/N),” he says with a tearful smile.

You let out a nervous smile as you felt the tears stream down your face but Lucifer wiped them away with the pads of his thumbs. 

“Oh Lucifer, thank you, I love you too,” you say to him. 

“Can I kiss you now, my love?” he asks you. 

You nodded and you met in a sweet and loving kiss. You felt him everywhere on you as he closed the edistance and you felt so loved and safe in his arms. He moved his arms down to rest at your waist and your kiss became more intense as one of his hands came to caress and entangle his fingers in your hair scraping your scalp. With all these different sensations you let out a tiny moan escape your lips and you flushed in embarrassment with that. You parted from him and you tried to hide your embarrassment from him but he stopped you before you got too far. 

“Hey, hey, what’s going on? Where are you going?” Lucifer asked.

“I don’t know what that sound was,” you replied.

“Oh don’t worry love, that’s completely natural, now why don’t we go back to that kiss, hmm? Let me hear all those lovely, cute, sounds, too,” he answered.

He kissed you again, this time with a renewed sense of fervor and it almost winded you if your whole weight wasn’t being supported by him. His hands were all over you making you moan in his mouth again as you wrapped your arms around his neck. He tentatively bit your bottom lip making you gasp and letting him have his tongue enter your mouth, he was sucking and licking and making you moan like crazy. You had an inkling what this was doing to you, but you didn’t realize how intense he would be.

He then put his arms on your thighs, gripped them and lifted you in air, promptly carrying you back inside the apartment. You gasped at that which allowed him to thrust his tongue further into your mouth making you moan again and smile into the kiss. 

Lucifer threw you down on the bed making you bounce on it and he started to climb on top you which made you start to giggle and smile widely at him. In turn he just smiled lovingly at you as he patted your hair and then bumped your nose with his finger making your face scrunch up and going into another giggle fit. 

As you started to calm down, Lucifer was still on top of you with a goofy smile and a loving expression on his face. He leaned down and kissed you softly and kept repeating that making you feel like you were back in the ocean again, floating, free and protected.

 You are so in love with this Devil and you knew you would do anything you could in your powers to protect him. Hopefully that promise to yourself wouldn’t be met again for awhile.

[master-sass-blast]

Care and Trust: Chapter Two.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five -Chapter One

Summary: “--and he says to me ‘my birthday’s every year, dude,’” the shorter one --he’s got gentle green eyes and dark, wavy hair--laughs. “Like, if the bushel of lilyweed I caught him with wasn’t evidence enough--” He pauses when he sees you and Lin waiting, takes one look at your bag and table, then tries to book it. “Nope!”

The taller one grabs him by the shoulders. “Bolin, come on! It’ll be okay!”“Nope! I’m totally fi --agh!”

You wince sympathetically when the younger one cringes and jerks in pain, then step forward so you can get one arm behind him, then introduce yourself as you usher him into Lin’s office. “It’s nice to meet you, Bolin. Why not sit down for a minute, okay? Take a load off? Maybe” --you glance at Ryu-- “we could have a cup of tea?”

AKA you learn why you got called to Lin's office.

Pairing(s): Lin Beifong x Reader

Rating: T.

Word Count: 4.2k.

Also, a huge thank you to @chromecutie for beta reading this fic in addition to all the others in this series! I would not have had the confidence to post any of HTH if she hadn’t assured me that I was doing the characters justice.

Lin’s office is a real, proper office; go figure, she’s the Chief of Republic City’s entire police force. It’d be weird if she didn’t have a proper office.

It’s an expansive, long room, with wrought iron support beams and a dark, wood panelled ceiling. A desk sits in the center of the room, right across from double doors. There’s a leather chair that looks like it’s worth more than your apartment behind the desk, as well as one to the side of the desk (presumably for visitors or reporting officers).

There’s a small sitting area to the left of the doors. Two couches are positioned across from each other, with a metal coffee table in between. On the opposite wall is a wardrobe --you’re putting money on a second set of armor and some clean casual clothes, given the horror stories Lin’s told you about messy crime scenes.

Aside from a third couch tucked into the corner of the room --it looks luxuriously padded, and you’re also putting money on Lin sleeping on that couch during long haul shifts--and a vase to the right of the double doors, the rest of the room is entirely utilitarian. Filing cabinets, bookshelves, a few boxes with active case files in them.

It’s Lin to a tee. Thoroughly practical, borderline spartan, but what is there is more than you could afford in a lifetime.

You politely turn down Ryu’s offer of tea or coffee, then set your massage table and bag on the floor. You pace a short circuit back and forth, mentally filing through what you know about Lin and how her body bears out physical stress. Any injury is liable to have aggravated her hip, given the body’s tendency to compensate to avoid pain. Combine that with her scars and her left side’s propensity to knot up… she’ll probably need some stretching and healing work before I could even try to adjust her--

The doors open again --and in walks Lin Beifong.

You cross your arms over your chest and cock your head back. “Let me guess --you didn’t have time to see a healer earlier, and now it’s biting you in the ass.”

Lin’s eyebrows spike to her hairline. She blinks, then holds up her hand. “Whoa, no. I’m fine.”

“Cut the hippobullshit, Lin. Your personal secretary called me here--”

“It’s not for me,” Lin interjects. She glances behind her, then closes the doors before continuing. “It’s… for one of the younger officers. Something of a situation.”

Your brows draw together as you frown. “If they’re seriously injured, they should go to the hospital--”

“No, no, it’s not like that. He was…” Lin grimaces as her voice trails off, “...advised to see someone like you after getting injured during the dock explosion debacle, but he’s… not comfortable with the thought of getting adjusted.”

“Oh.” You blink, wind going out of your sails as the panic ebbs. “And… your assistant called me…”

“I asked her to,” Lin clarifies. “I know I can trust you to handle this right.”

Something warm and heavy settles in your chest at the thought that Lin trusts you, especially with the well-being of someone that’s clearly important to her. You gulp hard and ignore the way your eyes are starting to sting. “Oh. Thanks.” 

The sound of footsteps and chatter outside Lin’s office draws both your attention.

Ryu opens the doors and lets two young men in --one shorter and stocky, the other taller, leaner.

“--and he says to me ‘my birthday’s every year, dude,’” the shorter one --he’s got gentle green eyes and dark, wavy hair--laughs. “Like, if the bushel of lilyweed I caught him with wasn’t evidence enough--” He pauses when he sees you and Lin waiting, takes one look at your bag and table, then tries to book it. “Nope!”

The taller one grabs him by the shoulders. “Bolin, come on! It’ll be okay!”

“Nope! I’m totally fi --agh!”

You wince sympathetically when the younger one cringes and jerks in pain, then step forward so you can get one arm behind him, then introduce yourself as you usher him into Lin’s office. “It’s nice to meet you, Bolin. Why not sit down for a minute, okay? Take a load off? Maybe” --you glance at Ryu-- “we could have a cup of tea?”

The assistant smiles knowingly, nods, then slips out of the room.

“Okay, sure,” Bolin concedes, still wincing. “But I promise, I’m totally fine.”

You hold up your hands and take a seat on the other side of the coffee table. “Understood.” You staunchly ignore the way your pulse spikes when Lin sits next to you --Spirits, the effect this woman has on you--and turn your attention to the other man. You introduce yourself and extend your hand.

He takes it --firm grip, but not painful. “I’m Mako.” He nods to the younger man. “I’m his brother.”

“Ah, wonderful.” You smile warmly at the brothers. “How long have you two been on the force?” 

***

It’s easy to get the boys talking --or, rather, it’s easy to get Bolin talking.

Mako’s a harder platypusbear egg to crack, but there are small things to pick up on; the way he frowns whenever Bolin winces in pain, for instance, tells you he’s genuinely concerned about his brother. He sits a little straighter whenever he looks over at Lin, but he’s not sweating or cowering in front of her, which you take to mean that he wants to impress her, to earn her approval.

He’s also watching you closely --which is fair, considering you likely scare his brother.

You meet his scrutiny with a relaxed, polite smile and do your best to convey ‘I’m here to help, please trust me,’ through your eyes and posture.

Bolin’s far more relaxed around Lin --almost remarkably so. He leans back against the couch as much as he comfortably can, and actually jokes with her (or tries to, but he doesn’t seem deterred whenever Lin doesn’t respond with more than a twitch of an eyebrow).

You also catch him looking towards Lin whenever he talks about an aspect of his job, a hopeful smile on his face, which then broadens every time she nods or confirms whatever he’s saying.

Honestly, it’s adorable.

(Lin’s also an interesting one to watch in all of this. She’s still as stoic as ever, but she doesn’t roll her eyes at Bolin’s lame jokes or talk down to Mako despite him being miles lower in rank than her. If anything, the air you’re getting from her is… warm. Almost maternal.

It’s wonderful to see.)

“I’ve been studying for the detective’s exam, though,” Bolin chirps with a bright smile. “Mako says I’m doing pretty good.”

You grin, then shoot a playful glance at Lin. “And your thoughts, Chief?”

Lin smirks and crosses her arms over her chest. “They’re both green --but, with time and training, they’ll be excellent members of the police force.”

There’s no missing the way both boys glow under Lin’s praise; Bolin outright beams, and while Mako’s more subtle, you still catch the small, pleased smile that flickers across his features.

You smile.

There’s a brief pause in the conversation when Ryu walks in with a tea set. She sets it on the coffee table between the two benches, then leaves with a nod when Lin waves her off.

You murmur a quiet “Thank you” when Lin fills your cup, then turn your attention back to Bolin. Time to try and make forward progress. “So, what happened to your neck?”

Bolin turns his head to look at you --and promptly winces. “What? What do you mean? How did you know?”

“You’re not the only detective,” you say with a wink. You smile when he chuckles, then gestures to his neck and head. “You’re compensating. You’re tilting your head to one side to avoid using the injured muscles. You probably didn’t even realize it.”

Bolin’s eyes widen. “Wait, seriously?” He tries to straighten his neck, then grimaces and lets out a yelp. “Ow!”

“Just leave it be for now,” you interject, holding one hand out to stop him. “You won’t be able to force it to straighten out on your own. Best leave it to the professionals.”

He offers you a weak smile. “And that’s you?”

You smile and nod. “That’s me. I’m a chiropractor and massage therapist; I specialize in scar tissue treatment and injury rehabilitation. Started my degree at Atege Medical University in the Northern Water Tribe, then finished it here at Republic City Medical University, and then I did my training here in Republic City at Kyoshi Rehabilitation Center. About… oh, five years ago, I moved to the Northern Moon Physical Therapy Facility.”

Mako raises one thick eyebrow in assessment. “So that’s… what, seven years?”

You snort. “Flattering, but no. Try closer to twelve. Medical school and residency takes a long time for chiropractors, too.” You spare a moment to watch Bolin --he’s paled since you’ve started talking about being a chiropractor, and the rest of his body’s gone tense--then try getting to the point once more. “What happened to your neck?”

He grimaces and rubs the side of his neck. “I was at the docks when the explosion went off. I didn’t get hit by the debris or anything, but the shockwave knocked a lot of us over.”

You nod along. “That makes sense. Considering how close you were, the shockwave might’ve been enough to throw something out of alignment.”

Bolin grimaces. He hesitates, then offers you a nervous smile. “Look, I appreciate you coming all the way out here, but I’m fine. I promise! I’ve had tons of injuries before --used to do competitive pro-bending, all that jazz. I know how to handle these kinds of things: a little heat, some stretching, and everything will clear up before too long.”

“Street beat’s a physically demanding job,” Lin interjects. She arches an eyebrow when Bolin opens his mouth, then continues when he closes it. “I can’t have you on the duty roster if you’re hobbled.”

“Not to mention that if something’s out of alignment, you could make it worse by stretching,” you add with a concerned frown. “And things are likely to get worse without treatment, too. I know this isn’t your favorite idea,” you say with a sympathetic smile, “but it really is best to handle things early before they become bigger problems down the road.”

“It’ll be okay,” Mako assures his younger brother. He puts one arm around Bolin’s shoulders. “Chief’s the one who called her in; she wouldn’t ask some quack.”

The corner of your mouth turns up at the commendation, but your mirth fades when you watch Bolin cover his face with shaking hands. You cock your head to the side, listening, then purse your lips when you hear a quiet sniffle. “What is it about adjustment that scares you so much?”

Bolin shrugs (and winces), then waves his hand dismissively with an unsteady smile. “Eh, it’s nothing. No big deal to let someone jerk around your neck like crazy; not like it’s gonna break or anything.” He grimaces, then ducks his head to hide the tears forming in his eyes. “That’d just be stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” you assure him. You duck your head so you can catch his gaze, then smile understandingly when he looks at you. “It’s not. Self-preservation is one of our most natural, baseline instincts. Besides, you’re hardly the first client to be scared of getting adjusted.”

Bolin straightens gingerly. “I’m not?”

You shake your head. “Not at all. I work with a lot of trauma patients; several of them have anxiety over being touched and adjusted. And I’ve had a lot of people ask me about snapping necks, believe it or not.”

Bolin turns his head to one side and assesses you warily. “And… what do you tell them?”

“The truth: I don’t use remotely enough force to snap a neck,” you say, “nor am I working at the right angles to cause a break. It’s not as easy as all the pulp fiction novels make it seem.” When Bolin doesn’t relax completely, you start mulling over other ideas to help convince him. Chances are he’s never been adjusted before, given how nervous he is, meaning he doesn’t have any previous experience to apply to what I’m saying. Short of letting him watch an adjustment-- You snap your fingers when a lightbulb turns on in your mind. “What if… what if you could watch me adjust someone else? That way, you’d be able to see that it’s perfectly safe.”

Bolin quirks his mouth to the side. “...I guess. It couldn’t hurt.”

You nod, then turn to Lin. “Would you be willing to let me adjust you, since you’ve already been through it all before?”

Lin nods without hesitation, then smirks. “I’m guessing I’ll need to take my armor off.”

“Well, since I’d rather adjust your back than crush my hand, yes,” you quip back. You shoot a reassuring smile at Bolin, then stand. “Let me set up my table.”

...

Bolin, for all his warmth and magnanimity, doesn’t coax along easily. It takes adjusting both Lin and Mako before he agrees to it (who has scarring in his left arm from a lightning injury that he got, according to him, while taking down Kuvira’s giant mechadroid less than half a year ago, and if you get a little too caught up in analyzing his injury and talking about treatment plans and Lin has to remind you --albeit subtly--that this is her office and she has work to do, well, it’s only a tribute to your commitment to your career.

Anyway.)

Between the three of you, though, you manage to get Bolin onto your massage table so you can start working on him.

He grunts as you dig into the muscles that run along his neck. “I know what you said about not using enough force, but it sounds like you’re breaking something.”

“I get it,” you laugh. “What you’re hearing, though, is the release of gas that builds up in the joints and tissue, plus the joints and ligaments being adjusted back into place.” You let up for a moment so you can reposition your thumbs, then press down again.  “Okay, deep breath in… and out… good; just like that.”

Some light examination and prodding with your waterbender had revealed the culprits: stuck rib heads in the upper back, a few misaligned vertebrae in the neck, and some very irritated and inflamed muscles. Painful, but easy to fix with the right treatment.

You curl your fingers, using your waterbending to knead the muscles in Bolin’s right shoulder. “Oh, come on… I know you’re not happy, but if you could please relax for me…”

Bolin groans when the muscle finally unkinks. “Oh, yeah, that’s the spot.”

“I bet,” you laugh. You bend the rest of the water back into your skein, then put some oil on his skin and start working the spot with your hands.

“Is it hard to work around injuries?” he asks, voice slightly muffled by the massage table’s headrest.

You make the grunt equivalent of a shrug. “It depends on the location and what state of healing it’s in. Sometimes, it means I can’t do a normal adjustment --or do one at all, really; some injuries or scars mean that moving the joints and ligaments around would cause further damage to the site. Other times, it’s a matter of waiting until everything’s healed, and then I can do normal adjustments again.”

“How can you tell which to do --oooh, right there.”

Your lips turn up in a small smile, and you keep working a tense, knotted muscle in his upper back. “The patient’s medical history tells me a lot. X-Ray imaging helps, too, if there is any --and I can usually get a good feel for what’s wrong with my waterbending.” You keep going until the muscle releases, then pat Bolin’s shoulder. “Okay, I think you’re ready for adjustment.”

As expected, he tenses. His neck works as he gulps, and when he speaks again, his voice comes out high-pitched and thready. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t try if I didn’t think you’d adjust properly.” When Bolin doesn’t respond --or move--you kneel down so you can see his face through the hole in the head of the massage table. “Hey. It’s going to be okay. We’ll take this nice and slow, alright? I’ll tell you everything I’m going to do before I do it.”

Bolin nods, gulps again, then flips onto his back.

“I need you to sit up so I can put the adjustment board under your back.” You slip the board into place, then put a pillow under his head before having him shift lower on the table. “Okay, good. I’ll adjust your middle and upper back first, like I did on Lin. You might feel some discomfort in your upper back because of how the rib heads are stuck, alright?”

Bolin nods, then offers you a feeble smile. “You’re sure I’m not too heavy for you?”

You wink. “I’m stronger than I look. Whenever you’re ready, cross your arms over your chest.” Once he does what you ask, you adjust his arms so they’re in the right position. “Okay, curl your chin down against your chest… good. Alright, it’s gonna be just like how you saw on Lin. I’m gonna help lift you up, I’ll put my hand under your back, and then I’ll lay you down so I can adjust your back. Sound good?”

Bolin clenches his jaw, but meets your gaze and nods minutely.

“Alright. You ready?” When he nods again, you do exactly as you said you would --help Bolin curl upwards, put your hand under his back, against the board, then adjust the position of your arm around his shoulders. “Alright, deep breath in… and out.”

The series of adjustments up his spine go without a hitch. You grin down at Bolin after the last adjustment and congratulate him for doing so well. “You took that like a champ!”

Bolin blinks, startled, then smiles. “Eh, I’ve been told I’m a quick learner.”

“Oh, you’re an absolute natural.” You grin when he chuckles, then step towards the head of the table. “I’ll give you a minute before I do anything else, but is it okay if I feel around your neck to see where the tension is?”

Bolin pales. His eyes go misty, but he nods regardless.

You murmur a quiet “thank you,” then put one hand on each side of his neck and start prodding at the muscles. “Well, it’s better after the massage work and the adjustment.” You rub your thumb against his trapezius muscle, then grimace when it refuses to relax for you. “Actually…” You take your hands off his neck and rifle through your bag. “I think I’m going to use an activator on your neck, if you’re comfortable with that.”

“What’s that?” Bolin asks, voice fraught with panic.

You hold the device up for him to see. “I use it to tap the side of your neck; it helps loosen up your joints so that when I adjust you, we get you back to your full range of motion.” You fire the device so he can see, and your stomach sinks when you see tears well up in his eyes. “I can use it on your forearm, if you want, soyou can feel how hard it’s going to be.”

Bolin swallows hard, then nods. He holds his arm up --then blinks when you press the tip of the activator against his arm and fire it. “Oh. I thought it’d be a lot stronger than that.”

“Tui and La, no,” you say with a laugh. “The neck’s a delicate instrument; I’m not trying to make things worse for you.”

Bolin smiles shakily, but it slips back to a frown after a few seconds. “Is… Will it hurt?”

“I’ve never had a patient complain before,” you say, sincere. “I’d be stunned if you felt any pain whatsoever from this.” You smile reassuringly when he gives you a questioning look, then place the tip of the activator against his neck when he nods. “Alright. I’m going to tap you a few times on each side of the neck, then I’ll take another feel at what your joints and muscles are doing. Okay?”

“Can you… give me a minute?”

“Of course.” You pull the activator away from his neck, then place a hand on his shoulder when he inhales shakily. “Hey, deep breaths. You’re gonna be fine. I promise.” After a moment he nods again, and you press the activator back against his neck and fire it.

“...It kind of tickles.”

You let out a huff of laughter. “That’s a new one.” You finish working on both sides of his neck, then tuck the device back in your bag before putting your hands on his neck once more. “Alright, right now I’m just going to stretch your muscles some more and get your head into position, okay?”

Bolin clenches his fists at his side. “Could you --do you think you could give me a countdown before you, y’know, do it?”

“Uh…” You purse your lips, then shake your head. “I don’t think so, no. I don’t want you tensing right as I try to adjust you; you’re liable to get hurt that way.”

“It’ll be okay, kid,” Lin says when Bolin lets out a shaky breath. “I wouldn’t have called her if she wasn’t the best.”

You duck your head to hide a shy smile, then try to focus past the warm glow spreading through your chest. “Okay, Bolin. Deep breath; in through the nose, out through the mouth… good, just like that.” You slowly turn his neck, angling his head until you feel the right resistance. “Tilt your chin up; I’m gonna stretch your neck a little.” You tug gently until the muscles loosen, then surreptitiously keep working him to the proper angle. “Good… just stretching… feeling everything out…” You adjust the position of your hands on his neck. “Another deep breath in, then let it all out.” You wait for him to exhale --for his shoulders to relax--then jerk his head to the side.

Bolin grunts, then shoots you a wide eyed look. “You said you were just stretching me?”

You smile apologetically. “I needed to make sure you were relaxed. Makes things better for both you and me. Did you feel any pain?”

“No,” Bolin says after a moment of consideration. “It felt… pretty good, actually.”

“Good!” You start massaging the other side of his neck. “You think you’re still alive?”

He chuckles. “Pretty sure I’m still breathing, yeah.”

“Good stuff,” you joke right back. “Means less malpractice suits for me.” You grin when he laughs, then start stretching the other side of his neck. “Let’s do this side, and then I’ll do your lower back and get you back to work.”

***

“Sorry that took so long.”

Lin waves a hand at your apology. “It’s fine. I figured the kid would take a while to calm down enough for an adjustment.” She offers you a small smile. “Thanks for making the trip up here.”

“Of course.” You resume packing up your things, then let out a quiet laugh. “Honestly, I’m just glad it wasn’t you that needed an adjustment. I damn near had a heart attack when the receptionist told me your assistant called.”

“I told you I was fine.”

You shoot Lin a flat, unimpressed stare. “Right, because you’re the type to always consider the limits and needs of your physical well being.” You roll your eyes when she merely arches an eyebrow at you, then zip the carrying case for your collapsible table shut. “How does the department handle billing?”

“Send the bill to my assistant,” Lin answers, writing down the proper mailing address on a slip of paper before handing it over to you. “She’ll file it with the department’s insurance company. The department will pay out the rest.”

You nod and reach out to take the paper--

Lin holds it back. “Write the bill for all three adjustments. Clear?”

You smirk and pluck the paper out of her fingers. “Pay me more. Fine by me.” You grin when she rolls her eyes, then cast your gaze down to her desk.

It’s a nice desk. Solid, polished wood, with engravings and etchings of Earth Kingdom style patterns.

Unbidden, images of Lin fucking you on her desk --bending you over it, laying you out on your back, sitting in her chair while you bury your face between her legs--flood your name.

Lin either picks up on the spike in your pulse, or maybe she knows your facial expressions well enough to know when you’re horny. Either way, she smirks up at you. “Problem?”

“No…” You absently trace your fingers along the edge of her desk, then shoot her an impish smile before grabbing your things. “Call me when you have a free night.”

You can hear Lin chuckle behind you as you walk out of her office.

[letthebodyfall]

Those who were responsible for this will die. They will perish in the most agonizing way that they would ever imagine. By her hands, she will- The door opened, the quietness of the creaking loud to her ears.

Masterlist

Part 4

CW: A brief description of injury.

She swore to herself that those who hurt him will pay. And pay they will, in due time. But for now, she has a husband to take care of.

---

They settled into a routine rather quickly.

It wasn't difficult considering how accommodating Nightshade was when he started living in her home. She's a freelancer, she said one night while she made dinner. An artist.

When asked about how she managed to afford this apartment through her wages as an artist, she merely turned to his place at the table and grinned.

---

Today was long.

It was tiring, exhausting, and every word that is synonymous to bone fucking tired.

Due to several bomb threats, school was cancelled for a week, which means many of the semi-active villains had all the time throughout the week to wreak havoc.

It didn't help that many of them were some of the more powerful villains on the roster, so them having the opportunity to do shit at the same time was worrying enough that most of the major agencies were put on high alert.

So far Nightshade was keeping her end of the deal so Voltage didn't have to worry much about being murdered by his in-laws during such a busy work week.

He, Savillon, and Carver were on top of one of the smaller buildings in the city keeping their perimeter, with Carver carefully nursing one of the gashes Brightbolt managed to inflict on her just minutes before, but making sure to make her grievances known by the sound of her active swearing.

"You can scream poetry instead of swearing, you know," Savillon chided, eyes gazing the citizens on the streets and long fingers twirled long, blonde locks.

Even without looking, he could tell that Carver was grimacing while giving him the finger.

Voltage just snorted as he rolled on the balls of his feet. It was near end of shift and he was dying to get home, take a ridiculously hot shower, and maybe watch a movie.

He spoke too soon.

The next thing he knew was pain, pain, and pain.

Groaning as he pushed, pushed himself up, ears ringing from god knows what, chest heaving because he couldn't fucking breathe-

Eyes suddenly wild, he surveyed the scene, adrenaline pumping as what was once a quiet rooftop spot now turned to rubble. Massive chunks of concrete and steel in mangled heaps.

"Savillon!" His voice sliced through the silence that gathered, eyes desperately trying to find his comrades. "Carver!"

"Here!"

Head whipping to the side, he saw Carver's familiar mop of dark hair, an arm waving at him as she and Savillon pushed at a rather large piece of concrete roofing.

"You okay?"

"My foot's stuck." Savillon sneered, pushing at the concrete to release his foot but to no avail, cursing as none of them were particularly known for their spectacular strength.

It was rare to see him like this. Normally, he would be the one to calm the troupe, to keep the banter up, but seeing him this frazzled was almost sort of refreshing.

Stepping up, feet sweeping the smaller pieces of rubble on the floor, Voltage took flank at the other side and heaved, heaved-

"Stop what you're doing."

At her command Voltage stopped, though eyes furrowing at her direction. "We need to release his foot, no?"

"Yeah." But her eyes were hard, looking at his midsection. "But you're not equipped to do that now."

A cold chill ran down as spine as he stopped, breathed, and looked down.

Metal jutted out from his midsection, crimson waves of blood bloomed against his suit. He couldn't feel it, but knowing well enough that once is adrenaline subsided, it'll be a bitch.

"I think I'm going into shock."

---

He was late.

It was near midnight when he managed to get home. It took a lot of bitching and whining before he got the all clear. Broken and tired and with another round of medical leave, Maxwell wasn't feeling all the great.

Opening the door as quietly as he could so as not to wake Aleksandra, he shuffled inside. Slowly, slowly made his way to the living room.

"Max."

Head sharply turning to the direction of the voice. With wide eyes he stopped, mouth opening to say something before shutting.

She's seen the news reports, the footage.

The drone camera that often flew across the city gave her a clear view of where he and his friends were at.

She remembered smiling before, even thought about making them lunch for the next day.

Aleksandra heard about the ruckus with the semi-active villains from her siblings earlier on so she was prepared for the venting that usually happened on shifts like this, even started to prepare his favorite "venting soup" as she liked to call it.

It was for but a moment, her eyes away from the screen when she heard it.

The explosion rang out even from the footage and she felt as if every single cell in her body turned to ice. Dark, dark eyes glued to the screen as the world shifted, buckling, forcing her to sit onto the plush sofa.

She couldn't see him. Not from the smoke or the angle from the drone. From all around her the sirens blared, emergency personnel rushing to the scene.

But she heard nothing.

Everything was a dull, muffled sound. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't stand. Couldn't speak.

A frigidity engulfed her like a hand made of ice slowly, slowly wrapping around her heart.

Her phone never rang.

For hours and hours and hours, her phone never rang.

She called every single hospital that she could get a hold of. She called his superior, his friends, his coworkers but nothing. No one could provide her with anything.

She sat so still. Never leaving her place on the sofa. Waiting, waiting for a sign, a call, anything.

She didn't know when the anger arrived, roiling, burning anger slowly freezing into rage.

Those who were responsible for this will die. They will perish in the most agonizing way that they would ever imagine. By her hands, she will-

The door opened, the quietness of the creaking loud to her ears.

A foot shuffled in and then a body, and then the bright, bright red of his hair came into view.

It was like a floodgate.

Sensation flooded her all at once, air rushing through her lungs and heat rushing to her eyes.

He was here.

"Max." Her voice was calm, still, but her knees buckled the moment she tried to stand.

Aleksandra saw him rush towards her, catching her by the elbows, the warmth of his touch like embers stark against her frigid skin.

"Max."

"I'm alright." She never realized how soothing his voice can be, how much she craved to hear it. But she held out a hand.

She scanned his face, his body, taking note of the padding over his midsection.

Injury.

She'd have to take a look at that in the morning.

He saw her struggling, trying to find the words but nothing coming out. He could see the storm in her eyes. The conflict, the regret.

She held up her hand and he stopped, letting her asses him.

"Sleep," he heard her mutter, seeing her force a smile. "You need sleep." And without another word, she ushered him into his bedroom.

Before closing the door, he could swear he heard her breathe shake.

---

Hello! Thanks for reading this! Things are slowly building up tho I assure that this is far, far from the end of the series. I'd love to get some feedback or some suggestions for the series! I still don't know what to call this, honestly lol

I'd also love some ideas for possible heroes and villains and their names haha

Masterlist

Part 4

Part 6

[fuckthesworld]

FREEDOM TO DESIRE

CEO MITCH RAPP AU

MITCH RAPP x Reader

Warnings: SMUT and unprotected sex!

Rapp Corporation was the leading marketing firm in the world. Companies like Disney, Sony and Southwest paid millions of dollars to be associated with it. It represented actors, athletes, business moguls and small businesses. While it was in high demand it was also reasonable - sponsoring schools and nonprofit organizations around the world.

The single person driving the reigns to the crazy international kingdom that resided in London was Mitch Rapp . That’s right. He was part of a decade of strong, successful businessmen.

And he was your boss.

You had literally stumbled into the job of personal assistant. Literally. You were walking out of a coffee shop, resumes in hand when you ran into his large, hard frame. You landed on your ass and when you were able to recover, you were looking into the deepest chocolate eyes you had ever seen. His bright white teeth clashed against his tan skin, his dark locks perfectly framing his face.

Then you remembered that you had spilled coffee on one of the most powerful, young bachelors in the world.

You had also spilled coffee all over your resume and you groaned in realization, the expensive fresh pages coated in thick lakes of coffee. He had helped you pick up the lost keys to your future, taking a second to read over your resume and offered you a job. He was on the way to meet someone about being his personal assistant and you did just get your masters in public relations. You could intern while still making money and if you showed promise he promised to promote you.

Sometimes life really does work out in your favor. Sit in that for five seconds then remember that your boss is one of the sexiest, most successful young CEO’s in the world.

Not only is he attractive but he has the work ethic of an ox. And it made working for him damn hard. Probably harder than managing the clients he had. He was constantly in meetings, constantly leaving early in the morning and late in the evening. Going to galas and charity events, charming new people. He opened up smaller chains in areas in the world stricken by poverty to try to help increase job opportunities. He volunteered at schools and hospitals. He spent his Thanksgiving and Christmas and any other holiday of giving providing food for those in need. Always. He’s always been like this.

Mitch wasn’t just a CEO. Wasn’t even human.

He was a goddamn saint sent from heaven to wreak havoc on earth.

It was on such an occasion that he had asked you to attend one of his events - a large gala celebrating 50 years of business with his father and grandfather.  The whole legacy under one roof. You didn’t understand why you were asked to attend. As his assistant sure you had to manage the media and who visited him. But that had been hours ago. The night was now thriving off the rich and famous drunkenly dancing and teasing each other. Mitch never drank more than two glasses of anything at events like these so you didn’t have to babysit him. But you also wanted to go home if he didn’t need you and that he refused.

You watched him as he laughed along with two of his most trusted partners, Scott Mccall and Derek Hale as they sipped expensive champagne and spoke lowly among each other. Mitch was wearing a tailored blue suit, his white  button up popping against a black tie. His slight beard had grown since he shaved it these past two days and was now a short beard and all you could think about was how it would feel between your legs.

You shook your head, returning your eyes to your blackberry. You had to get it together. Everyone teased you that he had a thing for you. He never had women assistants. Preferred men to ensure that things stayed professional. Never offered people jobs on the spot either.

There was just something about you they would tease.

Well he sure as hell wasn’t making a move so until he did it would have to stay a mystery.

“You’re still working for him.”

The soft voice takes you off guard and you jump a bit, breaking from your thoughts as  your eyes fall on your assailant. Standing in a dark red gown, her pale skin contrasting with her perfectly coiffed dark hair is Katrina Mendes. 

Ex-girlfriend of Mitch Rapp.

She takes a seat beside you, the soft smell of Chanel wafting off her skin as she continues.

“Didn’t think a fragile little thing like you would survive a man like him.”

You knew what she was doing. Her younger sister, Annika , had warned you about this months ago. When you had accidentally ran into her at a golf tournament with Mitch. She loved him still. Despite the fact that she married someone new, moved across the world, she still loved and wanted him. Didn’t want anyone else to claim him.

You were a threat. You were beautiful,  intelligent. charming and apparently upon Scott’s teasing, he spoke about you a lot. Katrina hated you. And reminded you every time she saw you.

“Surprised you’re here. Thought you’d be back in America with your husband. Oh wait, he’s in Japan with his mistress of the month.”

It was no secret her husband cheated on her. She even laughed about it but deep down you knew it killed her inside. Killed her that she chose a man like that over a man like Mitch. It made you even empathize for her…until she opened her mouth and you were reminded that karma was real.

She narrows her eyes at you before deliberately taking the large flute of champagne in her hand and slowly tilting it on your dress. On your $3,000 dress you had charged on your credit card that you had planned on returning tomorrow. You had only bought the navy blue gown to try to impress Mitch, hoping he would be charmed by the way it looked on your body.

It hadn’t and now, on top of rejection, she had ruined it and put you $3,000 in the hole.

“Have fun returning your De la Rented dress.” she smirks at you as you stand, the champagne trailing down the front of the long gown. You try to bite back tears, try not to bring too much attention to yourself as you pat at he gown down with a napkin before looking at her.

“I really hope you’re happy making other people’s life miserable Katrina. Because from what I hear, you used to be an awesome person and now, now you’re just a lonely bitch.”

You don’t notice the crowd of people who have been crowding around, watching the small scene unfold. Don’t see Mitch head toward you as you make your way down to the hallway to the family restroom. You don’t realize the tears that have been falling down your cheeks until you feel him grab your arm, turning you gently toward him.

“Y/N…” your name sounds different on his tongue and the way he’s looking at you has you sobbing harder. You try to push him away as he draws you to him, his large sculpted arms surrounding you as he whispers,

“Just let it all out.”

You don’t know why you’re crying. Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve wasted $3,000 on a dress that had made little impact in your life. Maybe its because you’ve been up since 4:30 because of him, trying to make his night perfect. You missed having a social life. Missed your mom and dad and siblings. Missed your small loft in London.

Missed all of this because of him and he didn’t even give a damn.

The thought drives your sobs deeper and his grip tightens around you as you cry harder, his large hands rubbing your back. His mouth hushes you and he rocks you before you start to calm down, your sobs tampering off and you pull away, shaking your head. You want to apologize for your unprofessionalism and you also wanted to tell him he could take his assistant job and fuck off but then his left hand is hooking under your chin as he tilts your head up to you.

“I can pay for your dress. I’m sorry she ruined it. But holy hell Y/N what did you expect when you wore something like this?”

His right hand that has never left your body tampers down your back as he pulls you closer to him.

“You’ve been driving everybody mad wearing this,” he eyes are shifting now, darkening around the pupils as he licks his lips. “It should be a condemned sin.”

His voice has dropped an octave and the deep bass draws a shiver up your spine. You give your lip a light bite and he gives a short groan, the pad of his thumb brushing over the exposed skin. His hand tightens around your waist as he whispers,

“You should be a condemned sin.”

You’re looking up at him confused, trying to register what he was saying. He watches you back, trying to get a read on you before he straightens, pulling from you.

“I hope you’re feeling better.” he croaks, backing away as he takes you in one last time before he turns on his heel. You stop him, your hand shooting for his arm. You walk around him, his hair covering his pinched eyes as you whisper,

“What do you mean by that Mitch?”

He doesn’t look at you as he manages out,

“I’ve drank too much. I shouldn’t…” he looks at you and groans. “You just, I should have asked you out and not have offered you a job.”

The words takes you off guard as he takes a deep sigh.

“You’re so goddamn sexy and smart and I felt terrible ruining your resumes,” he was referencing your encounter months ago. “That offering you a job was the best I could do. I thought you’d get burnt out and quit and then I could ask you out but you’re so damn good. So damn good at everything you do so I’ve been stuck pretending I don’t care when all I want is you.”

Your dumbstruck as he looks at you and groans, shrugging out of your embrace.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. We can leave, if you want.”

He’s looking past you and you’re trying to process it all.

He really did like you.

You grab his neck, drawing him down to you, your lips pressing against his. It catches him off guard for only a second before he’s registering your actions, his hands grabbing your hips as he pushes you flush against a wall. His kisses are needy and desperate as his tongue teases your mouth open and you are consumed by him. Your hands move to his hair, his beautiful dark tresses getting tangled in your delicate fingers as he moans in your mouth, pushing his hips into your naval.

You moan feeling his erection brush against you and he pulls away, his eyes frenzied with lust.

“Not here.” his voice is hoarse and deep as he grabs you and basically drags you into the family restroom you were seeking out earlier. He shuts the door, locking it before grabbing you and slamming you against the door. He lifts you, your long gown getting lost around him as your legs hooks around his waist and his mouth is on your collarbone, sucking on the skin.

“You are so damn gorgeous,” he mumbles along your skin, his mouth nipping at your neck. “Do you know that? Do you know that you’ve been driving me fucking insane in this dress” his hands trail up your gown, his hot fingers clashing with your cool thighs and his mouth has found yours. “Drove me insane the moment I picked you up and you were wearing this.” His hands ghost over your center and you give a small yelp, as he pulls back to look you in the eye.

“You’re not wearing any underwear.” he bites his lips as he glides his fingers up your wet folds and you shiver as you stumble out,

“I always run out of clean underwear and you came so early to pick me up I couldn’t go and buy a pair.”

His hands slowly traces up and down your pussy and he watches your face twist in pleasure.

“How many times have you worked with me without any panties on?”

“Honestly?” you bite down on your lip as his thumb slowly starts to tease against your clit and your hips rock against his finger. “Like most of the time. You don’t give me enough time to do my laundry.”

Your words are soft, barely coming in a whisper and he growls, sticking a finger into you as he begins his slow assault into your tight walls.

“You are so fucking wet,” he whispers as he looks at you, a wicked grin on his face. “Are you always this wet for me princess?”

You give a weak nod as he inserts another finger and you buck against him, your hands digging into his shoulders.

“I thought I smelled you the other week when we were at dinner.” You knew what he was referencing. He had taken you out for dinner after a long day at the office at a trendy sushi spot. He had been talking to you as his nimble fingers gracefully picked up one sushi after the other, the raw fish placed carefully in his mouth. You don’t know why it turned you on but it did. You wanted to know what those fingers would feel like in you, his mouth over yours.

Now you knew.

“Did I smell you princess?” he whispers a grin gracing his face and you give another weak nod and he growls, inserting a third finger in you. You arch your back against him, hands stuck in his hair as his mouth attacks your neck again.

“Tell me what had you so turned on so much?”

You give a weak mewl in silence and he pulls his fingers out, causing you to whine. He looks up at you with hooded eyes shaking his head.

“You have to use your words princess.”

“I was thinking about you finger fucking me.” you manage out, biting your lip as your cheeks flush over. He smiles as he sticks his fingers back in you, watching your face contort in pleasure again. His fingers curls up and hits you in that sweet spot and you feel your body tensing, clawing for release.

“Were you?”

You give a quick nod and he chuckles, his mouth getting close to your ear. His fingers are merciless know, pumping into you faster as his thumb brushes against your clit and you can feel that tension in your stomach build up.

“Wanna hear a secret princess?” he whispers against the shell of your ear and you hum, your body starting to give in to the pleasure he was delighting you to. “I’ve jacked off to you every night since I’ve met you, cumming all over my body from the thought of my dick being filled to the rim in you.”

That was all you needed. Between his fingers and the image of him jacking off to you your screaming his name, your fingers tangled in his hair as your walls flutter around his fingers. He groans, coaxing you through your climax as he watches you before he pulls from you, inserting all three of his fingers in his mouth. He gives a low moan as he sucks your essence off and pulls his fingers out with a pop before your leaning into him for a kiss.

He shifts, carrying you to the bathroom counter and slamming placing you down. He yanks at his suit, pulling down his pants and boxers as his cock springs free.

“Tonight I’ll make love to you the way you deserve,” he promises as he lines himself up at your entrance. “I’ll have you begging my name by the time I’m done with you but right now I just need you.”

His cock is teasing your folds as you look up at him, your eyes darkening as you thrust your hips forward. He stops you, something dark flickering in his eyes.

“What do you want princess?” he whispers and you moan as your hands pull at his shoulders.

“I want you.”

“You want me to what?” a satisfied smirk sits on his face and you rub your folds against his twitching cock.

“Want you to fuck me with your big fucking cock.”

He groans as he slowly thrusts into you, grabbing your hands and intertwining them with yours as he raises them above your head. His head falls in the crook of your neck as he bottoms out in you, his hair tickling your shoulders and you both give a satisfied moan. You rock your hips against him, enjoying the way he fills you to the brim and he moans as he pulls from you, his hips rocking out of you before slamming back in.

“Goddamn you are tight..” he whispers as he lifts himself enough to look at you, then his mouth is hot on yours as his body claims you.

His hips snap into you, desperately chasing after your orgasm before he lifts your leg and you’re getting hit in that special spot that has you screaming out his name.

“That’s right princess. Want you to cum all over my big cock.” he whispers, his hips in a frenzy as he watches you unwind underneath him. His finger finds your clit and flicks the sensitive area and you’re screaming his name again, your body shaking as you find sweet release. His hips are sloppily slapping against your as your walls tighten around before there milking him  his body shaking uncontrollably as your arms find your way around his body.

You wait a beat before saying,

“Soooo…I’m guessing I have to quit. This is the highest level of conflicted interest if I’ve ever known one.”

He chuckles, his face tucked in your shoulder before pulling away and kissing you.

“I don’t want you to quit.”

“Wouldn’t that be -”

“Unless you want to. You’re free to work in any of our departments. You’re way too good to be an assistant.” he’s rambling, something he does when he’s nervous and you chuckle, leaning up and kissing him. He relaxes as you pull away, his lips tugged between your teeth before you whisper.

“Let’s worry about it tomorrow. I should at least get a year under your belt before we talk about commitment.”

He chuckles, wiggling against you and there’s a soft knock on the door and you both freeze before you hear Scott’s voice.

“…….so uhhh, I don’t mean to interrupt you two but ummmm,” he clears his throat though you can hear the humour in his voice. “Your dad is looking for you Mitch. For a photo.”

Mitch groans and you laugh, giving a lock of his hair a tug.

“Give us a minute Scott. We need to….make ourselves decent.”

“Uh huh.” You know he’s smiling as he walks away and Mitch’s eyes are glinting at you mischievously.

“How long do you think he’s been standing out there hearing you scream out my name?”

“Mitch! That’s your best friend!” you say in mock surprise and he laughs, shaking his head.

“Scott’s always had a thing for you.” he nuzzles his face in your neck before muttering. “Besides I have another round in me.”

His shimmies his hips against yours and you gasp at his dick hardening in you.

You both make it out of the bathroom thirty minutes later.

[onechicago-upsteadrhekker]

the trouble with wanting (is i want you) - part three

Friends! 

It’s here! Finally! The last part to my version of Hailey’s time in New York!

I know it took a while me to post everything, but better late than never I guess! I hope this lives up to your expectations and I can’t wait to see what you think of it!

Huge shoutout to @anniesardors and @imjustwritingg for hearing and reading all the things and just being the biggest hype girls of all time!

Please enjoy this fluffy chapter before we get served a whole host of angst in the season finale tomorrow lol. Also, just a forewarning, it’s a long one... Like over 10,000 words so you’re welcome haha.

Tagging: @imjustwritingg, @anniesardors, @thetwit, @angelsjedi, @chichichicken, @carissalizz, @maya-asturias, @stephanie708, @cpd5777 

Read on AO3

It was nearing eleven in the evening and Hailey didn’t think she’d ever been so exhausted from the events of the day. Being released from the hospital and Jay’s mandatory five laps around the floor of the hotel had taken its toll on her.

It was a good kind of exhausted though because today, she had fallen in love with Jay Halstead all over again.

With every gesture and smile and look he gave her she fell in love with him again and again. His strong, but gentle hands, his heart always so kind and his eyes filled with an affection that made her heart ache in the best way. 

Even though her side was killing her, she felt so incredibly grateful to have him with her because the devotion he’s shown to her over the past few days, and especially today, made her once again realize that he truly was one of a kind.

And spending the day with just him, laughing and joking and asking each other silly questions almost made getting injured worth it.

She yawns through a giggle, her eyes shining bright as she listens to him wrap up a hilarious retelling of a time when he was on patrol. For one of her questions, she’d asked him for his craziest experience on the beat and he’d launched into a story about him and his old partner responding to a burglary call at two in the morning.

A man had claimed that he had been robbed and was missing five pounds of bacon but upon further investigation, it turned out the wife had been sneaking into the kitchen for a late-night snack.

“We did get some bacon out of it,” he laughs, looking up at her from where he was laid out at the end of the bed. “So, it wasn’t all bad.”

Shaking her head in amusement, she stifles another yawn with her hand and Jay gives her an affectionate smile and a pointed look, both of which she’s become quite familiar with by now.

“As much as I love this, I think it’s time for someone to go to bed.”

She arches an eyebrow, trying not to look as tired as she really felt. “So, I have a bedtime now?”

“When you’ve been shot and are taking some pretty heavy pain killers you do,” Jay smirks and she knows that not only is he right about her needing rest, but he is also getting payback for all of the times she had forced him to bed using the same argument.

He glances at his watch, the smirk growing, “Oh, and look at that. It’s time for another round of meds.”

Hailey gives him a look and scrunches up her nose, still not thrilled with the idea of taking them, but silently thankful that they should knock her out for a few hours. Shaking out a few pills into an open palm, Jay grabs a fresh bottle of water from the mini fridge and gives the items to her. 

“Do you want a shower tonight?” He asks as she throws the pills back in one go and takes a gulp of water to swallow them down with.

Wiping at her lips with her shirt, she shakes her head. “I took one this morning before you got to the hospital, so I’m good.”

“Alright,” he nods, leaning down to pick an empty plastic bag that had floated to the floor. “Why don’t you get ready for bed then? I’ll clean up out here and then help you change your bandages.”

Hailey carefully climbs out of the spot she’s been sitting in for most of the day and pads over to the chest of drawers she had finally unpacked in when it was clear she would be staying in New York for more than two weeks. She pulls out an oversized police academy shirt and a pair of running shorts before turning to rifle through the small duffle that Jay had packed for her hospital stay for her toothbrush.

She makes her way into the bathroom and even though her back is to him, Hailey is still very much aware of every move Jay makes as he busies himself with tidying the room and washing their dishes.

It all seems so domesticated and easy, like something they’ve done a thousand times before, and yet it feels different than if they were in one of their apartments doing the same sort of thing after pizza and beers.

There was something about knowing Jay couldn’t just hop in his truck to go home if he felt like it or that she couldn’t hide away in her own bedroom for a few minutes when the overwhelming urge to kiss him comes over her and it makes her heart beat erratically inside her chest.

She rinses her mouth out and takes a deep breath to steady herself before leaving the bathroom now dressed in her pajamas.

Jay places the last dish away as she comes out, turning to look at her with another easy smile that makes her knees week. She thinks it should be illegal for someone to look that handsome doing such a mundane task, but then again, it’s Jay and she knows he looks good in anything and everything he does. She doesn’t even have to work with him every day to know that.

She sits on the edge of the bed and Jay makes his way over to her silently, gauze and medical tape in his hands. Lifting her oversized shirt, she keeps it from falling down with an arm crossed just below her breasts and she thinks for a moment that there should be some sort of initial awkwardness at being this close, that she should feel uncomfortable, but there isn’t, and she doesn’t. 

Jay had been there when the nurses had first changed her bandages, had carefully studied their movements as they showed him what to do when she got home, but now that they were here, his hands touching her and just the two of them in a hotel room it was almost too much.

His fingers were gentle, but nimble as he carefully undid the bandages taped to her stitched side and Hailey couldn’t help thinking how his hands were more reassuring and comforting than even the nurses with all their experience and technique.

“Cop who scares you the most?” The sudden question almost makes Hailey jump, not expecting him to speak and she wonders if maybe the silence was getting to him too.

She blinks but doesn’t have to think too hard on this one. “Platt, for sure.”

“You?” She questions and she can hear the smile in his voice when he gives the same answer she had a second ago. 

As his fingers continue working over her injury, she can’t help the way her heart rate quickens. Can’t stop the goosebumps from popping up all over her skin. If he notices the way she shivers just slightly, he doesn’t show it as he begins to apply the fresh gauze over her side. 

“Did you always wanna be a cop? Before you met Platt, I mean,” he asks then. She hates the way it catches her off guard again, but also feels grateful for the distraction instead of thinking about his hands moving over her body. 

“Um, no, actually. I was really into gymnastics when I was younger. I remember watching the Olympics with my brothers and just loving the way they all moved through the air. Did it for a couple years but didn’t stick with it. Obviously,” she says as he puts some slight pressure on her side to apply some medical tape over the gauze.

“I’m sorry. I know this part hurts,” he says immediately, his fingers stilling, and she shakes her head.

“It’s okay,” she breathes out through gritted teeth. 

She takes another deep breath and feels him begin to move his hands over her side again a moment later. Instead of thinking about the discomfort and pain, she puts her focus back on the way his fingers feel on her skin. The way his hands have taken down some of the most hardened criminals of Chicago, but here he is, as gentle and as soft as can be with her. Like he always is. 

His hands leave her side a moment later and then she hears him whisper from beside her. “All done.”

She nods and pulls down her shirt before slinking further into the bed and carefully lying on her uninjured side as comfortably as she could. She watches him as he cleans up the medical supplies and disposes of her dirty bandages before turning off the main light of the room.

There’s just the nightstand lamp on, now casting a softer glow throughout the room. 

Hailey took another deep breath, trying to breathe as quietly as she could as she listened to Jay moving around the room on the other side of the bed. Her heart was starting to beat wildly again with anticipation as she waited for the inevitable dip of the bed when he was ready to turn in for the night.

She could hear his footsteps fall softly, the door to the bathroom closing shut as quietly as possible and she knows he’s trying hard not to disturb her. It didn’t matter though; she’s so hyper-aware of him, every noise he made echoed loudly in her ears.

If she were being honest, the thought of them sharing a bed had plagued her mind well before she’d been sent to New York and he’d hopped on a plane when she’d gotten hurt five weeks later. When it dawned on her that this meant that her bed-sharing fantasies had a high probability of coming true, her nights had been filled thinking about this moment more than she would ever admit.

Generally, she wasn’t an over thinker, but when it came to this, her mind had raced with the possibilities and each scenario had played out in her mind like a scene from a cringy rom-com.

The bathroom door opened, and her eyes flew shut. He moved silently over to the empty side of the bed and there was some rattling on the nightstand as he plugged his phone in and took his watch off. When it was quiet again, she waited for him to climb in beside her, but she could almost feel his hesitation.

She was about to tell him it was okay, and she didn’t mind sharing; that the bed was big enough for both of them, but then he climbed in next to her like it was just any other night. Like it was completely normal, and he’d been sleeping beside her for years.

It wasn’t a night of passionate frenzy and tangled limbs or awkward small talk over them sharing a bed.

It just was.

*

“Jay?”

He barely heard it, but it was enough for him to wake up.

Turning over quickly, he squinted, trying to see Hailey through the darkness, “Hailey?” He rasped groggily, “You okay?”

She sighed. Or tried to. He heard it catch in her throat before she drew in a quick little breath of pain and he knows that her insomnia is probably what woke her up, but it’s her ribs and side that’s keeping her from falling back asleep.

He tried to shuffle closer to her without jostling her too much, “You in pain?”

He was close enough now to see her facial expression. Her brows were furrowed like she was upset with herself as she muttered a ‘crap’, “I’m sorry, Jay. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Blinking, he shakes his head, becoming more alert as he props himself up on an elbow, “Hey, no, you didn’t wake me up.”

It’s a lie and they both know it, but he’ll say anything to make sure she knows that he really doesn’t care about the interruption.

“How long have you been awake?” He asked, glancing at the clock on the nightstand. It was three in the morning.

Hailey does some sort of half-shrug, still laying towards him on her uninjured side, “A few hours I guess.”

Jay frowns, “You could have woken me up a long time ago.”

She still looks a little frustrated at herself, her forehead creased in pain and he knows all too well how brutal the first night out of the hospital can be.

It’s painful, coming off hospital grade pain medication administered through an IV whenever it was needed, having to now rely on low-dosage pills to get through the night.

It’s certainly not a comfortable night, not by a long shot.

And when there aren’t any nurses to answer your every beck and call, you realize just how hard everything is to do by yourself when recovering from an injury.

But she’s not by herself and he’s ready to do anything he can to help her tonight even if it is three am because she was there for him his first night home after getting shot in the shoulder and every other night when an injury was serious enough to warrant a hospital visit since she’d become his partner.

She would sleep on his couch, waking him up in the night to give him another dose of medication even if he didn’t think he needed it and she was there to gently change his bandages with comforting hands and this last time, he could have sworn he’d felt her warm lips touch his forehead as he drifted off to sleep after she’d made him his mom’s soup recipe; it was his favorite and Hailey always made it for him when he got hurt or sick after she’d found out what the recipe meant to him.

But more than that, he cares about her and this is what partners do. They look out for one another.

He’s also quickly realizing how much it hurts to see the girl you’re in love with in pain.

He’s pushing the sheets off of him, already reaching for the bottle of pills sitting on his nightstand, “I should have been more diligent about you taking these pills every four hours.”

He’s a little frustrated with himself for not setting an alarm to give her a dose during the night because now her pain is so bad she can’t sleep. Something he knows she needs to heal quickly.

Hailey carefully rolls on her back, gently holding a hand to her incision and the bruises surrounding it, “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Jay. It’s not your responsibility and I shouldn’t have been so stubborn yesterday.”

“Hey,” He sets the fresh water bottle he’d just grabbed from the fridge on the table next to the pills he’s shaken out before quickly climbing up on the bed to look at her closely.

He wants her to see how serious he is when he says this, “I will take care of you. Every time, any time, anywhere you need me. Even if you don’t think you need me, I will be there. Always, Hailey,” His eyes search hers, “You got me?”

She doesn’t say anything then or protest anymore, just nodding her head and accepting the out-stretched water and pills, quickly throwing them back before handing the bottle back to him.

They stare at each other for a few seconds too long before she blinks and he’s moving to put the half-empty water bottle back on the nightstand. He gets in the bed and waits till Hailey gingerly lowers herself back into the comfort of the mattress before he reaches out and flings the fallen covers over both of them.

He turns out the light he’d flipped on before rolling over to face her. There was a good foot between them, but he never wanted to gather her up in his arms more than he did in this moment, just quietly staring at her in the sliver of moonlight that was cast about the room.

She was breathing shallowly, her arms carefully folded in a comfortable position and her head resting peacefully on her pillow. Her blonde hair was spread out behind her and even though it was messy from sleeping, Jay didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so perfect.

He was staring at her and she was staring at him and even though neither of them had found the courage yet to admit that they fall asleep thinking about each other even when they aren’t together, they both silently knew.

They knew in the way they laughed together and in the way they sit quietly in the truck doing their job and in the way it felt right in this moment.

The world had never felt so right than in this moment, next to each other.

“Favorite memory?” It is whispered into the dark much like she’d said his name not even five minutes ago and if he hadn’t been listening to her quiet breaths, he probably wouldn’t have heard it.

A smile instantly creeps across his face at the question, and he knows he should take a minute to think about the answer to such a difficult question because how can one pick out a single favorite memory among a lifetime of them in such a short amount of time?

But he doesn’t even need a second because the answer is right in front of him.

“This. Now. Anytime I’m with you,” He answers honestly, and it feels like the most direct thing that’s been said between them regarding the feelings they both so clearly have.

He can hear her breath hitch just slightly before she breaths out a chuckle, “That’s not an answer. You gotta pick a moment.”

“Says who?” He challenges with a raised eyebrow she can barely see through the dark.

Hailey gives him a cocky little smirk, “Says me. I’m the one playing your dumb game and I’m the one asking the question, so I should be allowed to make my own rules.”

“I’m sorry. What do you mean by ‘dumb game’? This is one of greatest games of all time,” He mused airily with a hint of fake indignation, “I mean just think of all the great stuff we’ve learned about each other. It’s truly an unmatched bonding experience.”

“Uh-huh,” She couldn’t help but laugh at his overrated words of praise watching as a grin takes over his face.

“Because learning that you used to steal from Will’s hidden candy stash when you were a kid really strengthened our relationship in a special way,” She rolled her eyes.

“Well, it’s not like there’s a lot of stuff you don’t know,” He defended with a pointed look at her.

She’s still grinning that wide smile that says she thinks he’s something else, but she’s so carefree with her sparkling eyes and cheeky dimples, his heart feels like it might burst from his chest at the sight.

He’s leaning on a bent elbow, propping his head up as he gets lost in her and his expression morphs into a soft smile as he thinks about what he just said.

“We’ve spent a lot of hours together, Upton,” His eyes crinkle with fondness and Hailey feels a happy warmth settle over her as she hums in agreement, thinking of all the time they’ve spent telling story after story or just sitting in absolute silence waiting for something to happen.

It’s easy being with him. Has been since the very beginning. Even when they were figuring each other out and dealing with a lot of emotional trauma, there was never any real awkwardness.

He’s comfortable and natural and she’s never had that with anyone. That’s how she knows they are good together and that’s what lets her know that they have the potential to make this last forever.

She almost gives voice to her thoughts. Here, in the dark of a hotel room as they lay in a bed together for the first time, only a few inches separating them, but then Jay slowly starts breathing out the answer to her question and she knows it’s not their time yet even though she desperately wants it to be.

“Remember a few months ago when we all went out to Molly’s after that flesh-eating bacteria debacle?”

Hailey nods. She remembers being overwhelmed at the feeling of being carefree after the stress and terror they had all been put through in the last seventy-two hours. She remembers being thankful that she was alive, but more than that, she remembers being so very relieved that Jay was okay.

She’d had nightmares for months after that where she didn’t make the shot in time, that Jay had infected himself and lost limbs or died because of it.

“And afterwards you wanted ice cream, but everyone else wanted to go home so me and you went to get some?”

She remembers that too.

She doesn’t know why, but she’d had an intense craving for the frozen treat that night and she remembers mentioning it to the team in passing, figuring that she would just stop for a carton from the store on her way home, but then Jay said he would take her and the next thing she knew, they were down at Navy Pier getting ice cream.

She remembers thinking that it felt dangerously like a date and that they were going to get caught for being out past their curfew like a couple of teenagers.

Hailey notices his gentle smile as he gets lost in the memory and she thinks she can just barely see a blush coloring his cheeks. She wonders if he also thought the outing felt a little like they were reckless high schoolers out on a late-night date.

“That’s it. That’s my favorite memory.”

She knew that’s where he was going with this, but she still feels a little shocked hearing it, “That’s your favorite memory?”

If she sounds a little dumbfounded, it’s because she is. She was expecting him to say something about a favorite trip or something with his mom, not some random night where the two of them got ice cream.

“Out of all your memories, that’s the one you’re choosing? What about one of your birthdays or some other special occasion?” She questions again, thinking surely there is something better than a crowded night out in Chicago.

There’s a bashful look on his face, but it doesn’t diminish the contented glimmer in his eyes as he simply nods, “You asked and that’s my answer. Or do you have rules for that too?”

Hailey rolls her eyes, adjusting her head on her pillow, “No. I was just wondering why out of all the nights, that’s the one you picked.”

She doesn’t really expect him to answer, but once again he shocks her when he moves his head just slightly closer to hers and he looks at her like she’s everything he’s ever needed.

“That whole night I remember watching you laugh. Really laugh for the first time in months,” He smiles to himself as he recalls the memory, staring off into the distance, “After everything that happened with Adam and Kelton and then the outbreak, things were finally starting to look up and we were all just so thankful to be out without any stress of a case hanging over our heads.”

Jay shifts his gaze back to hers, “And then we went to get ice cream and we just talked without worrying about our team or being split up or potentially dying from a deadly bacterial infection.”

He takes a breath, “I remember being so grateful and relieved that you were okay after being in isolation, that being with you outside of work, seeing you so happy made me realize how damn lucky I am to have you as not just my partner but as my best friend too.”

Hailey has to blink back tears, not expecting the sentimental response or that it would affect her this much. She reaches out and takes the hand he has laying on the mattress, “You’re my best friend too, Jay. I hope you know that.”

She thinks she sees his eyes flit down to her lips and she thinks that this might be it, that he was getting ready to kiss her, but then he doesn’t, and she tries not to be frustrated at being constantly on edge thinking that each moment is the one that would change her life.

“What about you?” He asks, still holding the hand she placed in his.

“My favorite memory?” She arches eyebrow and he nods as she rolls slightly onto her back, staring up at the ceiling to think before answering.

Like Jay, she doesn’t have to think long, “That time I got really sick with the flu and you came over to fix me your mom’s soup recipe.”

It is his turn to look skeptical of her response, echoing the words she’d said to him, “That’s your favorite memory?”

“Yeah,” She nods before turning her head to look at him, “Even though I felt so crappy, I remember thinking that that was the first time that anyone had taken time out of their day to take care of me like that.”

“Hailey….” Jay breathed out, squeezing her hand as a feeling of protectiveness swept over him, his heart aching to hear that that was the first time she’d ever felt cared for while being sick.

“You made me feel safe when I wasn’t feeling good and in a vulnerable position,” She looks at him fervently, “You make me feel safe, Jay. On the job, when I’m not feeling well, and I’ve never had that before.”

He has that same look from the bar when she’d told him about how her dad would hit her mom and how she’d wished someone would come put her father in his place like Jay did with Shane.

What she didn’t tell him then was that even though Jay wasn’t around when she was a little girl to save her, he had already saved her by just being the kind of man he was.

The man who was selfless in his actions and who was brave without need of recognition, who was patient with his words and slow to anger.

So different from her dad.

From any man she’d met really, especially being in a highly competitive male-dominated career.

Jay’s forehead is creased like it does when he is distressed, so Hailey smiles at him and tries to lighten the mood, “I know what you’re thinking, and it wasn’t all bad. My brothers tried to be there for me, and we had fun when we could.”

She smiles, a little melancholy thinking of the brothers that she’d roughhoused with when she was younger and feels that little pang of sadness when she remembers they are not nearly as close as they were when they were kids, but regardless she knows she wants to let Jay in, so she chuckles to herself and starts to offer some insight to the good parts of her childhood.

“We used to build pillow forts all the time,” Hailey snuggles down into the bed, grinning as she recalls the all the messes they made in their hidden sanctuary that was the attic.

That’s where they would go when they wanted to pretend that they had a normal childhood. No one ever went up there except for them and it was fairly soundproof, so they felt safe to have a little fun without their father hearing.

“We would take all of the pillows and sheets and blankets off of our beds and haul them up the ladder leading to our attic and then my brothers would hang the sheets from the rafters, and we would pile the pillows underneath so we had a soft place to lay.”

There is a soft smile playing at Jay’s lips now and she’s glad she is sharing this rare piece of childhood wonder with him.

She wonders if he is imagining a little girl with blonde pigtails and a wide smile and some part of her hopes that that little girl is not her, but another little girl that plays with her siblings and instead of blue eyes she has green with two parents who are laughing right alongside her.

“I would crawl under those blankets and pretend like it was my mansion and that my brothers were my servants,” Jay laughs at this and Hailey gives a rueful smile, “Most of the time they were happy to indulge and if my oldest brother was in a really good mood, he was usually persuaded into reading to us younger kids.”

Jay smirks, “Now why do I get the impression that you had all your brothers wrapped around your little finger?”

She smirks right back, “Well, it’s not my fault that I was just so dang cute.”

“No, no it’s not,” He says softly, his expression suddenly so open and vulnerable she can’t help but blush.

She yawns, a sudden wave of exhaustion washing over her, and it effectively breaks any moment they were about to have as a smirk reappears on Jay’s face, “Looks like the meds are starting to kick in.”

Hailey noticed that the sharp, throbbing pain she’d woken up with had lessened to a dull ache and that her head was starting to feel fuzzy, so she knew he was right.

Yawning again, she let her eyes close, humming, “Tell me another story about you and Will.”

She hears him shift, and she knows he is settling into the pillows before his gentle voice overtakes her senses and she’s carried off with dreams of little Halstead boys with green eyes and red hair.[EF1] 

*

She’s woken by a beam of sunlight shining straight into her eyes and the last thing she remembers is listening to Jay’s soothing voice as he told her about the time he fell out of his second-story bedroom window because Will had reversed all the locks in the house as a prank and he was trying to get out.

Apparently, the only thing that had saved him from breaking something was the shed that was under his window and Hailey remembered thinking as she drifted off to sleep that it truly was a wonder that Jay had lived this long between his childhood misadventures and his penchant for getting shot in adulthood.

Turning, she is half-expecting to find him asleep beside her, but he is not there, and the mattress is cold enough that she knows he’s been gone for a while. One look at the clock tells her he has because it’s ten AM and she’s never known the man to sleep past six.

True, she’s not well-acquainted with his sleeping schedule, but she knows enough about him to know that his time in the army instilled early morning habits. Even if he was injured and she was staying with him she would find him awake by at least seven.

Carefully stretching, Hailey is pleased to find herself in significantly less discomfort than she’s experienced over the past few days and she’s hopeful that she will be able to be more mobile than she was yesterday.

She slowly pushes herself upright and looks around for any sign of Jay. His wallet and watch are missing from the nightstand and the door to the bathroom is open, so she feels safe assuming that he has gone out somewhere.

Her stomach growls and she hopes he is getting them breakfast.

It is then that she notices all the chairs and tables have been pushed to the middle of room and there are sheets stretched out over them in a semblance of a fort. The pillows that they weren’t using were thrown underneath and she feels tears prick her eyes because of course, Jay would make her a pillow fort after learning what they meant to her.

Throwing back the covers, she gently swings her legs over the edge of the bed to stand up, rubbing her eyes as a grin makes its way onto her face. She wasn’t lying when she’d told him that pillow forts were something that brought back good memories of her brothers, but she has a feeling that they may be taking on a whole new meaning to her from now on.

Of Jay and hotel rooms and lazy mornings. And if things fall into place, sometime in the future they will mean living rooms and slow kisses and little feet.

Her gaze catches the book lying on her nightstand. Her eyes sparkle as she grabs it and makes her way over to the fort, carefully squatting down so she could crawl underneath the ‘roof’ made of white sheets held up by chairs and heavy objects.

Settling comfortably on her back in the midst of the pillows piled on the floor, Hailey opens her book to her last marked page and gets lost in the world of Farewell to Arms.

*

She doesn’t know how much time has passed before her ears prick up at the sound of the hotel door being opened. She listens as Jay swings it open, catching it before it slams back into the latch as he softly calls out her name.

Staying quiet, she hears the crinkle of bags being sat on the kitchen countertop, Jay calling out her name a second time before he’s silent again, his footfalls coming closer to her spot under his fort.

She watches as his legs appear in her line of vision, his head suddenly making an appearance a few seconds later when he swoops down.

Hailey grins, “Hi.”

Jay grins back in amusement, “Hi,” He squats down in front of her, still just outside the fort, “I take it you found my surprise?”

“Mmhm,” She hums, the sparkle in her eyes softening sincerely, “Thank you, Jay. And not just for this, but for everything you’ve done for me.”

He shakes his head, “Hailey,” He pauses and huffs out an incredulous chuckle, “you don’t ever have to thank me.”

Unexpected tears spring in her eyes as his words touch her in a way she can’t quite describe. She ducks her head and blinks rapidly, trying to dissipate them before clearing her throat and looking back at Jay.

She uses her head to gesture at the space beside her and arches an eyebrow, “You coming in or what?”

Jay laughs, rolling his eyes as he slips off his shoes and carefully maneuvers his tall frame under the sheet roof.

Laying down next to her, he notices the book laying loosely in Hailey’s hands. He nods to it, giving it a pointed glance before looking at her and smirking playfully, “You want me to read to you?”

This time, she rolls her eyes and lets her body sway to gently bump him, “You want to read Ernest Hemingway to me?”

Shrugging, he plucks the book out of her hands and flips through it, “You got anything else?”

“No,” She shakes her head, “It’s the only thing I brought.”

Jay sighs as he looks at the title ruefully, “A Farewell to Arms, Hailey. Really? This is like the most depressing book on the planet.”

Frowning, she gives him an affronted look, “This is one of my favorites!”

He raises his eyebrows, shaking his head in disbelief, “I will never understand it, but okay,” He opens the book again, thumbing through the pages trying to distinguish what part she’s at because almost all the pages are dog tagged from overuse, “Where are you at?”

She diverts her gaze quickly, scrunching up her nose sheepishly before giving him a wry look, “I just got to book five.”

Jay gives her a look that says ‘really’ and huffs out a sigh as he turns to the last section, “I mean the whole book is depressing, but this is arguably the worst part.”

“But it’s so good, Jay,” She insisted, settling her head down into the pillows waiting for him to start reading.

He shakes his head again but turns his gaze to the page and starts to read, his voice gentle and lilting. Hailey thinks she could listen to him read to her for a lifetime and never get tired of hearing him.

He reads about the Henrys living in their cabin and then about Catherine preparing for the baby. When he gets to the part where she goes into labor, Jay notices a melancholy look in Hailey’s eyes as she lays quietly listening next to him, playing with her loose hair as she looks up at the billowing, white sheet.

Then he gets to the part where the doctor wants to do a C-Section and Jay swears he hears Hailey sniffling when he gets to the part where the nurse tells Frederic that the baby was dead.

He is almost to the end now, and he is surprised to find himself choking up just slightly as he reads line after line of Frederic pleading with God to save his wife. Hailey is definitely tearing up at this point and when he reads the last couple of lines, she wipes away the tears and sighs as he closes the book, clearing his own throat.

They lay there in silence for a few minutes before Jay feels like he can speak after going through that emotional rollercoaster of an ending, “God, Hailey, how do you like this?”

She shrugs, turning her head towards him and he’s slightly surprised at how close they were. If he wanted, he could barely dip his head and be kissing her.

“It’s beautiful in a gut-wrenching kind of way,” Her eyes have this inquisitive look in them, and it reminds him of how she looks when she’s going over files, trying to piece together backgrounds for motives.

He can’t help but scoff at her response, “It’s devastating is what it is. I mean the poor guy survived the war just to have his wife and child die all in one day.”

He shudders, rapidly pushing the unbidden, very unwanted image of Hailey in the same situation. God, he couldn’t even imagine, and he and Hailey were just barely on the cusp of being together.

“But it’s life,” She offers softly, a knowing look on her face and this time the look in her eyes is of someone who has seen a lot of death and unfair endings, “We know all too well how cruel this world can be.”

Jay sighs in acknowledgement, letting his head drop as they both quietly think about Hailey’s loaded statement.

He puts the book out of the way and rolls onto his side so he’s fully facing her, “Life is cruel, but it can be really beautiful too. Even in the pain.”

Hailey is quiet for a moment as she watches him, contemplating his words before she cocks her head, a strange little smile on her face, “Who knew Jay Halstead could be such a philosopher.”

Jay can’t help chuckle, his eyes crinkling merrily as he teases, “Who knew Hailey Upton could be such a sentimentalist.”

She rolls her eyes playfully, “I guess your game was good for something then. We are just partners; I guess we don’t know everything.”

She said it teasingly because they both know that they knew the things that mattered, but then Jay looks at her and she can’t quite make out the expression on his face.

“I guess so,” He murmurs back, their eyes locking, and Hailey can feel her smile fading from her face as Jay’s gaze darts to her lips.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe.

The air had shifted from light and playful into something of hopeful anticipation as they both held their breath because this was it. Somehow, she knew that this was the moment they both have been waiting for.

“Hailey,” The way he says it brings her back to flying bullets and quiet break rooms; to teary eyes and soft whispers when the threat of being spilt up was very real and too overwhelming to think about.

He’d said her name then just like he was saying it now, breathy and gentle and maybe even a little bit scared. And just maybe, Hailey thought, they had been on the edge of this for far longer than she’d even realized.

“You know, I think I have just one more question for you,” It was barely a whisper, his minty breath ghosting over her face.

Her own shallow breathing had nothing to do with her bruised ribs and stitched side but everything to do with the way his forehead was almost touching hers as they lay on their sides underneath the fort made from sheets and pillows.

The joking and the laughter and the bright sunlight of a hopeful day shining through the white sheets, surrounding her and she feels it in her bones that this is the monumental moment of their great love story—the start of a beautiful life bursting with love and tears and pain and joy and pillow forts and all the things that come with loving each other; of building a family together.

Her eyes were lidded as she looked into those brilliant green irises that she loved so much, and the feeling of warmth and affection and pure adoration washed over her as Jay’s gaze dropped to her lips before his eyes closed completely, slowly breathing her in.

Their lips were almost touching now as they lay in the quiet of a lazy afternoon of an ordinary Sunday afternoon and it was in the way it was just so natural, so comforting that made her feel like she’d just had a glass of warm milk and was now tucked up in bed.

But that tingling feeling she had low in her belly and rushing through her bones was so much better than she’d ever felt before and she knew it was much more than just an ordinary Sunday—it was an extraordinary Sunday.

“And what question would that be?” She was almost afraid to talk even at a whisper for fear of breaking the spell they were under, but the barely murmured question was filled with hope and love and affection, adding a deeper layer of warmth to the bubble they had created.

“Are we only just partners?” His nose skimmed hers as he moved his head slightly, his slightly open lips almost touching her cheek in the barest hints of a kiss.

Hailey hummed, letting out a soft little sigh as she gently ran her hands up Jay’s torso, stopping at his chest, her touch light and soft.

“Do only just partners fly all the way to New York?” It was a rhetorical question spoken in hushed tones as Jay gently nuzzled her neck before bringing his head back up to gaze at her, their lips once again mere millimeters apart. She swallowed faintly, “Because I think we both know that we aren’t just partners.”

His eyes held soft tenderness and fierce devotion, the quiet future she’d dreamed for them reflecting so clearly back at her. The pads of his fingertips touched her cheek so scarcely it almost tickled, “I’d follow you anywhere, Hailey. To New York, back to Chicago,” His gaze burned into hers and she knew he was getting ready to say the words she’d been hoping to hear for so long.

She felt the fingers of his other hand tangle with hers by their sides, “To the edge of the universe and everywhere in between. Wherever you are, I am, because you are the person I always want to come home to.”

She felt the promises land on her lips more than she heard them, his voice was so soft and quiet. And Hailey thought it was perhaps the most intimate she’d ever been with a person.

It was vulnerable and gentle and warm and just pure, unadulterated love, and she knew she would never be able to put this feeling or this moment into words, but she knows that this is where she belongs; next to him, in his arms, his heart beating under her palm.

She barely had time to whisper, “Oh Jay” before his lips were softly pressing against hers in an intentional kiss instead of fleeting brushes. It was unhurried and really quite innocent as far as kisses go, but she’d never felt more cherished than she did in that moment.

His lips just barely moved against hers, languidly filling her up as he kissed her in the way one would savor the taste of something new yet familiar.

A last first kiss.

Jay pulled back slightly, their lips still touching as he looked at her, his strong but gentle hand cupping one of her cheeks, “Because you are my home. The person I want to share it all with—the joy and the pain. The person I want to tell my secrets to. To whisper all the hopes and dreams and promises. And that’s why I love you.”

Maybe he’s crazy for telling her what he so deeply feels in his heart right away, but then he looks at her and he knows it isn’t. They were already closer than most couples ever are, and he thinks that’s what makes them so special—so different from any other relationship he’s ever had.

It isn’t crazy because it’s true and they are them.

He knows she’s already seen the truth in his eyes anyway.

*

When Jay walks into the hotel room later that day, arms laden with Greek takeout, he does he wanted to do last night and calls out a ‘honey, I’m home’ in a teasing manner.

Hailey smiles at him brightly, her eyes shining with the laughter that’s so clearly on her face, and he can’t help but drop a kiss on her dimpled cheek, marveling at the way tonight was so vastly different from the night before.

It was so easy now, to just drop a kiss to her cheek or her lips whenever he wanted, like he’d been doing it for years and yet, he still had that buzzy feeling of anticipation that he’d had this morning when he kissed her for the first time.

Something tells him that it’s going to always feel like that when kissing her no matter how many times he does it over the course of their lifetimes and that thought alone sends his heart racing and makes him think dangerous things like rings and vows and forevers.

He knows, he knows, it’s definitely way too early for those types of thoughts, but then again, that has never stopped him from imagining a future with her before. Before they were even together. But now they are, and it’s proving difficult to not think about the thing that he’s wanted for so long is realistically and finally within his grasp.

“What?” She’s cocking her head, her lips quirking up in a question and he realizes he’s been staring at her for the past couple of minutes.

Jay shakes his head, lips quirking up in a smile of his own, “Nothing.”

Hailey gives him an inquisitive look like she’s not entirely sure she believes him, but the grin on her face tells him she’s too happy to care. She turns back to where she is gingerly picking up the room, gathering their collective dirty laundry to throw in the washing machines downstairs and he is suddenly, once again struck with the thought of this is what he wants his future to look like.

“What are we gonna do for the next couple of days? I’m probably not up for traipsing all over New York, but we should do something other than stay in this hotel room.”

Her back is to him as she talks and continues to tidy the messy room, leaving the fort for now, but gathering up a few pillows that are laying on the floor to throw back on the bed.

“We’d both go crazy, especially considering I’m not allowed to do anything ‘physically active’ which is, not going to lie, kind of a bummer seeing as how I’ve waited for ages for you to make a move and we’re here totally alone with nothing to potentially interrupt us,” She rattles on casually like she’s talking about the weather and while he is also bummed at not being able to take that final step of being together totally and completely for another couple of weeks, he is thrilled that they have this time together to get to know each other as a couple.

There are more intimate things than just sex and those are the moments he is looking forward to. He wants to know what she finds romantic and how much she likes to cuddle and if she hogs the blankets at night or if her feet get cold.

Things that only a boyfriend would know.

He realizes she’s stopped talking and is looking at him again, this time with an eyebrow raised in exasperation, “Jay! Have you been listening to me at all?”

He blinks and shakes his head sheepishly, knowing she must have been waiting on an answer to a question he hadn’t heard.

Her eyes furrow inquisitively as she shakes her own head in slight amusement before turning back to her task, muttering something about how he was an idiot, but she loves him anyway.

“Hailey,” He blurts it out, like he’s desperate, like if he doesn’t say what he wants now then he’s afraid it’ll never happen. She looks back at him again, this time with a hint of concern on her face, but he’s just looking at her like a man in love and she’s his whole world.

“Let’s get married.”

*

“Well, look who it is! The elusive damsel and her brooding knight in shining armor,” Adam exclaimed, his arms flung out wide as Jay and Hailey made their way up the steps and into the bullpen.

Hailey glared at him, but the smile threatening to take over her face ruined the effect, “Ha ha, very funny. A girl goes away for a while and she’s suddenly elusive, she gets hurt and now she’s a damsel.”

She accepts the gentle hug that Adam was offering as Kevin and Kim crowded in behind them at the top of the steps, waiting for their turn to welcome her home.

“Hailey, you can’t ever leave again. Or if you do, you gotta take me with you because one more day alone with these children and I would’ve lost my mind,” Kim insists as she moves in for a hug of her own.

There was a chorus of affronted heys’ from Adam, Kevin and Jay as Hailey chuckled at the desperation in Kim’s voice.

“Also, clearly you need us watching your back because the second you go off without us, you get hurt,” The statement is meant to be funny and it gets the eye-roll it deserves, but Hailey knows this is Kim’s way of saying she’s glad she’s okay.

Hailey is sure had they been alone, Kim would have been more direct with her feelings of relief, but as women in the force, they had to be careful not to exude to much sentimentality even if they know their unit would never use it against them.

“We sure did miss you, girl,” Kevin tells her as he steps up for a hug of his own and she grins into the man’s broad chest when she hears Jay mutter a, “And what am I? Chopped liver?”

Adam starts to tease him, but whatever he was about to say is cut off by Kim’s loud gasp as she all but yanks Hailey’s hand which was still resting on Kevin’s back to her face.

“Oh my God,” The squeal that comes out of her mouth is one none of them had ever heard before as she pulls on Hailey’s arm, bringing her fingers to eyelevel as she narrowed in on something that hadn’t been there before.

“Did you get married?!”

That definitely got the other’s attention, Kevin and Adam’s heads’ immediately snapping over to look at Hailey’s left hand that Kim still had a hold of, “Holy crap, Hailey. You go away for like five weeks and you come back freaking married?”

Hailey tries retracting her hand, but Kim still has a tight hold on it, staring at the engagement and wedding band on her ring finger of her left hand. She opens her mouth to say something, but she doesn’t get very far before Kim’s talking again, “I’m sorry, but who the hell did you marry?”

There is a beat of silence before Adam curses under his breath, muttering a ‘no way’ as he practically leaps across desks to grab Jay’s left hand which was rifling through his duffel bag. Much like Kim did with Hailey, Adam brings Jay’s hand to his face, pulling him half-way across his desk and ignoring his protests.

“Holy no way,” Kim’s eyes were about as wide as saucers as they all glanced back and forth between the two partners.

“You two got freaking married?” Kim says again, her voice at an unnaturally high pitch.

Hailey can’t help but smirk at Kim’s expression as she sits down with her mouth slightly agape and has to suppress a laugh at Kevin and Adam’s matching dumbfounded expressions. She shares a secret look with Jay, the sparkle of laughter evident in his eyes.

She glances over their friends before shrugging and offering a simple, “Surprise!”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Adam states as he slowly sinks into his desk chair, his face whiter than Hailey had ever seen it.

She knew their news would be a shock, but she didn’t think it warranted this strong of a reaction. Jay sends her another look that says the same thing and she knows he’s about to ask Adam if everything was okay when Kevin starts laughing.

“Oh man. Dude, what did we tell you?” He snorts, holding out an opened palm as Adam looks up at him in disbelief.

“I didn’t think it would actually happen and you told me nothing of the sort,” He defends, looking very uncertain, his eyebrows furrowed in distress.

Swallowing, Adam finally looks at them, flicking his eyes between her and Jay, “You told Trudy, didn’t you? Why would you do that?”

Jay shoots Hailey a look before slowly shaking his head, “No, Adam, we didn’t tell anyone.”

His face goes even whiter than it was before, and he sinks out of his chair to sit on the floor, burying his head in his hands.

Kim’s eyes widened and she looked at Adam warily, “Adam, what did you do?” Her eyes narrowed in alarmed suspension, “Don’t tell me you actually made that bet with Trudy.”

Adam was now lying flat on his back in the floor, his head moving back and forth in misery as he groaned, “I thought I had it in the bag. I mean, if Jay and Hailey didn’t tell her then how the hell did she come up with exactly what happened? That’s one hell of a coincidence.”

Kevin shook his head in slightly terrified admiration, “I don’t know, man. Trudy Platt is as mysterious as they come, and she has mad skills.”

Hailey’s eyebrows furrow as she watches Adam’s dramatics play out in front of her, “What bet? What are you guys talking about?”

Kim and Kevin share a look, ignoring Adam who was still moaning in disbelief on the floor behind his desk and at Kevin’s shrug, Kim looks back at Hailey and Jay.

“Well,” She draws it out like one who is coming clean about something they don’t particularly want to divulge, “We’ve had bets going for a while on when you two were going to get together because we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later and we decided the other day that it was going to be sooner rather than later because of the whole New York thing.”

“And somehow Trudy ended up pitching the idea of you guys eloping and I guess Adam was stupid enough to take the bet,” She purses her lips, “Not that any of us actually thought you were going to get married. Together, yes, but married?”

Kim trails off and Hailey’s eyebrows arch warily, “Wait a second. What do you mean ‘we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later’? Because to be completely honest, I didn’t even know if it was going to happen till a few days ago.”

“Girl,” Kevin shakes his head and uncrosses his arms to put his hands in his pockets, “You have no idea the amount of gossip you guys generate down in patrol. You two are like a freaking slow-burn romance novel,” At Kim’s odd look he hurries to add, “Not that I know anything about those. That’s just what Vanessa says and honestly, this whole thing was started by her so you can just go find her in whatever undercover operation Narcotics has her in and bring it up with her.”

There is a slightly uncomfortable pause as Hailey and Jay take in the information that they are already a source of gossip in the district, but it’s broken by another one of Adam’s distressed groans.

“Man,” Jay looks over at him, his eyebrows arching like he was finally fed up with his friends’ bemoaning, “What the hell kind of deal did you make with Trudy.”

Kim crosses her arms, also clearly unimpressed, “You know, I’d also like to know what has you rolling around like you’re in state mourning.”

“I didn’t think they were actually going to get married, or I would have never made the bet,” Adam insists again, running his hands over his face, “I owe her a months’ worth of drinks at Molly’s, and I have to do school crossings for the rest of the school year.”

Jay laughs, “Oh man,” He shakes his head in amusement, “You do realize it’s only February, right?”

Adam glared at him, “Oh shut up.”

Clambering to his feet in a huff of despair, he heads dejectedly towards the stairs, “I guess I’d better go settle up before Platt comes up here to rub it in my face.”

They watch him go, each trying to hold in snorts of laughter before he disappeared around the corner and Kevin turns back to where Hailey and Jay have taken up residence at Hailey’s desk.

“I still can’t believe you two are actually married,” He rubs his face briefly with an astonished huff of laughter, “Together, I could believe. In fact, I have money on it, but married? Like, what inspired you to skip the dating phase?”

Hailey and Jay share an amused look, her expression changing imperceptibly before Jay turns back to Kim and Kevin, “I guess we should probably come clean.”

They look a little confused for a moment before Kim creases her forehead skeptically, “Wait a second,” Her eyes widen in realization before she slowly starts to speak, “Are you telling us that was all a joke?”

“Well,” Hailey smirks, starting to remove the wedding and engagement bands on her finger as Jay did the same with the wedding band he was wearing, “The married part was a joke but the together part,” She looks at Jay and he gives her a soft smile full of warmth and love, “That’s for real.”

“Wait, seriously?” Kevin gave an impressed grin, chuckling, “So, Adam didn’t really lose that bet?”

Jay shrugged, grinning, “No, not technically,” He winks, “but we don’t need to tell him that.”

“I honestly can’t believe that turned out as well as it did,” Hailey shakes her head in disbelief, “We had no idea Adam had made that bet with Trudy. We just thought it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t because that was entertaining as hell and I for one am going to enjoy watching Adam carry out a bet he actually didn’t lose,” Kim flops down in her desk chair, powering up her computer as she laughs.

Kevin follows suit, laughing as they all turn to their computers to start the workday. They have to smother snickers when half an hour later, Adam trudges up the steps with a smug looking Trudy Platt following him, rattling off his new school crossing schedule.

*

“I can’t tell you how good it feels to be back,” Hailey sighs, leaning into Jay as they walk out of the district and into the roll-up, Jay’s arm slung around her shoulders.

He kisses the side of her head, “It feels good to have you back. I know I’ve said this before, but nothing was the same while you were gone. I hope everything will start to go back to normal now that you’re here with me.”

Hailey suddenly extracts herself out from under his arm and puts a good couple of inches distance in between them. Jay frowns, confused at her sudden coldness, “Hailey?”

“What?” She gives him an innocent look, a smile starting to tug at her lips, “You said you hope things go back to normal. This is normal for us.”

Jay gives her an unimpressed look, “Ha ha. Very funny. You know what I meant.”

She chuckles and lets Jay sling his arm over her shoulders again as they continue to walk over to where he parked the truck earlier.

“A new normal then,” He amends, “One where I get to kiss you and touch you and tell you how much I love you.”

Nestling her head into his shoulder, she looks up at him with a heartfelt smile, “Sounds good to me.”

They are at the truck now and Jay walks with her to the passenger’s side before stopping to turn and face her, his hands coming to rest on her upper arms. He takes a breath and Hailey’s eyebrows furrow at the almost nervous expression he is wearing, “I know that whole marriage thing today was a joke, but I meant what I said while we were in New York.”

Hailey remembers the initial shock she felt when Jay had blurted out that they should get married as they stood in their hotel room mere hours after their first kiss. He hurried to add that he meant sometime in the future, but he wanted to let her know how serious he was about this relationship even if it was way to early by most standards to be talking about marriage.

She’d listened to him ramble on uncharacteristically about how he loved her, that she was it for him and he just wanted her to know that. That one day in probably the near future he wanted to ask her for real and he hoped beyond all belief that she would say yes because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her but even if she didn’t want to get married, he was okay with that. He just wanted to be with her on any terms.

After she got over the surprise of his statement, she found that she wasn’t frightened by how fast things seemed to be moving and if it had been anyone other than Jay, she knew deep in her bones that she would be running for the hills at even the hint of marriage.

But it was Jay and if she were being honest, she would’ve married him back in New York if he’d asked her to and she would marry him tomorrow if he dropped down on his knee right now to propose to her.

Jay swallowed and she could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, “You are it for me and someday, I’m going to ask you to marry me. I hope to God you say yes, but I want you to know that as long as I’m with you, my life is filled with purpose, so we don’t need to define anything with a piece of paper or anything. I just need you to know how serious I am about this.”

“Jay,” She interjects softly, placing a hand on his chest over his rapidly beating heart, “Today, tomorrow, ten years from now. If and whenever you ask me,” She smiles gently as she moves to cup his stubbled cheek, “My answer will always be yes.”

I hope the ending wasn’t too cringy, but I had to end it somewhere lol! As always, let me know what you thought!

Love you all and can’t wait to see you for my next project!

[savagetrickster]

Crushing on You (HCs) | BNHA

Request: First of All, i love your navigation its really unique :) Then mhhh what i wanted to request are just some headcanons about shoto (and other characters u like) in which they get really soft zu their crush or s/o, just some fluffy things that come to your mind when u think about it uwu !and dont stress yourself with anseering this request, take ur time! 

anime  |  character(s):   bnha |  todoroki shouto, bakugou katsuki

word count: 1.9k+

a/n: thank you anon, it took me a really long time to make my current navigation; glad you liked it! sorry for the delay, i’ve been trying to squeeze in writing time between my work schedules and finally managed to complete this as well. Whew! i expanded a little more on your requests while trying not to go off-track hahah! also, i really want to add more characters but time could allow me to write for these two. hope you like my take on how they would behave regarding their crushes! i kinda rushed through this piece so the sentences may not string well together hahah and there may be some errors; it’s not beta-ed.

How did he find out about his crush on you?

Shouto is as smart as a pile of bricks when it comes to anything that isn’t…well, hero stuff? So when he harbored special feelings for you at the start, he wasn’t aware of that. Completely oblivious and hilariously dense about it.

The first few times his heart raced and his cheeks grew warm in your presence, he didn’t make the connection between these and you. He went to see the doctor thinking there was something wrong with his heart and was the reason why his face would feel warm. Nights before his appointment at the hospital, he couldn’t sleep.

It turned out that everything was fine; his heart is perfectly healthy. So the next thing he thought, making a connection to you - is he allergic to you? Or did you have some sort of secondary quirk you kept secret?

Often, he found his eyes gravitating to you, like you were some kind of magnet. You were the first thought he wakes up to and the last before he went to sleep. There were times he felt oddly possessive of you when you talked with the guys.

Despite all these, none of these made him realize his feelings for you. He passed them off as curiosity since you were the only one who made him feel strange.

He only found out why when he shared his suspicion about you  - is he allergic to you? Or did you have some sort of secondary quirk you kept secret? - with Midoriya, particularly the latter. 

How does Shouto behave around you after his realization? All the years growing up the way he did, having a crush on someone was foreign and bizarre to him. Knowing only quirk-related and hero whatnots with limited social interactions in his maturation years, he was…afraid. Afraid of his own feelings for you. He has no idea what to do and couldn’t face you without accidentally coming off as ‘curt and cold’ to you. He avoided you like you were the plague; he couldn’t help it - he felt like he could combust into flames (lol) from how much you made him blush.

You had always enjoyed Shouto’s company and admired his talents as a hero, sharing an amicable connection with him despite not being in his circle with Midoriya and the rest. You liked him. Liked him too much. 

So when he was suddenly blunt and cold to you + very obviously avoiding you, your heart broke. 

The day you confronted him out of frustration and with a broken heart, he realized how wrong he was to act like this.

>> a short fic based on the paragraphs above is coming soon!

He didn’t want to hurt you because of his own fears. He apologized to you but decided to keep his feelings for you a secret from you - the last thing you two needed a distraction like this when you should be focusing on forging your paths as heroes.

As he promised, he suppressed his feelings and maintained (struggled to) the way he was with you; simply friends.

But he definitely has a soft spot for you. 

He has developed an overprotective streak for you; his eyes were always on you. 

   he’s always the first to react if you were in danger. And if there were any stimulation exercises with the class, he would be adamant about staying near you, asking whoever who is on your team to switch with him (of course, without you knowing)

He is very attentive about what you liked or disliked. Taking notes in his head like it was his duty. 

   there was a time when he overheard a discussion between the girls and you, gushing about the types of clothes you girls like to see on a guy. Taking interest in what you like, he eavesdropped and heard you like pullovers on guys. And on the very next day, he bought himself a few, of course using his Endeavor’s credit card, and wore them as soon as they were ready to worn.

He takes very good care of you and is always concern. Too concerned for a mere friend. He is always there to catch you in case you fall.

menstrual cramps?    one day, he walked into the lounge of Class 1-A dormitory and found you clutching onto your stomach, obviously in discomfort and pain despite already taken a pain killer for your cramps. You desperately needed a heat pad to help ease the shit your uterus had to put you through every month.

at first he had thought about using his fire quirk to help you but quickly scratch that idea because he knew he didn’t have that kind of control to not hurt you by accident. The only solution is to get you a water bottle of warm water which loses its temperature pretty quickly. from then, he made it his goal to obtain superb control over his fire quirk, even to the extent of asking Endeavor for help in refining his control just for you. So that the next month when you had to go through the same pain, he was ready to use his fire quirk to relieve your discomfort.

fever?    shouto caught onto news that you caught a bad cold and were down with a high fever. You laid in the darkness of your room, feeling feverish and your body was burning up. that day, he spent the whole night in your room, tending to you the best he could. Pressed his hand to your burning forehead, ice quirk activated; cool enough to make you sigh but not too cold to freeze you by accident - having only used his ice side growing up, his control is excellent. somehow he ended up holding you, cuddling your feverish head to his body on your bed, regularly activating his ice side to keep his body cool. 

When he thinks about his future after graduation, he always include you. In fact, you are part of a much, much bigger picture in the future he envisioned.

it is in his plan to confess to you after graduation. he already knew enough about you, having paid attention and staying near you throughout after he found out that you were special to him. over time, his crush on you wasn’t as simple anymore. Something stronger and more permanent was beginning to bloom in his heart as he continued to safeguard you and watch over you like a silent guardian.

Get ready to adopt he name ‘Todoroki’ in the future ‘cause he’s pretty determined to take things further with you. First, his girlfriend and of course his wife and the mother of his children. 

How did he find out about his crush on you?

I would like start Bakugou’s part right off the bat by saying that the expression you see in the heading^ made for him is exactly how he would react once he realized he has a crush on you. 

Bakugou here looks like he is in disbelief (as if having such feelings was absurd), bewildered and irked.  Yes, damn right he will be irked. He finds harboring such feelings for you or in fact, anyone unnecessary, ridiculous and stupid. He didn’t have time for such a thing.

Bakugou isn’t as dense as Shouto about this sort of things; if he did find his heart pounding around you, he’s sharp enough to know that you had an effect on him and suspect that he has feelings for you, but this doesn’t mean he is going to acknowledge it. He would dismiss it quickly and move on to more important stuff like his goals.  One day, he grew really jealous and extremely irritated when he saw two seniors hitting on you while he was on his way to class after lunch with Kirishima and Denki. Surprisingly, he handled the situation pretty calmly despite how irritated he is. He walked forward, speeding up ahead of Kirishima and Denki and smoothly tugged you away from the persistent upperclassmen with a firm but gentle grip around your bicep. 

From that incident,  Kirishima and (sorry Kirishima is probably pretty dense about this sort of things but of course no one could beat Shouto in this area lol)  Denki being a rather perceptive guy when it came to matters of the heart, was quick to pick up on Bakugou’s crush on you. Bakugou kind of grudgingly acknowledge his feelings for you that day. Was it because his friends being pushy, constantly teasing him about it? Or was it witnessing that upsetting scene you were in? 

Maybe both? But that did not mean he was going to act on it. He is still pretty stubborn about remaining unbothered about this “useless, pointless sentiment”, quoted Bakugou pretty often to his friends. How does Bakugou behave around you? Bakugou Katsuki is a freaking kuudere - i.e.  a character who is often cold, blunt, and cynical. They may seem very emotionless on the outside, but on the inside they’re very caring — at least when it comes to the ones they love.  Though he deems his feelings for you a “useless, pointless sentiment”, it has become a second nature to him to worry about you regardless of how adamant he is about “not giving a fuck about you” as he had gruffly said to shut his friends up. 

He becomes subtlysoft!Bakugou around you. 

  he is rather toned-down and mature when it comes to you. his explosive (haha) temperament is milder and he exhibits bits of gentlemen traits around you.

  his brash, rough voice softens when he talks to you without him realizing. He is more patient and calmer around you than the rest of his classmates or even his closest friends like Kirishima. he rarely yells at you and addresses you by your name, and not insults he typically used on others e.g. extras, nerd, idiot. 

He is protective.

  he is always quick on his feet in getting you out of sticky situations most of the time. tied to being subtlysoft!Bakugou in my previous point (duh), he demonstrated his ability to be cool-headed and efficient when he got you out of the situation with the two upperclassmen. 

  sometimes if he could in stimulation exercises, he would be try to get you to come along whenever he went on his own way with Kirishima and Denki.

“stay close.” he would mutter in a grudging gruff tone as he bashfully tug you along, away from the rest of the class as we all know he always do in the canon.

He is rather thoughtful and considerate when it’s you.

  once you didn’t turn up for school and he kept glancing over at your empty desk, concerned. he found out that you were down with a bad cold and was being taken care of by Recovery Girl in the infantry. Exams were just two weeks away so he secretly took down notes for you.

When you recovered, he made fun of Kirishima’s “shitty grades” and somehow managed to get Kirishima to start a study session with you included; his main motive was so he could help you catch up without you learning about his true intentions. (kuudere much, Bakugou  -__-)

you are a priority, and eventually a goal as well.

  as bakugou matures alongside you and Class 1A through the years, he will gradually accept that life isn’t only about hero stuff, being number one or putting that stupid nerd Izuku in his fucking place.  (i love midoriya okay, this is just bakugou being bakugou hahah) Or at least he didn’t want his life to be merely about all that. You were also his goal, in fact, one of his biggest goals. He isn’t exactly a big fan of screeching little spawns of the devils but he could live with it if they were part of a future with you.

[masonscig]

kiss it better

pairing | mason x sofía

word count | 3.6k

warnings | mentions of broken bones and blood. nose setting scene but not in gory detail. smut. minors dni

author’s note | i literally could not shut up with this one smh. anyways this is for day 6 of hot in wayhaven – worship. 

•─────────────────•

“Have you broken your nose before?”

She asks out of the blue, running a gentle stripe down the bridge of his nose with the pad of her finger.

He scoffs. “The better question is, how many times?”

She blinks, shaking her bangs out of her face. “I guess I hadn’t considered that.”

“Yeah it’s somethin’ you get used to after a while.”

“It can’t get easier, though,” she murmurs, reaching up to pull a strand out of his eyes. She holds her hand there, fingertips grazing the hair above his ear.

“What?”

“Breaking bones, I mean. It’s still painful, right? Even if it’s a little sting?”

“Yeah, the nose is nothin’. Just a pinch and it goes away as soon as it sets. Ribs on the other hand…” he trails off, grimacing. “Not fun.”

“You’re pretty brave to be running headfirst into missions knowing you’ll probably hurt yourself every time,” she smiles, tucking the same piece of hair behind his ear.

He rolls his eyes, unable to hold back a smile of his own. “Why’re you trying to flatter me all of the sudden?”

She laughs, crossing her hands over his bare chest, balancing her chin on her knuckles, her hazel-eyed gaze mischievous and warm.

“I thought maybe you’d let me practice resetting your nose.”

He cocks a brow at her. “You thought wrong.”

She leans forward over her hands, just enough that she has room to press a kiss on his bare chest.

“I could go another round, you know…” she trails off, easing her thigh between his legs, rubbing just enough that he groans and tightens his arms around her.

“You’d wanna fuck me anyways,” he teases, sliding her back up till they’re nose to nose.

She peppers a few kisses down the bridge of his nose, hovering when she reaches his lips.

“I think you’re underestimating my self control,” she whispers, grazing his lips with her own. 

He runs his palms down the swell of her ass to the top of her thighs, gripping the skin there. She sighs, but clamps her mouth shut. She pulls back, a soft giggle already bubbling off her tongue. “Nope.” 

“Do you hate my nose that much, sweetheart?” He chuckles.

“Oh, no, I love your nose,” she says, kissing it again. “I was just thinking that I learned how to reset a nose back in undergrad and I wanted to try it out again.”

“You know how to do that?”

“I think so,” she muses, shaking her bangs out of her face again. “A kid in my bio class sophomore year learned how to reset his own nose because he’d broken it a couple of times playing soccer. He showed us how on a CPR dummy once during class and I practiced a couple of times.”

“So you want me to be your dummy?”

“You’re already my dummy,” she flashes a smile, laughing when he grunts in faux annoyance at her. “If you don’t want me to, that’s okay. I like your crooked nose.”

She nuzzles his jaw with her nose, resting her head in the crook of his neck.

“Ugh,” he grunts once, and taps her ass. “Okay, get on with it. I don’t have all fucking night. I’ve got things to do.”

Sofía’s head pops back up, her messy bun springing with the sudden movement. “Wait, really?”

He shrugs. “I trust you.”

Grinning, she kisses him deeply, just as sweet as the first time she kissed him like this. He doesn’t normally think about past missions that much, but now he has reason to.

Yeah, he was in the hospital bed after fighting off Trappers, but he’d gotten a kiss that’d stuck with him more than any of his wildest sexcapades.

“Sit up, please,” she says, always polite, despite the fact that she knows he likes it when she’s rude.

He hasn’t had her fiery side aimed at him in a long time, and he’s not sure if he misses it (or if this version of her is his favorite).

Scooting so his back is against the armrest of the couch, he keeps his grip tight around her waist. She shifts, straddling him, her eyes fluttering at the brush of his cock against her.

“If you distract me, I’ll do it wrong,” she breathes, squeezing her thick thighs around him.

“Practice makes perfect,” he says, curling his hips ever so slowly, feeling himself slot between her –

“No. I wanna do this right,” she says, her brows furrowed in determination. “I’ll be right back.”

She hops off of him, stark naked, and tiptoes across the cabin to the kitchen. He’d never get sick of the sight of her.

He watches as she grabs an old rag from the drawer, a box of tissues, and a plastic bag, filling it with ice.

She bounds back towards the couch, her face bright.

“Sit with your back against the cushions, please,” she says, before tugging the blanket over his bare lap, straddling him again.

“Oh, so I don’t get the privilege of skin to skin contact? ‘S’kinda cruel of you,” he smirks.

“Ah, stop it. You get enough skin to skin contact with me,” she laughs, before combing her hands through his hair, gathering the top layer into one hand.

Yanking the hair tie out of her bun, she shakes it out, pausing to resituate her hair for a second before she’s onto the next thing.

She gently twists the elastic around his hair. “Is this alright?”

He’s watching her face, which is screwed up in determination to get it right the first try. “Mhmm.”

No one’s ever taken care of him the way she does. He’s always been averse to the idea of being babied (both in and out of bed), but maybe it’s because he hadn’t met a person who balanced the task of challenging him and caring for him the way Sofía did.

And now that he has that balance, he couldn’t really imagine his existence without it.

Deep down, he’s always craved this, he thinks, but figured that he was itching that scratch with physical gratification. No one told him how good sex is when the other person actually cares about you. Nate probably tried, but he wasn’t listening.

She brushes his hair off of his shoulders, runs her palms down his shoulders and chest. “You always look so handsome with your hair back.”

Compliments without ulterior motives didn’t come easy to him. For the longest time, when a person complimented him on his looks, he’d assume that was the ice breaker before tumbling into bed with them.

He’s gotten used to Sofía’s mindless affirmations, and he kind of… liked them.

It wasn’t hard for him to fall into the pattern of telling her what he liked about her. It was truly so damn easy to praise her.

While he muses, she tucks the old rag underneath his chin, splaying it out across his chest as far as it’ll go.

“What’s this for?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know if you’ll bleed or not.”

He chuckles. “Can’t remember the last time I had a nosebleed.”

“I still wanna keep you clean, dummy,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Hold out your hand, please.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She plops the box of tissues in his hand, then the bag of ice on top of that.

“Okay, I’m not so sure if I’m strong enough to re-break your nose, Mason.”

Her hands are forming a triangle, her thumbs pressed together. She places her nearly cupped hands around his nose, massaging the bridge of it with a gentle touch.

“I think this might be for freshly broken noses –”

He cups his hand around hers and snaps his nose, just enough that it curves to the left.

“– Mason!” She jolts in surprise, and he raises a brow at her.

“You’ve got about ten seconds before it resets, sweetheart. Hop to it.”

He thinks she’s gonna bicker with him, but instead she springs into action, tightening her fingers around the bridge of his nose, squeezing lightly and pulling downwards towards the tip of his nose.

When he winces, she mouths a quick “sorry” and resets her hands, tugging down over and over, the sting nearly gone by the third round.

“It’s healed.”

She drags her hands till she’s cupping his jaw with both palms, inspecting his nose thoroughly.

“Oh shit, it’s actually straightened out,” she murmurs, her pretty, pretty face an inch away from his own. “Not bad for a rusty bio student, huh?”

“You did a great job, Sofía.”

At the mention of her name, she meets his eye.

He doesn’t use her name that often. When he does, it’s a reward for the both of them – she notices, and he gets to savor the taste of her gorgeous name on his lips.

“You haven’t even seen it yet,” she smiles, kissing the tip of his nose.

“Don’t need to,” he shrugs.

She snatches a tissue and delicately dabs away at his cupid’s bow. “Just a little bit of blood,” she murmurs. “You’re okay.”

When she says it, he actually believes her.

“Keep that away from me,” he gestures to the bag of ice balanced on top of the box of tissues.

“Fine,” she agrees, snatching the bag from his hand, before tearing it open and tossing a small ice cube in her mouth, crunching away.

“It’s just frozen water. I don’t get it.”

“It’s water that you can eat. What is there to get?” She laughs between chews, attempting to stand up.

He tosses the tissue box to the ground and flings the rag across the room with lightning speed, snaking his arms around her waist before she can react.

The bag of ice topples out of her hand and onto the wood floor, cubes littering the ground around them.

“Agh, really? You know I’m gonna have to clean that up, right?”

“Don’t care. I told you I’ve got things to do,” he smirks, turning up the charm as high as he can. She’s nearly immune to it at this point, but not completely.

“Okay, okay,” she laughs as he trails kisses up her collarbone and nips at her neck.

He stands with her still wrapped in his arms and flips them around. She’s sitting on the armrest of the couch and he’s on his knees in front of her, the thin blanket they’d been using abandoned on the floor with the ice.

“What… Mason…” she’s panting his name and he hasn’t even touched her yet.

“I wanna take care of you, now,” he mumbles against the skin of her inner thigh.

She hums as he kisses higher, each press of his lips to her skin eliciting a crescendo of soft whines.

When he makes it to the crease of her hip, she’s trembling in anticipation already. He wasn’t a fan of denial until her.

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” he’s whispering, more to himself than anyone else.

“Thank you,” she responds, peering down on him with gratitude before his tongue even touches her.

“You don’t have to thank me every time I compliment you. Stop being so damn polite all the time,” he says, running his palms up and down her thighs.

When he made it back to her knees, he pushed them open wider, wider, till she was spread for him, wanting and waiting.

“It’s a reflex, I think,” she huffs, her stomach stuttering as he suckles against the skin of her inner thigh, face close enough to devour her.

“There’s no one to impress here, sweetheart,” he smirks, kissing and nipping at her flesh again. “I’m the last person you have to be nice to.”

He’s so focused on lavishing every inch of her inner thighs with attention that he doesn’t realize she’s staring at him, only catching on once she reaches down to brush a stray hair away from his face.

“Well, you’ve earned it,” she says, no hint of humor in her tone, just raw sincerity. “I’m nice because you mean a lot to me.”

He’s not used to this level of candor in any relationship he’s ever had. It’s not that he hates it or anything he’s just… not sure how to respond. He’s still learning.

“I dunno, I kind of miss when you’d argue with me. It was kinda hot,” he laughs breathily. Just as she’s about to give a bratty retort, he drags the rough pad of his thumb as slowly as he can from bottom to top.

She sucks the words back in and exhales a soft whine instead, her head lolling to the side when he circles his thumb on her clit.

“You… liked it when I stood up for myself?” She snorts, her laugh devolving into another moan. “I thought it was pretty unbecoming.”

“You know I don’t give a shit about what’s appropriate. All that matters is if we’ll ‘be coming’ or not,” he chuckles to himself at his joke, and she’s even giggling.

“Oh my god, you’re so corny,” she sighs, trying to concentrate on the conversation while he’s graduating to a finger (knuckle deep) inside of her. “Maybe I miss yelling at you just a little bit.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you bossed me around a little bit,” he smiles against her skin, pumping his finger slowly, curling it the deeper he gets.

“Like what?” She pants, grabbing onto the back of the couch for support.

“Tell me what you want me to do to you and don’t be nice about it.”

He’s watching her face, waiting for her reaction, and he’s excited. She’s always known what she’s wanted, but she’s too considerate.

He’d already made up his mind that tonight’s about her and her only. He’d gotten his fill earlier, and he could care less if he did again.

Mason wants nothing more than to make her come until she’s putty in his hands.

He knows he’s not good with words, so this is the way he’ll show her just how much he cares.

She’s screwed her eyes shut, focusing on the movement of his finger, so he encourages her again.

“What do you want, baby?”

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth before releasing it. “Eat my pussy like you mean it.”

He grins, her no bullshit tone sending shockwaves down his spine straight to his cock. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

His lips are around her clit as soon as the words are out of her mouth. He licks slow, soft stripes until her hips are grinding faster than his tongue.

He’s testing her – teasing her.

“I said like you mean it,” she pants, and he feels her palm pressing against the back of his head, his mouth and nose nearly submerged.

His tongue’s moving faster now, focusing every flick against her clit. She’s huffing a few soft “don’t stop”s and “right there”s so he knows he’s doing it just like she likes.

Her thighs clench around his face when she finally comes, and she digs her fingers into the back of his head. It stings, but it eggs him on.

“Oh my god – Mason – I’m –” She’s sensitive and barely able to get a grip on the English language, so he takes advantage of that.

He hooks his arms around her thighs and rises – she falls back onto the couch and he’s dragging her hips back until her pussy’s in the air, her lower back balanced against the arm of the couch.

She’s fully at his mercy in this position, and they both know it.

She’s flushed and her chest is heaving, her half lidded gaze watching as he bends down and hooks her legs over his shoulders, delving back into eating her once again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” her voice raises an octave and she’s already tightening her legs around him.

They both know there’s another orgasm on the horizon and she’s barreling towards it, and he’s guiding there albeit roughly (just like she likes it).

He’s added two fingers this time, pumping in and out while he’s alternating soft and rough flicks of his tongue.

“Don’t you – dare fucking stop –” she demands between pants, grinding her hips against his face and mouth.

She shakes this time, just a soft tremble of her thighs, but he notices the soft tremors, already grinning to himself. He loves how much practice he gets in perfecting his formula – he’d gotten real good at making her come over the years and he was damn proud of himself for it.

She was the prettiest woman on the planet when she came, and he’d do anything to witness it over and over and over.

“Goddamn,” she groans, throwing an arm over her eyes.

“What, you don’t want another round?” He asks, still bent between her thighs.

“I don’t know if I can handle it,” she says through a breathy laugh.

“You can make it to three,” he murmurs, kissing her tender clit again, revelling in the way her hips bucked when he did so.

In a flash, he’s laid on the couch and she’s on her knees above his face, bracing her palms on the arm of the couch.

“Shit, Mason, why’d you move that fast –”

“Doesn’t matter, sweetheart. You up for another one?”

She sits back, ass on his chest, looking down at him. He can’t resist leaning up to grab the swell of her ass.

He thinks she’s going to say some sweet anecdote about the first time they fucked or something very Sofía, but instead, she’s not breaking character.

“I’m gonna ride your face till I’m spent,” she says, peering down at him, cheeks pink, bangs clinging to her forehead.

“Yes, ma’am,” he winks, before giving her cheek a soft push upright, and then he’s nothing but a means to get off, and he’s savoring every second of it.

She’s grinding against his open mouth, her chest heaving, her expression slack jawed.

The mix of groans and heavy breathing are echoing off of the walls. They’re both slick with sweat, their skin sticking and sliding against each others’ with each buck of her hips.

When her movements get erratic, he hooks his arms around her thighs and takes lead.

With each firm stripe of his tongue, she’s struggling to stay upright. She doesn’t manage to stay up, instead falling forward, bracing her forearms against the soft leather couch.

“Shit, keep going – just like that –” her words are unintelligible at this point, just a chorus of whines.

Her hips arch and stutter against his mouth and she goes limp, lungs heaving with effort.

He slides out from underneath her, gathering her in his arms while she catches her breath.

“What’re you doing?” she asks, voice hoarse, curling into his chest.

“Taking you to bed, whaddaya think?”

Her half lidded eyes widen and she shakes her head. “I can’t handle another one right now – let me rest up first, please –”

“– I mean to sleep,” he chuckles, kicking her door in, shuffling in sideways. “You’ve got tomorrow off so we’ve got plenty of time.”

“Oh, thank god.”

He slides her onto the bed and she lays back, making no move to get under the covers. The apartment’s in a perfect spot – the moonlight always manages to sneak into her room and dimly light it.

It’s streaking through the window, across the bed, her torso, her cheek, hitting the sliver of gray hair in her bangs. She looks ethereal, practically glowing on top of her dark comforter.

He knows he’s staring, and she’ll catch on soon, so he cracks a joke to play it off.

“So much for the self control you speak of.”

“Hey!” She laughs, chunking a pillow at him.

He catches it with ease, tossing it right back, it smacking her on the leg. “What? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to say it.”

“You just hate when I’m right.”

“No, I just hate when I can’t resist you,” she rolls her eyes, patting the bed next to her.

He hops onto the bed, jiggling the both of them. “Sounds like a you problem.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, smacking his chest with her palm, cuddling up to his side.

Before he can tilt her chin up to kiss her, she’s already pressing her lips to his, the taste of her lingering on his mouth.

“Thank you,” she whispers when he pulls away.

“What’d I say about being polite?” He says, voice low, holding himself back from leaning in to kiss her again.

“Old habits die hard, I guess,” she smiles against his mouth. “You would know.”

His eyes flicker up to the crumpled pack of cigarettes on her nightstand (the ones that hadn’t moved from that very spot for months).

Needs turned into wants and wants turned into waning cravings which turned into the most futile efforts to match whatever the fuck Sofía does for him.

He’s still figuring out how to navigate this existence of his with her in it, but he knows he wants it to be like this for as long as she’ll let him stay.

And yeah, Mason’s awful with words, but as long as he can show her, he knows it’ll be alright.