#no one can really know the inside of a marriage except the two people involved

[nelsonswilbury]

Kaksjdhd I'm so sorry I definitely meant to send that Linda and Paul ask to someone else but my drunk ass can't do anything right. Btw you're totally right and that was a good point. So maybe my drunk ass picked the right person after all. Or maybe my hand eye coordination struggles after the fourth shot of vodka. Both can be true. Anyways, I also liked the comments. Although tbh I don't personally like John and Paul, it just doesn't make me wet the way it does for other people (I don't mean sexually I just mean in general). But I wonder about Paul romanticizing that relationship. Paul did more or less say that Linda was or should be a god. Which is very sweet, but I think it falls into romanticizing tbh. But also the man has been through a LOT and Linda was probably at least at one point his only path to peace and joy. How do you cope with your only true hope being taken away? We would all be lucky if we coped as well as paul. I think Paul probably makes it into something beautiful, but that's also just how aging works, and how loss works. It doesn't have to be true to matter.

I figured dw vodka can do that to the best of us 😆

Tbh there was a lot of trauma attachment going on Paul's part if you consider the start of his relationship with Linda. Same as with John. All of Paul's major attachments (by major I mean romantic or semi-romantic life altering ones) were formed after he suffered major losses - John after his mother's death, Linda after/during the breakup with John/The Beatles. The fact that he married Heather so soon after Linda's death also points to it, it's just a Paul thing.

As for romanticizing, it's just human and also it's understandable for Paul to be extra respectful while talking about a dead spouse. If there was any friction in the marriage - which I highly doubt - Paul wouldn't talk about that in public and definitely wouldn't say anything his kids wouldn't want to be said about their mother. He is responsible for Linda's memory and legacy.

[jesstasticvoyage]

Opinions on these DJATS ships?: (book and show) Karengraham, Daisybilly,Edmila, Warrenlisa. Also, Rod Reyes is an underrated DJATS character and I loved his ending.

Oh boy… 😂 weeeeeeell. My memory isn’t the best and my opinions between book and show ships tend to blur. Except for Edmila since that one didn’t exist in the book.

Karengraham - I felt that they were always meant to be a fling as soon as you realized Karen and Graham had different views on the future. Don’t get me wrong, I loved their dynamic and thought they had great chemistry but Graham wanted someone to settle down and have a family with which didn’t match what Karen wanted out of life.

DaisyBilly- this is such a complicated mess. Personally, after everything Billy went through with his father issues, lack of self control, low confidence, you name it. He needed to spend more time with recovery and see a therapist. To me, Daisy turned into a new kind of drug for him that he clearly couldn’t get enough of. Now, this is where it gets messy because I am in the camp (as unpopular as this is) that believes he was in love with two different women at the same time. I also think that even though the book never came out and acknowledged it that, to me, he did cheat on Camila with Daisy. The reactions were far too dramatic for it to be a near kiss (in the book) and a parking lot kiss (in the show). I wish the show and book went into more about how long and what happened after Camila passed away for Billy to see Daisy. And, I don’t know if this is because I’m getting older or what, but I do feel that if I was in Camila’s place I would want to encourage my husband to seek happiness and not let it die with me. Again, this is so complicated and one of those discussions that can go on and on. There’s a lot of emotions and history and unknowns here. Plus the cheating on both Billy and Camilas part further complicates it. When he was WITH Camila physically and emotionally it made me warm and fuzzy inside. They worked well together and were really lovey dovey in their scenes. Just watching them together is a guaranteed smile from me. When he was with Daisy you can see just how charged and alive he is creatively and that creativity was his passion. Daisy shared that same passion with him, which I also enjoyed seeing play out. I felt very much like Billy (reading and watching every thing unfold) and couldn’t decide which path to choose. Which made the whole experience enjoyable as I usually have a clear cut choice when I watch love triangles. But I know I’m alone in this camp.

EdMila- I know Eddie tends to be the least favorite character, and I didn’t like him in the book, but in the show you can actually see he was in love with Camila. And I feel Camila knew this and used him. It wasn’t a shining moment in her life and as someone who watched her parents marriage fall apart before my eyes (when I was a kid) I can see why she did what she did. Doesn’t make it right as she and Billy should have ended things before it reached that point. Divorce wasn’t unheard of during that time but hell, Camila did warn Billy their relationship would be over if he loves Daisy. But sometimes severing a relationship gets harder to do especially when children are involved. (I see this with the domestic abuse cases through my job)

WarrenLisa - They were perfect for each other. I wish the show talked more about them seeing each other and for how long like the book did.

SimoneBernie - I wanted more of them!! God, they were the only healthy relationship in the whole show. It makes me mad a lot of people found their episode boring when it was the one of my favorites!

Rod Reyes - 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 I wanted him to find love on the show but I guess they didn’t have time to incorporate that. There really should have been at least 2 more episodes since there was SO much that could have been added.

[blot-squisher]

If you’re still doing the SFW alphabet can you do the deathslinger? I don’t really see him a a lovey dovey person but I do see him just adopting anyone who sticks by him.

I will gladly keep doing SFW alphabet until I run out of characters❤️

SFW Alphabet Ask Meme for Surviving the Game Deathslinger

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?) Caleb is a master at giving compliments, but he doesn't give them out often. When he does, you'll know he means every word of it. Otherwise, his affections are shown subtly in day to day activities. The way he watches you, or smiles slightly when he knows you're looking but thinks he doesn't. That's just for you.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?) Hard working and not afraid to get dirty, Caleb appreciates people with the same attitude. You'll know he's starting to consider you a friend when he offers you a cup of coffee or whiskey and invites you to sit down with him.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?) Caleb isn't used to cuddling. Most of his time has been spent on the back of a horse or sleeping on the hard ground. If you do manage to find a good spot to cuddle though, he'll wrap an arm around you and hold you close. It gets cold out there at night after all.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?) Settling down has never been in the cards for the Deathslinger. Bounty hunting was a hard life, one he wasn't expecting to come out of alive. He can cook pretty well, but only over a campfire. Put him in front of a stove and chances are he'll burn the house down. Caleb cleans selectively. Some things are better with a good coat of dust after all.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?) Although he wouldn't mince words, he wouldn't try to be hurtful about it. He'd tell you the truth, attempt to end things peacefully, then move on with his life.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?) Commitment is incredibly important to Caleb, but marriage is a young man's game. He's fine with having a steadfast partner, but don't expect him to ever allow the government to get involved.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?) Although he's lived a rough life, Caleb knows how to use his hands softly. Tinkering and inventing isn't all about hitting something with a hammer. Living the way he did taught him a lot about reading people. Able to gauge peoples moods with a glance, he often uses it to his advantage. Whether or not he's trying to bait you into a fight will determine how gentle he is with his words...

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?) Caleb has never been much of a hugger. The only time you should be getting that close to someone is to stab them or pick their pocket. But for his partner? He'll make an exception.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?) Caleb has never been much of a talker, preferring show over tell. But when he does finally say it, it'll be in a quiet moment where it's just the two of you.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?) Caleb has seen too many good men do stupid things while giving in to jealousy. Although he may not get jealous often, when he does he tends to take a step back and examine the issue before proceeding. He's absolutely still going to shoot his rival, but he'll make sure he doesn't do it in a spur of the moment fit of rage.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss their partner? Where do they like to be kissed?) Gentle at first, but he can get rough when he starts getting into it. Caleb has a preference for using his hands more than his mouth, but he enjoys kissing along the inside of his partners legs if he's going to. He doesn't mind being kissed, but along his collarbone is the sweet spot.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?) Although he's not interested in being a father, he knows how to interact with kids. He doesn't mind them, but he's not afraid to be stern with them if they starting misbehaving.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?) Up with the sun and usually found tinkering with something over a strong cup of coffee.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?) Up late drinking around a fire or playing poker. Don't play cards with him he cheats

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?) Not one to talk just to fill the silence, it might take some digging on your part to get him to open up. He's not trying to be cagey, he just isn't used to sharing.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?) Caleb isn't difficult to anger, but he knows how to keep his cool. At least... most of the time.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about their partner? Do they remember every little detail they mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?) Caleb makes it a habit to remember little things. Actions speak louder than words, and giving his partner something he knows they'll like it one of his main ways to show his affection.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in their relationship?) The first time you made something with him. It didn't matter if it worked perfectly or blew up spectacularly. All that matters is that you had a hand in making something new, together.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect their partner? How would they like to be protected?) Caleb doesn't believe in leaving a man behind, but for his partner, he'll fight an army alone with one arm tied behind his back. Unlike many of the others, Caleb is used to (and even prefers) fighting together. As long as you've got his back, he's happy.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?) Although it may not look like it from the outside and it may not be some big extravagant event, you'll be able to see the time and effort he went to to make something specifically for you.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?) The man smokes and chews tobacco like most people breathe. He loves to gamble, but he hates to lose so don't be surprised if he seems to magically pull a win out of his hat most times... It's cause he cheats

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?) More than most people might expect. He's very proud of his mustache and takes good care of it.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without their partner?) Yes. He's lost a lot of people, but losing someone he cares about that much would be something he'd never really get over.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.) Although he never wanted kids of his own, he will adopt any and every stray 'child' that shows up on his doorstep.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?) Don't be lazy. It's one thing if you are physically unable or having a bad day, he gets that, he's got a bum leg. Sometimes you need a break. But if you can and simply refuse for no good reason, there's going to be a problem.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?) This man can and will sleep sitting upright. It can be hard to get comfortable with his leg the way it is and years in the saddle taught him to sleep anywhere and anytime he gets the chance.

[sojirosteacup]

Sojiro and Akira are an interesting parallel to Sakurako and Shigeru.

I don't know how much of it was intentional (if any of it was intentional at all), but it really comes off as this everytime i read the series. I know lots of people comment on Rui and Shigeru's parallels (that are definitely there) but these two friend duos have many similarities too.

They are both rich best friend duos that are always hanging out together. Their relationships have lots of shippy undertones (Sojiro and Akira pretending to be a couple and Shigeru saying stuff to Sakurako that doesn't sound very straight).

But the parallels go beyond this. You can see them if you compare the individuals too. Any combination would work to a certain extent, but I feel like Sakurako is Sojiro's parallel while Shigeru is Akira's parallel.

Sakurako and Sojiro are both very sexual and both spent a long time attached to a failed childhood crush (Tsukasa and Sara) (except they dealt with it in VERY different ways). And they both have a close friendship/relationship with someone outside their friend duo: Sojiro has a very close almost-romantic relationship with Yuuki while Sakurako has a close friendship with Kazuya that also has some shippy undertones (usually for laughs, but they got very close to each other when Shigeru left with Tsukasa between the last anime episodes).

Meanwhile Akira contrasts with Shigeru. They were both involved with someone that was already in a relationship (and kept insisting on it in the hopes they would leave their partners for them) and they both have a weird relationship with the concept of marriage (Akira flirts with married women, Shigeru was engaged to Tsukasa but gave up). Inside their entire friend group, they are the ones most attached to their friends and would do anything to keep those friendships. And they both contrast each other's personalities with the energetic girl, savvy guy dynamic.

The four of them keep showing up together in the manga and this makes me wonder how close they are. Sakurako and Akira have each other's phone numbers and have called each other when something happens. Most of the time it's because of Tsukasa and Tsukushi but we don't see the other main characters together that often (Kazuya and Yuuki rarely join the full group and Rui prefers to stay home most of the time). They could avoid each other if they wanted to, but they don't.

And they likely hang out at the same spaces in their spare time. We know Sojiro, Akira and Sakurako like going to clubs and I don't think Shigeru would be against it either, so they likely meet at these places all the time whether they want it or not.

And there is a 100% chance they are each other's gossip network.

(look at them whispering in secret)

[jupitermelichios]

So I’ve been playing a lot of skyrim lately, because it’s video game comfort food, and I decided it was time for my Redguard Dovahkiin to settle down. (Actually I specifically just wanted to be able to adopt some of the random orphans you meet because I felt guilty about them, but you need to be married before you can do that so that there’s someone at home to take care of the kids while you’re off galivanting).

So I travelled around a bit, chatting up likely looking npcs until I found one I both liked and didn’t feel guilty about marrying (I feel bad if I marry one of the warrior adventurer types, making them be a stay at home mum) and settled on an obnoxiously cheerful argonian called Shavee because her life was frankly shit, and I thought she’d probably be good with kids.

So off I go to Riften to the Temple of Mara to arrange the wedding. I book it in for the next day, realise I didn’t bring anything nice to wear, and spend the night before the wedding robbing every house in the city in the search for something to wear. Eventually decide everyone in Riften has terrible fashion sense and break down everything I stole into raw materials and use them to craft myself an outfit and some jewellery that i’m pretty happy with. I even carefully pick out my fanciest looking sword to wear.

(don’t know why I bothered, frankly, shavee turned up wearing a shirt covered in suspicious stains and weilding a pickaxe, it’s like she doesn’t even care about this marriage)

(also for comedy purposes, bear in mind I play with survival mods that mean my character needs to eat and sleep to live, and I literally spent the entire ingame night on this and forgot to eat and drink anything either and then just downed four bowls of wolf stew right before entering the temple so I didn’t starve during the ceremony. also I discovered during the wedding that I am dying of rockjoint, which I contracted from sleeping in a pile of hay on the floor of a skeever infested cave, so even being six foot tall and jacked can’t make up for the fact that I am exhausted, running a fever, and probably covered in wolf which I spilled because my joints are slowly atrophying, and even the fanciest clothes in the world aren’t going to cover that up)

so I enter the temple, and my finance is there, and Lydia my housecarl, and some random NPCs the game thinks are my friends because I did fetch quests for them

One of the random NPCs is Lisbet. Atfter I did her fetch quest, I then did another quest in which I discovered Lisbet is secretly a cannibal and part of a demonic cult that worships the daedric prince of decay by kidnapping priests, sacrificing them, and then eating their corpses. Raw. I think the raw meat is the sticking point for me here honestly.

I ultimately decided not to sacrifice the random priest to a daedric prince in exchange for one magic ring and all the raw human I could eat, because frankly, that doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me. I was expecting there to be some kind of dialogue choice where I could nope out at the last minute, but it turns out there isn’t one, so after they drugged the priest and tied him to the altar, I just got out my sword and started swinging.

I killed most of the cult (including the town butcher, because I had brought meat from him before and was extremely pissed off that he might have been secretly feeding me humans) but a couple of them got away, which I figured was fine because they weren’t trying to kill me.

Except it turns out, if any of them escape, then every time you see them in the future there’s a random chance that they’ll fly into a violent rage and try and murder you.

Lisbet is at my wedding. Lisbet decides that clearly me marrying this random argonian woman with two lines of dialogue is the happiest day of my life, and she cannot allow me that happiness, when I’ve taken so much from her.

So she tries to kill me. Only she can’t, because I’m stuck in a pre-rendered wedding animation, and also she’s sitting next to Lydia, my faithful retainer and owner of a really big axe.

It also turns out that Lisbet is essential, meaning she can be knocked unconcious but not actually killed because she’s needed for some quest or other. And the minute she wakes up from unconciousness, she tries to kill me again, so Lydia knocks her unconcious again, and I’m stuck, I can’t move, because I’m supposed to be in the wedding animation.

Except Shavee has, not unreasonably, see all this and decided that she doesn’t like me enough to risk getting murdered, and has done a runner, leaving me at the altar, but more importantly, leaving me trapped in a broken pre-rendered animation, so all I can do is stand there at the altar, staring at the space where my fiance was supposed to be, listening to the sounds of Lydia trying and failing to beat a cannibal to death behind me.

Okay, I think, clearly this wedding isn’t going to happen, I’m going to go for the registry office option and complete the wedding using the dev commands. I do this. The priest gives me a wedding ring, and I can finally move again. I chase after Shavee, who has an impressive turn of speed on her, and eventually catch up right by the city gates. I try to talk to her.

Apparently using the console has completed the wedding for me, but not for her, because she still only has the same 2 lines of dialogue she usually has.

Clearly this is working, I can’t leave my kids with someone who can only say 2 things and doesn’t even know she’s their mum, that’s irresponsible.

I try loading from inside the temple. I get the same problem.

Eventually I figure out that I need to use the dev controls to disable Lisbet’s entire existence in the universe.

Shavee and me get married. As the priest reads the vows, I stare at Shavee and wonder why she couldn’t even be bothered to put on a clean shirt. I wonder what kind of mother she’ll be.

Once the ceremony is over, and I’m happily married to the dirty green lizard of my dreams, and we’ve agreed that until I can make her recognise my extremely nice modded house exists I will share her single bed in the unheated flophouse in Windhelm she calls home, I re-enable Lisbet, because I’m worried I’ll forget if I leave it too long.

Fun fact about skyrim, it loads in quite a lot of npcs and objects by dropping them from the sky. I have no idea why this is the case, but it’s objectively the funniest way to load in objects.

I re-enable Lisbet. She falls from the sky, clips through the roof of the temple, and lands in the pew beside Lydia, stands up, draws a knife, and is immedately beaten unconcious.

I no longer care, because Shavee now has all the exciting new spouse-only romantic dialogue options like “Could you cook something for me” and “have you made any money lately”, and I know she’ll be a great mother.

I limp to the door of the temple, while around me the guests not involved in the Lydia-Lisbet murder cycle scream and duck for cover.

I open the door to the temple, immediately collapse and ragdoll down the steps, which is how I discover I am dying of rockjoint.

I limp to the orphanage down the street, adopt two kids, and then finally remember that I’m carrying garlic bread, which as we all know, cures all known illnesses.

When I emerge back into the street, full of the joys of motherhood and garlic bread, I find the town in disaray. Lydia is chasing Lisbet through the streets with an axe and a dragon is circling overhead, burning npcs to death. People are running for shelter, screaming, while the guards try to take down an entire dragon using only the worst bows and arrows in the game.

I decide that as a parent, I have to think of my own safety first and leave them to it.

I head out of the city, intent on returning home and figuring out why Shavee refuses to move in with me. A man hanging around the stables challenges me to a boxing match. For want of anything better to do, I agree.

Halfway through the fight he dodges at the wrong moment and I punch one of his horses in the head.

Two guards attack me while I desperately try to surrender. My kids will miss me, but I’m prepared to go to jail for my horse crimes, I’m an honest citizen. Also my horse crimes seem somewhat less important than the dragon.

The guards refuse to accept my surrender. I am stabbed to death. As I collapse in front of the indifferent horse, Lisbet exits the city, followed by Lydia. The last thing I see before I die is Lydia swinging her axe at Lisbet’s face.

[seasonsofeverlark]

Fortunate

Author: @taylerwrites​

Prompt: In-Panem AU. Katniss and Peeta are secretly in love but both too insecure to even attempt flirtation. Everyone in twelve can see how much they want each other (not just for sex but actually love each other) but those two are their usual idiot selves. People start disappearing and anyone who last saw them starts complaining that they heard a strange sort of music coming from the missing person before they just went somewhere and didnt come back. More and more disappear and Katniss and Peeta finally get their shit together in the face of danger, not wanting to lose each other permanently. In a year, nearly half the population disappears which scares them further enough to have a toasting and get married.

(What they dont know is Mr and Mrs Mellark, Mrs Everdeen and Madge decided to play matchmaker and the entire district got involved which resulted in this. and a few months after their marriage and very visibly satisfied and lovey-dovey faces become more permanent, people mysteriously starts coming back)

everlark HEA, Rating M or E.

(you can be as spooky as you want but you have to find a suitable hiding place for hundreds of people… maybe they go to another district??) [Submitted by @sparklingdust4612]

Rating: M

Author’s Note: No games. Made some small changes to the prompt, nothing too crazy. Everything here is soft, and I made a weak attempt at humor:) Warning: Mild Sexual Scene ______________

Katniss stares at the ceiling of her bedroom, wondering how she got to this point. What started with a series of mysterious disappearances around twelve slowly turned into her romance with the boy from the bakery.

It’s a lot to wrap her head around sometimes.

Barely a year ago, she was still living in a small Seam home caked in soot and dirt, and now she had the luxury of taking a bath without needing to boil the water first. Or how the bread she eats is no longer stale because… well. There are benefits to being the wife of the baker’s son.

It’s been two weeks and the ring on her finger still feels foreign every time the glint of the small gem catches her eye. It almost seems too nice to belong in the districts, to be on her dirty, scarred hands. And yet, as of a few weeks ago, it’s hers—her initials carefully engraved on the inside of the band cementing that fact.

She still blushes thinking about their wedding night, how Peeta kissed her and reassured her as they became one for the first time. How his breath fanned hot against her ear when he told her how good she was making him feel, or the way the rough pad of his thumb swirled over her sensitive nub to push her over the edge.

And the morning after when he pulled her underwear to the side and lazily sheathed himself inside of her again, making her breath stutter and abdomen flood with warmth… She never knew that’s what girls around the Seam gushed about whenever they hooked up with boys in the slag heap.

Just thinking about it has her climbing out of bed to stand in front of the window where she spots her husband (another thing she has yet to get used to, calling Peeta “husband”) tending to their small garden. Even though it’s cooler out now, he wears a short-sleeved shirt, a sweater tied loosely around his waist only because Katniss insisted that he at least take one with him.

He must feel her eyes on him because he looks up from where he’s picking pumpkins and flashes her one of his crooked smiles. The sight has her heart thumping in her chest, easily making her flush like she used to back when they were in school. 

She returns his smile with a shy one, her hand lifting in a small wave before Peeta goes back to tending the garden, though, the fluttering of her heart doesn’t calm down. 

It’s safe to say that she is happy with the life they’d built in a year, except she often wishes it’d happened under different circumstances. Among those disappearances, Prim is one of them, and Katniss really wanted to tell her everything that had passed in the past year. 

She misses Gale too, hunting hasn’t exactly been the same since she had to take up doing it by herself. However, Peeta seems to be a little indifferent about how fast he intends to find Gale’s whereabouts… It is just a hunch, after all.

In the beginning, she and Peeta would go out every other day to find traces of any movement throughout town or in the woods. Now they only head out every Saturday after coming up with zero evidence during their frequent searches—almost as though everyone in twelve evaporated into thin air.

Surprisingly, as odd as it sounds, Peeta never appeared as worried as she (another hunch of hers); he never stopped her from searching though. It had actually been his idea, even if he isn’t that into it, even telling her everything is going to be fine when they’d return home empty-handed. 

“Do you really think we’re the last people in twelve?” she’d ask.

“Maybe we’ll find something next time,” he’d tell her. “Now how about we go home and make something to eat, hm?”

Eventually, the more time she spent with Peeta, the less she found herself lingering on her worries too much. It took them months to get to where they are now—months of anxiety and restless nights—she didn’t want to lose that. 

Katniss walks downstairs to put her boots on and joins Peeta outside. She shivers as soon as the cold air hits her face, making her scowl at the sweater Peeta refuses to wear discarded on top of a stack of wooden crates. 

“You’re going to get sick you know,” she tells him. “And unfortunately, you didn’t marry a doctor.” Katniss stands beside his crouched form and grabs his sweater to drape it across his shoulders.

He looks up at her over his shoulder, a small smirk gracing his lips. “It’s okay sweetheart, you’re all the medicine I need.”

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to use cheesy pickup lines anymore. I’m already your wife.”

“Yeah, and I’m just making sure it’ll always be that way.”

A blush crawls up her neck, and she won’t admit it out loud, but she wants the same thing too. “We planted a lot of pumpkins,” she says, deciding to change the subject to save her face from growing any warmer. “How are we going to eat them all?”

“Well, we’ll can what we don’t eat, and store it in the cellar.” He stands up and slips his arms through the sleeve of his sweater, brushing off some dirt from his jeans in the process. “And then I think I’ll make the rest into pies that I can sell.”

Sell? She wonders who Peeta’s going to sell pies to because, if he doesn’t already know, they’re the only two left in twelve. Not to mention that she thought she had the wife’s advantage of having baked goods for free. She’s about to tell him this when:

“Hey Peter, mom asked if those pumpkins were ready.” 

Katniss blinks as Gale steps out of the trees lining the backyard. Was she seeing this correctly?

“Posy won’t shut up about those pies…” Gale trails off when he notices Katniss standing next to Peeta. “Oh.”

Her husband sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How many times have I told you not to call me that? And I told you Katniss wasn’t going hunting today.”

“Uh…” She slowly glances between the two. “Am I missing something?” Katniss looks at Gale, feeling like maybe she’s going crazy. “You’ve been missing… for a year.”

He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t necessarily say missing—”

Just then, another all too familiar voice comes from inside the house:

“Peeta, do you have any more cheese buns? Could you make some before Katniss comes back?” Prim comes out onto the back porch, stopping short as soon as she sees her sister standing frozen next to Peeta. ”Oh, hey, Katniss,” she says sheepishly.

Katniss looks back at her husband and Gale, who both wear faces full of guilt. “Surprise,” they say.

She has so many questions racing through her head, although she can’t help but stump over one fact… “You told me we didn’t have any more cheese buns.”

Peeta rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, well—”

He has a lot of explaining to do.

[nowandajenn]

Blue Christmas- Eight

Pairing: Chris Evans/OC Kelly

Summary: After almost three years of marriage, everyone would tell you that Chris and his wife Kelly are the most stable, solid couple they know. But behind closed doors, things are tense as they keep trying for a baby, to no avail. When a secret threatens to shake their solid marriage to it’s core, will they be able to pick up the pieces?

I do not consent to have my content, whether it be this story or anything else of my creation, posted by a third party on any other platform other than right here without my permission. This blog is 18+ and is not intended for minors. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Heed the warnings.

Warnings: mentions of cheating, smut, language, angst, mentions of miscarriage. If any of this is triggering to you, do not read. 

A/N: This is going to be very dialogue heavy, and will have flashbacks of the night that Chris cheated and everything that happened. Flashbacks will be in italics. Just a warning, this chapter is a BEAST. There’s a lot to unpack, and it’s going to be super emotional. 

December 29

Chris watches from his seat in the comfortable leather recliner in our living room as I twist my wedding and engagement rings around on my finger. It’s a nervous little habit that I do without even really realizing it or thinking about it. A million thoughts cross his mind as he sits silently, waiting for me to say something. 

After taking a few deep breaths to try and steel myself for the conversation that I KNOW that Chris and I need to have, I finally look up from the floor and at him. 

“Do you want a divorce?” Okay, the thousand different times I pictured this conversation happening in my head, that was definitely NOT one of the ways. Apparently my mouth and brain aren’t communicating very well today. 

Chris looks up at me, his expression aghast. 

“Wha-.......” he tries to speak, but is too stunned to even form the words. 

“Is that why you cheated? You don’t want to be with me anymore, so you went somewhere else for whatever is it that you weren’t getting from me?”

“No! Jesus Christ, no! I love you. I love you so much that it hurts. I can’t imagine my life without you. No, I don’t want a divorce.” he tells me. 

“Okay, if that’s not it, then you have to help me out here. Because I don’t understand what possible reason you could have for cheating. It had to be something that I did. Or something I didn’t do. I need you to tell me what happened. Because until I have all the facts and I understand what the hell happened, we can’t move forward.” 

He sits forward in the chair and sighs. 

“What do you want me to tell you?” 

“I want you to tell me what happened that night after we FaceTimed. I want to know what happened between then and the next morning.” I tell him. 

“You KNOW what happened.” he says miserably. 

I shake my head. “No, I know the end result. I want you to walk me through every single thing that happened that night. Everything you were thinking, everything you did.”

“Why? What good is that going to do? What’s the goddamn point? How is me telling you everything that happened going to help ANYTHING? All it’s going to do is hurt you more, and I can’t do that. I won’t.”

“The point is, if we have even the smallest hope of getting through this intact, with our MARRIAGE intact, I need to understand this. I need to know. I need to know, because when I go to sleep at night, all I can see in my head is all the things that I imagine happened that night. And I need to know if what actually happened is better or worse than what I can imagine happened. I have a right, as your wife, to know what you did.” 

Chris looks up, silently pleading with you to not make him do this, but he knows that you’re right. You do deserve to know, even if it’s going to devastate you. 

“After we got off the phone, I had to go right back into interviews and there was two more photo calls we had to do, so by the time we got done it was about 7:30 that night. I was distracted the whole time. I hated that we fought, and I felt like an asshole, and I just wanted to call you back and apologize, but I didn’t have time. Plus, I figured that we both probably needed a little bit of time to cool down. I told myself that I was going to call you that night before I went to bed so we could talk more and I could apologize to you. We all got out of there, and Cate and Robert and the rest of them wanted to go to dinner, so we came back to the hotel, changed, and then went out to eat.” Chris tells me. 

“What time did you get back from dinner?” 

“Around 10, I think. It couldn’t have been much later than that. Everyone else was talking about going out and finding a bar or a club to go to, but I just wanted to come back to the hotel and relax. I wasn’t in the mood to be around a lot of people.” 

I pull my feet up on the couch and tuck them under me. 

“Okay, so you got back to the hotel, and then what did you do?” 

For as tired as he was, Chris couldn’t relax. He tried taking a hot shower, laying in bed watching TV, browsing social media, and flipping through pictures on his phone. Finally, after about 45 minutes and getting more and more keyed up and anxious, he decides to go down to the hotel bar. 

When he walks in, the place is empty except for an older couple seated down at the end and the bartender. Chris slides himself onto one of the stools and the bartender makes her way over to him. 

“Thank God. A friendly face.” she says with a smile. 

Chris glances down the bar at the couple. “They seem pretty friendly.” he remarks. 

“Yeah, but they’ve been here for an hour and they’re literally babying their drinks, and aren’t much for conversation that doesn’t involve each other. I’m bored out of my mind.” 

She stick her hand out. “I’m Jo.”

Chris reaches across the bar and shakes her hand with his own. “Chris. Nice to meet you.”

“So, Chris, what’s your poison?”

“What was her name?” I ask him. He just referred to her as “the bartender” and “she”. 

He runs his hand down his face and over his beard. 

“I don’t......I honestly can’t remember. It was one of those boys names for a girl. You know.....Alex or Max or James.......I don’t......I can’t remember.” 

I cover my face with my hands and take a deep breath. I want to scream already, and he’s not even deep into the story. I shake my head slightly. 

“You slept with this girl, and you don’t even remember her NAME.” I say softly. 

Chris hangs his head. 

“Keep going.” 

She pours him another measure of whiskey, along with a shot for herself. They clink glasses and swallow the amber liquid, letting it burn it’s way down. 

“So what did you and your wife fight about?” she asks him. 

Chris sighs. 

“It’s......it’s complicated.”

“Hey, I’m a bartender, which means that I’m a really great listener. It’s practically a job requirement. You might feel better if you talk about it.” 

“We’re trying to have a baby.”

“Soo....what’s the problem. Trying is the fun part!” 

“We’ve been trying for a year and a half almost, and nothing’s happening. She’s perfect; there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her that would keep her from getting pregnant, but it’s just not happening. And we both want a baby so bad, and the look on her face when......it fucking kills me.” 

He knows that he shouldn’t be telling a complete stranger all of this, especially considering who he is, but the alcohol has loosened his tongue, and if he doesn’t spill his guts to someone, he’s going to explode. 

Jo puts a soft, warm hand over his. 

“I’m sorry, That has to be tough. For both of you.” she says softly. 

“I mean, I guess I never thought that it would take actual work, you know? I assumed that ‘hey, if we just keep having sex, eventually she’s going to get pregnant’ and it would be easy. She’s getting scared and fed up and talking about adoption and fertility doctors, and I hate seeing her so stressed out and upset, and I kind of just.....I said some things and made it worse and I feel like a complete fucking jackass.” 

“What if you guys can’t have kids?” 

“As much as I want to have kids with her, I don’t need them to be happy. As long as I have Kelly in my life, I’ll be perfectly happy. Do I want to be a dad? Yeah, absolutely. But there are so many kids out there that need good homes, so there are other options, but I don’t think that we’re there yet, you know?”

I get up and storm out of the room with Chris right on my heels. 

“Kelly, wait, please.....”

He touches my arm and I spin around to face him, and the look in my eyes makes him fall back a step. 

I’m so pissed off and hurt right now I could spit nails. 

“You......you told her.....EVERYTHING. You told her.....EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING, Chris! Do you even......do you even fucking understand what you did? Like.....” 

I squat down close to the floor and put my head between my knees. My heart is pounding and I’m so worked up that I’m afraid I’m going to pass out if I don’t calm down. And I’m not going anywhere or doing anything until I get the whole damn story. 

“Look, I know-” 

I look up at him incredulously. 

“No! No, you don’t know! You don’t know shit! You fucking betrayed me, in every single sense of the word. You didn’t just fuck her, you told her, a complete stranger, about me. About us trying to have a baby. You told her about things that you never even fucking bothered to tell me! Do you realize that she could go to the press? She could go and spill all of these juicy little secrets that you spilled to her over shots of Jack and have herself a nice little pay day.”

“Kelly, you wanted to know what happened that night, so I’m telling you what happened, despite everything inside of me screaming at me not to. I’m not going to lie to you or keep things from you. You wanted to know everything.” Chris says. 

I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth so hard that my jaw hurts. 

“I can’t look at you right now. I need a break.” I tell him, grabbing my jacket. I grab Dodger’s leash off the peg in the hallway and call for him. 

Dodger trots over, tongue lolling out of his mouth, happy to be going on a walk. 

“I’ll be back in a while.” 

Forty five minutes later, I’m in the utility room stripping off my wet clothes after getting Dodger dry and wiping off his paws. 

Chris stops pacing the kitchen when he sees me walking through the house in my bra and underwear. 

“What happened to your clothes?” he asks. 

“Dodger saw a squirrel and got excited and kind of dragged me through a snow bank.” I sigh. I throw my clothes in the dryer and make my way into our room to get changed. 

“Dodge, come on.....” Chris admonishes. Dodger just jumps up on the bed and curls up. 

I throw on a pair of gray sweatpants and a blue Patriots hoodie that’s hung over the back of the chair in our room and sit down on the side of the bed. 

“I want to know the rest.” I tell Chris. 

He sits down heavily on the end of the bed. 

“No, you don’t.” 

I swallow thickly. “You’re right. I don’t. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re going to tell me anyway.” 

Hours pass with Jo and Chris laughing and talking and flirting back and forth, until it’s 1am and the bar closes for the night. 

“Thanks for sticking around and hanging out tonight. I think I would have died of sheer boredom if you hadn’t.” Jo laughs softly. She offered to walk him back to his room as he was pretty well drunk and a little unsteady on his feet. 

“It was no problem. I didn’t really want to be alone tonight to be honest. I used to do really well on my own. I was used to it, and then......I wasn’t alone.” Chris tells her. 

Once they reach his room, they linger outside for a few minutes, both of them not really wanting the night to end. Jo steps closer to him, knowing exactly what she wants and completely unashamed about it. 

“You should kiss me.” she says softly, looking up at him with big doe eyes. She places her hands on his chest and instead of immediately backing away like he should have, he leans into her touch. 

Chris closes his eyes as he feels his mouth go dry and a strange fluttery feeling in his stomach. He hasn’t really felt this way since....

He opens his eyes and breathes out deeply. “I can’t. I’m married. I’m married and I’m insanely in love with my wife.” 

“So? You should kiss me anyway. I can tell you want to. You’ve been flirting with me all night.” she says, taking a step closer. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise. You need a way to release all this tension you’ve got, and I’m more than willing to help you out anyway I can.” 

Before his brain can scream at him to stop, he’s wrapping his arms around her and covering her mouth with his, kissing her soundly. It’s a battle of teeth and tongues, both of them trying to take control from the other. Without breaking apart, Chris manages to get his key card out of his pocket and gets the door open, pushing both of them through it and slamming it behind them. 

“This never goes beyond this room. We never talk about this ever again.” Chris gasps, pulling away from her just long enough to get the words out. 

“Absolutely.” she agrees. 

Clothes are torn off and tossed to the floor in a frenzy, and as soon as Chris drops his pants and boxers, Jo sinks to her knees and takes him in her mouth, swallowing him almost all the way down. 

“Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Christ, yes, just like that.” he moans out. 

He brings his right hand to her hair, holding it in a makeshift ponytail while his left hand goes to her shoulder. 

She almost makes him lose his mind with the things she can do with her tongue, and within minutes, he’s fucking her face roughly as spit runs down her chin and tears are springing to her eyes from the assault on her throat, but she loves it. She has the man she’s fantasized about for years shoving his cock down her throat, and she’s never been more turned on in her life. She smirks to herself as she wonders if his wife ever sucks him off like THIS. 

When he can’t stand it anymore, Chris pulls her off his dick and takes a few deep breaths. 

“I need a condom.” 

“Right. I have one in my purse.” she tells him as she reaches for her bag and finds it and hands it to him. 

“Get on the bed. On your hands and knees.” he says roughly. While her mouth was wrapped around him, he was mesmerized and couldn’t look away, but now he finds that he doesn’t even want to look at her face. He rolls the condom over his cock, giving it a few strokes before sinking into her from behind.

Tears stream down my face as I process all of what Chris just told me, and I can’t even BREATHE with how devastated I feel. It’s like a hole just got punched through my chest. I try and take a breath in, but it turns into a strangled sob and I drop my head into my hands and just let it out. 

Chris swallows thickly, wiping away his own tears as he watches me fall apart  across from him, wishing that he could do something.....ANYTHING to take all the pain away. To go back and undo everything that he did so you wouldn’t hurt. All he feels is deep, unrelenting shame and he knows in his gut that if you asked for a divorce after hearing all of his sins laid bare, he wouldn’t be surprised or even have the right to be devastated. He made his bed. 

I feel bile rising in my throat, and I stumble to my feet and race to the downstairs bathroom, falling to my knees and vomiting painfully as the image of my husband kissing this woman and fucking her run through my head. I barely notice Chris come into the bathroom until I feel him pulling my hair back and securing it with a hair tie, and rubbing my back softly. I can’t even find the breath or the energy to tell him to get away from me and drop dead. 

I’m so damn tired. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this level of physical and mental exhaustion before. I sink back into the pillows a little more, and look over at Chris. Neither one of us have said a word since he picked me up off the bathroom floor and stood there with his arm around my waist as I brushed my teeth. That was 45 minutes ago. 

“It was just sex?” I ask. 

He exhales. “It was just sex. It was just once.”

I look back up at the ceiling and try and make sense of everything. 

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand why you would sleep with another woman.”

“I-I don’t know. I was lonely because we were fighting, and I missed you so goddamn much, and I was afraid of what was happening to us with all of the stress and I just......I got drunk, and I did a horrible thing. I did a horrible thing, and I wish that I could take it back. I wish I could take it back so bad it hurts. But I can’t. And I have to live with that for the rest of my life.” Chris says. 

I lift my eyes to meet his. “You were lonely? That’s your excuse? You were lonely, and you were upset. So you stuck your dick in another woman.” 

I stand at the kitchen sink and drain a glass of water in record time, and refill it. Turns out crying all day and then puking can kind of dehydrate you. I can sense Chris behind me, even though he doesn’t say anything. 

“Two years ago, a couple of weeks after you left for Africa to start shooting the movie, I found out I was pregnant. We hadn’t even officially started trying yet, so it came as a pretty big surprise. But I was so happy, and I couldn’t wait to tell you. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone, especially when you were so far away, so I was going to surprise you when you came home. I had it all planned out. I practiced telling you standing in front of the bathroom mirror, just so I could see the stupid happy look on my face.”

I feel tears prick my eyes, and I swallow down the sob that I feel threatening to come out. I turn towards Chris, and the look on his face is heartbreaking. 

“What?” he breathes out. 

“I was at a job.....I was shooting a birthday party for a little girl who was turning one. All I could think about was that that was going to be us eventually, and it made me so happy. Everything was fine, but then I started having horrible pain in my stomach. It got so bad that I collapsed, and the parents called 911 when they realized that I was bleeding. They did an ultrasound at the hospital, but they couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. I had already miscarried. You don’t know anything about feeling lonely until you’re by yourself laying on a table with your feet in stirrups while a doctor cleans out your uterus.”

Chris is sunk down in one of the kitchen chairs with his hand over his mouth and tears running down his face. This is the first time he’s hearing any of this. 

“Why didn’t-” his voice cracks, and he takes a minute and clears his throat before he tries again. “Why the hell didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come home!”

“Chris, you were 8,000 miles away from home. There wasn’t anything you could do. It was too late. They had to do the procedure as soon as possible. I didn’t.....I hadn’t told anyone else that I was pregnant. And I didn’t want to call your mom or sisters because I didn’t want them to find out. I knew if they found out they would call you, and you would be devastated. And I couldn’t do that to you when you were so far away. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. I was trying to protect you.”

The sound of his fist slamming against the heavy oak table makes me jump. 

“And what about over the last two years? Huh? Don’t you think that I had a right to know? Don’t you think I had the right as your husband, to be there with you? To comfort you? To mourn with you? To even have a fucking clue about what happened?” 

I take a deep breath. 

“You did.  You should have been there. You should have been there with me to hold my hand and cry with me and tell me that it was going to be okay, even though it was a lie. But you weren’t. You were doing your job. I don’t know if you realize it, but when you leave for work or press or whatever it is that you have to leave me for, you’re not the only one who’s lonely. You’re not the only one who has to deal with the silence. But you don’t see me going out and fucking someone else.”

Tears start to swim in my eyes again, and I suddenly feel like if I don’t get out of the house right now, I’m going to suffocate. I’ve been in here with Chris literally all day while we picked apart his affair, and I’m exhausted. I’m hurt and emotional and talking about the baby that we lost just made everything worse.

“I’m gonna go. I just.....I can’t handle anything else today. I know you’re probably really pissed off at me right now, and honestly, the feeling is mutual. Things are already about as bad as they can be, so I’m gonna leave before we have a chance to make it worse.”

The last thing I see before I walk out the door is Chris sitting at the table with his head in his hands, sobbing while Dodger sits on the floor next to him, whining in distress.  

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[ibis-gt]

chapter one of mercenary au! there may be more if i can dig uo the proper motivation... anyway here u go. requisite meetcute, 3k words, content warning for mentions of past family member death.

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Light shone through the bedroom window of one Luther Algers. The beam moved steadily, achingly slow, as the sun rose in the sky, until it finally reached the perfect angle to shine on his face and, when the sensation made him blink awake, directly in his eyes.

He groaned and rolled over, rubbing at his face with the heel of one hand. He would’ve tried to fall back asleep, but his thoughts caught up to him too quickly.

Today. He knew what today was. Today, he set off for Pentel. Today he gave up his freedom for the good of his kingdom.

Okay, so maybe that was a little dramatic. It sounded like he was going off to war or something. In truth, he was going to get married. It would be a lovely ceremony, lots of people in attendance, a splendid banquet, good feelings all around.

It just would’ve been nice if someone had asked him if he wanted to be married. Or told him who he was marrying.

But that wasn’t how this worked. It was an arranged marriage, one meant to strengthen the peace treaty between Pentel and Contigo. Traditionally the marriage should have been between princes or princesses of both kingdoms, but since Contigo’s king was childless, Luther had been chosen to seal the deal. Luther’s father was a high-ranking noble with a fair amount of money and influence, and he owed the king a favor. He seemed an obvious choice.

Well, no point in putting it off any longer. It would be about two weeks’ journey to the city of Pentel and once he arrived there were still details about the wedding to hammer out and his fiancee to meet. He rolled out of bed and dressed in the outfit that had been laid out for him last night. All lace and ruffles, with a runed belt, the symbols for first encounters and strong bonds etched across it. His job from here on out was to look pretty and smile on command. Like some kind of trained dog.

Before he had time to really properly wallow in his discontent, his father’s voice rang out from the foyer.

“Luther! It’s time! Don’t be late!”

“Coming!” Luther called, skipping out of his room and descending the stairs as quickly as he could. He caught sight of his father just as he exited the front door to their palatial estate. Luther took a moment to catch his breath and make sure his clothes and hair were in order before he followed, stepping out into the daylight. Outside, a line of splendid carriages sat, with people milling about between them. A trip like this was expensive, even beyond his father’s means, but since it was a matter of national importance the king was footing the bill. Servants flitted to and fro with last minute additions to the carriage train’s luggage, attended the important guests who would be traveling with Luther, and were generally busy as bees. Everyone was decked out in their finest finery, which seemed odd to Luther. Shouldn’t they save it for the last day of travel, when they’d actually arrive? But he supposed that they’d be stopping along the way for food and rest, and they’d need to look their best.

“You could’ve had breakfast if you’d been up earlier,” his father grumbled in lieu of a ‘good morning’, “but as it is either you can wait until lunch or see if there’s anything they can dig out of the provisions for the road. Now, your carriage is the one in the middle of the group. You’ll be in with two diplomats and a manners coach. They’ll teach you how to act and speak to Pentel’s royalty, topics to avoid, so on and so forth. There’s a historian in the carriage behind you, try to meet with them at meals and - are you listening to me?”

Luther was not listening. He was staring wide-eyed at a figure standing near his carriage. The man was dressed in armor, with strong boiled leather covering his chest and stomach. Metal pauldrons, gauntlets, and shin guards, slightly tarnished from time and use, glinted dully in the light. An oversized hammer hung from his belt. A few strands of black hair had come free from his long ponytail, and a scraggly beard clung to his chin. Probably the most interesting thing about the man, though, was that he looked to be about twenty feet tall. He could’ve picked up Luther’s carriage under one arm and walked off with it. He was watching the pair of them intently, ignoring the people bustling around between the carriages with packages and bundles for the road. Luther tried to drag his attention back towards his father. He could’ve sworn he saw someone actually walk between the man’s legs out of the corner of his eye.

It was rude to point, and probably unnecessary, so Luther said as delicately as possible, “Who’s that, uh… rather tall man?”

“Ah. Your bodyguard.” Luther’s father turned and waved at the giant.

“My - ?” Luther started to say, but lapsed into awed silence as his new bodyguard walked over to them. The ground practically shook under the weight of the man’s footsteps. He blocked out the sun as he stood before the two of them, and Luther suppressed a shiver that was half from the chill of the shade and half from the sheer size of the man. He was even more intimidating up close than he’d been at a distance. Luther felt practically pinned in place by the intensity of his gaze. Luther’s father continued speaking as though there weren’t a colossus standing mere feet away.

“As you know, your safety is my top priority,” he said, turning back to face Luther. “I’ve hired this mercenary to protect you on the journey.”

“I… see,” Luther said, glancing nervously up at the giant. “And… what is your name?” He raised his voice a little just in case the man had trouble hearing him.

“You can call me Cam, sir,” the giant replied. A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth before his face resumed the professional mask. His voice was gravelly and incredibly deep. Luther felt it vibrate in his chest.

Luther’s father glared at his son. Luther knew he didn’t really approve of fraternizing with those of a lower station, but it would have been so rude to just continue talking as though Cam weren’t there. Besides, that was such a stupid prejudice. But he didn’t dare disobey his father any further, so he did his best to listen as his father ran down a litany of instructions to ensure the journey was as productive and successful as possible. Largely it boiled down to Luther learning a lot of very boring things very quickly so he could present himself as the best Contigo had to offer.

Finally, his father put his hands on Luther’s shoulders and gave him the closest thing to a smile he could manage.

“You’re doing a good thing, son,” he said. “Good for both our kingdoms. You’ll be perfect. And you’ll be very safe.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Luther. Since Luther’s mother had died in childbirth, his father had been very protective. Overly so. To the extent that it bordered on paranoia. It didn’t help that an assassination attempt had been made on his father’s life after his involvement with an unpopular ruling about taxes that shifted the burden to the mercantile sector. His father had been convinced from that day on that home was the only safe place for him and his son. Luther hadn’t been allowed out unless accompanied by at least three handpicked guards, all of whom were serious buzzkills and never let him do anything fun.

That was probably why his father had gone so overboard with his protection on this trip, Luther supposed. Anyone wanting to cause trouble would hopefully be scared off by just the sight of the giant bodyguard walking alongside the carriage train.

He snuck a glance at the giant again. Cam was still standing right next to them, keeping them in his shadow, but was now looking out at the horizon as though scanning for threats. He was probably just as bored as Luther was, having to listen to his father prattle on. The thought was oddly hilarious, and Luther bit the inside of his cheek to keep from giggling as he met his father’s eyes.

“Well, I suppose this is goodbye, then,” Luther said. “I’ll be sure to write to you often.”

“Yes. Goodbye, Luther.” His father said the words as though he wasn’t entirely sure what they meant. He brought his son into an awkward, hesitant embrace, and quickly let go again. He’d never been good at showing affection, not through words or actions. Truth be told, Luther would’ve been jumping for joy at the chance to get away from home and his controlling father, if it weren’t for the fact that he was just going to end up in a no doubt equally controlling situation. “You go on ahead. I’ve got a few things to clear up with your bodyguard here.” Luther saw the small grimace that Cam attempted to hide and smiled to himself. He seemed like he’d be good company, at least.

As he set off towards the carriage that would be both his salvation and his prison for the next two weeks, he caught only a few words of the fairly one-sided conversation his father had with the giant. It sounded mostly like strict instructions not to talk to Luther except in times of extreme emergency, and a few other nitpicky details he didn’t quite hear. There was a rumbling, “Yes, sir,” from Cam, and then the giant’s thundering footsteps, drawing nearer. Luther’s heart beat faster as Cam approached. His stomach started to knot in anxiety. He knew the giant had been hired for his protection, but having such a large being walking so close behind him hit his fight or flight reflexes, and he’d never been much of a fighter. Luther forced himself not to look over his shoulder. He climbed into the carriage and settled himself on the cushioned seat, then finally shot a sideways glance out of the window. Cam had resumed his post in front of the carriage and all he could see from inside was a section of the giant’s leg.

Luther’s heart sank as he stared glumly at the ceiling of the carriage. The most interesting person on this journey, no doubt, and he was under orders not to say a word to him. He hoped he could break down the giant’s walls eventually. No doubt he had countless exciting tales of action and danger that would be loads more entertaining than listening to dry old historians and prim diplomats lecture him about how to hold a fork.

~~~

They had been on the road for only a few hours, but it had dragged like an eternity as the diplomats prattled away. Luther could barely hold any of it in his head. His eyelids drooped, he swallowed yawn after yawn, and he had to consciously stop bouncing his leg every five minutes. They’d finally decided that was enough for now, clearly dissatisfied with how poorly he was paying attention. Luther stared out the carriage window. He would’ve had an excellent view of the rolling green hills in the distance if it weren’t for Cam.

The giant was trudging along beside the carriage, easily matching the pace of the horses with a measured stride, and mostly blocking Luther’s line of sight to anything else. Luther realized Cam was going to have to walk the whole way, basically alone, since everyone in the carriage train seemed afraid of him and avoided him whenever possible. That was almost worse than having your ear talked off by stuffy old men telling you how to act. Luther knew Cam was under orders not to talk to him, but how was Luther’s father going to find out, anyway? He reached up and swung the window open, leaning his head out to call up to the giant.

The motion of the window opening caught Cam’s eye, and he glanced down just in time to see Luther’s curly-haired head poke out. Whatever the kid was saying was lost in the rumble of the cart wheels and the thunder of the horses’ hooves. It must’ve been important, though. The kid’s father had been very clear that he was engaging in extremely important business and should not be bothered or distracted by Cam. He could practically still hear the man’s thin, unpleasant voice. “Only in the utmost emergency should any communication pass between the two of you.” Well, this looked like an emergency, if he was interrupting his business, and how was the guy going to find out, anyway?

“Can’t quite hear you, sir,” Cam said. “Maybe we could talk when the carriage pulls to a stop at the next town?”

Oh, god no, I can’t wait that long, Luther thought. In fifteen minutes these old fogeys were going to try to start lesson number two. He leaned a little further out and on an impulse yelled, “Pick me up!”

Cam caught that one loud and clear, although for a moment he thought he must have misheard. But there wasn’t much else that could have been. He shrugged and said, “Open the door, then.”

Luther couldn’t believe that worked. He’d half expected the giant to laugh or shake his head. The diplomats stared at him open-mouthed.

“S-sir, I don’t think you should - ” One of them began nervously, but that only strengthened his resolve. He unlatched the door and swung it open with a confidence that completely crumbled as Cam’s huge hand reached in and grabbed him around the middle. It was a delicate maneuver since the carriage was still rolling, but Cam managed it deftly, lifting Luther up and setting him on one shoulder, then laying a hand across his lap to keep him in place. He'd had to crouch to reach into the carriage and Luther felt his stomach drop as Cam straightened up. The ground fell away at an alarming speed, and then he was swaying gently back and forth with Cam's stride, hair blowing in the breeze.

"So, what were you going to say?" Cam asked. 

"Uh, um, I, uh.... Hi?" Luther squeaked.

Cam's eyebrows knit in confusion. 'Hi?' Did the guy just want to say 'hi'? Really?

"Hello," he replied.

Luther was silent, fidgeting for a moment. He'd lost his nerve completely. He was up so high and so intimately close to Cam's face. He couldn't even find his voice enough to ask to be set back down.

Oh my god, Cam thought, that was really it. Well, that was embarrassing. Didn't really need to go to all that trouble. But the guy seemed content to sit there for now. He decided to try some small talk.

"Enjoying the journey so far? It must be pretty stuffy in that little carriage. Good to get out and get yourself some fresh air."

"O-oh, um, yes. Quite stuffy. The air is, uh. Nice." Luther could smell Cam very distinctly. Sweat, salt, steel, and leather. An earthy combination, but not entirely unpleasant. It was so different from what he was used to, and honestly a welcome change. It was a lovely day, a little on the chilly side, but Cam's hand on his lap kept him quite warm. Even the cold steel pauldron below him was heating up pretty quickly. "I’ve, uh, never met a giant before."

Oh, there it is. He'll have all kinds of invasive questions, no doubt. Cam suppressed a little sigh. "Honored to be your first, then." Technically not exactly true. Cam was only half-giant. But to sheltered nobles who didn’t know better it didn’t matter.

But there was no follow-up. Possibly Luther caught the tired edge to Cam's voice and wisely decided to drop that line of discussion. The silence that followed wasn't as awkward as Cam thought it would be. The little noble smelled faintly floral and citrus-y. The scent was light, not at all cloying like some other rich folk's perfume. Cam found that he kind of liked having him on his shoulder, actually. It made him feel like a protector, as opposed to before when he felt like he was just tagging along uninvited.

Luther was glad that Cam had his eyes fixed ahead on the road, because he was blushing so hard his face must have been lobster red. The giant was unexpectedly gentle. He'd half expected to be accidentally crushed in Cam's grip at first, but Cam had much more control than that. The hand across his lap was a firm, comforting pressure, and he was grateful for it. His own hands had been held tight to his chest, but as he relaxed he lowered them slightly. He hesitated, then rested them on the side of Cam's hand, anxiously glancing at Cam's face as he did so. No reaction. His hunched shoulders slumped, and he let out the breath he’d been holding.

Now that Luther felt more comfortable, he could enjoy the sensation of being carried. It was quite the way to travel. He looked out across the fields and watched a pair of birds in flight. The advantage of Cam’s height allowed him to see so much farther than usual.

Cam snuck a sideways glance at Luther. He had his head turned slightly away staring out at the horizon and seemed much more relaxed with a slight smile on his face. Cam suppressed a smile of his own. The little noble was pretty cute, he had to admit. His carefully-arranged brown curls had gotten mussed and out of place when Cam picked him up, and they now fell much more naturally around his face, framing it nicely. He could just about make out constellations of freckles across his delicate face, and warm, curious brown eyes that tracked an arc across the sky. An expression of wonder and amusement perched lightly on Luther's face.

Cam realized he'd been staring at Luther too long just as Luther looked back in his direction. Cam yanked his eyes away and focused on the road again, desperately keeping up the blankest poker face he could manage. He realized he was nearly about to walk right over the carriages and course-corrected as subtly as he could, cursing himself for getting distracted. This was just another pretty noble he had to protect and he couldn't afford to mess this job up. The payout would be huge, along with bi-weekly payments as long as he hung around after the wedding. Nearly a real steady job. He heard Luther stifle a giggle on his shoulder and his brow furrowed, his neutral expression drawing down into a frown. He hadn't been nearly as subtle as he'd hoped, then.

Blessedly for Cam, Luther's carriage door swung tentatively open again, and one of the diplomats poked his head out.

"It's, ah, time for the next lesson," he called over the clatter of the horses' hooves. "If we could have the young gentleman back, please…?"

Cam nodded his agreement and shifted his grip on Luther, leaning down again to place him back in the carriage. "Watch yer head," he muttered, and Luther ducked inside, giving Cam a wistful glance over his shoulder.

There. With any luck, those would be the last words they ever spoke to each other.

[harry-writings]

Arrogant Son of a Bitch

- The one where Harry and Y/n are separated, but Harry gets jealous when he sees Y/n getting ready for a date with another man 

Masterlist 

-

It was the last thing Harry wanted to see, really — Y/n in a tight red dress, hooking gold earrings into her ears while she rubs her lips together,  spreading the crimson lipstick upon the surface, legs ending at her black stilettos.

But that’s exactly what Harry sees when he walks into her apartment to pick up their six-month old son, and he’s never had so much of an urge to gouge his eyes out from their sockets and leave them lifeless upon the ground.

There’s someone else. Y/n’s dolling herself up, wearing her Sunday best, letting her hair down in loose curls even though she hates curling her fucking hair, for somebody else — for somebody that’s not him, for somebody that’s not her husband.

“Hey, Harry! Thank you so much for coming early. I don’t want to be late!”

She still has yet to look at him — still scrambling around her living room, gathering everything she needs — and Harry doesn’t even know if he wants her to. One glance from her when she looks like this... and he’ll be a goner, he knows it, and he can’t afford to get all jealous and possessive in front of the very woman he broke things off with not just one year ago.

It was his idea to file for divorce, at the end of it all. Y/n had tried everything she could to mend the marriage that was in constant shambles, but Harry was always too stubborn and too prideful to admit to all the things he’d done wrong. And he did everything wrong.

He didn’t treat Y/n with the kind of love he had once given her — with the kind of love she always deserved. He treated Y/n like an obligation rather than a choice, a burden rather than a need, yet she always kept her promises and lived by her vows because it wasn’t just a casual relationship that could be thrown away and forgotten about, it was marriage.

She signed them up for marriage counseling, but Harry failed to show up to half the meetings. And when he did, he’d just sit there with a scowl on his face saying that talking about their feelings wouldn’t help any because there were no feelings. She tried working around his schedule to go on getaway vacations together to respire their connection, but he always spent the portion of time he could have spent with her working on more of his music.

And when she got pregnant with his baby, Y/n was desperate and silently hoped that the little bundle of joy growing inside of her would help fix all that had been broken between them. But it was no avail. If anything, it only made them grow further apart. Perhaps it was because he felt more bound to her when he didn’t want to be with her at all.

He told her he wanted the divorce half-way through the six month mark of her pregnancy. She was big, she was struggling, and she was absolutely exhausted, yet Harry couldn’t find it in his heart to push it aside any longer. He needed to let her go.

But as Harry stands here, watching Y/n looking as gorgeous as ever for another man that isn’t even hers, makes him want to take back everything he had ever done.

And it’s not that he didn’t before — he’s wanted to take it back from the second he walked into their home with divorce papers in his hands, his pregnant wife sobbing on the kitchen counter, asking why it had to be this way — it just feels like a fresh wound on his already scarred and fragile heart, and he genuinely feels as if a part of him has died.

“You’re going on a date.” Harry says knowingly, his frown deepening in the corners of his lips. And he knows he has no right to feel the way he does — so upset and hurt, like his heart had been ripped in two — but he can’t help himself from falling apart.

At the end of the day, she’s still his wife. Sure, the divorce papers had been filed, but there was still so much that had to be done for their last final steps. But of course, just like everything else that involved Y/n, Harry didn’t make the time for it.

Y/n shrugs, her thumbs twiddling together with her head down, eyes casted at the ground beneath his feet.

It’s been a year since Harry brought the divorce papers home, and Y/n’s barely looked at him since. Sometimes he’s thankful she doesn’t, but sometimes, in times like these, he wishes she would… even if it’ll hurt.

“Yeah, I guess. Just some guy I met the other night at the grocery store. Couldn’t reach one of the cereals for Topher and saw me struggling. Guess he thought I was pretty or something and told me he wanted to take me out.”

“I didn’t ask.”

She knows she should have stopped herself from talking sooner, but being around Harry makes her head spin and her body disassociate from herself. She doesn’t ever know what to do, or what to say, whenever he’s around.

There’s a part of her that tries so desperately to act as if everything is normal — like nothing had ever happened — mainly for Topher’s sake. But the other part of her knows that that’s such an impossible thing to do no matter how hard she tries.

Y/n purses her lips, dropping her hands at her sides in defeat. “Right.”

And it’s not that Harry wants to talk to her this way — like he doesn’t care about her, like he can barely stand the sight of her anymore; it’s the farthest from the truth, really, he’s just utter shit at saying how he feels or what he’s thinking. He’ll lie, and lie, and lie — chew on the truth and spit it out if it means he doesn’t have to apologize.

And right now, that’s all he wants to do. He wants to break down and drown in his tears, hold her to him and tell her how sorry he is for everything he’s put her through. But he has this unexplainable, unsettling wall built around him that he can’t knock down no matter how hard he swings at it.

He curses his career for it, really. He wishes he could be one of the celebrities that says fame hasn’t gotten to his head, but it has. In the most selfish, most arrogant of ways, fame has made him so prideful that he never puts himself to blame for anything that happens in his life.

His mother was the first one to tell him, and still never fails to remind him now that the divorce has been put in place.

You never fight for anything in your life. She’d always say. You think you’re too good for your mistakes. Put your wife through hell, making your kid go through hell, all because you swallow the two words that could fix everything you’ve ever broken. 

But he wants to fight for Y/n. Oh, how badly does he want to, but at this point, it’s just too late. All the damage had already been done, and no woman could ever forgive a man that left her during the nine months she needed the man she loves the most.

“Didn’t mean it like that, just —“ he croaks brokenly, gulping down the cries he doesn’t deserve to weep. “Does he know you’re married?”

The question makes her feel guilty — really guilty, the kind of guilty that makes her stomach swim with bile because nothing she does is ever going to feel right, for either of them. And she knows going on a date when the divorce hasn’t been set in stone is just making everything so much harder.

But what is she to do? Wait around for Harry to finally take the time out of his music to go to the courtroom so she could finally move on? She can’t keep being legally bound to a man that no longer loves her, she can’t keep doing this dance by herself because she’ll never have the heart to find somebody else.

And she just needs somebody else.

Because she’s still so deeply in love with Harry, it hurts. Everyday feels like the world is grabbing her at her feet, sucking her into its core until she’s floating in the midst of everybody’s life except her own. She’s living day by day stuck between the confines of marriage and separation and the worst part is, she feels not only separated from Harry, but also from herself.

It was so good. Everything about them was just so good… and Y/n doesn’t know what she had done wrong to make Harry fall out of love with her.  But somewhere between their picture-perfect relationship hid an unbearable amount of blame being put onto Y/n for things that weren’t her fault, or her responsibility, or her obligations.

The stupidest, littlest of things would set Harry off — leading to heart-wrenching periods of silence, an uncomfortable amount of tension, and constant reminders that her love wasn’t enough to make him happy.

And she just can’t keep living with that anymore. She can’t stand the fact that she has to keep thinking of him because he’s still here, all the time, swimming in the same gray area she’s been drowning in.

“That’s not fair.” Y/n frowns, her eyes briefly looking up to get a glimpse of his face, which is red and as broken as ever, and she curses her wandering eyes.

“I don’t go out with other women because you’re still my wife.” Harry nearly sobs the last word, still finding it hard to speak after everything they had been through. Because really, is she his wife, or just the ghost of her? “I still love you just as much. I’d be cheating on you if I even thought of it.”

And it’s true. Harry hasn’t looked at or even thought of another woman since the moment his heart found hers. She’s the first one he sees — in a room full of people, in his daydreams, in his music — she’s the only one he sees, in everything. He couldn’t even imagine it.

Y/n flutters her eyes closed to keep her composure, wishing now more than ever to be sucked up into the earth’s core again because she doesn’t want to be here anymore — in a room so close to him, feeling his every breath, hearing his every word echo in her head.

“Harry… I’m not your wife anymore. We’re separated. You’ve made it more than clear to me that you don’t love or want me anymore. I can’t keep living my life on your time.”

Y/n’s looking up at him as if begging him to understand, but he doesn’t. He may have fucked up one too many times down the line, but at the end of the day, he’s never once told Y/n he didn’t love her anymore. And he couldn’t even dream of telling Y/n he didn’t want her anymore, he’d throw up if he so much as tried.

There isn’t a universe Harry wouldn’t want Y/n in. She’s all he’s ever wanted.

“When have I ever said that?”

He asks it like her words sucked all that was left out of him and she almost wants to take it back, but she won’t.

“You didn’t have to.”

His eyes drop to the floor and a new wave of tears begin to rise at the surface, pushing at his throat.

He has nothing to say for himself.

Y/n sighs, her eyes wandering around the room as she waits for Harry to break this deafening silence, but he doesn’t. So, she lifts her purse higher upon her shoulder before coughing awkwardly to the open air.

“Topher is in the car seat all ready to go. His binkie should be in there, too. I would love to stay and chat but I really need to get —”

“Please, don’t go.” Harry interrupts, his voice cracking as he closes his eyes, loose tears falling down his cheeks and hitting the hardwood floor below them, hand inching closer to hers. “Stay here with me.”

She’s frozen still, the feeling of her hand being this close to his knocking the breath straight out of her lungs and nearly sending her to her knees. Because how badly does she want to — how badly does Y/n want to break the laws of reality just to be with her Harry again, even for a second, but she can’t keep letting herself believe they will ever come back from this. She can’t keep going back to Harry.

She has to stop choosing Harry.

“I can’t, Harry.” She breathes out, not having the heart or the strength to look up into the very eyes that never fail to make her fall in love. “I can’t stay with you any longer. I have to go.”

And before Harry could reach for her any farther, she was already gone.

-

Y/n was practically dead to the world — all her apartment lights shut off, all doors and windows locked, phone turned off and buried somewhere beneath all the covers she’s been hibernating in — before she heard someone practically beating down her front door.

She rolls over to her nightstand, groaning as her eyes blink to adjust to the blue light reading 1:04AM vibrantly in the dark. She sits herself up on her elbow, huffing out a breath as her hands reach up to rub the dryness out of her eyes.

She looks around her room as her brain scrambles to process reality, but it isn’t until another series of knocks jolt her up from where she sits, nearly losing balance in the process.

“Why? Why can’t I have nice things?” Y/n whispers to herself as she makes her way out of her bedroom to her front door, way too far out of her mind to bother checking her peephole before unlocking the knob and swinging it open.

“Mitch!” Y/n shrieks, her arms held out stiffly in front of her as Harry’s body is thrown into them — not so sure if holding him up is the appropriate thing to do considering they haven’t even touched each other once since the separation. “What the fuck!”

“You don’t answer your fucking phone!” Mitch fumes, his eyes bewildered and unsteady as his body is so visibly angry he doesn’t even know what to do with himself — pinching his lips between his fingers, practically walking in circles, trying his hardest to breathe through the pit of fire burning in his chest. “Needed to get him the fuck away from me!”

Mitch knows it’s not Y/n’s fault that she wasn’t answering his calls — it is well over midnight, after all — but he has been so pushed over the edge that he doesn’t have time to think about anything else other than being as far away from Harry as humanly possible.

Y/n’s struck with confusion because in all the four years she had been with Harry, he never had any problems with Mitch. Sure, they’d bump heads about which notes sound better in certain songs, or bicker a bit after long hours at the studio, but never anything like this.

“Been pissing me off all night about your stupid date! Proper fucking idiot, he is. Files a divorce with you, for what? To get jealous at every man that makes eyes at you? Arrogant son of a bitch, had half the mind to knock him in before I decided to bring him here.”

“Shut up, Mitch!” Harry growls groggily against the skin of Y/n’s shoulder.

Mitch turns his body to face Harry’s back, one hand on his hip while the other rubs along the roots of his beard, his face scrunching with what Y/n can only consider to be a look of complete malice.

He knows he shouldn’t be throwing Harry under the bus about their private conversations, especially ones that consist of Y/n, but there’s only so much he could put up with.

It’s sickening, really — having to constantly be there for Harry when everything that’s gotten him to this point has been his own fault. Harry doesn’t deserve comforting, but Mitch has been alongside him for far too long to not care about his feelings and emotions… no matter how wrong they are.

And what’s even more sickening is seeing how badly he’s hurting his own self by avoiding the divorce entirely instead of taking responsibility for his actions. Mitch could go on and on about all the ways to make things right again, yet still in some way, somehow, it always seems to go right past Harry’s head.

Because trying to sway Harry’s mind or his decisions is practically like pulling teeth — he’ll always find a way to go against what everybody else says and it drives Mitch up the wall. He’s sick and tired of wasting his breath all because Harry’s too stubborn to take anybody else’s path but his own.

“You couldn’t just bring him home? Where the hell is Topher?”

Y/n is struggling to keep Harry up because she’s not even sure if she’s doing it right. He’s got his entire body pressed up against hers, all of his weight being held by her still half-asleep arms and he shouldn’t even be here.

“No, I couldn’t bring him home because the first three times I tried, he wouldn’t get out of my damn car.” Mitch growls through clenched teeth, the side of his fist taking one last swing at Y/n’s open door.

He takes a couple deep breaths, his elbow leaning against the doorframe and he squeezes his eyes shut to regain his composure. “Topher’s with Sarah for the night. Now, for the love of fuck, make Harry grow a pair of balls so he can finally talk to you and not me, please.”

His eyes are pleading with Y/n’s silently, and she nods her head at him in response. She can’t leave Harry like this if she wanted to, anyways.

She sighs, holding Harry against her chest now to get a proper grip on him, and she can feel him press a small kiss against the crook of her neck.

“Have a good night, Mitch. Take care of yourself.”

She smiles softly at him, and for a moment in time, she feels like everything might be okay.

Maybe she only feels this way because this is the first time she’s touched Harry in a year now and it gives her the sense of clarity she’s been missing for so long. Or, maybe she feels this way because Mitch was always the one who was rooting for them despite everything they’ve been through, and knowing he still cares enough about the both of them to bring Harry to her apartment to talk gives her the smallest bit of hope she’s been needing.

“You too, Y/n.”

Mitch gives her one last reassuring look before he shuts the door, leaving Y/n and Harry alone in the confines of her apartment with absolutely nowhere else to go.

She guides him to her couch, which was a bit more difficult than she expected considering Harry is nearly twice her height and much stronger than he realizes. It takes almost all the energy out of her to get him to take a few steps of his own until he’s finally sitting upon the cushions.

“Your date.” Harry mumbles against her shoulder while she lays him down upon the couch, his glossy eyes looking up at her with genuine hurt and concern when his head lays upon the pillow. “Did he treat you nice?”

Y/n smiles softly to herself, reaching for the blanket sprawled atop of the couch — the very blanket Harry gifted her for the first Christmas they spent together. It’s been her favorite ever since.

“I didn’t go.”

“You didn’t go?”

Harry can’t deny that he feels happy about it — happy that she didn’t spend the night with somebody else, happy that she couldn’t find it in her heart to move on from him quite yet. But another part of him — a bigger part of him — suddenly feels guilty, and empty, and like his insides have all been set on fire until they all melted to nothing.

She’s been alone all night. She’s been alone every night. And sure, she had Topher to keep her company throughout the week… but she’s lonely and she’s sad. He can see it in everything she does. And tonight was her one night to be herself again, and somehow, Harry managed to find a way to take it all away from her, just like he’s done with everything else.

She was going to go if he hadn’t guilt-tripped her and begged her not to leave. And she looked so pretty, so fucking breathtaking, for nobody to see it. And that alone is enough to make the last bit of his heart completely shatter until his chest becomes a voided pit.

Y/n nods her head, emotionless, as she pulls the blanket up to his chin. “You were right, we’re still married. It wasn’t fair of me.”

She knows it would have been fair either way, but after seeing how upset Harry looked upon the realization that she was going out with somebody else, she couldn’t stomach the thought of spending the rest of the night trying to make another man happy — one, she’s sure, wouldn’t have even made her happy.

She still didn’t choose Harry, but she didn’t choose anybody else, either, and to know that puts her head at rest. At least for a little while.

“With that being said,” Y/n coughs a bit, blinking away the tears that were mere seconds from falling, “You really need to pick a court date, Harry.”

He knows he does. He’s been draining himself out trying to think of the best time to get it all done — it has taken him twelve months, after all. But the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he doesn’t want to be done — not with their marriage, not with her.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever want for it to all be done. And so whenever he plans to meet with his lawyer, he can only get as far as parking his car in the lot because he never has the strength to actually walk inside.

Because he knows once he does, there’s no going back, and he can’t imagine himself not going back to her.

So, he’ll cry. He’ll scream, he’ll punch at his steering wheel, he’ll hit his head against the headrest over, and over, and over again until he’s so worn out he can hardly breathe. Because he can’t do it. He doesn’t want to do it.

There have been five appointments he couldn’t bring himself to go to, and she has no idea.

“I can’t.” Harry whispers with bloodshot eyes and shaking hands — refusing to look at her because he doesn’t know what will happen if he does. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to leave you?”

Y/n’s breath hitches in her throat because of all the things she expected him to say, that surely wasn’t one of them.

Deep down, she knows he’s hurting, but she never expected it to be so hard on him. Besides, he made it seem so easy — to leave her, like she meant nothing to him after the four years they had been together. And she couldn’t count the amount of times Harry had reminded her that he didn’t have feelings for her anymore.

So that’s what she always believed — that he didn’t love her, that he didn’t want her, that he didn’t need her. But hearing Harry cry out those very words, do you have any idea how hard it is to leave you?, makes her question everything she had ever known.

Because he did leave her — has left her on her own for a year now and has never given her a reason to believe he wanted it any other way until this very moment; Harry laying drunk on her living room couch, crying over the thought of her with another man. He has barely looked at her, has barely even touched her, until now — until it’s been far too late.

“You’ve already left me.” Y/n whispers, the tears she once blinked back now falling freely and silently down her cheeks.

There’s a crack in her voice that Harry can feel down his spine, shaking him to his core and leaving him frozen still. He’s never heard her sound so hurt and broken before and he feels his chest hallowing from the inside out; he is the only one to blame.

If he could just tell her everything he hasn’t — if he could just prove to her that not a single fiber in his body has let her go — no matter the consequences, he would in a heartbeat.

But Harry really hasn’t fought for anything in his life, he wouldn’t even know where to begin — he wouldn’t even know what to say, or what to do, to pick up all these pieces. And the worst part is that he wants to, so badly, but he worries that it won’t be enough — that he won’t be enough — and he won’t be able to handle it. His entire world would collapse.

He blindly reaches for her hand because she’s the only one that can ground him and he feels like he’s falling into a never-ending abyss with no safety-net. Truthfully, he’s been feeling that way for an entire year, until now, with her hand in his.

“Not even a little bit.” He breathes out from quivering lips, eyes unblinking, staring helplessly at their intertwined fingers.

Y/n sobs behind her pursed lips, squeezing her eyes closed as she stomps her foot down upon the floor because this can’t be happening. He can’t be doing this, not now — not when she’s this far into grieving his loss, not when she was finally taking her first step away from him. He can’t.

“Harry —”

“Before you say anything please, please just listen to me.”

Both of his hands are now cradling hers in his palms, slightly tugging at her arm because he is wholeheartedly desperate to say everything she needs to hear.

If he doesn’t get it all out now, he may never have her again. And if he has to spend the rest of his goddamn life being so lonely that he begins to loathe the world for moving on when his own stopped turning, he’d rather do it knowing he at least tried.

And if there’s one person he’d try anything for — do anything for — it would be his wife.

“When I filed the divorce it — it wasn’t because of you, okay? I didn’t — fuck — I thought it was my only choice. And it wasn’t because I didn’t love you the same, or because I wanted to be with somebody else, it was because I wasn’t what you deserved.”

Y/n’s staring down at him with furrowed eyebrows and open lips, everything around her moving so quickly she can hardly keep up.

These are answers she’s been begging for for nearly two years now, yet somehow, nothing could have prepared herself for them. She’s gotten so used to wondering — so used to questioning how the universe will take control of their destiny that now, having all the answers seems to defy all forms of faith.

It’ll all be in her hands now. What they’ll be in a year from now, where they’ll be a year from now, or who they’ll be with a year from now is all up to her. Because at the end of it all, Harry wouldn’t be pulling her closer, sobbing into her hand, breaking down all his walls and boundaries if he didn’t want her to break off the divorce.

“I would be away from you for months on end, so goddamn far away that god forbid something were to happen to you, I couldn’t be the first one by your side. I couldn’t be the first one to make you smile each morning, or be the first one to keep you together whenever the world was breaking you down.

“I wasn’t your first, for anything. I couldn’t be. And it was tearing me apart, knowing you were all alone every day and every night. But then I’d come home and it would feel — it would feel so good, like time hadn’t passed between us… but it did, so, so fast, and in a blink of an eye, I’d have to leave you again.”

His mind thinks back to all the times he’s had Y/n crying on his shoulder the nights before he had to leave the country, clinging onto him and begging him to stay with her just a little while longer.

They were so in love with each other that they hardly wanted to spend any time away from one another because they had a connection that was so raw and so real, they couldn’t find it in anything or anybody else. So each time he had to wake up at the crack of dawn to travel the world, Y/n pouting on the bed watching him pack his life together, would break him in two every single time.

The world meant nothing without her.

“The hole that kept swallowing me up every time I had to walk out on you became too much. But I couldn’t tell you that. I couldn’t tell you that because — because I wanted to hold it together so badly for you. I needed to keep it together because I knew if I couldn’t, you wouldn’t be able to, either. It was already so hard on you and I knew that and I kept leaving. And if I had told you that I spent every single night away from you crying my fucking eyes out, you’d sacrifice everything else you had to come be with me… and I couldn’t do that to you.

“And the more I kept bottling it up, the more I took it out on you. I didn’t want to — didn’t even mean to — but I did, in ways that I couldn’t justify to you because I couldn’t even justify them to myself. Then there was a part of me — the worst and most selfish part of me — that couldn’t apologize for it because the world had somehow convinced me that I didn’t need to.”

By now, Y/n’s knees are pressed against the front of the couch as Harry hooks one of his arms around her legs, his forehead making a home at the front of her hip.

“I’d just get more upset with myself, more angry, more ashamed. It was this constant cycle — feeling like I wasn’t enough for you, then blaming you for all my mistakes, pushing you away even farther. Then you got pregnant.”

They both let out a sob.

“And all I could think about was… if I couldn’t be there for my wife, how could I be there for my son? How could I show him the world and give him everything he ever wished for if I couldn’t even do that for you — for the one person I would choose over anything?”

His chin rests where his forehead once did, his red and puffy eyes trying their best to stay open enough to take a good look at her.

“I loved you beyond words. I looked at you and I saw my entire life in front of me. You continuously blew me away, every single day. Being away from you was — it was dangerous. You weren’t beside me and I was just this empty pit wallowing in hotel rooms that I didn’t even want to be in. I couldn’t get enough of you no matter how much I tried. You consumed me whole, and yet I still found a way to convince you that you were the one who wasn’t enough for me.”

He lets out a laugh through his cries, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he’s capable of destroying such beautiful things — things that were eternal, things that were once unbreakable.

And here he is, praying that he can also be the man that fixes them.

“Then I thought… if she found someone else that could give her everything she deserved, maybe he could be a better father to our son, too. And I was so scared and so angry and so sad I just — I did what I thought would make you happier instead of being a fucking man and owning up to it. But I didn’t, and now look at what’s in my hands. You’re all alone because of me. You’re crying because of me. Topher has to go back and forth between his parents because of me. I’m skipping meetings with my lawyer because I decided to file for a fucking divorce I didn’t even want. I broke our family apart, I broke us apart, I tore you from the inside out and didn’t even tell you that I was sorry.”

His eyes are closed, mouth open as it chokes out sounds of sorrow and pain, sounds of collapsing lungs and a torn chest.

“And I am so fucking sorry, baby.”

He speaks between sobs, his words broken and cracked but Y/n hears them loud and clear. He’s got her hand cradled against his soaking cheek, her palm pressed against the corner of his mouth that Harry keeps kissing.

He can’t fucking breathe and he really thinks this is it — that these are his last moments on earth and the next time he blinks, he’ll never open his eyes again.

Would he even want to, if Y/n isn’t the first thing he sees?

“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t the husband you needed me to be. I’m sorry that I let you down. I’m sorry I let our son down. I’m sorry that I didn’t talk to you. I’m sorry that you’ve been waiting on me and held yourself back because of me. I’m sorry that I made you feel like you weren’t loved.”

He keeps kissing at her hand, rubbing at the back of her legs, holding onto her like he’d collapse if he dared let her go. He knows he’s going to have to eventually, but he can’t think about that right now.

He needs this — to feel her, to smell her, to soak her all in before their new forever begins, spent apart and living lives so far away from one another that they couldn’t cross paths even if they wanted to.

This is his goodbye. He knows it. She’s not going to forgive him no matter how much he begs for her to understand — how could she? He can’t blame her. He hasn’t even forgiven himself and doesn’t expect anything more from her now, other than to listen to him one last time.

“I love you so much and there will never be a universe where I don’t, or won’t. I think about you… everyday, every second. To this day, I wake up reaching for you at least three times a night, wondering why you aren’t with me. Every time I come to pick Topher up I spend an hour in front of my bathroom mirror telling myself that I have to hold myself back from you. And then when I see you, I have to keep myself together and hold myself in place because you just get more and more beautiful with every day that passes and — and it breaks my heart all over again.”

Y/n reaches her hand down to his hair, gently brushing her fingers back against his scalp because he needs her — she knows he needs her and she can’t choose to be selfish now.

Right now, he doesn’t need her to be anything but his wife, and this may be the last time she’ll ever be his.

They keep each other embraced for a while, silently, unmoving and bracing themselves for the fall they’re each going to have to take.

These are their dying moments — their final moments before the casket gets shut and thrown six feet below them — and it won’t be long before the dirt from the ground gets piled up again, over their bodies, leaving them to decay in the life they once believed belonged to them.

They know it’s to come, because this is the first time that they have been so close to each other, yet feel so lonely all at once. And it’s not supposed to be this way.

“I can’t pick a date, Y/n,” Harry breaks the silence with a whisper, almost losing his voice along the way because what he’s about to say is enough to kill him, “but if you give me one I’ll — I’ll do it, okay?”

He holds her hand even tighter than before.

“If that’s what will make you happy, I’ll do it.”

[lettheladylead]

Not Your Aunt

Chapter 8: Webby [ao3 link]

It had officially been one week since Goldie first stepped foot in the manor. And she was still there. This was the longest she’d ever spent in Scrooge’s home since his cabin in the Klondike (excluding times when she was sick or injured, of course).

She was pretty sure, by this point, that Scrooge was avoiding her. He’d been spending a lot of time with his daughter (or whatever) and a lot of time at the Money Bin trying to fix the many issues that cropped up over the past few months with his money managers betraying him, but then even the time he did spend at the manor seemed to always involve other people besides her. The only alone time they’d had was right after he crawled into bed, but every single night their conversations were brief and then he’d fall right to sleep.

So she was a little annoyed. She’d had a few conversations with the kids, sat in on a few dinners, harassed Beakley, been harassed by Sharpie...it’d been quite the couple of days. But it was getting late and she couldn’t wait much longer to talk to him about how she was feeling or how he was feeling or where they might want their relationship to go after all of this…

Ugh. Goldie sighed and wandered around the upstairs hallway. She hated thinking about mushy family stuff, but ever since Florida she’d been feeling an unstoppable pull towards the Ducks and she kind of wanted to relax and see what could happen. But if Scrooge couldn’t make any time for her in the next few days, she was definitely leaving and not coming back for at least a year. Love or not, she did not take well to being ignored.

A door ajar in the distance caught Goldie’s attention and she started walking towards it, curiosity being the best cure for her boredom. She wasn’t sure what that room was - Scrooge didn’t redecorate much, but she couldn’t keep track of everything since he collected so much junk and had 50 regular rooms plus another 10 secret rooms and who could remember all of that?

Goldie tried to peek inside, but it was pretty dark except for a small light in the corner. With a shrug, she forwent her usual sneakiness and just fully opened the door to let the light from the hallway light up the room.

She was met with a surprised chirp and two bright eyes staring directly at her.

Goldie stared back, not sure what to make of what she was seeing.

Webbigail was sitting on a table near the back of the room with a giant book on her lap - surrounded by heaps of other similar-looking books. She looked sweaty and grimy, and the whole room was covered in a thick layer of dust.

“...wh-what are you doing here?!” Webby asked, closing the book that was on her lap.

Goldie raised an eyebrow and decided this situation was interesting enough to explore. “I could ask you the same thing,” she said as she took a few steps towards the girl.

Webby frowned and shook her head for a second before wiping her hand across the cover of the book. “I was, um...well...trying to learn some stuff.”

Goldie leaned against the table Webby was sitting on and craned her neck so she could properly see what she was holding. Oh. “In an ancient photo album?”

“Yeah,” Webby said a little sadly. “Uncle S-, er...my dad has been telling me all about our family...well, just more than usual, I guess...but some things still weren’t quite adding up and I thought maybe I could piece things together on my own.”

Goldie raised an eyebrow and stared at the girl without responding.

She didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve always liked connecting things together...before I was told anything about the McDuck Clan or my dad’s life story, I went through all his different biographies and the photos he has around the house and tried to figure it all out myself. And now he’s telling me things that almost, like...conflict with other things he’s said or other things I’ve read about and it’s just getting confusing.”

“Well,” Goldie said quietly, “he is pretty old, you know. Could be he’s just forgetting some things or mixing up stories.”

“But...but he’s Scrooge McDuck!” Webby said with a frown, opening the photo album again. “It’s one thing to forget a few details from a story, but like…” She pointed to a photo of Scrooge’s parents and a very small baby duckling. “The back of this photo says it’s from 1939, but whose baby is that?! Hortense didn’t have kids until the 1980s and Matilda never had kids so is this just some random baby or-”

“That’s Gideon,” the blonde answered, pointing to the way the baby’s hair stuck out at the top. “Scrooge’s half-brother.”

Webby stared at the photo again, then up at Goldie, her mouth wide open in shock. “Wh...wait, so...does that mean one of my grandparents had a baby with someone else while they were still married?”

“Uhh…” Goldie leaned back and scratched her neck. She knew Scrooge didn’t like to talk about his brother much, but she’d met the man a few times so there was no point ignoring the physical similarities. Though the complications of his conception might be why Scrooge didn’t bring him up. “...something like that. Don’t worry about the details too much.”

“Worrying about the details is exactly why I’m here,” Webby mumbled, flipping through a few more pages. She glanced up at Goldie. “You know my family really well, don’t you?”

“Not by choice, but yeah. If you think Scrooge loves to talk about his family now, you wouldn’t believe how he was back in the day. Very talkative.”

“I know the feeling,” Webby said, chuckling a bit to herself. “Lena said I’ve always been a little too obsessed with the McDuck family and now I’ve gotten even worse.”

Goldie felt an unfamiliar twinge in her chest and plopped a hand down on Webby’s head. “If she’s still sticking around, it doesn’t bother her as much as she says it does. Trust me.”

The preteen seemed to think about that, letting out a low hum while she considered Goldie’s words. “Trusting you doesn’t seem like the smart thing to do, but it sounds like you’re talking from experience.”

Goldie removed her hand from Webby’s head and shoved it back in her pocket. “Despite what your granny says, I’m not always lying.”

Webby turned her whole body towards Goldie. “I don’t think you were lying about Gideon either...so...would it be okay if I asked you about other confusing photos from any of these albums?”

Goldie sighed and lifted herself up to sit on the table, too. “You can. I really think you should just ask Scrooge about all this stuff, though. A few memory lapses here and there doesn’t mean he’s going to withhold entire family members from you.”

“I know, I know,” Webby mumbled and held the album against her chest. “I’m just still getting used to all this. I feel like I should know all these people already, y’know? Like...like Elvira Coot, the mother of Quackmore Duck, isn’t related to Scrooge McDuck at all, but they refer to each other as cousins in a lot of old letters. Is it just them being friendly with each other? Or is my research totally and completely wrong?”

“They’ve just known each other for a very long time,” Goldie said matter-of-factly. “Some people call old friends brother or sister, some people call them cousin. Scrooge usually just generally calls everyone his family, but some people get friendly little titles.”

“That’s very confusing.”

“It is what it is,” Goldie bent one of her legs so she could lean on her knee. “Scrooge has always enjoyed being a little confusing.”

“Is that why he likes you? ‘Cause you’re confusing, too?” Webby asked with an innocent tilt of her head.

Goldie rolled her eyes. “Maybe. I’m sure he’s got a long list of reasons why he does or doesn’t like me.”

Webby huffed out a short laugh as she tapped her hands on the open album page. There were photos of a few familiar members of Scrooge’s family and even a baby picture of Donald and Della.

“...you are really confusing,” Webby said, breaking the awkward silence. She didn’t let Goldie interrupt as she continued. “I don’t think I understand you at all. You’ve been here for a whole week so...are you moving in? Or what’s going on?”

“I’m just here to talk to Scrooge.” Goldie grabbed a photo album that was next to her on the table and flipped it open. “He’s been particularly busy this past week so I’m waiting.”

Webby watched her flip through pages and wondered if there were going to be any more secret relatives she didn’t know about in there. “I didn’t think you liked waiting for things.”

“Not a huge fan, no.”

“But you’re still here,” Webby mused. She watched as Goldie stopped flipping pages and stared down at a photo of Hortense and Quackmore, clearly having a fun time on their wedding day. It was a very sweet picture. “Huey says you and Scrooge are gonna get married, too.”

Goldie rolled her eyes and flipped past the wedding photo. “I’m sure he did.”

“If you did get married...would that make you my mom?”

Goldie closed the album and glared down at the girl next to her, annoyed that these kids were so interested in weddings and marriages. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Webby asked, trying not to seem too confused.

“Why would it?” Goldie said with a hand to her forehead. “At the most, I’d be your stepmother, and that’s only in the very unlikely scenario where I say ‘yes’ to Scrooge’s proposal.”

“But this is a hypothetical scenario, so...if you did get married...would I be allowed to call you mom?”

“Ugh.” She knew there was a line here where her crabbiness would start to offend, but Goldie was not enjoying this line of questioning. “Even in this magical, crazy, hypothetical scenario...I would rather you didn’t. If I’m being completely honest, I’m still uncomfortable hearing you call Scrooge ‘Dad’.”

Webby, rather than be offended like Goldie thought, laughed out loud. “You think you’re uncomfortable with it?! I’ve been saying it over and over in my head all week and it still doesn’t sound right!”

Goldie raised an eyebrow at her and Webby froze, clearly surprised at her own outburst, and settled down. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say that. It’s just a little weird still.”

“Why shouldn’t you talk about how weird it is?” Goldie asked genuinely, leaning back on her hands. “If you don’t want to call him ‘Dad’ then you don’t have to.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Webby mumbled, imitating Goldie’s lean. “If I go back to calling him ‘Uncle Scrooge’ then it’s gonna seem like I’m rejecting him or something. That’s too mean. I can’t be mean like that.”

“It’s not mean.” Goldie sighed and turned towards the younger girl. “It’s your life. Call him whatever feels right to you."

Webby leaned her head back to stare up at the ceiling. "I've never had a dad or a mom before so I think I should keep trying for a little longer. It might just feel weird 'cause it's so unfamiliar."

"Or maybe it feels weird because it is weird," Goldie grumbled. "His DNA was stolen and used to create you, sure. So he's your father, but does that really make him your dad?"

The younger girl glared at the ceiling for a moment before turning towards Goldie again. "I don't understand what you mean."

"Being your biological father is significant, obviously. But family is whatever you want it to be." Goldie sighed and stared down at another photo - one of a much younger looking Scrooge. "You can run away from it. You can accept it without question. Or you can just try to figure it out."

Webby watched Goldie's face - trying to read the woman's expression as she stared at the photo. "I think I get that."

"Your grandmother wouldn't appreciate you listening to me, you know."

She smiled. "I know. But it's kind of interesting to get a more...outside perspective. I mean you're not not part of the family, but you weren't a part of all…" Webby waved her hands around for emphasis. "...this stuff."

"I suppose," Goldie said as she put the photo of Scrooge back down. A part of her really wanted to take it, especially knowing that Scrooge never went into this room so he likely hadn't looked at any of these photos in over fifty years. He wouldn't miss it!

"Do you think...um…" Webby stumbled over her words. "...do you think he'd be mad if I started calling him Uncle Scrooge again?"

"No," Goldie answered sternly. "He wouldn't be mad. Especially given everything that's happened with your family lately, I think an opportunity for some normalcy would be appreciated."

Webby flipped to another page in the photo album while Goldie spoke, and her eyes widened as she saw a familiar face in one of the old photos. She looked back up at Goldie and then back down at the photo. "So...if I call him Uncle Scrooge, then I guess I can call you Aunt Goldie, huh?"

Goldie turned to scold Webby for bringing up that nickname that she always knew would come up around these Duck children...when she came face-to-face with a photograph she didn't even know existed. Webby was holding it up dramatically, smiling smugly as she did so.

It was a slightly out-of-focus snapshot of Scrooge and Goldie in wedding attire, at an altar. Pretty clearly getting married.

Goldie quickly snatched it from the girl's hand and turned it around to check if there was a date or any notes. In Scrooge's handwriting it said "1953. Almost felt real."

She blushed a bit and turned it back around. "...I didn't know there were any pictures from this."

"And to think you made such a big deal out of my hypothetical scenario! But you're already married!" Webby looked more smug than she'd looked in a while, clearly ready to announce this news to the whole family.

Goldie frowned, unable to tear her face away from the image. Both her and Scrooge's faces were visible and, despite being at a bit of a distance, she could see just how happy they were at that moment. "...it was a con. A business decision. Not a real marriage."

"So you got an annulment afterwards?"

She laughed. "You think Scrooge would waste money on something like that? No, we just...moved on. I completely forgot it even happened."

"Well, Aunt Goldie, it doesn't look like he's forgotten."

Goldie sighed and pocketed the photo, wondering if she should show it to Scrooge later and shake out some memories. "Clearly he hasn't been in this room for a long time, so I wouldn't assume that."

Webby's excitement died down just a bit as she noticed Goldie's lack of embarrassment. "Isn't this...I mean, I know you say you don't wanna marry him, but you're still here despite everything plus you're already married! You really are Aunt Goldie and I don't get why you'd try to fight it."

The blonde frowned and exhaled loudly through her nostrils, trying to think of the best way to explain how she felt. "You've spent a long time idolizing Scrooge, right? Wanting to be a part of his family and whatnot."

"...yeah?"

"And from what I could tell, you two were getting close over the past few years. You called him Uncle Scrooge, he remembered your name. Yeah?"

"...uh-huh…" Webby had a feeling she knew where this was going.

"But now that this father-daughter thing was suddenly dumped in your lap in such a...such an awful way, really, you're feeling weird about it. Maybe it feels a little hollow, like this is what you wanted but it's not how you wanted it."

Webby frowned deeply - Goldie was completely right, but hearing the words said so casually didn't make her feel better about it.

"...that's what that wedding was for me," Goldie finished, finally connecting the two thoughts together. "I'd...wanted to be closer to him. I thought we were headed there. And then he suggested that plan and how could I say no? He was splitting the money with me 60/40 and I knew I could steal my missing ten percent whenever I felt like it."

"So you wanted to get married, but then you did but for the wrong reasons?"

Goldie sighed and shrugged. "Basically. It was a long time ago. Things change."

"And some things don't change," Webby added, noticing that Goldie was still staring at the photo in her hand. "You've had decades to talk to him about this, so why haven't you?"

"Eh," Goldie answered and stuffed the photo into her pocket. "Adult relationships are complicated."

Webby shook her head. "Not all of them. Just the ones that don't talk to each other."

Goldie glared down at Webby again, but the girl was already flipping pages in the album once more. She wasn't going to whine to a kid about how she was trying to talk to Scrooge but he was just making it difficult. Maybe if she told him she'd spent some time with his kid, he'd finally sit down and talk to her.

"Who's this?" Webby asked suddenly, pointing to another photo.

This one was older - depicting a young Scrooge (maybe nine years old?) with an even younger child that looked very similar to him. Goldie pouted and put a hand to her chin before grabbing the photo and turning it over to see if anything was written on the back.

"Oh, this is Douglas. One of Scrooge's cousins."

"On whose side?" Webby asked curiously.

Goldie shrugged. "Not sure. I know he lived alone in the Netherlands somewhere until he died, but he and Scrooge weren't very close, from what I could tell."

"Oh." Webby looked down at the photo, not really being able to read either child's expression. She supposed photos from the 1870s were rarely as expressive as ones from modern day. "You really know a lot about my family.”

"It's completely useless information taking up valuable space in my brain," Goldie complained with a smirk. "Maybe I'd be fluent in Mandarin if not for Scrooge."

Webby smiled, happy that she was able to recognize Goldie's words as a joke. "Well it's not useless to me. Thanks, Aunt Goldie."

Goldie frowned and rolled her eyes, but that just made Webby smile. She felt like she was starting to understand this woman...just a little bit.

A realization hit her and Webby suddenly gasped before hopping off the table. Goldie watched her with curious surprise. "I need to update my board!" Webby said as she rushed towards the door.

Goldie raised an eyebrow and hopped off the desk to follow. "I have no idea what that means!"

She followed Webby out the door and down the hall, until the girl was back in her own room. Goldie stuck her head inside just in time to see the unveiling of an insane-looking board filled with photos and string and notes and hearts and…

"...is that a locket with my face in it?" Goldie mumbled as she continued into the room. She stared at the locket as Webby ran around looking for something.

As she reached out to grab the strangely unfamiliar locket, Webby was suddenly on a step stool next to her and reaching for it herself. Goldie watched silently as the girl tugged her away from her little grouping of villains (rude) and moved her oh-so-closer to Scrooge.

Goldie blushed the slightest bit as Webby shortened the string, added some little hearts, and slammed a sticky note between them that said MARRIED-ISH!

"There's no way I'm letting you keep that up."

Webby laughed and wagged her finger in Goldie's face. "I'll just put it back when you leave!"

Goldie crossed her arms over her chest. "Then I'll just have to st...hm."

Webby's eyes were sparkling.

"...visit more often."

The correction didn't dull Webby's sparkle, instead she just smiled brighter. "I think everyone would really like that." 

Goldie raised an eyebrow. "Nice try, but I can assure you that your grandmother would sooner attend my funeral than enjoy having me around."

Webby hopped off the step stool. "Then you'll just have to win her over!" she said with a skip as she pushed the stool back to its regular spot.

"Yeah...I don't really see that happening," Goldie mumbled, not objecting when Webby grabbed her hand and tugged her towards the door.

"I think you could be friends! You just have to try!"

Goldie rolled her eyes but still didn't pull her hand out of Webby's grip. "Don't get your hopes up, Pink," she said with a sigh, but there was a little part of her that wondered if getting along with the whole family was even possible. She'd spent so long pushing away from Scrooge and his family and his friends that she'd never really considered what it would be like to actually...try. And she struggled to admit it, but...she wanted to find out.

She squeezed Webby's little hand and stared down at the bouncing bow on her head. Goldie still wasn't anyone's aunt, but...if she had to be, Scrooge's kids would be her first choice.

[3wisellamas]

(Spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk if you haven't finished chapter 2 yet!)

Kris is the Knight, Gaster is the Knight, Ralsei is sus...

How about I throw an oddball one at you? What if Dess is the Knight?

In chapter 2, Queen implied that only a Lightner can actually create more dark fountains, and literally any Lightner can if they have enough determination and a blade of some kind. And she was VERY interested in Noelle specifically for the task, touting her strength and potential, without even considering the other three Lightners right in front of her.

Noelle was Dess' younger sister. And from context in this chapter, it looks a lot like whatever happened to her, happened when Noelle was very young -- before her first spelling bee, at least, since that's where she froze up (pun not intended) on the word 'December.' But, the most important part, we don't know WHAT exactly happened to Dess. One could assume she died, either in an accident or of whatever illness Rudy has, but as others have pointed out, there's no grave for her in the graveyard. And, like, yeah, she could've been buried elsewhere, but the simplest conclusion to draw from that is that she's still alive, but either went missing or ran away from home.

She was also stated a couple times to be close to Asriel, even going to the bunker with him, Kris, and Noelle at one point. (Remember, the latter two would still have been very young children at this point, and Dess and Asriel might have been teens, around the age Kris, Noelle, and Susie are now.) And from that one scene with MK and Snowy, we know that something very bad happened there once involving Kris...perhaps this was a reference to that same event?

If so...what if the four of them opened the bunker, and Dess went inside? Or maybe Kris even went in too, and Dess went after them to bring them back? It's pretty much a given that there's gonna end up being a Dark World inside, there's just too much building up to it at this point, so if either of them went in, they'd have a hell of a time getting back out! Kris came back, perhaps even traumatized into the weird kid they are today from the experience, but Dess ended up lost in the dark...a lost girl.

(Hm, wasn't that Noelle's song? I don't think it was really Noelle's at all. Sure, she got kidnapped a couple times, but at no point was she ever "lost"...)

So, here's where I'm going right off the deep end into conjecture. Dess disappeared, and since Asriel was so close to her, he begged his father, police chief Asgore, to find her, which he never did, and might have even tried a few things that ended up getting him fired. Like, maybe even going into the bunker himself, experiencing the Dark World within, and coming back and making all these crazy claims that no one else believed except for maybe his children? That'd definitely be reason to remove him as chief of police, and also affect his and Toriel's marriage.

So, after this, Asriel, a Lightner stricken with grief and Determined to find his friend...went to the dark supply closet at his school, armed with a knife (and maybe his little sibling's old red horn headband, if you want to incorporate the theory that that's where Ralsei came from), and stabbed the ground.

Bam, dark fountain, and Ralsei's kingdom. Unlile Dess, though, Asriel came back, not having found her either, and eventually moved on and grew up, but the fountain he made persisted -- after all, while any Lightner may be able to create a fountain, Ralsei implies very early in chapter 1 that only a human like Kris can actually SEAL them!

But, this is a theory about Dess, not Asriel. Just making one fountain might make you a knight, but not The Knight -- lookin' at Kris here. At some point, Dess, still lost somewhere in the Dark World, either gets desperate to find a way out and return home, enough to try and cover EVERYTHING in darkness despite the danger it poses, or...grows to like it there, a little too much, sorta like what Susie brought up at the end of chapter 2, making more fountains so the whole world can be as fun as it is in there. Whatever the reason, Dess realizes she can create more fountains, and, Determined, goes ahead and does so. And she spends a little time in each of the worlds she creates, manipulating events to serve her desires to reach the Light World again or cover it in darkness, and even telling a few specific people, who are lonely outcasts just like her, about her home outside of that world, and the things she's learned in her time away from it all. Things she may or may not have learned herself from a certain odd man hiding behind trees in secret rooms, and giving away eggs...

Or, another possibility, she's doing it all to try and lure the people she used to know to her by creating Dark Worlds where she thinks they'd be, like, say, her sister, and her sister's friend Kris, and possibly even Asriel -- remember, the first happened to be straight-up connected to the Dark World in the school supply closet. Man, it's 2021. We ALL know just how crazy being isolated from everyone you know for so long can make you, and Dess has been lost for YEARS. But, however lost we feel as we explore all the different Dark Worlds, don't forget, she's with us in the dark...

Also, one last kicker that I couldn't really stop thinking about. The Fun Gang/F$?! Squad/Whatever are supposed to banish the "Angel's Heaven", right? Well, didn't Dess and Noelle make an angel for their dad once, which is in his hospital room? And if everyone speculates she's dead after being missing for all these years, that makes her an Angel...and the Dark Worlds she creates are her Heaven.

Okay, one last LAST kicker, since I was replaying the start of chapter 1 as I was writing this and noticed it. The Knight jailed the other three kings of the classroom Dark World and put King Spade and his "strange son" into power, right? And might have even stayed around the castle for a little while to help steer the King's actions towards the Light World, and mess with Jevil?

Guys, Lancer knows the Knight. Personally. He would have said something by now if the Knight was in our party, or if we encountered them in either of the Dark Worlds we visited. So, the Knight is definitely NOT someone we've seen yet. Furthermore...remember when we first met the kid, and his catchphrase was "Ho ho ho!" And how Susie told him he sounded like a baby Santa Claus? Wouldn't it be a nice little coincidence if he picked that up from someone literally named December, whose entire family is Christmas-themed...

[dumdumsun]

Of Starlight

A/N: Alright, this entire story has officially been written ❤️

Warnings: none that I’m aware of

Word Count: 3067

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Chapter 5: Extra Ordinary

Five years ago, Vanya Hargreeves began writing her autobiography, “Extra Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven”, less than two weeks before her sister’s novel, “One-Sided”, was announced in the papers. Those around who enjoyed her writing were buzzing with excitement, for it was the second book of her trilogy. (Y/N) was thrilled, herself, to be publishing her novel within the next month. Finally sharing her work with the world would have taken a tremendous weight off her shoulders, leaving her with only the weight on her bladder. While working herself nearly to death with her writing, she was with child for the second time, which added to her stress. Thankfully, she had a very supportive husband at the time to assist in anything she requested. It was in those times in which (Y/N) was grateful she decided to make something of herself rather than letting her past as Number Eight define her.

Once “One-Sided” was published, (Y/N) sent two copies out; one to Allison, one to Vanya. She figured her brothers wouldn’t want to read her romantic fantasy as much as her sisters, so she didn’t bother asking. Allison seemed ecstatic for the new addition, but she wasn’t too sure about Vanya, supposing it wouldn’t hurt to send it. If she didn’t want to read it, that was her decision. What she didn’t expect, however, was Vanya’s novel sent to her. After Jada was born, (Y/N) had taken time to read her sister’s autobiography. While Anthony was at work during the day, she’d multitask by reading and taking care of her newborn. She would quietly gasp at certain parts of the book before checking to make sure she hadn’t woken her daughter up. (Y/N) couldn’t believe some of the things her sister dared to put in that book. Some things she wrote were blatantly about (Y/N)’s own insecurities that she had trusted Vanya with knowing. Insecurities about her powers, her capability of being a suitable member of the Umbrella Academy. Vanya had compared it to her own doubts, stating that (Y/N) had no right to complain to her, of all people. Looking back now, (Y/N) could admit that it was a bit selfish to do that to her sister. Regardless, those had been personal and it was unloyal of Vanya to share that with anyone willing to read. Despite this, (Y/N) saw to promote “Extra Ordinary” along with her own work. Someone had to be the bigger person in this situation.

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

Nostalgia wasn’t exactly what (Y/N) was overcome with when awaking in her childhood bed. In fact, she’d much rather have opened her eyes to the empty side of her king-sized mattress at home instead. She debated closing her eyes and pretending she had never drifted into consciousness, but sat up when remembering everything Five had told her the day before. If she remembered correctly, there were six remaining days leading up to the end of the world. She had promised Five to assist in preventing the apocalypse, and her drowsiness was not going to hold her back. So, she dragged herself out of bed and began looking for Five. She figured the first place to begin was his bedroom, so she stopped in front of his door and knocked. Hearing rustling on the other side, she asked, “Five, are you decent?”

“Decent enough. You can come in,” He called out, the door opening and (Y/N) stepping inside. He glanced at her over his shoulder as he fixed his white button up. “I take it you had a difficult time sleeping?”

“What makes you say that?” Her hand slid down her face, sarcasm in her tone. She didn’t need a mirror to know she had bags under her eyes. Five chuckled and moved to his vest and jacket, finishing with dressing himself. As he zipped his duffle bag closed, he glanced out the window.

“You tagging along today?”

“I plan to. I… suppose I have nothing to do.”

“Nothing, huh?” Suspicion hid amongst his words as he picked up his bag. “What is it you decided to do with your life, (Y/N)?” The question was simple, genuine, but the weight of it was suffocating. She really couldn’t go back to her normal, beautiful life after all.

“I… found my mother,” She slowly started out, carefully watching as Five curiously glanced up at her under his dark brows. “I became an author… and a mother.”

Suddenly, Five couldn’t breathe. He had anticipated this conversation, prepared himself for everything (Y/N) had accomplished while he was gone. But nothing could have prepared him for the stab in the heart at the mention of her having children. Children with someone who wasn’t him. It was stupidly selfish, he knew, to expect her to wait for him, to do anything else with her life except for the things he longed to do with her. Past the pain, however, he was happy for her. Something in him knew that (Y/N) would one day make a wonderful mother. She was patient, selfless, caring, and oh, how he wished he could’ve been the one. He didn’t even want to ask about the individual she had trusted enough to raise children with her.

His hesitancy to respond worried (Y/N) and suddenly she wanted to apologize. But for what? Her success, her marriage, her children? She had every right to those and she shouldn’t have to apologize. Her concern washed away when Five raised his brows in acknowledgement, opening the window. “Really? A mother? That’s great, Starlight…” God, that nickname… She thought. Why does everything feel so complicated now? Her feet moved her to follow him out of the window and down the fire escape. She thought it was best to not continue the conversation for now.

“Dammit, where’s Dad’s stuff?” The two heard an irritated groan on their way down. (Y/N) craned her neck to see Klaus digging through the dumpster. “Shut up! I’m trying to find whatever… priceless crap was in that priceless box so that Pogo will get off my ass!”

“I’d ask what you’re up to, Klaus, but then it occurred to me…,” Five turned to his brother. “I don’t care.” His useless comment earned an eye roll from (Y/N). Klaus glanced up at the two with a small laugh.

“Hey! You know there are easier ways out of the house, buddy? And bringing little (Y/N) along, too? Whatever could you two be up to?”

“This way of leaving involved the least amount of talking,” Five hopped off the ladder, helping (Y/N) down afterwards. “Or so I thought.”

“Klaus,” The eighth Hargreeves made her way closer to the dumpster. “Is Ben there?”

“Yes, dear, he says hi.” His hand waved in Ben’s supposed direction, (Y/N) softly smiling at her ghost brother. “So, hey, you two need any more company today? I could, uh… clear my schedule.” His eyes shifted to Five as he took a drink from his flask.

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full.” The boy falsely smiled.

“Oh, this? No, no. I can do this whenever. I’m just- I just misplaced something. That’s all.” He then fell into the trash as (Y/N) joined her traveling companion at his side. After a few seconds, Klaus reappeared with a bagel. “Oh! Found it! Thank god!” (Y/N) nearly gagged as he began to chew on it, muffling a ‘delicious’ in forced content.

“I’m done funding your drug habit.” Five spit out before walking away. She followed him and waved at Klaus, barely listening to him yelling after them as they climbed into a plumbing van.

“Why are we stealing a van?”

“Shush.”

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

Once again, the two teenagers found themselves in front of Meritech Prosthetics. (Y/N) watched as Lance entered the building before sighing. “We’re really gonna sit here and spy on the man?”

“You got a better idea?” Five only kept his stare on him.

“I guess not… What’s the bag for, then?”

Five immediately turned his attention to the duffle bag he brought with them. “Oh, shit,” He muttered before unzipping it. “Hey,” He softly greeted before handing a bottle of alcohol to (Y/N). She blinked once, twice, thrice when he brought out the top half of a bald mannequin and set it between them. “Sorry you were in there for so long, Delores.”

“Wait,” (Y/N) choked. “That’s Delores?! The one you were with for over thirty years?!”

“Well, obviously,” Five frowned before turning back to ‘Delores’. “This is (Y/N), Delores. You know… the one I told you about.”

“You… talk about me to the mannequin? Should I be flattered or weirded out?”

“Oh, be quiet,” Five sighed and turned away. (Y/N) suddenly felt silly for being jealous last night. “No, I’m not drunk.”

“What?” (Y/N) frowned at the boy, who shook his head.

“Talking to Delores. She thinks I’m- Yes, it’s about the eye thing. This is the place it was made. Or… will be made,” His eyes moved up to his human friend. “We just have to wait…”

He’s actually talking to the mannequin, (Y/N) thought as she turned forward, eyes wide. So, that was what the apocalypse had done to him. She felt bad for him now. Initially, her heart warmed at the thought of Five finding someone to love, but knowing that his mind had gone somewhere far away enough for him to turn to a mannequin for comfort…

“So, (Y/N),” He started, his gaze once again trained on the building before them. “Your children… tell me about them.” Truth be told, Five wanted to know how much they had gotten from their mother. Were they just as humorous? Just as passionate? As wonderful? (Y/N) let out a heartfelt laugh as she closed her eyes.

“Where do I even begin? Michael, he’s… so intelligent. He has the highest reading level in his class and they’re thinking of letting him skip the first grade. He’s such a big help at home with his little sister… I swear, he’s a little man. He’s always trying to test my knowledge. Tries to get me to solve his ‘really hard’ math homework problems…,” She chuckled, Five looking at her with an unreadable expression. “And Jada… she’s such a character. No matter how many times I teach her the days of the week, she always gets them wrong… She wakes me up every morning, trying to guess. I say ‘Jada, if yesterday was Wednesday, what is today?’ and she just starts listing off every wrong answer… She’s a performer, too. I enrolled her into dance classes. Oh, it’s her favorite thing to do… And I’ll admit, she’s good at it. Don’t know where she got that from. Definitely not from me or her dad...”

Five tilted his head thoughtfully. “They sound… just like you. They think they know everything,” He joked with a small smile, (Y/N) playfully glaring at him. “Really, though… They sound like great kids… I’d like to meet them one day.”

“Yeah,” She smiled down at her lap. “I’d love for them to meet you… But I need to be an actual adult before I can face them again. Until then… It’s just checking up every once and awhile…”

“(Y/N), I’m so sorry,” Five frowned as he sat forward. “I- I’m going to figure this out. I promise.”

“I know you will,” She breathed and closed her eyes, her world slowly crashing down on her yet again. “Sorry, I need some air.” And with that, Five was in the car alone. Well, save for Delores. Outside, (Y/N) didn’t have much time to really be with her own thoughts before she heard Luther and Klaus’s voices nearing her. Turning to her right, she spotted the two walking side-by-side towards the van. Upon seeing her, Luther raised a hand.

“(Y/N), you need to get back to the Academy. We found something… and Grace might’ve had something to do with Dad’s death.” He gruffly explained, the young girl straightening to attention.

“Wait, what-”

“I can explain at the house, but we need both you and Five there for the family meeting. Is he in there?” He pointed to the vehicle their brother sat in.

“Yeah, but-”

“Great. Be right back.” Luther’s massive body brushed past her to get to Five, Klaus following behind to get in the back. Not waiting a second longer, she followed her junkie brother inside. When she entered the van again, Luther was trying his hardest to fit his body into the passenger seat as Klaus grabbed Delores, smirking at (Y/N) as he began to dance with the mannequin. She only watched him in disinterest. Once Luther was finally in, he turned to Five. “You okay?”

“You shouldn’t be… How did you find me?” Five’s question was answered when Luther turned to Klaus. With everyone’s attention on him, he looked up from Delores and dropped his smile.

“Hey, a little privacy, guys. We’re really hitting it off back here.” He began to caress Delores’s cheek before screaming when Five threw an object at him, Klaus using the mannequin to block. (Y/N) shook her head and moved closer to Five and Luther, the former fuming.

“Get out! You can’t be here! I’m in the middle of something.”

“Oh, but (Y/N) can be here?”

“Yes! We’re in the middle of something!” Five turned forward as Klaus joined (Y/N) at her side, poking her cheek gently.

“Any luck with your one-eyed man?” He asked her, receiving a head shake. Five sighed and turned to Luther.

“What do you want, Luther?”

Turning his attention away from the conversation between the two, Luther answered Five, “Um… So, Grace might’ve had something to do with Dad’s death. So I need you to come back to the Academy, alright? It’s important.” His request was met with silence for a split second before the time traveller shook his head.

“‘It’s important’. You have no concept of what’s important-”

“Hey!” Klaus interrupted, holding his sister at his side. “Did I ever tell you guys about the time I waxed my ass with chocolate pudding?”

And that was when (Y/N) tuned out the entire conversation between her family. She left Klaus’s side and pressed her back against the back of Luther’s seat, closing her eyes. She knew Five wasn’t going with Luther and Klaus to the house, and she didn’t need to listen to the bickering that would’ve led to that outcome. Her attention was eventually brought to Klaus swinging the back door open, huffing as he got out. She watched him slam the door closed and make his way towards the store across the street. Not trusting him in the slightest, she sent a clone after Klaus, telling it to “watch over him”. At this point, she was waiting for Luther to leave so her growing headache would subside, but it seemed the man wanted to talk some more.

“What the hell are you up to, Five?”

“Believe me, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me. Last I checked, I’m still the leader of this family.”

“Well, last I checked, I’m twenty-eight years older than you.” Five tightly smiled before (Y/N) snorted with laughter. The boy rolled his eyes and smiled fondly at her before Luther pulled his attention away.

“You know what your problem is?”

“Really hoping you’ll tell me.”

“You think you’re better than us,” Luther’s words wiped that sarcastic smile right off Five’s face. “You always have. Even when we were kids. But the truth is, you’re just as messed up as the rest of us. We’re all you have… and you know it.” Luther stared at his brother, as the boy slowly inhaled.

“I don’t think that I’m better than you, Number One. I know I am,” He hissed, Luther only chuckling. “I’ve done unimaginable things, things you couldn’t even comprehend.”

“Right...”

“Just to get back here and save you all…” Five stared out the window. (Y/N) sighed and grabbed Delores.

“Luther, out.” She ordered, her “big” brother turning to her with an offended look. “Five’s clearly not going with us. No use arguing with him either. So, just go and I’ll catch up-” She was cut off by the sound of a voice whooping in excitement. The three looked across the street to see Klaus running out of the store, arms full of stolen snacks, the clone following close behind.

“Hey, bitches!” He shouted as a cop chased after them, blowing his whistle. The clone turned to the officer and pushed him away with great force as Klaus was nearly hit by a car. Five’s head followed Klaus’s movement.

“I’m starting to wonder if that was the wisest decision…”

After Luther was sent out of the van, (Y/N) took over the passenger seat once again and set Delores down between them, Five quietly thanking her. “So… I’m going with the guys.”

“What? Why are you wasting your time, I thought you wanted to help me?”

“I do, and I will… But I don’t trust Luther to make decisions right now… I mean, if Mom really did have something to do with Dad’s death… Who knows what he’ll do? The least I can do is try to talk him out of it. I promise, when I’m done, I’ll come and find you.” She softly smiled, gently patting his hand. Five shook his head at her.

“You don’t have to promise me anything… I’m the one who owes you.”

“All you owe me is this,” She gently squeezed his hand. “You being here… That’s what I’ve wanted for so long. Now I have it. So, your debt is paid.” She chuckled. Five rested the back of his head against the seat as his eyes searched her face, trying to find anything that should worry him about her. But all he found was her warm smile and eyes that shone with affection. It suddenly felt inappropriate to have Delores around right now.

“Well, then, you should get going… You’ve gotta catch up with those idiots.”

“Alright. Don’t be out here forever, okay?” (Y/N) leaned in and pecked his cheek before getting out of the car and rushing after her brothers. As he watched her speed away, he tried to regulate his breathing, heartbeat increasing.

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Taglist: @melinda-hargreeves @43sparrows @sapphicsyn @m00n-sh @starcurrent @alexander-hamilhoe @youcandalekmyballs @wonderlandfandomkingdom @yrdadjstcallsmekatya

[fanmoose12]

Partners

Characters: Petra Ral, Levi, Hanji Zoe x Levi Genre: Action / Mystery / Romance Rating: T

Detective!au

Summary: when Petra was promoted to a detective and partnered up with legendary Levi Ackerman, she felt like the happiest person in the world.

But, as she soon found out, detective Ackerman she used to admire so much was actually a far cry from the ideal policeman Petra thought he was. He was rude, harsh and easily annoyed. And, in addition, he still hadn’t moved on from the death of his previous partner - detective Hange Zoe.

Chapter 11/?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Сhapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Сhapter 7

Сhapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

With every word from Levi's mouth, Erwin's face grew darker and darker.

"Fuck." He declared, as soon as Levi had finished. "Fuck," he repeated, rubbing his temples. He took a deep, heavy sigh, and when he blinked, the tense expression was miraculously gone, the usual look, full of determination and conviction, taking its place.

"So no sign of forced entry?” he asked, calm and collected and completely devoid of the previous frustration. “No sign of struggle? And no sign of Petra?"

"Yes, sir." Oluo confirmed with a frantic nod, which reminded Levi of a stupid toy dog Hange once put in his car.

Had the matter at hand been at least a little less grave, perhaps, he’d even crake a smile at the comparison. Hange definitely would have. Alas…

“And do we know who’s behind it?”

“No,” Levi replied. “Hange suspects one of Zeke’s man, but she also thinks some third party is involved.”

Erwin accepted his answer, slowly scratching his chin. “And where is Hange herself?"

“She went to talk to Zeke to ask if he knows something, and…" Levi faltered, not sure if he should share this information with Erwin. Hange was sure that Zeke was innocent, and Levi never doubted her, but…

"And?" Erwin prompted.

Fuck it, Levi decided. Perhaps, Erwin’s unbiased opinion was exactly what they needed.

"Oluo found Zeke's cigarette pack inside the apartment," he said, throwing it on Erwin's desk.

"It's not his," there wasn’t even a hint of doubt in his voice. Erwin didn’t even glance twice at the evidence presented to him. "Zeke would never be so careless. Someone's trying to sabotage him, and they are not very good at it."

“So you think it’s someone else?”

“Naturally.”

Erwin’s confidence eased a portion of his worries. If he and Hange were of the same mind, then it must be the truth. At least, he didn’t let Hange meet up with a potential culprit all by herself. Not that it gradually quelled his concern, but it was something…

“Zeke Yeager…” Oluo mumbled, biting his thumb. “Yeager, Yeager… I heard this name somewhere…”

“Huh?” Levi raised an eyebrow, looking quizzically at him.

“Yeager!” he exclaimed, his eyes lightening up. “Of course! Yes, now it came back to me!”

“What came back?” Levi demanded, glaring at Oluo in annoyance. God, how he hated being kept in the dark…

Oluo didn’t respond, irritating Levi even more. Instead he reached Erwin’s desk in two short strides, pushing him aside. “May I, sir?”

“Be my guest,” Erwin made a welcoming gesture, pulling his chair back. “If you know something, then…”

“Could be just a coincidence,”Oluo muttered, as he opened the database on Erwin’s computer. “But…”

For a long moment nothing happened. The office was silent, except for the sounds of typing on a keyboard, and Oluo’s quiet murmurs.  

Levi shared a look with Erwin. He shrugged helplessly, seeming just as bewildered by Oluo’s actions, as Levi himself felt.

“Aha!” he beamed, finally showing Erwin what he found. “Like I said, could be just a coincidence, but I came across name Yeager before. Here.”

“A family murdered in their own house,” Erwin began reading, his eyes quickly scanning the page. “Wife and husband found dead in their own bedroom by their fourteen year old son, who came back from a sleepover. The identity of a murderer remains unknown.”

“It was the first case I took as I started working,” Oluo confessed, scratching his neck. “That’s why it stuck with me. Don’t know if it has any connections to your Zeke…”

“The father of the family, Grisha Yeager,” Levi read the name from behind Erwin’s shoulder. “Zeke is his son. From the first marriage, but still… Maybe, he was murdered, because someone wanted to get back at Zeke.”

“And now that same someone wants to finish the job,” Erwin agreed. “The culprit was never found after all. It’s a solid theory.”

“Or as solid as we can get for now,” Levi nodded.

"It's different from other cases, though,” Erwin contemplated thoughtfully, his gaze turning distant, as he taped his finger against the desk.

"Other cases?" Oluo shuddered. "Are you talking about recent... Murder cases?" he paled, his lower lip trembled, and Levi started to regret bringing him here. They needed to keep their heads clear. Petra needed them to keep their heads clear. There was no time for worrying and panicking right now.

In Levi’s experience, that attitude could only lead to more tragedy.

"It's obviously different with Petra," Erwin said, his voice going an octave softer. Levi stared at him, almost gawking. Erwin wasn't the man to give empty promises. Either he was that optimistic about this whole ordeal, or... Levi preferred not to think about the other possibility.

"Levi?" Erwin turned to him. "What do you think?"

"I think Oluo is right, Petra was taken by someone close to Zeke. But either it was the same perpetrator from before or someone else, it remains to be unknown," he replied. "And I think we don't have any time to waste."

"Agreed," Erwin clenched his jaw, his brows furrowed. "I'll talk with Pixis and Nile, ask if they know anything or if they have any people they can spare... We need to start the search..."

"Sannes!" Oluo suddenly exclaimed, startling Erwin and Levi. "Sannes, we should check him first! We’ve planted a bug on him just yesterday!"

"Fuck," Levi groaned in frustration, feeling like the biggest and the most useless idiot in the world. He had completely forgotten about it.

"I didn't see him at work today," Erwin noted. "Perhaps, it's worth checking it out. Take care of it, Levi."

"Will do," he nodded. "Permission to go?"

"Report to me once you find anything," Erwin stood up. "I'll go to Pixis and Nile."

Levi nodded again, and left the office, his steps swift and heavy.

 ***

"Could it be our lead?" Oluo asked.

They've listened through every conversation that Sannes had that day and the day before. And only one of them, the one where he had agreed to a meeting with an unknown man, had raised Levi's suspicion.

"Not sure if we can call it a lead," he mumbled, biting his lip. There was no word about Petra and no mention of the actual location, but it was something they could work with. It was a starting point, at the very least. Much better than nothing. "But it's definitely a clue. Come on, we need to continue our investigation."

"Meaning..."

"Meaning we're going to break into Sannes' office and see if we can find something inside. Don't worry," he clasped Oluo's shoulder with just a little too much force. Oluo coughed, almost doubling over under Levi’s hard hand. "Nothing you hadn't done before."

  ***

“Zeke is a fool,” the man sneered, his voice full of disgust. “He’s not the man he was before. Ever since he took in that Zoe, he made mistake after mistake. It’s time to put an end to this. It’s time for someone else to take over his legacy. Our gang needs a new leader. Someone, who has as much potential as Zeke, but who doesn’t yet possess any of his flaws. Someone, who is cunning and ruthless. There is only one man who can do this," he finished, and even from afar Petra could see a shine of adoration in his eyes.

Sannes scoffed, rolling his eyes, not moved by the passionate speech at all. "And who is that?"

"No one can achieve the greatness Zeke once possessed. Except," the man smiled, and the sight of it made shivers run down Petra's spine.

"His own brother."

"You've gone mad," Sannes rolled his eyes, still unconvinced. "You've lost it completely, and now you want to drag me down with you. I refuse. Good luck getting arrested, but I’m out of here.”

“You’ll regret this, Sannes,” the man promised, his eyes flashing. “You’ll come begging for us to take you back in no time.”

“I really doubt that, boy,” Sannes sneered, his face showing nothing but disgust. “And if you’re going to actually proceed with your plan, then be ready to meet Ackerman. Believe me, it won’t be a pleasing experience. See you in prison,” he finished, and left, throwing the door shut.

As soon as Sannes had stormed out, the man with an eerie smile turned around to face her.

Instantly, Petra closed her eyes and lowered her head, but the man simply laughed.

"There is no need to pretend," he spoke, shortening the distance between them. "I know you've been awake for quite some time, detective Ral."

She looked up then, saying nothing and glaring at him beneath her bangs. Just the sight of that man left her breathless, her heart beating so loudly she could hear it in her ears, but she wouldn’t show him her fear. She was better than this. He may have had an ultimate upper hand over her, but she would never give him the satisfaction of seeing her tremble.

"I think we've started off on a wrong foot," the man smiled, the shadow of a lightbulb above him making him look even creepier. "I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Floch, nice to meet you!"

With the same crazy smile on his lips, he reached out and patted her shoulder. Petra winced, unable to move away from the undesired touch.

"What do you want from me?" she hissed, trying to hide the shaking in her voice. As discreetly as possible, she tried to loosen her restraints. In movies she watched with Erd, Gunter and Oluo, heroes always freed themselves so easily, the ropes being nothing more than a nuisance. But in reality, they didn't bulge an inch. Petra searched through her mind, trying to remember what characters from those movies did. Wiggle out of the restrains? Broke their wrists? Or was it applicable only for the handcuffs? Shit. She should have watched more movies like this, instead of melodramas and rom-coms. Shifting her attention back to the present, she stared up at her captor, still glaring at him defiantly.

"What do I want from you? The same thing I wanted from the others."

The same thing he wanted from the others? But the others were... dead. Petra suppressed a shiver.

"It's nothing personal, really,” he continued in the same careless manner. “All I need from you is to motivate your partner."

"Levi?" Petra gasped. "What it has to do with him?"

To her surprise, the man shrugged. "Nothing, really. In a way," he swept his hand across the room. "He's just a victim of circumstances. He's one of the best detectives in this city and he has a personal connection with Zeke. It'd be a shame not to use him."

"But why do you need him?" she pulled on the ropes, leaning closer towards the man and looking deep inside his eyes, trying to see right through him, trying to understand him. "Why can't you just kill Zeke and be done with it?"

The man tutted, shaking his head. "That's not what I—" there it was, that same pleased, creepy smile. "What we want to do. Taking Zeke's life would be too easy. We want to destroy it. But unfortunately," he continued in a voice of badly feigned sympathy. "You're not the main event here."

"Not the main event?" Petra echoed, confused. If it wasn't her, then....

"Not sure if you've met...” his eyes lightened up with something dark and dangerous. The smile on his face grew wider, more sinister. “But surely you've heard of one Hange Zoe?"

"Hah," a short chuckle escaped her lips. Very soon it turned into a full blown laughter. Petra would have clenched her sides if she wasn't tied up, she would have doubled over, hands on her knees and chest heaving, overcome with a sudden feat of giggles.

"What are you laughing at?" Floch inquired, the smile disappearing under a frown.

"You, of course," Petra answered, still breathless. "You're a bigger fool than I thought. To think that you can take on Hange Zoe..." of course, he had already gotten her, but Floch had taken her by surprise and she wasn't nearly as experienced and skilled as Hange. And even if they do somehow catch Hange... "Levi would never let you even get close to her. More than that," Petra raised her chin, a confident smirk pulling on her lips. "I'm sure he'll show up here so very soon. He'll save me and ruin your stupid plan. Then you'll be rotting in jail alongside your Zeke."

"We'll see about that," Floch promised through gritted teeth. "Wait a couple of hours, detective, and we'll see if your optimism would remain just as strong."

He gave her a furious look and then did a sharp turn, heading to the door.

“Enjoy your last hours. I’ll come to check up on you later.”

With that he had left, and Petra finally managed to breathe normally.

*** "Weren't you supposed to be good at this?" Levi dryly inquired. With a bored expression on his face, he was leaning against the wall, watching Oluo fiddle with a lock on the door to Sannes' office.

"I never said I was," Oluo grunted, wiping sweat from his forehead. His head darted from one side to other, checking if the hallway remained empty. "It's my first time breaking into someone's office, you know."

"Eh?" Levi frowned, confused. "Then how did you and Petra get in the other day?"

"I stole a key," Oluo huffed.

Levi rolled his eyes, pushing Oluo aside. "Let me handle it then. You go and stand on a lookout."

Oluo didn't need to be asked twice. He got his fair share of bullying from Levi today. With an annoyed but very quiet - he wasn’t so thrilled about receiving even more insults - sigh, he rose to his feet, going to do what Levi had requested of him. He didn’t even reach the end of a hallway, and Levi was calling out to him.

"Already?" his eyebrows went up. "You broke the lock so quickly? How?"

"Well," Levi shrugged and pushed the door open, sporting an almost smug expression. "Let's just say I wasn't always a law-abiding policeman."

"So cool..." Oluo whispered in reverence, as he followed Levi inside the office.

In Oluo's humble opinion and in comparison to a small cubicle he shared with Erd, Sannes' office was huge. A large desk, a wide bookshelf that took up most of the wall, a leather couch and a mini-fridge with a coffee machine and a microwave oven? If affiliating yourself with criminals meant you can have a workplace like this... Oluo wasn't that opposed to the idea anymore.

But they took Petra, he reminded himself. They were the bad guys, even if they were much richer and more successful than he could ever be. They certainly didn’t deserve any of it. And his job was to catch them. 

"So what should be our starting point?" he asked Levi.

"You could start with telling me what the fuck you are doing inside my damn office."

With heart in his throat, Oluo whirled around. As his eyes met Sannes' dark and furious ones, Oluo gulped, slowly taking a step back.

He chanced a glance at Levi and was surprised to see that he didn't look as scared and panicked as Oluo himself felt.

Quite the contrary.

"Sannes." he snarled.

With wide eyes and mouth open in shock, Oluo watched how Levi manhandled Sannes, a man, who was almost twice his size. He pushed him to the wall, fisting hands into his shirt.

"Where is Petra, you scumbag?" he hissed into his face. "Where are you holding her?"

“Let go of me, you freak!” Sannes shouted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Oh, but you do,” Levi’s voice dropped even lower, almost resembling a growl. “You know about everything – Zeke’s dealings, Petra’s kidnapping, Hange’s survival,” he pulled Sannes even closer. “So I repeat my question – where are you holding her?”

"I don't know!" Sannes wheezed out, already out of breath.

"Bullshit," Levi answered, his voice so dark and dangerous it made shivers run down Oluo's back. And he wasn’t the one Levi was talking to. He really didn’t envy Sannes right now. "You know it, and if you're not a complete idiot, you're going to tell me everything right fucking now."

Sannes looked down at him, his gaze calculating.  "If I tell you, do you promise not to reveal my connection with Zeke?"

"No,” Levi answered coolly, shaking Sannes once more. “But you're going to tell me anyway."

Sannes closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose. "Fine,” he said. “I'll tell you everything. Just let me go."

"Smart choice," Levi murmured and instantly took a step back.

Sannes sighed, running a shaky hand through his hair. "He's keeping her at the docks,” he mumbled, his face aimed at the ground. “I'll send you the exact location."

"Good," Levi nodded, much calmer now. "And after you do that, go straight to Erwin. If I were you, I wouldn't make him wait. Perhaps, he'd be more merciful then. Although,” he added, sending Sannes one last glare. “I doubt he actually would."

Levi turned on his heels then, walking out of the office. Oluo stayed behind for a second longer, a pressing need to ask Sannes a question arising in him.

"Petra?" his voice broke on her name, but Oluo willed himself to stand strong, looking up at Sannes without an ounce of fear. "Is she alright?"

"Dragged and unconscious," Sannes replied, rubbing the spot where Levi had grabbed him. "But she's unharmed. For now."

For now. Those two words made his knees buckle. They needed to hurry. Petra's life was on the line.

***

With sweat dripping down her face and completely out of breath, Hange finally reached Zeke's hideout.

Panting like a chain-smoker and with her leg muscles burning, she climbed all four sets of stairs, cursing Zeke all the while. Why couldn't he put his office on the first floor? Or next to a police precinct? Would have made her life so much easier.

As expected, Zeke was inside his meeting room, smoking. The fat rings of smoke were flowing around the room, flying just below the ceiling before dissipating into nothingness. Hange narrowed her eyes, squinting at the cigarette in his fingers. Could the cigarette from Petra’s apartment really belong to him? Perhaps, they should have run some tests on it… No, Hange shook her head. Zeke was innocent - at least, in that regard.

She looked around the room, nodding at Pieck and Porco, who, as usual, were sitting next to their boss.

"Ah, my dear Hange!" sweeping the ash from his cigarette, Zeke raised his hands, opening them in a welcoming gesture. "What brings you here? Already missed us?" he winked and Hange scoffed.

"Missed your ugly face?” she rolled her eyes. “Not in a million years."

Zeke shook his head, his gaze filling with disappointment. "Detective Ackerman has a terrible influence on your sense of humor," he complained, his expression turning sourer.

"Whatever," Hange fell down on a chair next to him. "I came to ask you for help. Petra is missing."

"Petra?" Zeke frowned, looking genuinely confused. The lost look inside his eyes cemented Hange's conclusion that he wasn't the one involved in her kidnapping. Zeke was sleazy and unreliable, but he was also a very bad liar. Well, that meant they managed to rule out one possible suspect…

"Yes, Petra. Levi's partner."

"Ah, he found a new one already?" Zeke spread his lips into a wide, self-contained smirk. "Not very loyal, is he?"

More loyal than you will ever be, Hange wanted to say, but stopped herself. Now was not the time to start a pointless squabble.

"Do you know something or not?" she demanded from him.

"I don't," Zeke answered, putting a cigarette to his lips and exhaling the smoke right in Hange's face. He knew how much she hated it, asshole. She waved the smoke away, scowling fiercely. "But I do know one thing," he turned to Porco. "The time has come, start packing."

Without asking for clarification, Porco nodded, thrusted hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and hurriedly left.

Hange watched him go, stunned. Was Zeke planning something? What could it be? Why didn’t she know about it?

There was only one way to find out. She surveyed Zeke’s face carefully, trying to see his motives reflected there.

"Packing? To where? What the hell are you talking about, Zeke?"

"Don't worry about our destination," he patted her hand, looking so condensing Hange had to clench her fists to stop herself from punching the bastard. "You're going with us after all."

"Like hell I will!" Hange threw his hands off, glaring at Zeke. "And you can’t seriously expect me to follow you. What does all of it mean?"

Zeke shrugged, lightening up another cigarette and taking a long drag. "It's the grand finale, Zoe. The dramatic climax, the thrilling last act. And I was never the one for theatrics. So I'll leave the stage and go on my way."

"You promised to help," Hange grunted. She couldn't believe it, she actually trusted the bastard, and now he tries to escape? She wouldn't let him. "Or did you lie to us?"

"I wasn't lying," Zeke scoffed. "Like I said, I don't enjoy the drama. I simply changed my mind."

"So you won't honor your promise?"

Zeke rolled his eyes. "Zoe, please. I'm a criminal. The word honor was never in my vocabulary."

"Fine," Hange huffed, blowing hair out of her face. The attempt to awaken his consciousness failed. Maybe, she could appeal to his ego instead… "But someone is targeting you. Don't you want to know who it is?"

"Not particularly,” Zeke shook his head. “Since they went through all that trouble just to get me, I'd rather we never meet. Lord knows what they're going to do then, and, unlike you, detective, I know what self-preservation means."

"So that's it? You're just going to leave?"

Hange couldn’t believe it. She knew Zeke was a scumbag, but goddamn it. She didn’t expect him to be that untrustworthy.

"Of course, I’m not going to just leave," Zeke smiled. "I'll take you with me. To make sure that no one is going to follow us."

Hange snorted. "You're that delusional? I told you already, I'd rather die than go anywhere with you."

"Be it as you wish," he said. "Pieck," he lazily outstretched his hand to her. "Make our dear detective cooperate. Do with her what you want, but make sure she won’t get in our way."

Hange turned to Pieck, her heart skipping a beat. She held her breath and tensed her muscles, anticipating her first move. She could take Pieck in a fight, in theory. But in reality, she came unarmed, and Pieck always carried a gun. And a couple of knifes.

And Hange wasn't sure that her wits were much sharper.

There was a bit, the air in the room growing stiff. Hange swallowed, her one eye narrowed, as she watched Pieck. Maybe, if she makes the first move—

"No." Pieck said suddenly.

For a moment, there was silence. Hange sat there, dumbfounded, staring at Pieck and feeling utterly lost. She didn’t mishear? Did Pieck really—

Next to her, Zeke seemed to have the exact same trouble. He blinked a few times and then his expression changed, turning into a look of betrayal and fury.

"What did you just say?" he snarled, baring teeth at her.

"No," Pieck repeated, staring straight at him, not swayed by his outburst. "I won't touch Hange, and you, Zeke, will go with her and surrender to the police."

"What do you think—"

"Stop it, Zeke," Pieck sighed tiredly. "Own up to your shit and stop running away. Do you really not get it? If you do this right now, whether you'll kill Hange or take her with you, this—" she gestured around, her gaze on Zeke hard and disappointed. "This running and hiding will never end. If you touch a hair on her head, detective Ackerman will get you even from underneath the Earth. Accept it, Zeke," she stood up and squeezed his shoulder. "You've lost that battle the moment you started it. You simply picked up the wrong opponents."

With slow, elegant steps Pieck approached Hange and bent down to leave a gentle kiss on her cheek. "Goodbye, Hange," she murmured, tucking a hair behind her ear. "It's been fun."

In spite of herself, Hange smiled. Sarcastic, adorable Pieck always had such an effect on her. "Are you leaving already?" she asked, touching a place where Pieck's lips met her skin.

"Well," Pieck grinned. "Pock had started packing, right?"

"And where are you going?" Zeke wondered, his lips pressed in a line and hands crossed at his chest. He stubbornly refused to even glance at Pieck.

"A secret," she chirped, smiling cheerfully. "But I'll make sure to send a postcard. Hange, I'll send yours to detective Ackerman's address?” she winked, chuckling at the sight of red color on Hange’s cheek. “And, Zeke? You'll be staying at the state prison, right?"

"Oh fuck off, Pieck," he groaned. "Go away already."

Their eyes met for a second, and Zeke's gaze softened ever so slightly. "Try not to get caught, will you?"

"Roger that, chief!" Pieck saluted, kissed Zeke too and then headed to the entrance, gliding on the floor and humming under her breath.

"You two should talk," she advised Hange and Zeke, and then quietly closed the door.

As soon as Pieck was gone, Zeke dropped his head on his hands, sighing in frustration.

"How the fuck do you do it, Zoe?" he sent her a side-glance. "How the fuck do you manage to inspire that kind of loyalty in people?"

Hange shrugged, sitting back in a chair, and curled her lips in a crooked grin. "Try not being a complete jerk, perhaps?"

"Fuck off," he retorted, hiding his face again. "You'll send me to jail, right?"

"R-right," Hange sang. "And before that, you'll help us looking for Petra."

"And if I refuse?"

"Initially, I planned to be the one organizing your arrest. But I can give that honor to Levi..."

Zeke visibly shuddered.

"Fine," he looked up, fixing the glasses on his face and brushing the hair back from his forehead. "I'll help you. Now get the hell out of here."

Hange arched an eyebrow. "You're coming with me, you know that?"

"I'll come," he huffed. "I promise. For real this time," he added, when Hange just kept giving him an unimpressed look. "Just give me half an hour to get all of my possessions in order, would you? I don't know if I'll be coming back after all."

"Half an hour." Hange nodded, looking at him strictly. "If you don't show up in half an hour, I'm sending Levi to get you."

She would have stayed behind and monitored him, but time was of the essence. She promised Levi she'd back in two hours. And the watch was telling her it was almost an hour past that. She needed to get back, and quickly. Hurrying out of the building, Hange rushed to the precinct.

But in her haste to get back to Levi, she didn't see a swift shadow that followed right after her.

***

One way, then the other, back and forth, left and right, Levi paced around the room.  

Seven. That was the amount of steps needed to get from one end of Erwin's office to the other.

Levi glanced out of the window, and then turned around, starting anew. He clenched and unclenched his fists, thinking if he should look at his phone again. Maybe, he missed a message? Didn't hear its ringing? Maybe, she had already replied to a dozen of his texts and calls?

"Levi," a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, making him stop in his tracks. "Levi, we can't wait any longer," again, Erwin's voice was so much gentler than usual, and that alone should have been enough for him to realize that he was being irrational. That, the eyes of a dozen other policemen, gathered in Erwin’s office, who looked at him with a mix of worry and sympathy.

"We have the location," Erwin reminded, bringing him back to present.

"I know."

"We have the team."

"I know."

"We have a plan."

"I know," Levi gritted through teeth. "But we do not have Hange!"

Frustrated, he turned away from Erwin. He took out his phone, holding it tightly.

Why didn't she call? Why didn't pick up the phone and answer his texts? Where the fuck was she? She promised to be back in two hours. Almost three passed and no sign of that messy, four-eyed brilliant weirdo. The knot in his stomach grew tighter with each passing second.

Logically, he knew Hange could be simply running late. She could be stuck in traffic or she could be busy trying to get some kind of useful information out of Zeke. But while Hange was never the one to care about such trite matters as punctuality and she could easily get absentminded and usually appeared to be scatterbrained and frivolous, she was so very different during the times like this. Times, when lives were on the line. Hange never let herself be so unfocused, that’s why Levi was so worried now. He was anxious, and he knew that feeling won't go away until he sets his eyes on Hange, alive, breathing and well. He just got her back, the thought of losing her… Levi cursed, checking the phone again.

"Levi..." Erwin sighed, patting his shoulder. "You know, we can't waste our time."

He knew that. Petra needed their help, needed him. He couldn't let her down, but still...

Hange, oh god, Hange. He couldn’t lose her. Not again.

"Perhaps, detective Zoe isn't going to come back," came a quiet murmur from the corner of the room.

Levi’s head whirled in that direction, and, in a flash, he was beside him. "What did you just say?" he demanded from Oluo, barely stopping himself from grabbing him just as forcefully as he had done with Sannes.  

Oluo swallowed, a trail of sweat rolling down his face, but he stared back at Levi, raising his chin.

"She was working with an enemy for more than two years. Maybe, she was the one who kidnapped Petra."

Levi closed his eyes, counting to ten in his head. He was not going to lose it right now. He was not. Not when Erwin - and a dozen other of his colleagues - were looking at him.

"Bozado," he began as calmly as he was able in that moment. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course, sir!" he answered without a moment of hesitation.

"Good," Levi nodded. "You trust me. And I trust Hange. With my life. And if you are at least half as smart as you're trying to appear, you'll trust her too. If you're not ready to,” his gaze grew harder, enabling Oluo from turning away. “Then get the fuck out of my team. If you doubt Hange, you doubt me, and I can’t work like that, I have to trust my people. So what do you say – are you leaving or staying?"

"I'm... I'm staying with you, sir."

"Alright," Levi watched Oluo’s face for another second, his eyes narrowed. Would he follow his orders without question? It seemed like he would. He hoped so, at least. With a low, thoughtful hum, Levi turned to Erwin. "We can start the operation. Bozado will lead my team."

He pointedly ignored the shocked gasp from Oluo. The boy wasn’t nearly as experienced, wasn’t even a detective, but their mission was to get back Petra. And Levi believed Oluo wouldn’t let himself fuck it all up.

It's obvious he has feelings for her, Hange once told him. She was right that time, but then again – when she wasn’t?

"And you, Levi?" Erwin asked.

"Half an hour," he promised. "Half an hour, and I'll be at the location."

Hange swore to come back to him. This time, Levi won't let her broke that promise.

Closing the door behind himself, he hurried to Zeke. He prayed that Hange was alright. Zeke wouldn’t get out of this alive, if she weren’t.

***

The silence pressed onto her. The silence, the waiting for god knows what - it was all making Petra go slowly insane. She wanted to hear something, any sound would do at this point.

Or so she thought.

But then Floch came back, sauntering inside and still sporting the same deranged grin, and Petra realized that she preferred silence so much more than the low, out of tune humming mixed with the sound of him polishing the various knifes taken from a long table in front of him.

She squirmed, the ropes digging into her skin even more. It would leave bruises, she thought absentmindedly.

Bruises? She chided herself almost immediately. Who would care about bruises if they find her dead? She suppressed another shiver.

They won't find her dead, Petra tried to persuade herself. They won't, because so very soon Levi would be here, and he'll save her. Perhaps, detective Hange would be with him, maybe, Oluo too...

She had friends who cared about her. They won't let her be murdered. She just had to keep believing in them.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked Floch, trying to distract herself from the thousand of horrible what ifs.

Why haven’t you— no, she wouldn’t ask him that. She would remain optimistic.

“You’ll see very soon,” he told her enigmatically. “My friend is almost here.”

His friend? Did he mean Zeke’s brother? The one, who had planned it all? And what would happen, when he comes? Would he—

No, she stopped herself once again. She needed to hold onto that hope. She needed to stay strong.

The sound of footsteps somewhere above her startled Petra. Hearing them too, Floch started chuckling. He turned to Petra, pressing a finger to his lips.

“That’s my friend,” he whispered quietly, as though it was the biggest secret in the world. “And he brought someone with him.”

The next second, the door opened and a man – so young, probably in his early twenties – stumbled in. He was hobbling slightly, his hand pressed to a place just below his hairline. His face was a mess – split lip, bruised eye that already started to turn deep purple, bloodied nose and forehead.

“You didn’t tell me she was a fucking psycho,” he grumbled, glaring daggers at Floch. “I wouldn’t have a chance, if I wasn’t armed.”

“But?” Floch passed him a white cloth to wipe off the blood. “You’ve caught her, right?” his voice was full of hope, and his fingers were trembling in anticipation.

“She’s in my car, dragged out of her mind. Help me get her here.”

“With pleasure,” Floch turned to Petra, winking. “You’ll have company so very soon, detective. I hope you’re excited! I am!”

He didn’t stop to hear her response, following after his friend and leaving her alone once again.

It was possibly her last chance, she realized. Petra desperately pulled on the ropes, trying to get away, but to no avail. She couldn’t move an inch, and it seemed like the more she struggled, the tighter her bindings became.

Not enough time passed, before Floch had returned, dragging a body inside. His friend put the chair, right next to Petra, and Floch dropped the body there.

No, not just some body, Petra realized. Fear crippled inside her, seizing her heart in its merciless hold.

Not just some body, Hange Zoe’s body.

Her head was bowed, but even from where she was sitting, in a poorly lit room, Petra could see blood dripping down her cheek and neck.

So much blood, she thought. She was breathing, albeit faintly. But she wasn’t waking up.

Her heart stopped, as Petra realized another thing – if Hange was there, no one was looking for her. And if no one was looking… then Hange and she… they would most probably… not be found.

At least, not alive, or so it seemed.

Petra tried to hold onto that sliver of hope, but with Hange Zoe’s bloodied face in her line of sight, it was getting increasingly harder and harder to.

[anaiswriterr]

Evil Lives Here

Pairing: Kirishima x Reader

Rating: T

Warning: This story contains the following subjects that may not be suitable for younger audiences or those who don’t like scary things: murder, blood, gore, language, and emotional feelings. Please be aware of you are easily triggered from these kinds of things and enjoy.

Synopsis: You press your hand hard against the cold glass shield that divides the two of you. Burning hot tears swell up in your eyes, you press a picture of a girl, a young girl who was brutally murdered and found in the woods. Clutching onto the jail phone in your separate hand, desperately attempting to catch your breath. You mutter out the words no wife should ever mutter, “Eijirou Kirishima... did you - do this t-to her?” Your voice wavers, eyes stinging to catch his reaction to the crime scene photo. He’s emotionless, “No.” He couldn’t of done this, there is not possible explanation.. he’s innocent. When the love of your life, the father of your two year old daughter, your best friend ends up being a mass serial killer you suddenly realize the man you solemnly swore to love till death was living a double life.

- evil lives here - screamtober series part two -

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“Do you, Y/N L/N, take Eijirou Kirishima, to be your solemnly wedded husband; through sickness and in health, for poorer or richer till death do you two part?”

The memory swirls in your head, hand in hand with your longtime boyfriend, now husband. Freshly graduated from high school, with barley any money you wore a cheap dress from the nearby thrift store, it was short, tailored just above your knees. The nervous sweat softened your hands against his rough ones. 

“Yes.” You said in a soft whisper. 

Your hands tighten around the steering wheel, you wipe a tear away from your soft skin. Lightly tapping away the stray tears with a tissue, throwing the crumpled piece away at the dash. “Who are you here to visit?” The operator in the Prison Reform entrance asked tiredly, wiping the sleep off his eyes and taking a sip of his cup of coffee. But you didn’t blame him, neither of you wanted to be there especially this early in the morning. 

“Prisoner Eijirou Kirishima, I-I’m his wife.” You duck your head down in shame, after refusing to visit after months and months of healing. You needed to know, at  least for yourself. He gives you a quick stare, later pressing a button to open the gateway. You step on the gas and proceed to enter the parking lot. 

Your hand bare without the wedding ring you wore for years on end, a marriage he ruined. A family he tore apart with reckless actions and lies, a two faced snake this entire time. Living with a monster, loving a monster. Making love to a seemingly loving, caring man. 

You lay your head against the wheel, turning off the ignition. 

“Say cheese, Ruby!” You cheer, counting down the seconds for the cameras timer to go off. “Happy birthday, munchkin!” Kirishima exclaims, pressing a small kiss to her forehead. The flashing light just capturing the happiness in that moment with a single polaroid that joined the cases of other polaroid's that you swore you’d organize into a scrapbook one day. Your daughter clapped her hands in excitement, your lips form a small ‘O’ as you and Eijirou help her blow out the candles, an assortment of cheers and whoops come from the audience of her family. Katsuki Bakugou, her godfather and uncle, is invited to take a separate photo with her in his lap. A small smile creeps onto his lips, allowing the soft spot he carried for his niece to envelop him as he held onto her tiny frame. Laughing at her giggles. 

The golden days of your youth often involved your days with Eijirou, someone you met in your years of primary school. Though you were bullied by some of the other kids, Eijirou found you in particular interesting and fun. Befriending you in nearly a day, which meant you were befriended by Mina, Sero, Kaminari, and oddly enough Bakugou. Eijirou, was different. The one to walk you home to make sure you made it back safe, to make sure you had food, to give homeless people the extra pocket change he had or buy them a meal, he wasn’t the smartest but the most caring. Never a killer, a serial killer at that.

Psychology states that when a person murders it’s a chemical imbalance in their head, the need for more. The need to keep hunting the prey that walked around at night, alone, wishing to go home to their families. They all say he said the same thing, the survivors, those who instead of accepting the fate of death instead chose to fight for their lives and manage to get away. He said the same thing.

“Suspect number one, may you please come forward and repeat the lines that were just previously mentioned.” An officer orders, standing protectively beside a shaking young girl, probably in her late teens. Her hands cold and clammy, pressed against one another.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you to not get in the car with strangers?”

She’s nods her head no, and the officer asks the next person to move forward. The voices don’t match a single one until, Eijirou Kirishima steps up. How did he get in that suspect line, he didn’t know. I mean sure, his friends teased that he looked awfully alike to the description - but those were just jokes - nobody really took it seriously.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you to not get in the car with strangers?”

A panic arose in the girl, nearly jumping off her feet she points. “That man, his voice, it’s him!” She accuses. Not even a minute later Eijirou is placed in handcuffs and escorted towards a holding cell awaiting trial.

You should’ve just taken the first sign and packed your bags, but they say love can blindside you from the truth. And the truth was Eijirou Kirishima was the serial killer that roamed the dark alleys of Japan, living a two faced life. One where he shared with his wife and a beautiful daughter, and the other, preying on the weak. You huff, rubbing your tired, aching eyes. Eyeing the folder a detective handed to you in hopes you’d get something - anything - out of the liar you called husband. The bland folder sitting on top your passenger seat, mocking you with the content inside. The sudden urge to throw up washes over you, you’ve seen those pictures a million times, it’s practically burned into your memory. But this one, the only picture that sat inside the skinny - nearly empty - folder would haunt nearly anyone. You take one last deep breath, and step outside.

The hot, humid, October weather brushed over your skin as you lean forward to retrieve your purse, keys, and the folder. “Make this quick, Y/N.” You mutter, shutting and locking the car door behind you. If there was one thing that Kirishima taught you, it was that you should always lock your doors, and move quickly. You always thought that he meant it to be something sweet, that he cared about your safety. Instead, it was just something he knew most working and busy woman never really took into consideration. Each step feels like your walking on cracking thin ice, liar.

The fuming burning hot anger.

Wake up! This has to be some sort of dream, some nightmare, the lies. The piling lies and deception, an affair you believed. For months you believed he was having an affair, but instead, you learn the awful truth. An affair you could handle, something fixable. But murder, his daughter is known as the child of a killer. You wish you could hit him, kick him, anything. It dwells on you that maybe you he was always like this.

And yet you were the exception - along with many other of his friends - you stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Clutching onto the folder, you steady your breathing.

***

bzzzzzz

“Visitor for Prisoner Eijirou Kirishima, serial code 0926.” They call him down, chewing on the inside of your cheek you wait patiently behind a call booth. Tear stricken stained face and raging eyes. Your foot taps against the metal tile beneath you, until your breath is caught.

In a bright orange jumpsuit, his hands are handcuffed together and his ankles are chained to him. You duck your head down into you sleeve in shame, in disgust, but him, he had on a huge grin as he laughed off a joke the guard seemed to tell. He holds out his wrists in front of him before being seated and was uncuffed from the tight metal restrains. You watch him slowly reach out for the phone on his end, the grin he wore still as intoxicating as when he was just a teenager.

Psychopaths don’t have much emotion. 

Except for the inappropriate emotions at inappropriate times they invoke out into the world. 

You don’t immediately reach out for the phone, your mind is wondering off to when the loud banging of the front door woke up your daughter from her sleep after being sick for a week - she hadn’t gotten much sleep and neither did you for the fact of the matter - the loud screams from her room as police officers nearly broke down your door. Red and blue flashing lights dance across the walls of the living room as they peered through the cracks of the window blinds. 

You are brought back to the sounds of three taps against the glass. You reach towards the phone hesitantly, the cord following behind as you pressed it to your ear.

“Please! My husbands innocent! He’d never hurt another person!” You cried as he was pushed into a patrol car, your daughter screaming for her father. “Ma’am, this man isn’t who he says he is.” 

“Long time no see.. where your ring?” His voices makes you seize in the cool metal chair, his cool and calm demeanor taunts you. “I’m not here to make conversation, Kirishima.” You hiss. He ignores your warning glares and smirks, “It’s been a couple months, and I haven’t seen my daughter Y/N. I just want to see my family, I want to see you-” 

“Cut the bullshit, as long as I’m alive you’ll never see Ruby again!” 

You huff pushing passed the tears that pooled at the corners of your eyes, he stares into your  glossy E/C ones. “Where’s Ruby?” 

“Bakugou’s babysitting her.” 

“Somebody else is babysitting my kid, what let me guess you guys are hanging out with each other more? I knew you’d eventually sleep with him.” 

“Shut the fuck up! I haven’t done anything with him, he’s just being a a father figure Ruby needs not some psychopathic liar.” 

He chuckles, “I told you, I didn’t do it.” You slam your hand o the glass in frustration, pressing your hand hard against the cold glass shield that divides the two of you. Burning hot tears swell up in your eyes, you take out the printed imagine in the folder and press a picture of a girl, a young girl who was brutally murdered and found in the woods. Clutching onto the jail phone in your separate hand, desperately attempting to catch your breath. You mutter out the words no wife should ever mutter, “Eijirou Kirishima... did you - do this t-to her?” Your voice wavers, eyes stinging to catch his reaction to the crime scene photo. He’s emotionless, “No.” 

“Hey! Do you need a ride?” A man calls from his car, looking at the young girl who’s barley pushing eighteen. She nods, “I’m kinda lost! I just moved here, do you know where I can find the nearest payphone?” A smirk forms on the adults face, he unlocks his passenger side door, he adjusts his baseball cap. 

“Hop in.” He pats his passenger seat, the young girl was so desperate to hitch a ride she was willing to jump into any trustworthy looking person she could find; Kirishima was handsome and his face painted trust and caring. But inside those deceiving eyes were a need to kill. They pass by the payphone after a five minuet ride, “Hey, I think you passed the-” 

“I know.” He smiles, turning the steering wheel into the direction of the nearby woods. 

“What are yo-”

A chuckle escapes him lips, “Didn’t your mother ever tell you to not get in cars with strangers?”

TAGLIST: @pavlovs-titties​ @explosivefireworks​ @utopiamiroh​ @hikaru-mikazuki​ @strangethingsatthecirclek​ @myheroesaretired​

Next: Aizawa x Reader - Tag You’re It

[that1fanficwriter]

Fluffy Alphabet for Arthur

Author’s Note: I don’t know who to give credit to for the template. I’ve seen so many different ones that I just looked one up on the internet.

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

Your kindness and empathy.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

Yes, and not just because everyone in the kingdom wants him to have an heir. Growing up as an only child and with just his dad he always longed for a big family. Now he has that chance and he wants to have as many kids as Y/n is ok with.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

My god, when he wants cuddles you better forget about doing anything all day. Because Uther was not as involved as he should have been this boy is so touch starved he will just latch on and never let go.

D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

Absolutely adorable. Once he became king it became harder to spend a day going out for a ride and a picnic so you cherish all of the little moments you have with him. That means having to explain to him that you don’t need to bring Merlin along for a picnic; you are both very capable and that it might be good for him to do some of the work for himself.

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…))

He calls you Lofian which means to My Love in Old English

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

He always loved you but he finally realized it once Merlin pointed it out (typical)

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

Yes, all the time. He is so sweet and gentle the only exception being when you are practicing fighting with him.

H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

You don’t get to hold hands a lot because you are almost always in the public eye. If he can’t hold your hand he will just link your fingers together.

I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

The first time he caught a glimpse of you he thought you were stunning and he was so excited to see you again in the castle so he could get the chance to talk to you.

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?)

Yes and no. If it is someone he knows, like Gwaine or the knights, he doesn’t because he knows that they would never really do anything. If it is someone he doesn’t know it’s a different story. He gets protective of you and pretends that he isn’t jealous but really he is. You usually notice it and remind him that you aren’t going away, he’s stuck with you.

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

You and Arthur were secretly meeting in the forest. Merlin followed the pair of you and was hiding in a bush. Eventually he was frustrated enough to which both of you and jumped out of his bush to tell you guys to kiss.

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?)

Merlin. Both Arthur and you didn’t realize the other was in love with you until Merlin finally broke and shouted it at you.

M = Memory (What’s their favourite memory together?)

His favorite memory is when you both had snuck out to the forest for dinner at sunset. He had found a beautiful overlook where you could see for miles and as the sunset he looked over at you and swore that you were glowing.

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

Of course. He is the prince/king for goodness sake. You have to make sure you don’t look at anything too long to he will buy it for you.

O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?)

Purple. It is a very expensive color reserved for pretty much only royalty and those that can afford it. It reminds him of you because he knows you deserve the world.

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

Every sweet pet name he can come up with you’ve heard. Though he favors calling you lofian.

Q = Quaint (What is their favourite non-modern thing?)

I mean it’s medieval times sooo everything?

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

He likes to stay inside and try to catch up on his work so that you two can spend quality time together.

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

If he is upset he will either go for a ride or try to find something to take his mind off of it. He isn't the greatest at cheering people up but if he knows the person well enough he gives great hugs.

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

Mundane things and things that don’t have to do with the safety and prosperity of Camelot because he’s usually talking about that all day.

U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

If he is really stressed or upset he goes and trains by himself otherwise he bottles it up but you can usually tell that something is off and can get him to talk to you about it.

V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

Camelot. It means so much to him and his is endlessly proud of how much better it has become even if he has days when he doubts his ability to rule.

W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?)

He originally told you that he wanted to marry you during one of your getaways but he officially proposed to you after he became king. He came to your house and before you could say anything or even let him in he pulled out the ring and asked you.

X = Xylophone (What’s their song?)

Soldier, Poet, King but The Oh Hellos (an: this ones kind of iffy and I don't have any reasoning but oh well)

Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

Yes, he dreamed of being able to marry you but didn't know if he would be able to since you were not of royal blood. Thankfully, he became king and could change the rules before he was forced into a different marriage.

Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

As a child he wanted a dragon (who didn't) but his father quickly discouraged that idea.

[sugaxela]

AN ACCIDENTAL FIC REC LIST

So.. I’m a lurker who reads a lot of fics and I get annoyed when I can’t relocate my fave ones. I started making this list of my faves mostly for myself but then figured I’d share it...

I’m Yoongi biased and gravitate towards angst fics so it’s mostly that but there’s fics for every member tossed in here. Some of these are pretty popular so you might have seen a few. 

Also, I realized I need to read more Jin, Jimin, and Hoseok fics so if you have recommendations let me know!

Once again it’s a LOT of angst so I would just like to say... CRYING IS GOOD FOR U.

***

KSJ

Start Anew - @gukyi

Seokjin x Reader. Angst. Summary: it’s been five years since you left your hometown, vowing never to return, but a simple invitation to a christmas party and a yearning to know whether or not you’re truly over the heartbreak you left behind has you wondering if, maybe, the christmas spirit and promise of a new beginning can change your mind.

No Limit - @sailorbellewrites

Seokjin x Reader. Fluff. Summary: you and jungkook don’t even look alike. how was seokjin supposed to know you were off limits?

Lovely Little Mess - @guksheart

Seokjin x Reader. Fluff, smut. Summary: telling seokjin of your pregnancy should not be so daunting, but you hide it  as long as you can—at least until you are sitting with him in a bathtub and the secret comes spilling out. 

No Parking - @jungshookz

Seokjin x Reader. Fluff. Summary: “to the asswipe who owns this mini cooper - do you know how to read signs? this is a no-parking zone. no. parking. zone. that means you are not allowed to park in this zone. DO NOT park here.” (also I made up the title bc it doesn’t have one)

MYG

Seasons Change - @taetaesbaebaepsae

Yoongi x Reader. Angst. Summary: Min Yoongi and you, through the seasons, break up and come back together. Nobody said love was easy.

I’ll Float Away - @ppersonna

Yoongi x Reader. Angst. Summary: years after the breakup, yoongi, a successful award-winning rapper with an unhealthy addiction, finds your wedding invite on Facebook.

Memory Lane - @hayjeon

Yoongi x Reader. Fluff. Summary: grumpy husband yoongi au aka lots of fluff (mentions of sex)

Do It Again - @kimnjss

Yoongi x Reader. Angst. Summary: months after deciding to end their three year long relationship, a sex tape hits the internet. fans go wild speculating that rap star, min yoongi and aspiring model, yn are the stars. old feelings arise as the couple try to figure out a way out of this.

Cuddles and Kittycats - @dinoyoongi

Yoongi x Reader. Fluff, angst. Summary: After a night of drinking, you go to Yoongi’s dorm for some quality cuddles. Unfortunately, you’ve forgotten that you are currently giving him the silent treatment.

Overstayed Welcome - @kkaep-jjjang

Yoongi x Reader - Fluff, smut. Summary: Y/N decides to get over her crush by getting under someone else. Sounds fool proof right? Wrong.

Ghosted - @bloomsuga

Yoongi x Reader. SM AU. Summary: your new roommate is everything you could ask for: quiet, never makes messes, a killer dry sense of humor... and oh yeah—he’s dead.

Wildest Moments - @joonbird

Yoongi x Reader. Angst. Summary: “Min Yoongi is forbidden territory. And although you both know better, the two of you just can’t seem to stay apart.”

Romance is Dead - @dinoyoongi

Yoongi x Reader. Angst, fluff. Summary: You try to surprise Yoongi with a night full of romance but he manages to ruin all of your plans.

Fools Rush In - @sailorbellewrites

Yoongi x Reader. Drabble series. Summary: min yoongi, music executive and perpetual bachelor, marries a las vegas stripper he’s only known for six months. chaos ensues.

Pretend - @gimmesumsuga

Yoongi x Reader. Angst. Summary: “You know what they say: the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, right?” 

Aquiver - @floralseokjin

Yoongi x Reader. Idol AU. Summary: Yoongi can’t remember the last time he was able to successfully bring himself to the point of orgasm, then Namjoon gives him a business card advertising ‘Healing Hands’, and that’s where he meets you; pretty and innocent looking, who gets paid to provide hand jobs for a living…

Hidden Stars - @jungblue

Yoongi x Reader, Jungkook x Reader. Angst. Summary: It started out simple, but when your feelings start to grow for the idol who isn’t allowed to date, things get complicated.

Talk To Me - @btsrpp

Yoongi x Reader. Fluff, angstyish. No summary. But it involves a silent treatment.

No Title - @jungxk

Yoongi x Widow!Reader. Angst. No summary.

JHS

Hobi’s Girl - @v-hope

Hoseok x Reader. SM Au. Summary: after attending a bts concert and very clearly catching one of the members’ attention, you can’t help but get flooded with hate comments once people find your twitter account. who would’ve thought that would be the reason jung hoseok would find his concert girl, too.

Bloom - @jungxk

Hoseok x Reader. Smut. Summary: you’ve always had a crush on hobi and he’s always handled that gently. what he can’t handle is you now, nine years later. 

Blue Side - @minyoongone

Hoseok x Reader. SM AU. Summary: when you get a text from a heartbroken boy who you mistake for your ex

KNJ

Confirm or Deny - @dinoyoongi

Namjoon x Reader. Angst. Summary: You’re a member of the rising group FRNZEE. You’ve been dating Namjoon for years when Dispatch releases an article exposing your relationship. Your company confirms the relationship. Big Hit denies it.

You’ve Got That - @mikrksmos

Namjoon x Reader. Angst. Summary: After making a life-changing decision for your career, you’re unsure of how exactly to bring it up to your boyfriend after your relationship and communication has not really been in sync. Namjoon is ready to take this relationship to the next stage, and he is sure that what he needs to ask you will be the solution to all the problems you have been having. Both know this next move is the right idea, but are unaware of how parallel those ideas really are.

Duck and Cover - @versigny

Namjoon x Reader. Fluff. Summary: There were two things you never dreamed would become your biggest worries with your new job: Kim Namjoon, and that god damn camera.

Inked - @1997jk

Namjoon x Reader. heavy angst, slow burn, soulmate au. (no summary).

Try Me - @jjkfire

Namjoon x Reader. Fluff. Summary: You wanted nothing more than to leave behind your old self when you graduated from high school and moved on to college to play rugby but when you see your high school classmate, resident fuckboy and captain, Kim Namjoon, at the rugby department orientation, you feel like everything might fall apart.

Stitches - @glassbangtan

Namjoon x Reader. Angst. Summary: People always said getting married at a young age was a mistake - could they have been right?

All In - @kookiesjoonies

Namjoon x Reader. SM AU. Summary: you aren’t usually one to give out your number to strangers (let alone customers), but after you start talking to Namjoon and getting to know him, you decide that there’s no way you’re going to let him leave without it. however, he fails to mention that he’s one of the most popular rappers in South Korea. and it just so happens that one of your best friends ends up with an extra ticket to one of his shows. 

PJM

Come Home to Me Darling - @roses-ruby

Jimin x Reader. Angst. Summary: Jimin cheats and you try to make him stay. But whatever you do, it’s never enough.

Attention and Care - @your-daily-biaswrecking

Jimin x Reader. Fluff, angstish. Summary: Jimin must be the only person in the world who complains about his girlfriend not complaining... When Amy doesn't pester him to come home early (like the rest of the members) he starts thinking she might not care for him as much.

Daisies - @silverlightqueen

Jimin x Reader. SM AU. Summary: You’ve had a long-running feud with fellow idol Park Jimin, saving all the anger and bitterness for the yearly award shows and shooting each other a few dirty looks, not bowing when you walk past each other, or just generally throwing shade. After one particularly obvious encounter between the two of you, the fans start to notice, just in time for The Rose Tour!

Doubt - @heartkook

Jimin x Reader. Fluff, angst. Summary: Jimin gets jealous of your relationship with Jungkook, and needs reassuring that he’s the only one you love.

KTH

Of Lace and Lust - @hobidreams

Taehyung x Reader. Smut. Summary: friendship rule number one: don’t imagine how amazing your best friend’s cock would feel inside you. except that’s all you can think about after accidentally discovering taehyung’s kink for panties. specifically, the lacy ones you’re so fond of wearing. 

Queen Cobra - @fantasybangtan

Taehyung x Reader. Gang AU. Summary: when your boss offers the chance to take down the nation’s most lucrative gang from the inside out, you know you’ll do it no matter what the cost… even if that means entering an arranged marriage with the kingpin himself.

See You - @gimmesumsuga

Taehyung x Reader. Smut. Summary: The one where Taehyung notices you at a concert, and can't help but want to see you again.

Who Cares? - @floralseokjin

Taehyung x OC. Angst. Summary: what happens when Taehyung falls for someone who’s already taken? Can he control his feelings or will they take over and render him powerless? In the end is it all her fault or his…?

Color of Your Shirt - @firebettercallnct

Taehyung x Reader. SM AU. Summary: when you're close to your soulmate your shirt changes to their favorite color. yn hates taehyung's favorite color.

JJK

Comfort Inn Ending - @joonbird

Jungkook x Reader. Angst. Summary: “It was you who Jungkook gave his heart to- that is, until the day you broke it. And it is you now, hoping that some faultlines can be repaired, and that some broken hearts can be put back together again.”

After I Left You - @latetaektalk

Jungkook x Reader. Angst. Summary: “when you decided to meet up with taehyung for dinner to reconnect, you didn’t expect to see jungkook, your ex, on a date with his current girlfriend and not to mention, end up fake dating taehyung.”

Rattled - @gukslut

Jungkook x Reader. Genre: Single dad AU, Angst, Healing, E2L, F2L, Smut. (no summary)

Risk It - @kookiesjoonies

Jungkook x Reader. Sm Au. Summary: a drunken text ends with you wrapped up in the arms of your ex-boyfriend. aka the man that you dumped two years prior, after he refused to marry you. suddenly, all of the feelings that you’d seemingly had buried come rushing back up to the surface, and you’re not sure how long you can ignore them.

Damn the Delivery Boy - @deerguk

Jungkook x Reader. Fluff. Summary: Jeon Jeongguk is a computer science major working as a pizza delivery boy, and you are an uninspired published author who has just started an art degree. When you realise that the delivery boy is your old high school crush, he keeps coming back, but with more to offer than just puff pastry and vegetarian supreme. Though little did he know that he would end up giving you something much more that flips both of your worlds completely upside down in the form of two blue lines and nine months.

One Thing Right - @hobios

Jungkook x Reader. Angst, fluff. Summary: desperate to get your ailing mother into the best care possible, you ask your childhood friend turned enemy to marry you for his health insurance benefits. the only problem is it’s illegal. and he’s the sheriff. and you swore to hate him since the day he broke your best friend’s heart.

Hidden Stars - @jungblue

Jungkook x Reader, Yoongi x Reader. Angst. Summary: It started out simple, but when your feelings start to grow for the idol who isn’t allowed to date, things get complicated. 

Tamped - @chimoona

Jungkook x Reader. Smut, fluff. Summary: You and your business partner/best friend Jin have struggled to find good help to run your coffee shop. Employee after employee, it just never worked out. However, Jungkook is determined to impress and deliver. He wants this more than ever, and it always feels good to want something. To need, well, that’s even better.

Strawberry Kisses - @kimnjss

Jungkook x Reader. SM AU. Summary: an online dating app pairs him with the perfect girl. the two quickly start falling for each other and when things are getting good, he finds out she’s his best friend’s little sister.

Crush - @jungxk

Jungkook x Reader. Fluff, light angst. No summary, amnesiac jk.

Look Alive - @jamaisjoons

Jungkook x Reader. Angst. Summary: a year after you and jungkook break up, the two of you meet at your brother’s party.

***

I got a lot of these from some fic rec master lists.

Here’s a namjoon angst master list by @bts-ficrecs

Also this bts fic rec list by @platinumjeon

An infidelity list by @hellreads

Fic-Recs by @joonapeach

Top fics compilation by @xjoonchildx

There’s more but I’ll add those when I find them, and I’ll either update this list or make a new one when I have enough new fics.