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nostalgicatsea · 4 years

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Common questions about and excuses for racism in fandom

I noticed that the same excuses, justifications, and questions that have come up in response to racism in fandom over the years appear in the notes for my post, so here’s a FAQ of sorts to address them. Hopefully, this will help people understand why these arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny and have something to refer to in lieu of writing a new reply every time someone says these things.

Due to the length of this post, I made a Google doc for easier reading. Please note that several points are specific to the Marvel fandom and to the post linked above and are often M/M-focused (I explain why in that post), but generally speaking, the following can be applied to any fandom and various relationships.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

Shipping isn’t activism.

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

I put a lot of different people in my works, and I do research about the groups they’re in. For example, I have a *marginalized group here* character (e.g., disabled), and I did research to represent them accurately. It’s not fair to say that I don’t care about diversity.

I don’t think people should write about POC if they’re white, just like I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about *insert topic you’re passionate about or interest group you’re in here* (e.g., the BDSM community) if they didn’t know anything about it.

I really don’t have any knowledge about what it’s like to be a POC, though, so maybe I’m not the best person for this. If POC want to see themselves represented, they should make their own works.

I’m not comfortable with writing POC as I’m unfamiliar with the struggles they experience. I don’t want my writing to come off as inauthentic, inaccurate, or offensive. Why are you saying it’s harmful to use this as a reason for abstaining from writing POC?

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

What you said and the data you have don’t necessarily point to racism. It might just be individual preference. I prefer certain ships over others, and it has nothing to do with race/I don’t see color.

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Some white characters and ships are popular in the MCU fandom because people bring in canon characterization or material from the comics to the character(s)/ship. Your MCU-only examination fails to account for ships with one character from the MCU and one from comics (e.g., MCU Bucky/616 Clint or Spideypool).

Some subfandoms just have fewer POC which means there will naturally be fewer ships featuring POC. To say that the Marvel fandom is racist as a whole is disingenuous; you can see how more diversity in the cast leads to more diverse ships in fanworks.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

The rest of the post is under the cut.

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

As explicitly stated several times in my post, I agree that you can ship whatever you want. I’m not targeting a specific ship. I’m not telling you to stop shipping what you ship. All I’m asking is for everyone, including myself and other POC, to regularly examine ourselves for any implicit biases. If you’re a multishipper, are all of your ships in the fandom white? If you only have one ship and it’s white, are most or all of your ships in your other/previous fandoms white? Is the only media you consume predominantly or all white?

Shipping isn’t activism.

No, it isn’t and in many cases, shouldn’t be seen or treated as the same thing. However, by responding this way to POC who want to see themselves represented in fanworks more and not be ignored or written stereotypically, you’re telling us that our mere existence is a “political issue.”

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

It should be fun for us POC too, and it’s not when we’re consistently misrepresented or we don’t exist in this fandom. By using this as an excuse to exclude POC from your works, you’re saying that only some people are allowed to have fun or that having fun is conditional. Also, no one is forcing you as an individual to do or not do anything. See two paragraphs above.

Just like you do research for those groups, you can easily do research on POC. Also, please be aware that this statement is similar to the “I’m not racist because I have a ___ friend/have a ___ person in my works” argument that many people use to prove they’re not racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. We aren’t interchangeable with other groups.

Something like BDSM is a lifestyle and preference. It is a choice. Being a POC isn’t. We can’t take off our identity every time we leave the house, the way you might keep it secret at work that you’re in the BDSM scene.

We do. Also, all of us fanwork creators make works with characters who are different from us all the time. Fandom is largely composed of people who aren’t straight cis men, yet the bulk of works on AO3 features characters who are canonically or implied to be straight cis men even if we end up changing that in our works. Most of us aren’t billionaires, but we don’t have a problem writing Tony. We don’t know what it’s like to be a WWII-soldier-turned-brainwashed-assassin who was kept in cryo for decades except when deployed on missions, but we don’t have a problem writing Bucky. The list goes on.

Your concern isn’t harmful. Reducing us to our trauma is, and you’re doing that if the reason you’re not comfortable with writing POC is that you don’t know how to write our struggles. We’re not only our pain. We’re more than that.

Not every fic has to be about the trauma of being a POC. We deserve to have fun, silly fics in addition to serious, plotty drama. We’re not thinking about our suffering 24/7 even if we do think about or are affected by it a lot. It’s not like if you write a Sam/Bucky fic, Sam is going to randomly lecture Bucky about the history of Black people in the U.S. and modern enslavement through the prison industrial complex while Bucky is trailing kisses down his neck in bed. We don’t need everyone being racist to MJ in a Pride and Prejudice AU. If you do want to include their struggles because that informs the way the characters think or act in your story, you can do so in ways that feel organic.

Additionally, this is an excuse that we hear often; you may have heard it as people in Hollywood have used it to explain why they don’t have any, or at least any major, characters from marginalized groups in their works. If we allowed this excuse, an overwhelming majority of who we see in the media would be straight, cis white men considering who has power in the film and TV industry—and we would have to say that’s okay. We would have to say that the only people allowed to write about a certain group are members of that group, e.g., only women can write women. That’s not acceptable especially considering the gatekeeping, oppression, and high barriers to entry and success that make it difficult for marginalized people to even be in the room let alone make a name for themselves.

Fandom is no different. You’re saying that you can’t relate to POC because you’re white, but none of us POC have any problems making fanworks with white characters even though we don’t know what it’s like to be white. There are straight women who write fics about gay men and don’t feel uncomfortable doing so when they don’t know a single thing about being a gay man and the struggles of gay men (M/M can include bi or pan men, fics about gay men by straight women can sometimes include problematic portrayals, and straight men, queer women, and non-binary people write M/M too, but this is just an example).

You should be more careful when writing a POC if you're not a POC. The same goes for men writing women, cis people writing trans people, straight people writing queer people, able-bodied people writing disabled people, etc. However, there ARE ways to go about it, and while I understand the fear of messing up, the truth is everyone is racist, sexist, etc. Everyone including people in marginalized groups. Being a white lesbian doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. Being an Asian man doesn’t mean you can’t be sexist. You can see that within groups themselves. POC are not exempt from racism against other POC or from internalized racism against themselves or their own group. Women aren't free from internalized misogyny. The best we can do is to not make that prevent us from making inclusive works; if you make a mistake, which may happen, all we can ask is that you try your best to be open to feedback and grow.

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

No one is telling you to. Choose characters who make sense for the story. Don’t choose them just so you have a POC in your work. We don’t want them to be tokenized.

This argument is identical to the “not all _____” rebuttal (“not all men,” “not all white people,” etc.) which places the blame on a few lone individuals and shifts the conversation away from an existing widespread problem. When there’s a consistent pattern and there are many examples of it both within the fandom and in other fandoms, it no longer is about individual preference.

I urge you to consider the following:

If most people say they don’t write about or include a POC in their work because it’s too difficult or they’re afraid of making that character inauthentic, but they don’t seem to have an issue with writing other characters from groups they’re not in (e.g., if you’re a straight woman who writes a lot of M/M fics despite not knowing what it’s like to be a bi, pan, or gay man), doesn’t that say something?

If most people have the same reasons you do about not being interested in POC (e.g., “they’re not fleshed out enough” while being interested in or fleshing out minor white characters who get the same or even less development as those characters) or ships with POC (e.g., saying “they’re like brothers” while being interested in a white ship with similar dynamics and tropes or seeing why other people might ship it if you don’t), doesn’t that say something?

If most people give characters of color the same roles in their works even if that makes them OOC and/or the role reduces them to a (frequently stereotypical) trope, especially if they’re never fleshed out beyond that trope (e.g., the funny sidekick, wise friend who always helps or gives advice/free therapy, or responsible, mature, and sometimes stern friend who “parents” the protagonist), isn’t that saying something?

If race truly isn’t a factor for you when it comes to liking characters and ships, then this isn’t about you and you don’t have to distract people from the conversation by announcing that. That said, we should all look at characters and ships we like anyway instead of assuming that’s the case as that’s good practice. How much of your list is white? If it’s mostly or entirely white, why is that the case and why do you feel differently about ships of color?

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

What characters and actors do you find attractive or interesting? Are they all or mostly white? If they aren’t, are you drawn to any ships that include those POC? Refer to the section above.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Part of this is preference as it comes down to perceived chemistry and relationship dynamics. However, POC are often not seen as romantic leads both in fanworks and the media and are just friends or “brothers/sisters” (this is why Crazy Rich Asians was a big deal). Sometimes, people even argue against POC being or having love interests in the name of diversity. You see this a lot with WOC in the media where the explanation against a love interest is “she’s a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man”; yes, they don’t and sometimes the story doesn’t need a romance, but WOC deserve love too and it’s strange that while white women can get the guy and be independent, WOC can’t and it somehow belittles or reduces them if they do.

The way you can gauge whether it’s just preference at play or biases you may not have been aware of is to see how many relationships featuring a character of color fall under the “just friends/siblings” category for you, what you need to ship something, and how you feel about white ships with the same type of relationship or same lack of chemistry. For instance, you may say that there needs to be enough interaction for you to ship something and that’s why you don’t care much for Rhodey/Sam. Do you feel the same way about Clint/Coulson then, which has much less interaction (actually much less than Rhodey/Sam in this case)? If it’s about chemistry, are Steve and Sam just “brothers,” but Bruce and Thor aren’t or, if you don’t ship Bruce/Thor, you still “see it” and get why other people might be into it?

What do you ship, or what ships do you understand even if they’re not for you, and how is that different from ships that follow the same beats? Why are Steve and Bucky not brothers, but Rhodey and Tony are (there are many parallels between the two relationships—and one can argue the latter is more nuanced—than appears at first glance, and Rhodey/Tony can be just as sweet or angsty)? If you like the rivals/enemies-to-lovers or meet-ugly aspect to Steve/Tony, Sam/Bucky, Scott/Jimmy Woo, and M’Baku/T’Challa have that dynamic. You like that superior/subordinate-to-lovers dynamic that Clint/Coulson has? Coulson/Fury. Flirty meet-cutes or love/trust-at-first-sight? Steve/Sam.

I explained why I focused on the MCU here and that most of the fics that feature an MCU character and comics ’verse character tend to be heavily or entirely MCU-influenced here.

Also, characters of color exist in the comics, cartoons, and games too. By this logic, Steve/Sam and Rhodey/Tony should be juggernauts in the MCU fandom considering the depth and history of the characters and relationships. Ask yourself why people are happy to ship MCU Spideypool, to draw on the comics for that relationship and even bring a non-MCU character into the MCU and write him based on his comics history and characterization. Ask yourself why people are unhappy with MCU Clint’s terrible writing and lack of characterization and decide to give him his 616 (usually Fraction-era) characterization. And then ask yourself why people don’t do that for characters of color and then use “___ is a minor character/doesn’t have much development” as an excuse for why they’re uninteresting or not shippable with others.

There are many strong and interesting relationships in the comics, but only a few make it to the MCU fandom and almost all, if not all, of them are white.

It’s more important to see how many fanworks there are for ships of color in a fandom than how many ships of color there are in that fandom. See how few works there are for POC ships other than MJ/Peter in the MCU Spider-Man fandom despite the diversity of the cast. See how the most popular ships are white and three of them involve white characters from the Iron Man fandom (explain to me how Harley/Peter has over 1,000 works, but Ned/Peter has 436).

And sure, you can say almost all of the Black Panther ships feature a character of color so there’s “more” diversity, but see how few works there are for them and how works with a white character fare compare to POC-only ships (almost all have 100-200 or fewer fics, with many having so few that I didn’t include them in the post, while BP ships with a white character have more works despite little to no interaction between the characters).

Both of these, by the way, are critical and box office hits with characters who are clearly supposed to be the faces of the MCU now that the OG6 are gone. Black Panther is an award-winning critical and box office hit, and it is, more than any other film in MCU history, a huge cultural phenomenon with tremendous impact. It broke so many records and milestones, and it’s STILL breaking and making them. It has the most nuanced and balanced ensemble cast with side characters just as three-dimensional as the lead, a rarity in MCU films. Yet, its tag only has 3,966 works, fewer in total for the whole fandom than some of the white M/M ships on this list. Even if you account for BP fanworks that may have been tagged as MCU instead of BP, the number is paltry as you can see in this post. People simply do not want to make fanworks for characters of color (in this case, specifically Black characters) and don’t. It’s not about how diverse or successful a film is.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Yes, that’s true, but fandom has no problem catapulting white ships with minor characters into extreme popularity. See Clint/Coulson. See fics prioritizing Happy and having him show up more than Rhodey in Steve/Tony fics.

It’s not about chronology. Many ships of color came before white ships as a whole and before white ships with the same white character they have. See Bucky/Clint vs. Bucky/Sam.

Lastly, please don’t tell me how certain white M/M ships came to be to explain how they’re exempt or how I’m failing to consider other factors for their popularity. I’ve been in the fandom since 2012, and I’ve seen almost all of the white ships in the fandom be born or boom into popularity. Don’t try to explain, for instance, that Clint/Coulson is big because Coulson has his own show and his fans followed him from the show (this logic falls flat when you look at something like Luke Cage); that ship became huge way before that happened and way before Agents of Shield became “big.” Also, see the section above regarding screen time, development, and fame.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

People’s opinions differ on racebending—and often that comes from personal background and on the situation—so I can’t speak on anyone’s behalf. However, I think everyone can agree on the following:

Racebending a white character is not the same thing as whitewashing a POC. For example, making Tony Stark Indian vs. turning T’Challa white or as canonical examples, making Fury black in Ultimates and the MCU vs. making the Ancient One or the Maximoffs white. The latter (whitewashing T’Challa, the Ancient One, and the Maximoff twins) is racist for various reasons. There’s a long history of POC being erased and white people taking roles from POC, a huge imbalance in representation between white people and POC, the unfortunate perception by the public and media that “white = neutral/standard” (Bruce’s whiteness doesn’t define his characterization and development), and the way race plays a role in influencing the way POC feel, act, and are treated.

Racebending a POC from one ethnicity or racial group to another is also problematic as we’re not interchangeable. Hollywood often does this and goes, “But they’re still a POC! We’re being diverse!”

In general, people who racebend white characters to POC want to see more POC in canon and in the media! These aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sometimes people racebend because they’re not represented at all in their works. (This happens with other marginalized groups too; for instance, some people make cis characters trans in their fanworks as there are few to no trans characters in the canonical source.) For example, there are, as of now, no Latinx superheroes in the MCU films. Even if people wanted to, they can’t make works with an MCU Latinx superhero unless they bring one from the comics or the one Latinx superhero from Agents of Shield (if they know the comics or AoS), make a minor Latinx film character like Luis a superhero, or racebend their favorite white character and put a fresh spin on the character, drawing from their personal experience and background.

There’s a massive difference between fans racebending a character and a creator taking credit by pretending they viewed a character as non-white or didn’t see race all along when it’s clear that the character is canonically white (this is different from a creator saying they support anyone, POC or white, playing that character onscreen or onstage).

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

We don’t have to pick our battles. Both are important! I focused on fandom representation as it’s much more quantifiable and easy to find and analyze data for than racist language on a fandom-wide scale on my own without any tools. You’re right that the latter is a problem as is racist representation in fanworks, though.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

If the story is about a relationship (examining that relationship and the feelings of the characters in it) and there isn’t much of a plot outside of that, then that makes sense. However, even in situations like this, consider how much time you dedicate to characters of color vs. white characters. If the story is about a ship featuring a POC, do you spend more time on the white character of that relationship? Their white friends and how they feel about that relationship? If it’s about a white ship, do white side characters appear more than side characters of color even if the latter have a closer relationship with the protagonists? For example, does Wanda show up more than Sam or play a bigger role than him in a Steve/Bucky fic? Do you have Pepper show up all the time (or even Happy), but Rhodey is chronically absent? Do only the white characters get to be more than the tropes you’re using, if you’re using any, while the POC don’t get to be nuanced? Are there any stereotypes that you’re reducing the POC to?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

See “It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.” Include the character(s) who make sense for the story, perspective you’re writing/drawing from if applicable, and central group or ship if this is a ship-specific work. For example, if you’re drawing the Avengers and you include the newer Avengers, Rhodey and Sam should appear too, not just Wanda, Scott, Bucky, and/or Carol (this happens a lot). If you’re writing a Tony POV fic that includes other characters, depending on the story, it may make sense that Sam doesn’t appear much as he and Tony aren’t close whereas he would in a Steve POV fic.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

You can’t ensure anything as POC aren’t a monolith, but you can try to be as informed as possible and avoid common pitfalls while writing. You can do research, just the way you might research anything you’re not familiar with. You can ask if anyone is willing to do a sensitivity read while you write or before you post. You can look for betas. There are a lot of resources out there, but these are good places to start if you’re looking for more information and help:

Writing with Color - resources

Writing with Color - Stereotypes and Tropes page

Reference for Writers - POC tag

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

We should all take stock of:

our feelings about different characters and relationships, both platonic and romantic, who we prioritize in our works, and how much they’re prioritized

our decision whether or not to seek or make content with characters of color. This includes content for white ships because sometimes every white character in the MCU shows up as a side character, but characters of color don’t or all of the white characters play bigger roles than the POC despite how close they are to the protagonist(s)

the way we interpret and write/draw those characters. For example, is Sam a yes-man? A figurative or literal therapist for white friends? The bro who only cracks jokes and/or gives sage advice but seems to not have any flaws, struggles, or life of his own outside of his white friends? The BFF who thinks his white best friend is being ridiculous about another white guy and wants them to get their act together already? Does the character of color talk in the way you perceive everyone of that race to talk rather than the way they personally do (e.g., does Luis randomly and awkwardly switch into Spanish when he talks just because he’s Latinx despite never speaking Spanish with Scott? Does Sam use AAVE with Steve, Bucky, and Natasha when he doesn’t do that with them?)?

Also, here’s a Google doc with more anti-racist resources.

Even well-meaning people can slip up or not be as proactive as they hoped they would be so it’s just good practice to check in with ourselves every once in a while and see if there’s anything we missed or didn’t notice.

#fandom #marvel fandom #mcu fandom #resource

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thedigitalnativee · 3 years

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do mi ti. (fred weasley x fem!oc x theodore nott)

summary: during the spring of ‘96, fred and george weasley departed from hogwarts. but fred didn’t just leave hogwarts behind, he left his beloved lena too. while fred was gone, lena made a mistake that is now threatening to come to life.

warnings: ANGST, mentions of death, mentions of cheating, like super slight nsfw (literally will miss it if you blink), i think that's it but let me know if i missed anything.

notes: i split it into two parts and i will post part two as soon as it’s finished. lena’s name is pronounced LEH-na (the european way, not the english way) and her house is ravenclaw :)

Lena face claim:

•••••••••

It had been six months since Fred and Lena had been reunited.

She had been at The Burrow with Mrs. Weasley, waiting for the seven “Harry’s” to return. She had no idea Fred was on the mission until she saw Harry’s boy-ish face transition into Fred’s freckled, masculine one.

It was the first time she’d seen him since he and George left Hogwarts.

Since that night, Lena had been attached to Fred at the hip. She never wanted him to leave the way he did again.

But there was something she was hiding. Something that she planned to take to her grave.

December 31, 1996

Lena’s hands gripped the expensive fabric of Theo’s white dress shirt, pulling him into her. His hands roamed across her back gently. Both of their minds were slightly hazed by the amount of alcohol both of them had consumed. The sound of the other’s ringing in the new year echoed down the hall where they were.

Theo pressed Lena against the cobblestone of the dungeons. Her legs wrapped around his waist and she felt his manhood rubbing against her sex. Lena tilted her head back and let out a breathy moan as his lips attacked her neck. “God, you’re so beautiful,” Theo whispered against her skin and she felt a chill run down her spine.

Lena’s nails dug into his back as she heard him begin to unbuckle his belt. She peppered sweet kisses down his neck, her moans vibrating through his skin as he pushed her panties to the side.

He very slowly lowered her onto him, letting each inch of himself sink into her. Lena breathed out as he bottomed out inside of her. Theo buried his face in her neck, grunting as he gripped her hips. “Theo,” She breathed.

Lena gently moved up and down to meet his thrusts. A delicious swoon came over her as Theo pulled her top down to reveal one of her breasts. His soft lips wrapped around the sweet bud and sucked lightly, swirling his tongue over the sensitive skin.

She didn’t want to admit it, but he felt better than anyone else she’d been with.

He even felt better than Fred.

Months of yearning for each other. Stealing glances from across the library and potions classroom. Their passion had built up, boiling over and burning them. Just the touch of Theo’s fingers on her sent the young witch into a tizzy. The way he kissed her and held her so tenderly was so unlike Fred, but it was oh so good.

Theo lightly bit down on her shoulder as both of them came to their climax. Lena cried out as her orgasm hit her in waves. Each of Theo’s thrusts sent shockwaves through her. His eyes screwed shut as he spilled into her warmth. “Fuck, Lena.” He said lowly.

Moments later, after the fact, the guilt consumed her. She could feel the tears and the panic rise as she and Theo stood in silence.

She had cheated on Fred.

How could she do that?

She loved Fred, Fred loved her. She had no reason to be unfaithful, right?

It had just been so long. Lena hadn’t spoken to Fred in nearly a year. She craved a man’s presence, the feeling of someone else’s weight on her. And Theo was handsome and intriguing and he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

It would never happen again. She didn’t need Theo when she had Fred.

She loved Fred and didn’t want anyone else. She’d chalk up her encounter with Theo as a moment of weakness. Fred was her soulmate, and that was all.

July 27, 1997

Lena’s head rested against Theo’s chest. Theo played with each of her fingers

The war was beginning to rage and so was Lena’s anxiety. Not only did she have no clue where Fred was, but she knew Theo wanted to fight.

Theo was stubborn and still had that Slytherin determination as if he had something to prove. Ever since he defected from being a Death Eater, he had this horrible chip on his shoulder. He wanted a fight, he looked one for everywhere he went. He’d settled a little bit, finally, after Lena convinced him to go into hiding. She thanked the gods every day that Molly agreed to take him in until Tonks found somewhere permanent for him to stay.

Theo often mentioned the idea of running away. Just her and him, moving from place to place before they settled once all of it was over. But Lena refused. She had to see the war through to the end. But in all honesty, the idea was tempting. Especially if it meant that Theo would be safe.

Their affair started as a way for her to cope. Fred was gone and she craved companionship. She desperately needed to feel the weight of a man on top of her, holding her. But it turned out that Theo was too good at his job.

She started to feel more for him very quickly. And she swore that the moment she started to feel soft on him, she would never lay with him again. But then it kept happening. Before she even realized it, she was kissing down his chest as her hands roamed across his broad back.

And now, here she laid on his chest, overwhelmed with anxiety over his well-being.

Part of her felt guilty. Technically she was still with Fred. But she hadn’t seen Fred in a year.

When Fred and George left Hogwarts, they truly left without a trace. No one, not even Molly, had heard from the two boys in ages. The last thing Lena heard about them was that they were traveling across the continent selling products from their business.

But she was also angry. If Fred truly loved her as much as he claimed, why hadn’t he written to her? Why hadn’t he called? Was he so busy that he couldn’t even be bothered to pass along a message or send a bouquet of flowers on her birthday? The fact that he was able to continue in life so easily without her hurt.

“We could still run, you know? I could make a portkey that’ll have us in Iceland by morning.” Theo smiled down at her.

Lena chuckled lightly, “The answer is still no, Silly. Now come, Molly must need help with dinner for Harry and the others when they touchdown in a few.” She said as she got out of bed.

They’d been keeping themselves a secret from Molly. Though Theo was fairly certain that she had her suspicions. Nonetheless, Lena made sure she entered and exited his room as discreetly as possible.

She got dressed and placed a sweet kiss on his cheek. Before she could walk away, Theo caught her wrist. She turned back around and looked at him with confusion.

Theo’s face looked grim as he swallowed harshly. He gently pulled her down to sit next to him. He sat up slowly and cupped her face in his hands, his hands flattening her hair. Lena’s brows furrowed as his eyes ran across her face. “What’s the matter?” She placed her hands on his wrists.

He shook his head and let his thumb rub her cheek, “Nothing. Just let me look at you.” He caressed the top of her hair and forehead.

Lena closed her eyes and let herself feel his touch. She tried to ignore the guilt racking through her.

Fred, Fred, Fred.

What’s wrong with you? You love Fred.

Fred is who you want, remember? Your loving boyfriend who would do anything for you?

Theo’s hands drew patterns across her cheeks. He connected the beauty marks on her skin with lines and squiggles. He drew stars above her eyebrows before letting his fingers ghost over her lips. And just as he leaned in for a kiss, Lena cleared her throat and stood.

“Dinner,” She said, “We should go help Molly with dinner.”

Theo fell back onto the bed with a sigh, his bare chest glistening. “I’d rather stay here and have an obscene amount of sex with you.” He smirked and Lena felt butterflies soar through her stomach.

Lena rolled her eyes playfully, “Haha, very funny.” She put her hair up. “Try to do something though. Even if you don’t come downstairs and help with dinner. I hate how you stay locked away in this room. Read one of Percy’s old books, or ask Ginny if she’ll go for a round of quidditch.” She suggested.

“You’re right, I should do something. Come here and keep me busy.” He said suggestively.

Lena stopped at the door and chuckled, “Always a cheek one, You.”

She raised her hand and twirled her fingers lightly. “Amorcaptus.”

The spell lightly flowed towards Theo. Pink and crimson hearts danced through the air, dissipating once they got to him. A smile came to both of their lips. “What’s this?” Theo asked her.

“Amorcaptus. It’s a lesser-known spell now, but it was really popular in Germany when my mother was young.” She explained to him.

Her mother taught it to her when Lena was very young. “With love” is what it meant. Her mother told her that it became popular in Germany during World War II when many Jewish witches and wizards cast it as a final goodbye to one another before they were separated.

Lena couldn’t tell Theo she loved him. It was wrong and a horrible thing to do to Fred. So she said it with her magic instead, hoping it would be enough to get the message across.

She shrugged, “It’s the only wandless magic I know. Maybe one day I’ll teach it to you.” She smiled and then she was gone.

Later that night, Lena helped Molly set up the extra rooms for when everyone touched down at The Burrow. And after practically begging him, Lena convinced Theo to read one of Percy’s books. He settled on 1984 by George Orwell.

As Lena fluffed the pillows on Ron’s bed she heard the familiar crack of thunder sound off outside. A moment later, Molly called up to her to tell her that Hagrid and Harry had made it back safely.

Lena ran down the stairs and outside to the front lawn. “Harry!” She smiled and wrapped her arms around his short frame in a hug. “You’re okay?”

Harry nodded, “Has no one else come back?” He asked.

“No, you two are the only ones so far.” Lena told him.

Harry’s skin paled slightly before he put on a smile as to not worry Lena. But Lena could see the thoughts in his head swimming.

Ginny came outside, followed by Theo. Lena felt her breath hitch at the sight of him, still stunned by handsome he was after all this time.

Harry ran to Ginny and lifted her into the air. “I was so worried,” Ginny said as Harry spun them around.

Theo’s eyes caught Lena’s and he slowly strode towards her with a slight smile. Lena saw Harry’s face drop at the sight of Theo, his jaw clenching with contempt.

Lena was well aware of how Harry, Ron, and Hermione felt about Theo. And she loved her friends, but she couldn’t tell them about her and Theo. They didn’t even understand why she was nice to him at all. To them, he was just another Death Eater that defected to avoid prison. She couldn’t imagine how they would react to her and Theo being together.

Everyone was focused on Theo discreetly linked his pinky finger with Lena’s. His ice touch made her gasp slightly. It was the most public display of affection they had ever shared, though it was still so small.

Lena closed her eyes while Theo’s eyes scanned over her sculpted face. As he stared at Lena he took in every detail. How the moon beat down on her freckled skin. The way the wind blew her raven-colored hair across her face. Her fluttering, silken lashes and the soft champagne pink of her cheeks.

His lips parted slightly as he tried not to let his thoughts get away from him. But he couldn’t help the way his thoughts ran wild.

Theo cleared his throat, “Lena, I-”

Almost as soon as he opened his mouth, another crack of thunder came down. Lena’s eyes shot open and she didn’t even realize that Theo had said anything.

Her body reacted before her mind fully registered that it was him. At the sight of his fiery hair and tall frame, an electric current soared through her.

He looked up, his downturned eyes looking towards The Burrow. That was when she knew it was him.

Lena didn’t think twice before snatching her hand away from Theo, running towards Fred with a sob. Theo winced and tried not to show his disappointment on his face. He rubbed the back of his neck to hide his reaction.

Fred’s eyes found Lena as she ran to him with her arms outstretched. A feeling of pure euphoria came over him when she hauled herself into his arms. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her hair forming a curtain on his shoulders. He felt her tears staining his clothing as she violently sobbed.

“Oh, my love.” She cried into his neck before pulling back and kissing him on his plump and slightly bruised lips.

A year. That’s how long it had been since their lips touched, since she had held her face in her hands and looked at him so closely.

Fred smiled against Lena’s lips, “Hello, Lovey. Missed me, I assume?” He asked into the kiss.

Lena almost felt like slapping him harshly across the face. How could he be so nonchalant about disappearing for a year? It was like their time apart meant nothing to him. He didn’t even shed a single tear. “What are you- What are you doing here?”

“George and I decided to surprise everyone. We got the message about the mission and showed up at the Dursley’s. Quite a shock for everyone when they saw us.” He explained.

Theo wasn’t even a thought in her mind anymore. That was until she saw him again, and her feelings for him flooded through her all over again. Her love for him hit her like a tidal wave. She hugged Fred but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Theo.

You fool. Theo thought. What did you expect? You both always knew that this arrangement was temporary.

Fred set Lena down and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He saw Theo standing a few feet away and smiled at him. Theo tried to put on a smile to be polite. “Nott, it’s good to see on the right side.” Fred nodded at him as he walked towards the house with Lena.

“Thanks, Mate...” Theo acknowledged.

Fred patted his shoulder, “Yeah, no problem. It feels good to do good.” He said to the younger wizard passive-aggressively.

It feels good to do your girlfriend, you fire-crotched bloke. Theo couldn’t help but think.

Theo felt like tackling Fred and slapping his smug smile off of his face. He knew how the Weasley’s felt about his Death Eater past and heritage. He knew that most of the Order of the Phoenix looked down upon him. He was tired of putting up with the staring and the whispers and the backhanded comments.

But instead of slamming Fred to the ground, Theo just nodded. “Yeah... feels good.”

Lena felt like her heart was nosediving into her stomach. Her two lovers were interacting with each other. Their alpha-male personalities were clashing slightly. She silently hoped that one wouldn’t say something to set off the other, fearing where confrontation may lead.

Fred kissed the top of her head and Lena eyed Theo guiltily. Theo just stared back at her with an unreadable expression.

“Come on, Lovey. Smells like Mum’s made beef casserole.” He said and Lena smiled slightly at his keen sense of smell.

Theo watched the pair of them saunter towards the house, Lena’s hands running through Fred’s hair and her soft lips peppering kisses across his face.

Lena tried to focus on Fred and how he was finally with her again. She tried to force herself to feel that joy she should have felt after seeing him so long. But she could tell that she was only happy to see him because she felt obligated to. And she also realized that she would have rather been kissing Theo.

August 1, 1997

Fred and Lena laid in bed together with nothing flowing between them, despite having just made love to one another.

They had tried to restore what they once had. They spent all of their time together, they tried different ways of showing their affection to each other, they even tried new things in bed to see where it may lead. Nonetheless, Fred and Lena were at all standstill.

Fred could tell from his first night back that she was apprehensive. But he just thought that it was because they hadn’t met for a year. He figured her wariness around him would go away with time. But after nearly two weeks, something was still plaguing his witch.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him anymore. She’d checked after there was no spark when they made love that first night. She did still love him with all of her heart. But she couldn’t escape how much she missed Theo. She craved his lips and his touch. She craved it so much that Fred’s lips and touch felt like nothing against her skin.

So, she had come to realize she loved them both.

Lena pulled the covers over her chest as she cleared her throat. “The wedding is gonna start soon. We should get ready.” She said and he nodded.

He didn’t know if he should ask her if something was wrong. He could be opening a can of worms without even realizing it. But he wanted her to look at him the way she used to. Like he was the best thing in the world.

“Lena,” He started as she began to get dressed.

Lena turned away from him and scrunched her face. She recognized that tone in the older wizard’s voice. She tried to pretend like she didn’t hear him say her name. Perhaps he wouldn’t try to call to her again if she ignored him.

“Lena,” He said more firm, “we need to find time to talk today.” He stated.

Lena winced internally but said nothing but, “Alright.”

She left almost immediately after, deciding to spend the rest of the day with Fleur and the other bridesmaids. Being around her cousin had been effective in distracting her from Fred and Theo. Plus she could always talk to Fleur considering she was the only person that knew about Theo.

Lena would have told Hermione, but she knew the Gryffindor Princess wouldn’t understand no matter how hard she tried to. She hated that she couldn’t even tell her best friend.

At the wedding reception, Lena tried her best to avoid Fred. She knew it was the perfect time for him to pull her away and speak to her. She just wasn’t ready to confess to him.

She tried biting back that slight pang of jealousy she got when she saw Fred talking to Angelina, his ex. She knew when she and Fred started dating that he would always have a bond with Angie to an extent. Plus, she rationalized that she couldn’t be upset considering Theo.

About an hour into the reception, Fred finally approached his girlfriend. He came up behind her and gently wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on the space between her shoulder and her neck. He placed a soft kiss on her neck, “You look gorgeous in blue.” He smiled and so did she.

Lena closed her eyes and silently prayed he wouldn’t bring up wanting to talk with her. “You look good in orange, but we already knew that.” She giggled.

“Do you want to dance?” He asked.

Lena titled to look at him before she nodded apprehensively. Fred smiled a bit more as he took her hand and led her to the dance floor.

Theo watched from outside of the tent. He would have joined the others, but he wasn’t sure if he was welcome. Despite Bill and Fleur saying he was more than welcome, he still felt like an outsider. But it wouldn’t have mattered or hurt nearly as much if he had Lena.

He had kept his distance from her since Fred’s return. He didn’t want to complicate things even more for her. But he had to admit that he missed her, and being away from her was agony.

He watched Fred and Lena dance together. Her head rested on his chest as they swayed. Fred’s fingers gently raked through her dark hair as he kissed the top of her head. Her eyes fluttered closed in contentment.

Theo cursed himself for the ache in his heart. What a foolish, sorry sack you’ve become. He thought.

He had had his share of conquests. He, Blaise, and Draco had flipped the skirts of many dames in their time as young men. He’d even had an affair with the daughter of the caretaker at his parent’s home in Greece. So, he wasn’t able to understand why the thought of not having Lena anymore pained him.

Never had he ever felt for a girl the way he felt for Lena. He felt like a fool, stupidly in love with a girl who used him. But he couldn’t help but love her. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a girl as beautiful and kind and intelligent as Lena?

Oh, how he wished that he could dance with her publicly. Or do anything publicly, for that matter.

He wanted her, he wanted her in the true way. Not in the way of sneaking around, kissing in empty dark rooms, and linking pinky fingers. He wanted to hold her hand as they walked down the streets of Diagon Alley. He wanted to sit with her in a sandwich shop and talk the way they did in private. He wanted her to read him in the mornings as he made her coffee just the way she liked it.

He just wanted her.

“You could go inside if you’d like.” He heard a girly voice from the side of him.

Theo turned and saw the infamously quirky Luna Lovegood. She had a slight smile on her lips and her eyes gaped just like always.

“What?” He asked the strange girl.

“I’m sure no one will mind if you go inside. I think Lena would enjoy seeing you.” She said as if she could read his mind.

He wanted to scoff at her. How naive of her to think that the situation was so black and white. But he held his laugh in, remembering how Lena told him that Luna didn’t have very many friends.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, Luna.” He pushed his hands into his pockets.

A giggle escaped her, “That’s not very Slytherin of you.” She shrugged absently.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He said, slightly offended.

He was so sick of the other three houses looking down upon Slytherin. As if they were the only house to produce dark wizards and Death Eaters. And being constantly surrounded by Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs made him the outlet for almost everyone’s animosity towards Slytherin.

“I don’t mean to offend you. I only mean to say that my favorite quality about Slytherin house has always been your drive and desire to get what you want. It’s not like you to walk away from something you desire.” She explained.

Theo’s defenses came down slightly as she explained herself. He should have known better. Luna Lovegood would befriend a Dementor if she could.

He looked down at the dress shoes Arthur let him borrow, “She doesn’t want me.” He said quietly.

“Sure she does. I’ve seen how you look at each other. She’s just scared is all. But I’m fairly certain she’ll feel better once you tell her how you feel.” Luna assured him.

He felt her place her hand on his shoulder. The two of them stood there in silence, staring at the jubilant scene in the tent.

He’d always dismissed the eclectic Ravenclaw as daft. She did tend to go off on irrelevant tangents. And she did come off as an airhead at times. But Luna Lovegood was actually quite insightful. And she was pretty good at giving advice.

Theo heard a rushing sound from above, a small blue light visible out of the corner of his eye. Both he and Luna looked up and saw a blue sphere flying past them and directly towards the tent.

“Well, that’s peculiar,” Luna said as Theo pulled her away from the tent with him.

Lena heard gasps from around her and felt Fred’s grip on her tighten. She opened her eyes just as the Patronus landed in the center of the room. Fred pulled her behind him to shield her from any potential danger.

Everyone backed away from the Patronus, which Lena now recognized as Shacklebolt’s lynx. Lena peered around Fred and spotted Hermione across the tent. She felt someone grip her hand and looked down to see Fleur’s manicured hand.

“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.” The Patronus announced cryptically.

Lena felt her blood run cold. Without The Ministry, there was no form of government to keep the Death Eaters at bay. The Death Eaters essentially had the will to do whatever they pleased.

The Patronus disappeared and the entire tent went into a panic. Everyone began to either run or disapparate as far away from The Burrow as they could.

Bill and Fred kept Fleur and Lena behind them as they found their way to George and Ginny. Death Eaters began to invade the tent, casting killing curses almost as soon as they apparated in.

Lena’s mind raced.

We’ve lost. We’ve lost the war.

My parents don’t know if I’m safe. I don’t know if they’re safe.

Harry. They’ll kill Harry. He’s our only hope.

Theo...

Theo!

Her thoughts stopped running about when his name came to mind.

Theo. She thought. He’s still at the house. They’ll kill him and hang him for all to see if he’s found.

She began to feel sick. She remembered how Theo told her that his father vowed to kill him himself for abandoning the Dark Lord’s cause. And now, possibly an army of Death Eaters were on their way to The Burrow.

She couldn’t leave him, she wouldn’t.

Theo couldn’t die.

He can’t die! She panicked internally.

Not after they worked so hard to protect him. Not after he made her love him.

Lena stopped running, gently pulling Fleur back. Fleur turned and looked at her like she’d lost her mind. She didn’t even think before she began tugging her along again. “Lena, let’s go!” Fleur yelled.

“No! No, Theo is at the house still! We have to go get him!” She said to her cousin.

Fleur gave Lena an apologetic stare, “We have to go, Lena. When we get somewhere safe we’ll send a signal to let him know where we are.” She tried to pull the younger witch along again.

“No!” Lena insisted.

Before she could protest anymore, Bill intervened. He gripped Lena’s other hand in his, making sure the hold was tight. Instinctively, Lena gripped his hand back. She didn’t realize what he was doing until it was too late. She saw Fred and George’s hands on both of Bill’s shoulders. Ginny had her arms around his waist tightly. As soon as Lena tried to pull her hand away, Bill disapparated all six of them out of the tent.

Theo and Luna watched as people began rushing out of the tent.

Theo’s feet immediately started carrying him towards the tent, towards Lena. But Luna pulled him back before he got too far.

Xenophilius rushed out of the tent and frantically searched for his daughter. Luna spotted his floral waistcoat and his ice hair. “Here, Dad!” She called to him.

When Theo saw him, he knew that the man had to be Luna’s kin. They were dressed almost exactly the same and he had the same silver eyes as Luna.

Xenophilius came to the two young wizards, “Thank the gods, you’re alright.” He hugged his daughter. “Come, we must leave immediately. We’ll stay at your grandmother’s until everything settles.” He added and Luna nodded.

Xenophilius’ eyes landed on Theo. He recognized him as the boy the Weasley clan had taken in. The defected Death Eater. He held no prejudice towards the young boy. After all, he was just a boy and not much older than Luna. He couldn’t leave him.

“You are welcome to come too, my boy,” Xenophilius said to Theo.

Theo didn’t know why, but Xenophilius’ invitation shocked him. He knew that much of The Order didn’t care for him. He had expected to be left as Death Eater bait. He hadn’t expected Xenophilius or anyone to offer him asylum.

Xenophilius saw the wheels turning in Theo’s head. “It’s alright, Son. Any friend of Luna’s is a friend of mine.” He said sincerely as he offered Theo his hand.

Theo swallowed harshly, Lena’s sly smile and freckles coming into his mind. “Lena,” He strained out.

“Lena Humphries?” Xenophilius asked recalling how Lena had been something of a role model for Luna. Theo perked up and Xenophilius nodded, “She’s safe, I believe. I saw her disapparate with the bride and groom.” He reassured Theo.

A Death Eater soared past them and Xenophilius pulled Luna closer. The Death Eater landed and cast a killing curse at one of the guests. The sight of the green beam shook Theo to his core.

“We must go!” Xenophilius said to them and Theo nodded, finally taking the man’s hand.

Theo closed his eyes to shield himself from the chaos around him. He wondered if his father was among the Death Eaters attacking the wedding. He felt his body separating as Xenophilius disapparated them. The last image he saw being The Burrow up in flames.

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nctzendreamz · 4 years

Text

off the table — lee taeyong

genre: angst w/ hints of fluff.

warnings: language, mentions of drug abuse, and mental illness.

featuring: nct members + chan and felix from stray kids.

authors note: taeyong was perfect for this in my head. also, thank you ariana grande.

is love completely off the table?

will I ever love the same way again? will I ever love somebody like the way I did you?

it had been almost a year. almost a year since he had heard your laugh. you know, the one only he was capable of getting out of you. it was gentle, yet so vibrant that it could color even the most plain and unpleasant rooms. he had seen you do it a million times, but his favorite work of art of yours was the one you did on his heart.

obviously, he couldn’t see what the inside of him looked like. but he could feel it. before he met you, he was certain everything was pitch black. to be specific, the darkest shade of the night sky one could possible fathom. so much pain resided in him. some he brought to himself, some he did nothing to earn. regardless, it was there, and as anybody with demons did, he found coping methods.

that’s how he met you, actually. holed up a strip club he had no business being in. one, because there was no one here he truly wanted. he would never admit it outloud, but the thought of love warmed him. not much, but it did. more than silly one night stands that have soul ties no one wanted to keep.

you were clearly out of place in the building filled with the scent of marijuana and flashing lights, although it did perfectly consume your complexion in the most beautiful way. he observed you for what felt like hours, just admiring you. he had no idea he would want to do this for the rest of his life.

it didn’t take much liquid courage for him to approach you. he could sense your fear when his slender fingers touched your exposed shoulder. for some reason though, the minute your eyes locked it was as if you were looking at someone you had known for a million lifetimes. or maybe that was just Taeyong’s point of view. maybe, everything was all an illusion. meeting you. falling in love with you. you falling in love with him.

“it’s been awhile.” a voice snaps Taeyong out of his deep thinking. the minute his concentration breaks does his surroundings suddenly blast into the center of his cortex. the volume increases. he is in the real world again. he isn’t high, yet.

“yeah.” is all he can spit out. all of the different coversations he could hear take place all of a sudden was making him extremely frustrated and unable to form coherent thoughts. or maybe he wanted it that way so he wouldn’t have to think about you.

you loved coming here. he hated coming here. but he loved you, and your favorite thing to say to him was, “when you love someone, you do things you hate. just like me sitting and watching you smoke for hours without stopping.”

he never realized how much you hated his distractions.

the here, was a restaurant that resembled a sports bar back where you are from. the food was less Korean and more greasy chicken tenders. and you really admired their honey mustard. it was kind of ridiculous how much you loved this place. it was always crowded. the smell was odd - a mixture of people who can’t seem to do anything but drink beer and yell, and foreigners who hated living in Korea. this was the only taste of home they got, so they took advantage of it.

did you feel that way too?

he doesn’t know. and he doesn’t want to think about it. some soccer game was on. people were cheering. he was just waiting on his to-go order.

“how have you been?” the familiar woman asks behind the counter. she was definitely in her mid-50’s. he assumed. she always would be here when Taeyong was dragged along, and she was always nice. who wouldn’t be with all the money you gave to this place.

“i’ve been fine.”

taeyong feels a little cheery conversating with another human. if it wasn’t his dealer, there wasn’t anything to say if he was being quite honest. his relationship with his family died out a long time ago. the only person that he could talk to was himself. the guys who were constantly down in the basement at his dealer were cool, but they never really got him. they thought he was weird, violent. only you cared enough to see how sweet he was. to paint him.

“good to hear. you tell your lover that i miss them!”

his heart, still colored from the mention of you, breaks. it had broken many times from your presence on this earth being acknowledged. everytime his chest would explode into his stomach.

he couldn’t say anything.

he simply walks out the place, not caring about manners. he just wants to go home. he doesn’t even like these fucking chicken tenders, but he’s going to go home and eat them. in your honor.

“excuse me.” a voice exclaims as he finally makes it outside.

once again, words don’t leave his mouth. the woman was probably lost. he truthfully didn’t care. he didn’t care about anything anymore.

“sorry,” she begins. her hair is almost a white color. it’s clearly dyed, but she might have been naturally a darker shade of blonde since the coloring seemed too perfect. “i just...i’ve been watching you - wait, that sounds incredible creepy—“

no one could compare to you, but she reminded him of you. you always did this when you were nervous, or had a severe lack of sleep. you would say things you considered to be silly. fumble with your words. and you would always ruin it more by acknowledging it.

but he was never irritated. he thought it was the cutest thing in the entire world. you were the cutest thing in the entire world.

even now, he’s okay. maybe because he was reminded of you, he can appreciate the art.

“you’re really cute.” she finally spits out.

he couldn’t respond, for the third time today.

why was this so hard? it has almost been a fucking year. a year without you. a year without touching you.

yet, no one could ever compare. not the blonde woman standing in front of him. not the sky. not the stupid bar. even his drugs seemed lackluster to the high you gave him whenever you told him you loved him.

he walks away. he needs something. something to make him unable to think for the rest of the night.

never thought you’d be so damn hard to replace. i swear I don’t mean to be this way, if I can’t have you? is love completely off the table?

“y/n? you there?” you feel vibrations from snapping on your face from the man sitting beside you. he snapped three times, to be exact.

“yeah! yes.” you quickly correct, adjusting your posture along with it.

“i know you appreciate the arts, but that painting is nothing to stare at.”

the painting chan was referring to, seemed plain to a simple eye. it simply, was a black square. but you saw worlds in it. you saw him.

“you know christopher,” you cooed, giving his slim cheek a quick sqeeze before continuing, “just because something seems boring to the naked eye, doesn’t mean it actually is. sometimes, a simple work of art such as that lame black square can hold a thousand meanings.”

he smile is radiant. honestly, the neon colored walls in the movie theater couldn’t compare to it no matter how hard it tried. lately, you had been trying to predict what he would say when you tried to be somewhat of substance around him. you were truthfully scared of boring him.

maybe you saw yourself in the black square as well.

“you really find it interesting, love?”

his accent - God his accent. it had an effect on you that truthfully wasn’t healthy, but even so you always felt guilty when your heart would papilate as it touched your eardrums. but why? you were single. you were moving on.

you can’t even look at him anymore, so you settle on the painting once more. now that you think about it, it was kind of scary that it was in a movie theater. maybe chan was on to something - what was its purpose? to simply cause you pain? to make you think about things and people you could no longer have? a person who is the worst possible thing for your growth, but the best food for your pitiful, lonely soul?

“never mind, you’re right.” you stand promptly, suddenly wanting to get as far away from the evil on the wall. it didn’t matter how chilly it was outside.

“woah.” chan chases after you. you’re too quick though. you’ve practically swam through the crowd to escape into fresh air. what is wrong with you?

it doesn’t take long for you to find yourself at his car. his pride and joy by the way, in which he never let anyone else ride in yet. he had been saving for so long to get it. you didn’t know the model, all you knew was that it made loud noises when he wanted it to. the car was originally white, but the two of you agreed that it was the worse possible color for a car, so he got a paint job and now it was as black as a dark hole.

the stars are beaming, and it’s odd. you used to love nights like this. you preferred the day time, but it was something about a light in the dark, such as the moon that pulled you in. it always destroyed you in the end though.

“what did I do?” his voice snaps you out of your thoughts.

“huh?” you wizzle in confusion, not understanding why he believed he had done anything but gave you a peaceful night not lost in your thoughts.

his eyes tell you everything you need to know before his mouth does. he isn’t questioning your ever changing emotions and happiness to hear satisfaction from your mouth - to boost his ego. he truly feels as if he’s ruined any chance he’s had with you simply from being himself. even so, as he waits for you to answer he’s taking his bomber jacket off for you to wear. he was sweet like that.

“chris, you are always perfect. why would you think anything different?” you say as you put the jacket on.

he’s holding back a smile, but you can tell it’s more so from your proper word choice, and not what you said.

“you trying to sound English?”

“no.” you giggle, pushing his shoulder lightly. “I’m just trying to communicate with you.”

“then tell the truth.” he prompts, taking a step closer to you.

“can I lean on the car?”

“yes.” he laughs in a low tone. “you can lean on the car.”

“okay.”

silence is filling the air, and it’s making you sick even though it shouldn’t be.

“y/n.” he finally speaks. you decide you have the balls to look at him even though it feels so wrong. the stars - they’re sparkling right into his eyes and you know you are the dumbest idiot on earth.

why can’t you just choose him?

the question is repeating over and over in your head, but no answer comes. well, no answer you want to hear comes. this should’ve been easy money. the perfect guy, with a good family and solid morals is madly in love with you. he’s still here, even when you barely give him anything to work with, and you’re thinking about others who were nothing close to that no matter how they made you feel.

“my confession ruined everything, didn’t it?”

it was about two months ago that chan confessed his love for you. you laughed a bit, as it made no sense. the two of you had been in the same circle for awhile, and you had been notified of his appreciation for you long ago, but he had seen you break. he watched you go from happy soul to broken and he still liked you? in what world?

you enjoyed his company. that’s why you began to hang out with him practically everyday - doing whatever you two wanted. most of the time you two just watched movies, or played silly board games. but sometimes you would go shopping, or he would play you his music he worked on. you could tell he lacked confidence on what he could become, but you knew he had the potential to be so great.

his confession was short and sweet. and the way he approached you, you could tell he was somewhat confident that you would feel the same. you did feel the same, but you also still had feelings for others. when you declined his request to take things to the next level, he didn’t get upset. or at the least he didn’t show it.

he promised the two of you would move at your pace. and that was all you needed to hear to know that maybe one day, when you got yourself together, the two of you could be something.

chan always protected you. you never felt endangered, or unsafe when you were with him. to you, he was sweet, to others he was still sweet, but he knew when to be stern.

“no. i promise.” is all you answer. “it’s cold.” here you go again trying to change the subject. this wasn’t like you.

he promptly unlocks the door to his car, opening it for you as well. it isn’t long before he’s on the drivers side turning on the car so you could feel some heat on your body.

“i won’t bring it up anymore.” he sighs.

“no chris. you bring it up everytime you feel it. i like you, okay? i do. i know I’ve never said it out loud before, but I do. i just...i don’t know what I’m doing right now. there are some things I have to get over you know?”

you can tell the amount of words you used - probably the most you had spoken to him in months shocked him, and made him feel extremely guilty. you know he didn’t want you to feel like he was trying to pressure you. all he wanted to have was something. something that made him feel as special as he knew you had made others feel in the past.

“y/n I’m a fucking idiot. God, don’t listen to me. you are perfect okay? we are working at your pace and we always will. i - fuck.” his face goes directly in his hands.

it’s cute - the way he cares about his every move around you so deeply. you remember what it felt like to feel like that. it was the most nerve wracking, yet butterfly giving thing to experience when around someone you admired so much.

“chris...” you whisper, removing his face from his palms. he had the softest hands ever. “hey, don’t beat yourself up okay? i know what you want and I know you have nothing but the purest intentions. if I didn’t feel that way I wouldn’t want to spend everyday with you okay? whatever you think this is, it is. i promise.”

“okay.” he sighs the biggest breath of relief you had heard in a long time. “okay. i know what we need.” he offers. your hand lingered on his, and he decided it would be best to hold yours as the opportunity presented itself. it’s nice - the warmness. yet, it feels incredibly wrong.

you truly didn’t mean to be this way. you would do anything to not be this way.

“let’s go cop something from felix. hm?”

what chan was reffering to was the good ole’ mean green, weed. you smoked a lot more in the past than you did now, but you were still no angel. especially tonight did getting high sound like the best decision you could have made.

“yes please.” you say without hesitation, leaning back in the seat. your left hand is still in chan’s right, and you don’t plan on letting go. felix’s house isn’t that far from here, so you know your pleasure will be coming sooner or later. chan starts the car and begins the journey. usually, the two of you drive with music on, but tonight the silence was what the both of you wanted.

secretly though, chan snuck his AirPod into his left ear. he loved music, but he could tell you weren’t in the mood. and he didn’t mind that. he would do anything for you. the lyrics resonated with his with his soul so much that he felt it ache, even though he felt he had no right.

i’ll wait for you

even if I always feel like I’ll be number two

to someone you can’t hold anymore

taeyong can’t even recall how long he had been pent up here, high as hell. intoxicated as fuck. the chicken tender meal he brought had been long gone, but not from his mouth. the junkies smelt food, and took food like the animals they claimed to be.

this all sucked so bad. he hated being here. but he couldn’t move.

it was so loud in here. the boys he knew - johnny, mark, and jaehyun were all present. they seemed to be the leaders of the basement and they also seemed to be functioning quite well considering how high they also were. taeyong couldn’t fathom or make out what their conversation were, but he assumed it was about girls. he caught, “they’re supposed to be here any minute now.” from jaehyun’s lip. he seemed to be the strongest ladies man. all taeyong knew, was that he wanted no parts of the drug induced orgy he knew was going to take place. he also knew if he didn’t leave, they didn’t care. they were going to give a show regardless.

“taeyong!” johnny yells, bringing him back to focus. johnny was always very intimidating. he wore a smile when he got what he wanted, but if he spoke to you and you didn’t listen, he quickly got upset. maybe he was different when he was sober, but that was never.

“what’s up.” taeyong answers dryly, still not looking at him.

“you know,” johnny sits down in the dirty floor right beside him. “you’ve never been fun, but you were more fun before than you are now.”

“i went through this phase.” mark interrupts, taking the seat on taeyong’s opposite side. “what is it? mommy issues? a girl? or a boy? if you get spicy like that.” he chuckles. he coughs right after.

“how about everything. except the last part.” taeyong whispers.

“oh...you have it rough. was your mom a druggie too?”

“no - well, I don’t know. i met her like once when I was younger. she told me ‘i did it for your good’ and left.”

“so you were in a foster home? or did you get adopted?”

“foster home. neglected, so now I’m like this.” he chuckles. he’s laughing, but in reality to admit these things out loud hurt, even though he was sure the other boys had similar or worse stories.

“and the girl?” mark asks. he had began to roll up another blunt in the midst of taeyong’s life story. maybe it was too much for him. or maybe he was just an addict.

“i cheated. and i was mean. she was the best thing ever though. she got me clean.”

“for what? a day?” johnny laughs outloud.

“well, not clean clean.” he explains. “but off the hard stuck like coke, and lsd and shit. we both smoked weed. and I smoked cigs.”

“ew!” the two of them exclaim. “cigs?”

“so you’re telling me that the two of you do every drug under the sun, but cigarettes are where you draw the line?”

“duh!”

“have you seen all the commercials? with the person with the hole in their throat sounding like the old shriveled lady from spongebob going ‘chocolate!’ we don’t want that!”

“cigarettes aren’t the only thing that can cause that, you know?”

“whatever.” johnny shivers as if he had just gotten the worse news ever. “so this girl wasn’t a druggie? why did she even like you?”

“i don’t know. still to this day I don’t know. but she did. and she tried everything to make me happy. it just felt too good to be true, so I ruined it.”

“damn bro.” mark sighs, taking a deep puff of his blunt. “i thought people only did stupid shit like that in the movies or tv shows.”

“hey hey now, markie.” a voice speaks out of the corner. “be nice to our new friend.”

it’s jaehyun. funny enough, jaehyun tried to get at you once long before you met taeyong, but you had no interest in him once you found out his issues. then again, while he was attracted to you, he didn’t want you to love him. he just wanted to corrupt you.

“our boy is broken hearted. seems to me like he just needs some fun.”

“relax, jae.” johnny explains. “he’s not there yet. let him fall for us on his time.”

“what are you on right now?” jaehyun inspects.

“just a couple of blunts.”

“so just a starter?”

“hyung...” mark sighs.

“okay okay. fine. but when the heartbreak starts to kick in more, i got something that’ll change your life. you just let me know.”

“he will.” johnny and mark say once again in unison.

“boys!” a voice yells. it makes everyone stand up minus taeyong, as he had no idea who it was. he can hear feet coming down the steps. there’s a boy with blonde hair. the same boy who let him in. he was a new face, but clearly an important one from the way even jaehyun was waiting for his comment.

“hi felix!” everyone begins to repeat after eachother.

his voice is deep as he speaks, and his accent is thick. his face itself may have not been scary, but the way he carried himself was.

“clean up this fucking mess. i know you can’t do anything about the shitty couches, but make an attempt. i got some good people coming over and I need quiet. when I bring them down here to show them the product, i need everyone on their best behavior.”

“what exactly does that mean?” taeyong speaks. maybe he shouldn’t have, because everyone is looking at him as if he just called the president a bitch to his face or something.

“you’re new here.” felix explains as he finishes his strut down the stairs. he can be seen more clearly now, and his outfit reminds taeyong of someone you knew. he couldn’t remember his name, but it was chan or something. “well, new to me.”

“and?”

“and...” felix crouches to his level. “im the boss. and all of you do what I say. my brother ran this like a crackhouse. i want us to make some real money, therefore you all will be getting cleaned up. there will be people coming in and out, looking at what we have, so try not to act like the druggie you are. thanks.”

“yes sir.” taeyong says, although he has no intentions of respecting this felix cat.

the doorbell rings promptly. the house wasn’t so big that they wouldn’t be able to hear. clearly this felix had plans to change that, but for now he had to settle.

“that’ll be them. look like friends so they won’t be scared. they’re not like us. or, what you will be.”

with that he leaves. everyone is silent as they want to know who exactly is this person. they all expected some rich man with a million connections to be at the door. they hear one voice - an accent is present. he’s laughing, and they hear the sound of them dapping up.

“friend.” the voice says. they must have not seen each other in a long while. “what’s up? how have you been?”

“oh, I’ve never been better.” felix says. “and y/n.”

the sound of your name makes taeyong’s heart stop in his chest. what the? how could you of all people be here? you hated drugs. this was clearly a trap house. this is where taeyong would go to get everything you wanted, but you always refused to go with him. what male had you here?

jaehyun is smiling as he recognizes your name too. taeyong can’t notice though as he is genuinely about to have a panic attack.

“come downstairs will you? since chan told me it was a special occasion, I decided I’d let you two take a look.”

“felix...are you running a trap house?” you joke, not realizing how true your words were.

“not at all, sweets.” he relaxes you. “i just have good shit from my brother that needs to be sold. this is our little secret though.”

“we know.” chan answers for you. “snitches get stitches.”

“and end up in ditches.” felix finishes. “there are people down here, but they’re just chilling. don’t be scared.”

the three of you make your way down to the basement. jaehyun is the first face you recognize. you feel sick, but he didn’t phase you that much.

the black haired boy though, sandwiched between two other guys, makes your trip and fall on the disgusting floor.

it’s him. it’s really him.

why? all you wanted to do was have fun. all you wanted to do was forget him.

you can see in his eyes does he want to explode. but this was his fault. this was all his fault.

to be continued...

#nct #nct 127 #nct imagine #taeyong nct #NCT angst #nct reactions #taeyong series #taeyong angst #taeyong imagine #nct imagines #NCT series #stray kids #stray kids felix #chan stray kids

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mickmarstookmyheart · 4 years

Text

More Espresso, Less Despresso

Part: 2/?

Pairing: Mick Mars X Reader

Summary: Mick tells you the truth about his job and you meet the band in their natural habitat.

Many days have passed, many cups of coffee were consumed, and fewer books were read as you have always had a company at the café. But you didn't mind. Mick was your best friend there, well, the only one, though you didn't even search for others.

"So, Mick, what are your plans for the next week?" You asked walking next to him in the park. Your scarf half covering your face which you were grateful for since you could feel the cold in your bones.

"Well..." This was the moment. This was the perfect timing to tell you that he was a musician. A guitarist who traveled from stadium to the other and never settled down for more than a few days. A rockstar whom chicks wanted but not in the way Mick would love to. "There is something I need to tell you, (Y/N)." He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Then, I will listen." You said glancing at him.

"Come, let's sit down." He gestured toward the bench nearby and you both sat down on the rather chilly bench. "So, I don't know how to say it."

"Honestly. What you truly think. Just say it." You placed your hand on his shoulder.

"I'm happy. I'm happy that I finally find someone with who I can talk, share my thoughts, and have a decent conversation. I would go to the café and spend time together for eternity but unfortunately, it's impossible." He sighed. "I'm a rockstar, (Y/N), and the band goes on the next stop tomorrow. I'm so sorry."

You shook your head and chuckled. "So, this was the reason you were so nervous about it? Come on, Mick. I've always known that you are an artist. You talk about music like I talk about books; with so much passion." You turned to him to be able to look in his eyes.

"What? Are you telling me that you knew from the beginning?" He asked arching a brow making you giggle.

"Yes, Sherlock. For fucks sake, have you looked in the mirror? Long black hair, leather jacket and pants, the way your fingers drum to the beat, and an unbelievable wide knowledge of music." You were hoping deep down that he wasn't a big star. You hid your disappointment and tried to cheer him as he was feeling blue and you just couldn't bear it. Seeing him like this just broke your heart, thus you behaved as if everything was cool, but it wasn't.

"Alright, Watson. I'm impressed." He snickered. He couldn't believe you paid so much attention to him, he was sure he didn't deserve it. After all the wrong decisions he made, all the wrong things he did, it seemed a miracle to have a good friend like you. "Then, you are not mad, right?"

"Of course not, you silly. Though I would've appreciated it to tell me, I thought it was your business. You would've told me at the right time." You were playing with the end of your scarf. You felt your heart ached, tears desperately wanted to come but you didn't let them. You needed to keep your happiness for him because if he would see you like a wreck, he wouldn't be able to leave you there without feeling guilty.

"I wanted to, truly, but I was afraid...I was scared that you would run away." He glanced up and tried to scan every detail of your face so later when he needed he would be able to recall it.

"Why would I do that? Believe it or not, I also like rock music. And the fact that I read books doesn't mean that I'm pure as a unicorn or something. I read books during the day and I'm a serial killer at the night. This is a good glamour you know." You said with the most serious face could.

"What?" Mick's eyes widened. He looked he believed the whole thing. It looked like you could lie pretty well.

"Why is it so hard to believe?" You huffed crossing your arms to make your story more believable.

"I don't know, maybe that the shine in your eyes or your calm temper." You couldn't hold it back anymore and you burst into laughter. Tears running down your cheek but this time from happiness. He was the reason for both your sadness and happiness. "Why are you laughing now? Oh, you liar..." He snapped playfully but then laughed along with you. After you could properly breathe again and calmed down you rose from the bench and kept walking.

"And how long will the tour be?" You asked, already feeling a knot in your stomach. You didn't want to lose him, you just got him.

"Months. Too much if you ask me. I don't know how I will bear my bandmates' stupidity. I will lose my sense if I can't talk with you." He said making you blush.

"I'm sure there are others who are a bit smarter than your friends." You shrugged. You hated the idea that he finds someone special. Someone with the same mind, taste, and thinking. You wanted to be the only one, even if it felt selfish.

"No, I don't think so." He snickered shaking his head. "You are my soulmate, (Y/N) and no one can replace you." He bumped into you playfully. You gasped internally. He spoke like he was reading your mind and it was creepy. Maybe, he was truly your soulmate. "By the way, the guys keep nagging me where I am all day, and since now you know about them...would you like to meet them? Also, I will understand if you don't want to." He rubbed the back of his head thinking it wasn't really a good idea after all.

"Hell yes. It would be a pleasure." You smiled and tugged a lock of hair behind your ear.

∆

"You can still run away. There is still a chance to have a better life without meeting those bastards. You wouldn't miss a thing."

"Mick, calm down. I totally want this." You were standing in front of the studio's entrance.

"Then don't blame me later." He murmured and opened the door for you. You stepped in and as you turned in the corner you just had to follow the voices. If you had to name the voices you would've called it chaos. Screaming, glass breaking. You took a deep breath and opened the door to see the chaos. You froze and were shocked from the sight. One of them was bumping his head on the drums, the other was doing drugs and the third man was throwing knives on the wall. Mick stood behind you and grabbed your wrist. "Let's go, (Y/N). They are not in their best shape."

"But we walked so damn much. Too much for nothing." You sighed.

"Alright then. Go grab something to eat or drink and I will scold them down until you come back, okay?"

"Deal." You nodded and headed towards the bistro next to the studio while Mick felt the urge to beat the shit out of his bandmates. While reading the menu you were wondering how he is able to get through the tours while keeping his sanity. Then pictures flooded your mind. Memories you desperately wanted to forget but it seemed they became core memories. You had experiences with both drugs and alcohol and you felt their effect on your own skin, though you weren't the one who consumed them. You thought if you move from that place, maybe the memories will fade.

"Ma'am, what can I get you?" A waitress asked standing behind the counter.

"Five from that one." You pointed at the table above her head and bit after she handed you the bag with your order. When you got back the building where you left the band, you grabbed the door handle it didn't turn. "Are you fucking kidding me?" You cursed still trying to open the door before kicking in it angrily.

"Hey, what that poor door did to you?" A man inquired searching in his pockets.

"Sorry. It just doesn't open and I really would like to go in." You said tilting your head toward the entrance.

"Then, try with this one." He winked and handed you the key which you took gladly and opened the door with it. "Thanks, man!"

"It's nothing, kid. By the way, who are you exactly and why do you want to go in?" He asked while he held the door for you letting you go first. You thanked with a nod and made your way to the studio.

"I'm (Y/N). Umm, Mick brought me here..." You raised a brow.

"Wait. The (Y/N)?" His eyes were wide and he was pointing at you.

"Yeah, I guess." You murmured now having a clue.

"Well then nice to finally meet you. I thought we would never meet you." He gave you the biggest smile you ever saw.

"Mick told you about me?" You were in shock. You didn't assume he told about you. Not that you minded. It felt good that you were important to him.

"He couldn't shut his mouth for a second! By the way, I'm Doc. Their manager." He held his hand to shake it.

"It's a pleasure." You smiled and opened the door cautiously. You didn't know what to expect after what you had seen earlier, but it wasn't this. All of them were reading a magazine?! And were sitting with crossed legs on the sofa.

"What the..." Doc peeked over your shoulder as you didn't move an inch. His mouth dropped and was speechless, which you could say about yourself, too. "Are you okay, guys?"

"Yeah, Doc, thanks for asking." The blondie said not glancing up from the magazine he was reading.

"Mick...what exactly did you do them?" You inquired in confusion, considering, the room was hell a few minutes earlier.

"Nothing." He simply said closing the magazine, placing it on the coffee table, and walked over to you. He stood beside you and cleared his throat. "Guys, this is (Y/N). (Y/N) this is Vince, Tommy, and Nikki." They smiled and nodded when they heard their names. "And I see you have already met with Doc."

"Nice to meet you guys." You waved your hand. "Umm, I brought some food..for you if you are interested..." You muttered swinging the bag in front of you. Tommy literally jumped up from the couch and took the bag from your hand opening and smelling it.

"It smells rad, dude." He yelled picking one of the boxes.

"I already love you, (Y/N)." Vince rose from the couch stealing the bag from the drummer.

After everyone chose their boxes, you all find a place to sit and were consuming the food in silence. You were sitting on the arm of the sofa balancing yourself. You leaned to Mick whispering in his ear.

"Seriously, what did you do?" You asked gesturing toward the guys.

"I have my own ways." He smirked making you curious as hell.∆

Taglist: @leatherandheels @littlemisscare-all @safari-karrot @crazyrockrlady 💕💕

(feel free to message me or comment if you wanted to be tagged 💕)

#motley crue #glam rock #mick mars #rocknroll #80s music #80srock #vince neil #nikki sixx #tommy lee #mick mars x reader #mick mars imagine #motley crue imagine #motley crue x reader

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lonestarbabe · 4 years

Text

Abandoned Chances

TK talks to his parents about Gwyn’s pregnancy. (AO3)

The words are ringing through T.K.’s head, ripping through him like a bullet, a feeling he knows all too well. “You’re going to be a brother,” his mother had said, and then when T.K. hadn’t been able to process the words, “I’m pregnant, T.K.” He’s not sure what to make of the words. He’s convinced that this is some strange joke. It has to be a joke. He’ll laugh in relief if it is a joke because his parents can’t seriously believe that they’re fit to be parents again.

“You can’t be.” He shakes his head in disbelief because “How is that even possible?” T.K. once wanted a sibling. He’d dreamed of having someone to talk with during the darkest moments of his parent’s marriage, but he realized that wanting a sibling was selfish. It wouldn’t be fair to his brother or sister to bring them into such an unstable situation. He worried that they would be just as unhappy as he was. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone. He’d made peace with the fact that his parents were something he’d have to handle alone. It has always felt like his burden alone to carry— the price he has to pay for existing.

“It’s something of a miracle,” Owen says with a grin. It’s a miracle in the way that a heart finally becoming available after months of waiting on the transplant list is a miracle; one family has their prayers answered while another has their nightmares come true.

T.K. watches his dad take his mom’s hand, and it might’ve been a cute gesture if tender moments like that weren’t a countdown to the inevitable disaster that would follow as soon as the excitement turned into the hard reality. Gwyn squeezes Owen’s hand, and T.K. realizes that he is an intruder in their joyous moment. He can’t find it in himself to smile and congratulate them. He wants to. He doesn’t want to make a fuss, but he’s got no control over the surge of emotions that consumes him.

“Did you even think this through?” His parents’ hands disconnect, and they go rigid at T.K.’s tone. “What the hell were you thinking?” He’s never sounded more like a parent.

“T.K., we thought you’d be happy,” his mom tries. “We’re going to try to make things work.” She points between her and Owen. “We’re happy.”

“I don’t know why you thought I’d be happy about this.” T.K. stands up from the chair, unable to stay still. He feels himself start to pace. He’s trying to control his temper, but he’s frenzied and the crazed emotions won’t abate. “Trying isn’t good enough when you have a kid. You have to do more than try.” T.K.’s parents had tried a lot of things. They’d tried to care for T.K. They’d tried to work out their issues. They’d tried to stay afloat. But for all their trying, there wasn’t a lot of action. They wanted to change, but they didn’t put in the work. Owen especially. He wanted a fairytale ending while avoiding the difficult fairytale beginning. He’s always had a way of swooping Gwyn up and pulling her into his fantasy— T.K. too.

Owen has a way of making people believe in him, even when he repeatedly doesn’t follow through. When T.K. was eight, he starred in his school play, and for the whole weekend of the show, T.K. kept thinking that Owen would show up. Even halfway through the Sunday matinee, T.K. was certain his dad would come just as he had promised. Owen had never shown, but T.K. never let go of that small kernel of hope. Even when he should have known better.

“You always wanted a sibling.” He doesn’t even know which one of them said it, but words are throwing themselves off his tongue before he can even try to control them.

“I wanted a sibling because I hated being alone.” He’s never told them how lonely he felt as a kid. He’s not sure if that’s because he didn’t want to hurt their feelings— because he knows they love him— or because he didn’t want them to list a bunch of reasons why he shouldn’t have felt that way.

“Alone? You act as if we left you to fend for yourself without food or care for hours at a time. We always took care of you as well as we could. Just because you didn’t confide—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, Dad. The only time you paid attention to me was when you wanted me to declare a winner in your arguments or when I was so fucked up that you had to pay attention.” T.K. doesn’t stop there. “You’re going to fuck up another kid, and I don’t want to watch that happen.” It’s too painful. Owen and Gwyn are already fighting like they used to, and a baby isn’t going to change that. A baby is just another tool they’ll use in their war to best one another. Fighting is like a sport to T.K.’s parents, and they are well suited for those kinds of battles, but that’s not enough for a healthy relationship. The thrill they get from challenging one another doesn’t create intimacy. It doesn’t stop them from destroying the people closest to them as they wrestle to come out on top.

“That’s not fair, son,” Owen says. Son sounds like a slap in the face. Owen’s voice makes T.K. feel like a silly little kid who doesn’t understand how the world works. “Things are different now.” T.K. wonders for a moment if he’s actually the selfish one here. What if he’s deluding himself into thinking his parents are the problem? Maybe they’re right. Maybe he is being unfair. Maybe the real reason he doesn’t want them to have this baby is that he hates the idea that they might not be so bad with this baby. He’s jealous that they’ll love their second chance more than their messed up first. Because how can he ever compete with a baby, pure and unbroken? He wonders if he’s that messed up that he would begrudge his sibling for getting the effort that T.K. never got.

But, then, T.K. remembers all the fighting his parents have been doing since they’ve been in Austin. They haven’t changed. They haven’t even defined what they are. There’s no way that they should have a newborn. “I’m not being unreasonable.”

“Honey, we know this is a lot to process,” his mom says, and T.K. has always liked when she calls him honey. It makes him feel like he matters, but sweet words can’t take away years of hurt he’s tried not to have. He feels guilty for the way he feels because his parents had a lot of issues, but they weren’t monsters. It would be a lot easier to know where he stood if they were villains rather than normal people who do incredible things.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” T.K. insists.

“I know this is a shock, but it’s our second chance to be a real family, T.K.. Your dad and I want to give this a shot.”

“A second chance? Not everyone deserves a second chance.” He takes a breath. “You only get a second chance when you’ve already given up on your first chance.”

“We never gave up on you.”

“You can’t even admit that you screwed up your first chance. ‘We made mistakes,’ that’s what you always say, and yeah, that’s true. You made a lot of mistakes, but the thing that drives me crazy. You blame those mistakes on circumstances. It always goes back to 9/11, but that doesn’t excuse away all the wrong choices you made. 9/11 was one day. What’s your excuse for all the other days?”

“Do you know how many—" and T.K. can’t let Owen finish that sentence. He’ll explode if he tries to push all the feelings that he has back into himself yet again. The stakes have never been higher, so if he’s going to lose his cool, it might as well be now.

“Would you listen to me for once?” T.K. asks, the weight of years of unsaid words pushing down on his chest.

“Fine,” Owen says. His voice is terse, but at least he’s allowing a conversation.

“I’m angry at you,” T.K.’s directing his words mostly toward Owen. He’d always gone easier on his dad than he did his mom. When he was a teenager, he’d blamed his mom for everything. He got angry at her when his dad wasn’t there than to question why T.K.’s hero kept letting him down.

“I always wanted to be just like you, Dad. You know that. From the time I was old enough to say what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a firefighter.” T.K. sat back down on the chair. “Then, 9/11 happened, and I was scared of losing you. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus. Whenever you were gone, all I could think about was you not coming back, so when I most needed you to be there. You weren’t.”

“I couldn’t help that. They needed me.”

“I needed you, but you always put the firehouse first, and you’d do it again in a heartbeat because that’s how you are. You can’t let go of what you lost, so what you already have always takes the back burner.” His mom had always been busy, but he always knew that she would take care of him. Half the time, he didn’t know if his dad would even show up. It’s not like Owen was absent from his life, but even when he was with T.K., he wasn’t emotionally present.

“When I was a kid, of course, I wanted to be a firefighter because I wanted to be like you. You were what I thought every man should be, but as I got older, being a firefighter wasn’t about being like you. All I wanted was to be a part of your life. I knew I’d never be what you put first, but I figured that if I could be part of that thing that it would be close enough.”

“T.K.,” Owen’s voice cracks, “You’ve always been the most important part of my life.”

“I know you love me,” T.K. says, even though that love doesn’t always feel unconditional, “but words don’t cost anything, Dad. You can say them all you want, but until you stand behind those words while fire blazes and the world goes to hell, they don’t mean anything. You can’t bring someone into this world, telling them that they mean the world to you, and then put the whole world above them.”

“What are you trying to say?” Gwyn asks for clarification.

“I’m saying that it’s selfish to have a baby because you miss the good times. When you’re making this decision, don’t think about the joyful moments. Think of when things become a challenge. You’ve got to be ready to not just put their needs before you when things are going well, but you’ve got to make that commitment when times are hard because it’s that shit that separates loving parents from good parents.”

“Were we really that bad?” Owen asks.

“The problem is that you haven’t changed.”

“Your dad and I can be in the same room without murdering each other,” Gwyn tries at humor.

“That isn’t funny,” T.K. says, feeling exhausted. If he’s being honest, he might as well get it all off his chest at once before they go back to pretending that they’re all fine— just a happy but unconventional family. “You still put me in the middle of your fights, wanting me to take a side. I don’t want to choose a side. I love you both, and it’s not fair to make me choose when you two are arguing just for the sport of it. What makes you think that your relationship will survive more than a few months? You’ve ignored all the reasons you got a divorce in the first place.”

“We can work on that.”

“If you couldn’t work out your issues for me, what makes you think this new child will be any different?” T.K. knew that sometimes it was better for couples to call it quits than to prolong the uncertain inevitable. He felt relief when his parents had finally made it official. He’d always secretly wanted them to get back together, but the logical part of him knew that they were better apart. “You don’t even live in the same half of the country. If things go wrong, we’re not just talking about living a few blocks apart. We’re talking hundreds of miles.”

Gwyn sighs. She reaches her hand out, “You seem so sure that things aren’t going to work.”

“I had a front-row seat the first time your relationship broke down. How is it different now?” Owen and Gwyn look between each other, searching for an answer. “See? I’m not trying to tell you what to do.”

“It sounds like you are.”

“No,” T.K. corrects, “All I’m doing is telling you what you need to hear before you commit to this because children deserve to feel safe and loved.” He looks up at his parents. “And it’s not right to bring a child into this world to recreate moments you feel like you’ve lost.” T.K. knows that he can’t force their hand. He can’t tell them what they should do, but it wouldn’t feel right to let them have a baby on a whim.

The smiles have fallen off his parents’ faces, and T.K. can’t help the guilt that worms its way into his body. He feels like a jerk. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad,” he says, still trying to temper their feelings. He worries that he was too honest. He almost regrets having opened his mouth. This is why it’s easier to keep his mouth shut, make jokes, and stew in his anger.

His mom gets up, stoops to his level, and puts her arm around him. “You’ll always be my baby.” Her embrace is warm, but the anxiety doesn’t lift from T.K.’s stomach. “We both love you so much. That’s one thing we’ve never disagreed on.”

Owen agrees, “You’re the best thing we’ve ever done together.” T.K. can’t help but think that’s a lie because he’ll always be the chance they abandoned.

#text #911 lone star #911 lone star fic #My writing #Elise Writes #My Fics #1000 - 3000 words

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angelisverba · 4 years

Text

no need to be sorry

in which y/n realizes she loves Jason, and he can’t touch himself to the thought of her because it makes him feel guilty

word count: 12.8k

pairing: y/n and her brother’s best friend, jason

warning: strong mentions of sexual trauma and abuse. please read at your own caution if you are not comfortable with that .

author’s note: originally this was supposed to be a super long piece (and the last one) but i wanted to put something else to make the last part even longer :) THIS IS NOT EDITED, sorry not sorry hehe

March is a very confusing month.

For y/n, it meant SAT cramming and intensive camps for the retake in may. A maxed out speed on her brain as to keep up her grades (and even improve them because God knows her math grade needs urgent care) and constantly keep her nose in her books because finals were approaching soon.

For Jason, and the entire senior class for that matter, it meant renting out tuxedos and making appointments at the beauty salon in preparation for prom, buying tickets for prom, finding a prom date, asking out said date in a cutesy way that was memorable for both parties.

It meant asking y/n to be his prom date, but not drag her away from her studies because that just wouldn’t be fair.

Hell, Jason still hadn’t taken his girl out on a second date because she was such a busy bee, and had to settle for ‘study dates’. Really it was just him watching her chew on her bottom lip as she transferred notes from her chemistry textbook to her notebook, his own work splayed out in front of him, meaning to be completed but his attention diverted elsewhere. She’d glance up with burning cheeks to tell him that his glasses were sliding down his nose, and Jason— quite nearly in a hypnotic daze— would smile dopily at her and say ‘you’re so pretty’. She would shush him and tell him to get to work, or sometime ask for his help, and Jason would use that as an excuse to wrap his arm around her waist telling her ‘gotta whisper love, come close’ and proceed to explain how the law of gas, ideal gas, and Dalton’s Law of partial pressure differentiated from each other.

He didn’t mind this. Any time he got with her he treasured, but god did he want to keep her tucked at his side at all times to show him off. It was selfish of him to be jealous that she wasn’t spending time with him when all she wanted to do was study for her future; for college. Selfish because Jason already had everything worked out. He’d gotten a scholarship to his dream school via football and his good-ish grades. Dorming and transportation was all set-up; he was 100% ready to go.

But y/n? She’d confessed to Jason that she had no idea what she was doing with her life. That she was studying and doing all these things to look good for her college application, but her biggest fear was that they still wouldn’t accept her and she’d wind up going to community college. There were times where her bouncing leg would violently shake their table in the library so much, Jason would drag her out of the chair and take her on a short walk around the library (if her eyes were teary he’d sneak her into a corner and peck at her eyelids softly until she giggled). An effective strategy that resulted in a noticeable tent at his crotch, and a dreamy-eyed y/n that peeked up at him through her lashes with heated cheeks.

He’d say, “Are you relaxed now? Or should we go home?”

Home was his house. Y/n had her home, and Jason had his- respectively- but he referred to his place as ‘home’ and she never bothered to correct him. More often than not (once it got to this point) y/n would nod and they’d head over to his place.

And, well, who was she to pass up that opportunity?

Y/n enjoyed reading her dog-eared SAT book on Jason’s bed and falling asleep on her crossed arms. Only because she would wake up an hour or so later, glued next to his side, with him also napping, lips puffy and hair extra fluffy. His hair, how a complete chocolate brown color, closely cropped since he’d cut off all the blond, fanned on the pillow and curled around the frames of his tortoise-shell glasses that he never remembered to take off.

She’d always take them off for him, and the movement would startle him awake, his green eyes fluttering awake, eyebrows furrowed in a confusion that disappeared when he realized that it was just her. His sweet y/n with sleepy eyes who took his glasses off ever so gently, and reached over him to place them on his bedside.

They were wrapped up in their own little personal heaven when they were together, alone, and it was only disrupted when it was time for Jason to take y/n home. Grabby hands and kissy faces consumed them when she received a questioning text from her parents or brother, and the whole ‘do you really have to go’ ordeal took its course. And maybe- just maybe- Jason enjoyed the goodbyes because y/n always put extra effort into her goodbye kiss, leaning and pressing up against his mouth so their noses were squished against each other, her hand at the collar of his shirt to pull him even closer, communicating to him how much… how much she would miss him.

She knew that Jason understood, and when they broke apart with a wet suction noise, and her eyes fluttered open to meet his, Jason knew that she knew that he knew what she was trying to say. It was a slight moment of vulnerability on her part, because it was the closest they’d get to admitting/discussing the sexual parts of their relationship. Or rather, the lack of.

But never mind that, it didn’t matter to any of them. They could be intimate without having sex.

Right?

* * *

Jason was confused.

As silly as it was, prom was a big deal. It signified the closing of an era in a teenager’s life; the end of high school. A party to honor their struggles and begin a transition to a period of more struggles.

Traditionally, you attend a dance with a date. A girlfriend, a crush, a last resort. One could go with friends but, Jason has a girlfriend now and he’d be damned if he didn’t take his pretty girl and show off that he was the one that got her in the end.

The only issue was: the prom-posal.

He knew that y/n and him didn’t hang in the same crowd, and while they were both mellow, y/n held a little more reserve to public announcements.

She was shy.

Needless to say, Jason had a very big quest on his shoulders; to find a way to ask y/n out to prom in a way that was memorable and attune to her likings. He thinks he doesn’t think he'd be able to get over it if he messed this up.

“Jason? Bro are you even listening?” Andrew asked from across the lunch table. Kent stuffed french fries into his mouth, and glanced from both his friends.

“Sorry, man. What was that?” Jason presses the lock button on his phone, and places it down on the table.

“I was talking about the rager at Greg’s, is everything alright? You’ve been distant for a few days now, not having issues with y/n are you?” Andrew’s facial features darkened slightly, the deep concerns for his sister shining through his demeanor. Kent picked on the change of atmosphere, and his chewing stops.

Jason sighed, his shoulders slanting downwards and the fabric of his letter-man jacket coming to a close at his chest. His heart-shaped lips come to a pensive pucker, debating if he should tell his best friend what was on his mind.

At the troubled look on his face, Kent smiles encouragingly, and says, “You know you can tell us anything, J.” Andrew turns to look at his Kent while he’s speaking, and when he turns back to Jason, he nods, a knowing glimmer in his eyes.

“What’s up?” His girlfriend’s brother leans forward, prepared to listen.

“I don’t know how to ask y/n to go to prom with me.”

Andrew and Kent’s facial expression drop to a deadpan, and Jason’s eyebrows furrow in response, confused at their reaction.

“What?” He looked back and forth between his two unimpressed friends, who suddenly burst into laughter; snickering and pointing fingers at him through wheezed words.

“You’re fucking whipped,” Kent said, slapping a hand on Andrew’s shoulder and doubling forward.

“My sister,” their laughter calms down momentarily, “has you this upset?” And at his comment, the boys start laughing again, loud enough that it drags the attention of nearby tables.

“Guys,” the corner of Jason’s lips struggle to stay down. “It’s not funny.”

“Yeah, it is. Your panties are in a twist because of y/n,” Kent said, “Where is she?” He stands up from the bench and glances around the cafeteria, looking for her.

Jason’s eyes widen, and his jaw drops, amazed at his friend’s response. “Dicks,” he mutters. “She’s with her English teacher, preparing for an exam.”

Andrew’s chuckles die down again, and he shakes his head while rubbing his fingers on his forehead, grinning. “Deadass?”

“Yes!” Jason juts his head forward, nodding wildly. “Help me!”

Kent sits again, and places his chin on his palm. “Just go with what she likes, man.”

“Gee, thanks so much.” The stressed boy looks away, defeated.

Perhaps, it was a mistake bringing it up. Instead of receiving help, they were taking the piss out of him. He thought that maybe, because Andrew was related to the girl he was dating, he’d be a bit of hel-

“She keeps bugging me to take her to the aquarium.”

Jason whips his head around to look at his friend, crossing his arms on the table and leaning with interest.

“The aquarium?” He asks, eyebrows raising.

“Yeah, they remodeled a few exhibits and she’s been wanting to see them. Sent me a text about it a few days ago,” Andrew reached back to pull out his phone from his back pocket, unlocking it and pulling up a thread of texts from his sister. “Look.”

The boy takes the phone from his friend’s hand. Y/n had sent her brother a link to the aquarium’s announcement of a reopening that occurred a few weeks before, along with ‘pleeease can we go? pleeease?’ and a puppy-eyed emoji. Andrew had only sent a curt ‘we’ll see’ to which the girl responded with screenshots of seals and penguins.

A pang hit him straight in the heart, and he was saddened that she hadn’t asked him, given that he had refrained from taking her out in fear of distracting her from her studies. Yet, here she was asking to be taken to the aquarium, and Andrew showed no interest.

“Take her. Ask her there. The only reason why I haven’t taken her is because she’ll ask for something from the gift shop and they’re expensive as fuck.” Andrew shrugged.

Bingo.

With a composed look, he clicked off the phone and slid it back. On the inside, he was hopping up and down, pumping his arms with joy because everything had clicked, and he knew exactly what to do.

* * *

Y/n still felt butterflies every time Jason looked at her.

Every girl wanted to be looked at by someone the way he looked at her.

A soft, dreamy daze that took over his face, eyes shining with an enamored gleam. Lashes fluttering adoringly, and lips coming together in a smirk, like he held all kinds of secrets and wanted to share them with her. His look alone said it all. I want you and only you.

It was overwhelmingly passionate. So intimate; an open admission with no shame.

“You’re not even paying attention to me,” she whined, flopping over onto her back and throwing an arm over her head.

They were- as usual- laying on Jason’s bed, with one of y/n’s textbooks spread open in front of them.

“Can’t help myself,” he pushed up his glasses and raked his hair back. “You’re so pretty it’s distracting.”

At that, y/n turned herself over so she laid next to Jason again, but her face was still nestled in the crook of her arm where her cheeks flamed. “Stop it,” she said, words muffled.

“I’m serious.” She felt his weight dip on the bed, his hand coming to brush away hair that blocked the side of her face, and then puffs of air on her arm. Tilting her head so her eye peeked out, she saw that Jason’s mouth was hovering millimeters away from her skin, and when her eyes glanced up, an intense emerald gaze fixed on hers. “Like an angel, you are.”

Fire, heat, tingles littered the areas where his lips pressed against a trail into his skin. A blossoming feeling of affection imprinted onto her arm, and up to her cheek, where his lips lingered right underneath her lashes.

It became too much for her to handle, her heart and mind becoming muddled and confused through the overwhelming sensations that traveled throughout her nerves. Her cognitive senses seemed to refuse to acknowledge the difference between welcomed attention and… unwanted but forced attention. And, in efforts to prevent a hysteric scene or breakdown, she sprung up from her position, pressing a quick kiss into Jason’s cheek so he wouldn’t suspect anything, and sitting so she was almost completely off the bed.

Jason watched her with… rejection. But, she wouldn’t know that because she refused to meet his eyes. Instead she said, “Have you got marshmallows in the cupboard?”

“Uhh,” Jason cleared his throat, standing up and heading out of his room. “Yeah, I think so.”

She followed after him, shoulders hunched; ashamed. Mentally, she was pushing away repressed trauma from what seemed like yesterday. A haunting memory that refused to leave like paranoia.

“Tiny ones or…?” He heads straight for the silver door knob next to the fridge, stepping in to squat at the lower shelves. Y/n stands in the doorway, hands awkwardly at her sides.

“The big ones, please.” She doesn’t look up when he extends his hand to give her the fluffy white bag, and he doesn’t ask what's wrong.

Silently, y/n walks over to the kitchen island to pluck a skewer out of the drawer, and pops her hip to shut it. Jason lifts himself to sit on the countertop, his white shirt lifting to expose the pale sliver of skin that escaped from his grey sweatpants. Out the corner of her eye, she could see the enticing movement, and it caused her hands to shake, but she hid it in the twisting wrist movement of turning on the stove.

A tearing noise comes from behind her, blending in with the clicking noises of the stove turning on. Jumping at the startling disruption, she turns to see Jason with an Oreo midway to his mouth. He gives her an open lipped smile, eyes wide as if shocked, and it makes her burst into a chuckle.

“Can I get one?” She asked.

Wordlessly, he passed her a cookie. She took it, and it seemed that he purposely grazed his fingers over her palm.

Y/n yanked her hand away like he’d burned her.

Alarmed, Jason hops off the counter and moves to stand next to her.

“Y/n, is everything al-”

“Do you want a marshmallow?” She interrupted him, her breaths tense.

“Uh, no.” He said, his head slightly shaking in disbelief at her actions. Had he done something wrong?

The girl stabbed the skewer through the white candy, and twirled it over the flames, the edges quickly turning a golden color.

“Baby, what’s wr-”

It catches fire, and her lips blow them off before it turns completely black, the fuh noise that escapes overpowering Jason’s gentle words. She was scared of breaking in front of him. She was scared to show him how much she was holding in.

“Can you hold this?” Voice small and squeaky.

He took the skewer out of her hands, holding it while she opened the oreo cookie. Knowing what she was gonna do, he gingerly placed the melted marshmallow on top of the frosting covered cookie, and pulled away when she sandwiched the top cookie on top.

Y/n takes a bite out of the treat, and relishes in the slightly burnt, woodsy taste of the white taffy and how it melts on her tongue and slides with ease down her throat. So much so, that a small noise of appreciation comes from the depths of her chest.

“S’good?” Jason asked, a breathy-uneasy- laugh whooshing through his nose.

She’s nodding before she looks up at him, and her head stills when she locks eyes with him.

It’s the same, intense, focused look from before.

The one that promised so much. And it just- god she was so confused.

So confused that she leaned forward to kiss him, disregarding the fact that- in that moment- she didn’t want affection. She needed a bit of distance and time to process her emotions.

And instead of doing so, she lunged and connected herself to him in a smoldering embrace of their mouths. A sudden flood of inexplicable physical impressions, claiming, pleading.

Jason didn’t hesitate to respond, his hands appearing to cup at her cheeks, thumbs gingerly rubbing on the apples of her cheeks. He breathes deeply; a sharp inhale into her mouth that pulled his frame taught against hers. The forgotten treat pressed up against the divot of his pectoral muscles.

The instant his tongue snaked into her mouth, he was bombarded with the warm and sweet taste of her mouth. Marshmallows and just her essence crowding over his taste buds; his nose also breathing in the fruity scent of her hair and woodsy burnt candy. Urgently, his lips suckled on her lower lip, y/n gasping at the sudden, ardent actions.

Had she been any other girl, that would have been the night she finally let herself have sex with Jason.

The mood was right; they were both bleeding mad for each other.

But, y/n was y/n and that’s not how she was wired to go. Her mind began again with the confusion, her heart rate picking up double the rates from both the proximity of the boy and what was going to happen if the kiss continued. Did she want this? Fuck, of course she wanted this! Why was she…

“She’s not gonna do it because she’s a prude!” said one of the girls in the room.

“No, I’m n-”

“Yeah, you are y/n. You’re a virgin. Probably wouldn’t even know what to do,” said the same girl.

Y/n had been invited to a party that the cheerleaders in her class were throwing, and boys from rival school had been invited to. They were all sitting in a circle- enough people to fill up the living room of a rich man’s house- playing a game of truth or dare, and they’d just gotten to y/n.

She’d gotten dared to give one of the football players of the opposing school a blowjob… in the middle of the living room, with everyone watching. When they all saw her face fall, redden, and then pale, no one wasted time to verbally pounce on her hesitance.

“Look at her! She’d pathetic Marcy, she’s not gonna do it.” The girl who invited her, Marcy, looked at her with a smirk.

Embarrassed, and just numb to everything that was going on around her as well as what may come depending on her decisions. All she knew is that she needed to do this because she’d look bad if she didn’t. She didn’t want to be known as a prude. Even if she was a virgin. She didn’t want to be thought of badly.

“Yes, I will.” Her meek reply had silenced the whole room.

“Come over here, and blow me.” Chris was a sophomore that was known for his promiscuous ways, and the fact that he had a big… that was evident when y/n came to kneel in front of him.

Shaking, she sat in front of him with wide eyes, her back burning with stares and her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her hands.

Throughout it all, she felt disgusting. Ashamed. And unable to breathe because the guy wasn’t letting her come off, holding her down with a strong grip in her hair. Tears burned on her lashes and down her cheeks, partly from being unable to breathe, and the other because she was scared.

God, she was so scared. What would happen to her when this got out? What then? When everyone knew what she’d done? There were more than enough witnesses present to attest that she’d given head to a guy she didn’t even know.

She’d felt a hand on her breast, and her eyes snapped open from their painful clench; alarmed. The guy sitting next to Chris had leaned over to touch her, and at her scared look he only laughed and continued to do it. His hand trailed lower and lower, and eventually she felt something hot spill down her aching throat. Her ears were ringing, her eyes bleary.

Much of how she escaped had been... blurred through her panic.

But the feeling… that dreadful, terrorized feeling. It was what deer felt moments before being impacted by a car.

She’d never forget it.

It was the same feeling creeping up on her then. The niggling, freezing, ambushed fear. It’s the reason why she pulled away from him, and said in a wet whisper, “I can’t.”

She hugs her arms across her chest, oreo still in hand, and turns away with her eyes dropped to the floor. Y/n’s mind is reeling, utterly confused and just so scared scared scared.

“Did I do something wrong?” Jason asked, trailing after her to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. His lips are a dark shade of pink, the skin of his cheeks a flushed color; if one were to look down, they’d see the heather grey color of his sweatpants was slightly lifted. But his arousal was pushed aside by his concern towards the small girl, who shivered when his fingers grazed her shoulder. He could see her eyes were shut closed, but a tear escaped to roll down her cheeks, and at that the thick hairs of his brows dipped to crinkle on his forehead. “Y/n?”

“I’m sorry.” She sighed, her words hitching and cracking. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

Jason pulled her into his chest, his head shaking no no no to her apologies. “There’s no need to be sorry, dovie. It’s okay. You’re alright.”

“But I am! I so sorry, Jason. I-” Her words died on her tongue, collapsed by a series of sobs that ruptured out of her lips. She was guilty. So so guilty. She felt like she was lying to him by not telling him of what had… occurred.

“Baby, baby, hey. Y/n,” He pulled back to cup her face with his hands again, forcing her to gaze into his calm, forest eyes. “Listen to me. Deep breaths,” he began to inhale, his chest expanding with the intake of air. “You’re okay. I’m not mad at you for anything, dove.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” Y/n sets the cookie on the counter, and goes to wipe at her eyes roughly, Jason tugging at her wrists and doing it himself, shushing her as he does.

“Well I can’t be mad if I don’t know, yeah?” He gives her a small smile. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“N-no,” she shakes her head. “No, I don’t.”

“Okay.” He nods, still smiling. “That’s okay. I’m here to listen whenever you’re ready.”

Y/n just nodded and gave him a sad attempt to seem happy, but her chin began to tremble, crinkles appearing underneath her lip, and she rushed to dig her nose in the crook of Jason’s neck.

“Oh, sweetheart, I wish you’d tell me what’s got you so upset.” He murmured into her hair, his arms wrapping around her.

“Please, Jason. I don’t wanna,” She sniffled. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Alright. I’ll stop asking. Don’t wanna stress you out anymore, dovie. You need a break as it is.” Jason rubs a warm hand up and down her back soothingly when he feels her nose dip into his collarbone.

She sniffles some more, a slight hiccup in her breaths, and Jason continues, “speaking of breaks,” this catches her attention, and y/n tilts her head so she’s able to rest it in his shoulder and look up at his side profile. “Would you like to go to the aquarium with me next week?”

At this, her head springs up so she’s eye level with Jason, her wet eyes gleaming as a surprised smile plays on her mouth. “The aquarium?”

“Yes, the aquarium.” Jason laughed at her response, his eyes flitting between hers. The skin of his chin crinkled because he was looking down at her, and y/n wondered how he still managed to look so good with a double chin. “A little birdy told me you’ve been wanting to go.”

Squealing, she said, “Oh my gosh, Jason please! Can we?!”

Jason pressed a small kiss to her nose, “Of course, silly. It’s why I asked.”

“I’ve been asking Andrew but he….” she trails off, and her eyes become squinty, “heeey, did he tell you?”

“Mayb-” She jumped suddenly at the feeling of her phone vibrating in her back pocket. The Simpsons theme song blaring through the quiet kitchen, and letting her know her brother was calling. Most likely to tell her it was time to come home.

“I’ll go get your stuff,” Jason mumbled, separating himself with a wistful look in his eye.

Y/n mumbled a ‘thank you’ and fished her phone out of her back pocket, pressing the green call button and holding it up to her ear.

“Hey, lover girl. Mom says it’s time to come home. See ya,” and he hangs up before y/n can even respond.

Rolling her eyes, y/n heads upstairs to help Jason pack her stuff with all her troubles plaguing her heart like weeds.

* * *

Y/n had eased up a little on her avid studying habits because the SAT had passed, and she studied hard enough that she wasn’t planning on re-taking the exam-- no matter the score. In addition to that, there was enough to place on her shelf to make her look… well, better than good. Years worth of community service work, volunteering, participating in and starting clubs, all about to finally pay off. It was surreal. Kinda stressful, too, but now that she had time off she wanted to decompress. Enjoy herself some.

To begin with, much of it was taking time off with herself. Meaning, no Jason, or Andrew, or her parents. Just her. She didn’t even have to explain to Jason that she wanted to be alone because after her initial comment of taking time off alone, he’d kissed her palm and murmured about how proud he was against her skin. No bitterness or spite attached. He’d even made a joke about ‘bro time with Andrew’.

The gym nearest to her house was offering a free month trial-- which just so happened to be the amount of time she was planning on taking to relax before starting to study for finals again-- and she took it up instantly when she found out that they offered yoga and guided meditation classes. It was most likely the best thing she’d ever done.

Apart from getting an hour of physical exercise a day (because yoga is harder than it looks) she was the most relaxed ever. Her sleep was the best it’s been in so long, and her body felt so light. Time to reflect, she’d decided, was very important.

Plus, her self-esteem had gone up knowing she was doing something to better herself for* herself.

For the most part, that was how most of her days went.

Go to school, sometimes she’d eat lunch with Jason, get a ride home from him (the goodbye kisses ignited her), head to the gym, come back home and fall right asleep. She took advantage of the first three periods to finish any work that she had to turn in.

It’s only logical that she’d be nervous the day of her date with Jason, since it hadn’t been on her mind at all, and she hadn’t been spending time with the boy so his presence has not consoled her. An anxious fervor had plotted itself in the depths of her belly, goading her like a devil on her shoulder. Better watch how you act, it said, or you’ll fuck this all up.

Jason was the same way.

The poor boy had also taken to working out to release his...stress. Sleepless nights were spent with the weight-rack in his father’s home gym- arms aching from the strain of bench pressing. Shirtless torso draped in a sheen of sweat, flushed a pink color and littered with prominent veins as he pulled his body upwards, jaw clenched and mind focused, having already reached the point where he listens to his body’s begs for mercy. Rhythmic release of tense breaths escaped through the hard line of his lips, muscles defined under a glint of perspiration beneath the lights of the room, shorts low on his hips. His curls dripped salty beads down the line of his nose, and matted on his forehead.

He lost himself in the repetitive movements, body going numb until his brain turned off.

It was almost better than sex. Hell he did it to forget about sex.

He swears his body chose to betray him every time he was getting ready to fall asleep, projecting filthy images of a girl so sweet, he felt guilty just humoring them. Swollen red lips, hot mouths, soft hands, perky breasts blotchy with his marks. These pictures were so explicit and vivid in his brain about y/n, who was nothing but sweet and kind, and had never come close to even insinuating the things he imagined.

Hell on earth-- torture is what it felt like, having to ignore sticking a hand down his pants and pulling at himself until he found relief with such an innocent girl on his mind. It made him feel icky and gross because she was so pure. Jason preferred to turn to exhaustion of his body rather than pleasure. And, more often that not he greeted his father’s gym with a scowl and determination to distract himself, pushing himself until he was nothing but a breathless, strained heap laying all tired-out on the bench, salty beads running a path down his forehead and dripping down his neck where his shoulders drooped-- defeated.

Waking up the next day was a burning adventure; muscles feeling as if they’d been shot through and pricked with needles over and over again.

But, his dignity was still intact and he was able to look y/n in the eyes with no remorse. The one time he’d jerked off to her, he was a sweating, burning mess as he made his way up to her in the halls.

He’d learned his lesson then.

His nerves didn’t run as deep as y/n’s, but he did second guess himself the more intricate his plan got. Take a certain route, be there at a certain time so there wouldn’t be so full, alert the personnel of his presence.

Jason had approached his mother, Anne, the night that she had come home, and questioned her about her friend’s sister that worked as a zookeeper, to see if she had connections to the aquarium. Turns out, she did and-and,

“Honey, what’s the sudden interest in Penny’s sister?” She looked up at her son while chopping green onions.

Stammering, he rubbed his neck and said, “I was kinda… wondering- maybe, uhm… you could call in a favor for-for me…”

“What for?”

“I wanted to ask… y/n to prom at the uhm.. The aquarium,” his cheeks go pink and he can’t keep steady eye-contact with his mother. She’s smiling at him knowingly, smiling at him from underneath the lip of the wine-glass she holds up to her mouth.

She smacks her lip, “Y/n? The prom? When did this happen?” Anne smirked at him, scraping the onions off the cutting board with a knife onto the pan.

This would be the moment where the distraught teenage boy goes off on his mom for being absent and not knowing a single thing about him. Slam his firsts against the counter-top while sneering.

But Jason loved his mother and they maintained good communication, so there would be none of that. “Start of February…” He bites his thumb.

The sound of sizzling onions is what fills in the silence of their gazes. His mother slowly nodded her head, and Jason blushing.

“I knew it.”

Jason furrowed his eyebrows at his mother’s statement. “What?”

“I knew this would happen. I knew it the day she first came in with Andrew. The instant you said her name, I knew.”

Jason furrowed his eyebrows at his mother’s statement. “What?”

“I knew this would happen. I knew it the day she first came in with Andrew. The instant you said her name, and that look in your eye…” She gleamed at her son. “You love her, don’t you?”

The boy gaped at his mother. Had he really been that transparent from the beginning? So much so that not even he had noticed his feelings? “You knew?”

“Course I did. Pushed you out of me didn’t I? Know you like the back of my hand.” His mother set the glass down and continued cutting vegetables. “It’s a mother’s instinct to know when her boy has been swept off his feet.” A soft pat on the cheek meets a dazed Jason. “Now, what’s this favor you wanted?”

* * *

Y/n was scared to admit how deep her feelings were for Jason.

Scared to admit that the usual fluttering gnaw at her ribs had developed into an inferno that took over her entire body, centering at her heart and spreading through her nervous system, leaving her skin a tingling network of her emotions.

Basically, take puppy love, and remove ‘puppy’. She loved him. With her entire being and more she loved him. She could see her life with him more secure than anything in her life, which was a big admission because the poor girl was all about security. And Jason made her feel more comfortable than anything in her life at that moment; he made her forget about anything that wasn’t them together in that moment.

The morning of their date was like one of those scenes in movies where the character just has that really big realization, and all her feelings hit her at once. Y/n pieced it all together in a few seconds. How much he meant to her, how she loved him* and how scary it would be if she were to admit her feelings and receive nothing in return.

It was at cause of these thoughts that her nerves revved up to their max, mind overthinking different ways that her feelings might cause this date to go wrong. Like something might slip from her lips; a rushed, urgent proclamation of her devotion full of jumbled stutters and met with a stunned look and a freshly single boyfriend.

“Honey, Jason’s here!” Called her mother at the base of the stairs.

Y/n watched herself grow pale in her reflection, teeth sinking in her bottom lip. No turning back now.

“Coming!” She took one last look at herself, pulling on the sleeves of the cardigan she layered over the long, white-eyelet dress she was saving for an occasion like this. It was a light, summer material with white embroidered flowers and a nice frilly detain around the waist. The creme cardigan served no purpose other than the fact that she was nervous, and covering up calmed her down. There wasn’t much to cover, but bare shoulders made her heart want to start a riot, screaming at her that people were looking and it was time to get anxious about whether she looked good or not.

She forced herself to tear her eyes away from the dewy makeup on her face, drawing her mind away from picking at it until it was perfect because it would never be that and it’s okay. Instead, she focused on what lay ahead of her for the day— and maybe that was a tad bit worse but that didn’t matter because she was already in the witch’s pot and the brew was boiling— her date with Jason looming with possibility. Not to mention, she’d finally be getting to see the newly added exhibits she was longing to see.

Cute baby sea lions, penguins and jellyfish that quickly outweighed all the disastrous scenarios filling her mind.

Skipping down the steps with an eager smile on her lips, y/n struggled to hold in all her happy squeaks because downstairs Jason was waiting for her and-

“There she is!” Her mother greeted her at the base of the stairs, and winked at her daughter with a smile, a cheeky expression displayed upon the fact that what was happening was a surprising event. Her little y/n going out on a date with none other than her favorite out of Andrew’s friends, Jason.

This would have been the moment in the movies where everything freezes and everyone else disappears. The camera comes to a zoom in on Jason and y/n’s faces, the screen split in half but it the same, dreamy, loved-up expression on both their faces. Y/n’s cheeks warmed with a soft flush and a cheek splitting grin on her mouth, lips that shined with the gloss she had put on them, and eyes that shined under the kitchen lights with an extra sparkle that had floated up from her chest that had become the cavern where she shoved all her emotions.

Jason is equally stunned, unsure of how his girlfriend could get any more beautiful. Bunny teeth on full display, hands in the pockets of his blue jeans. He wore a satin bomber jacket with a tiger on the lower right side of his abdomen that was perched on snow-capped mountains that stretched up to his chest, a swooping eagle on his left breast. Two buttons were left unclasped, the collar of a white under-shirt peeking out, and the dip of his breast-bone on display, highlighted by the glint of the golden cross necklace his grandmother had given him when he was eight.

Meanwhile he took in the sight of her, y/n did the same as well, eyes roaming all over his figure and settling on the eyes that were already set on hers. He loved how she turned a pretty bothered color when they locked dreamy gazes. How her demeanor changes to shy glances when he smiles at her all toothy- his dimples prominent on his cheeks. The boy straightened, looking proud to be able to take her on a date.

“Well are you guys gonna stare at each other all day, or go to the aquarium?” Andrew asked. He was standing at the kitchen entrance, a bag of Cheetos in his arm, and one cheek bulging with chips.

“Andrew!” His mother playfully swatted his bicep. “Be nice! You’ll be the same, just wait.”

“Ready to go?” Jason asked, giving a sluggish nod towards the door, his being still transfixed in y/n, who nodded equally as slow even though her heart raced a mile a minute. “Alright, let’s go then. I’ll bring her home before 10, Mrs. Y/L/N.” Y/n walked towards the hand that Jason stretched out for her to grab, her hand swimming in his. It suddenly made sense why he was able to launch a football 400 meters. His hands were big, with a wide palm and nimble fingers that wrapped around hers, the top of it striped with the pleasing ridged of his veins.

“Bye, hunnies! Have fun…. But not too much fun!” The mother clutched at her chest, her eyes soft at the sight of Jason opening the door for her daughter.

“Ew, mom!” Andrew said, crumbling the bag to a close and retreating up the stairs, presumably to his room. He stopped at the base, and turned to say, “And I’ll be here, the brother forgotten by this best friend, woe is me!”

His friend twisted around with a hand on the doorknob, “You know I love you, babe!”

Andrew said something stupid along the lines of ‘show me, ya stud!’ before his mother shushed him up and waved at the couple that it was okay to leave, approaching the doorway to lock up.

Y/n peeked sideways at Jason, finding him already looking at her with a cheeky smirk.

“Caughtcha looking,” He said, taking hold of her hand again and giving it a mall squeeze, leaning over to peck her cheek. “Missed you, y/n.”

She wanted to stop and pull him in by both sides of his face to smash their lips together, but she knew that her mom was probably watching through the window. “Wanna kiss you good so bad, but my mom’s probably watching through the window and I don’t wanna hear about it later.”

“It’s okay, baby, I know. Wanted to ravish you when I saw you coming down the stairs, but that’s not the most appropriate thing to do when my girlfriend’s mom is present, is it?” They reached his car, and he sped up slightly to open the door for her, placing a hand on the small of her back. The grip on her phone increased at the sudden warmth on her body, her mind jumping to dirty assumptions on where this could lead to.

She got in the car with a quiver in her belly, and it jolted away when Jason shut the door behind her. What was she thinking? Their relationship was built upon glances and sly touches, and how she was flustered in a non-sexual way over him? Strongly?

“Did you wanna get food anywhere before?” He said when he opened the door to his side, leg hiking up and to the side to take a seat. “Dunno ‘bout you, but I’m really really craving those chicken-avocado paninis from that one little coffee shop, and I know you really like their milk tea, what do you say?”

“I say that’s a really good idea.” Y/n said, nodding with a pinch on one side of her face, her true feeling hidden. Eyes trained at the way he held the steering wheel; one hand at 12 while he turned the key into the ignition. Maybe he would hold her neck while the other rubbed at her…

What the fuck? She needs to cut it out.

Clearing her throat and looking out the window she said, “I could definitely go for a milk tea right now…”

“Yeah? Are you excited for today?” He twists to check behind him before pulling out of his parallel position to the curb, and y/n uses that moment to glance at the smooth skin of his neck, imagining how it would feel underneath her fingertips… her mouth…

“Yes,” She chokes, saliva collecting at the back of her tongue and slipping through. There’s a small pause where she coughs, and Jason plucks a bottle of water from the glove compartment, the back of his hand grazing her knees and the tops of her thighs, which only makes her cough harder.

“Are you okay, my love? Here,” using the flat of his wrist to take hold on the steering wheel while he opened the bottle, “drink some. I don’t want you to die before you’ve seen the jellyfish.”

A feeble ‘thank you*’ left her lips before the water bottle occupied it. The liquid washed out anything that had agitated her, and she drank extra to fill the time for at least a few more seconds. She was terrified of doing something wrong.

The car was pulling up the parking lot of their local cafe when she placed the bottle in the cup holder between them. Jason didn’t have a clue what was going through her head, or the fact that he should be concerned because her thoughts had traveled to him fingering her while she made a mess of his seat. He was simply so grateful to be spending time with the girl who he loved.

Who he loved.

The boy had realized the extremities of his regards after his mother had spoken them aloud.

You love her don’t you?

Yes, yes he did. He had known that it was there. The guzzling, spritzy feeling he felt over his chest- like when a sip of a freshly opened can of Sprite goes down your throat- when he saw her, felt her touch, thought about her, had always been there. Always. It was there the day he bumped into her outside of the locker room, her tiny frame going unnoticed when he rounded the corner of the locker room where she was waiting for her brother because he was busy texting some girl, but the moment he heard a squeaky ‘oh, I’m so sorry!’, it was there.

In some aspects, Jason was a bit dense, and this was one of them. He didn’t act when he should’ve. Or at least recognized what was going on in that broad chest of his-- he doesn’t think he would’ve acted because Andrew wouldn’t have held back. They hadn’t developed such a strong bond to come to the understanding that they did (Jason had made a really bold statement about life long partners and Andrew had been too blown away to stay mad).

Jason loved y/n, and he always would; that was just facts.

“Wanna stay in here or go inside with me?” He asked her, taking the key out and placing a hand on the door.

She was lightning quick to say “With you!” a bashful look overcoming her when he looked at her all knowingly, like he could see right through her. “I’ll go with you so you don’t have to carry everything,” y/n blubbered in efforts to reclaim her dignity, and stepped out of the car.

He feigned being hurt, “Owie, that stung. Are you saying I’m not strong?” Jason followed after her, a playful pout in his lips, “Tell you what,” he placed an arm around her neck, tugging her close to him and putting his lips by her ear, “I can carry you and the food, at the same time.”

Tables with umbrellas were located at the front of the cafe, people sitting with their computers open or having a chat with friends. Some looked up, some didn’t, but the stares of those who did made y/n feel thousands of times shyer than what she felt.

The girl couldn’t help but squeeze the fabric of her sweater around herself, her thoughts getting the best of her, the feeling of his lips an enticing action that drove her mad…

He knew it too, chuckling to himself as he opened the door.

Inside, only a single person made up the line for ordering, and she was already in the process of giving the man her card to pay. Jason and y/n stood side by side, looking up at the menus as if they were thinking over their choices, but really just thinking about each other.

“Nex- Well, well, well.”

Y/n doesn’t think she had ever forgotten that voice. And hearing it ten, with Jason at her side, brought back the fear she hadn’t even begun to overcome. Her face went white, her lungs freezing, and her feet glued to the ground.

Shock, was the medical term for it.

When your body is submerged into temperatures it can’t handle, it goes through a series of procedures to attempt survival. It begins to slow down to conserve energy, shutting down to keep in heat, or await help. Hearts slow, lungs slow, and in extreme, abrupt situations, a person can faint.

At the appearance of Chris after nearly an entire year, y/n wanted to faint. She wished she had, that way she wouldn’t have to endure Jason’s confused glances, and Chris’s malicious, salacious smirk.

“Y/n, long time no see, baby.” He said, a piece of gum that he had hidden in his cheek appearing as he started to chew, leaning forward on the counter and giving Jason a once over. “Who’s that?”

Jason’s eyebrows furrowed at the audacity this guy had, calling his girl ‘baby’. Y/n wasn’t looking at him, she couldn’t- she wasn’t aware of what was happening anymore, retreated into deep parts of her brain- but had she, she would’ve seen a bone-chilling, intimidating look of dominance in his usually kind green eyes. “I’m her boyfriend, who are you?” He said, stepping forward so his thighs were flush with the edge of the counter. His body was pulled tight like the strings on a violin, one pluck away from releasing a disastrous melody.

Y/n’s eyes began to tear from not blinking them, her heart going from beating normal to beating so hard she could feel it in her fingertips, her stomach dropping like it had been ripped to her feet.

“Who am I?” Chris licked the inside of his cheek, and y/n gagged. Repulsed, her feet tripped over themselves in attempts to get to the trashcan by the pickup site. “There wasn't even anything in your mouth, babe! Guess that thing they say about muscle memory is true, huh?”

Jason didn’t pay attention to the last thing that he said because he ran over to hold his girlfriend’s hair, rubbing her back and whispering that ‘it’s okay, my love, take deep breaths’. Her body started to tremble when nothing came out, her eyes emitting actual tears now, feeling undeserving of Jason’s affection because of what she’d done.

“I’m so-rry,” she whispered, her face a splotchy, red color that made him panic on the inside at what could plague her. “Can we go?”

“Yeah,” He nodded quickly, no questions asked.”Yeah, let’s go.”

Y/n shot up then, practically running out of the store while Chris laughed a belly-clenching laugh that pushed her out further. Jason looked back at him once, anger on clear display because whatever the guy had done, it was bad if it made her this upset.

When he turned around, y/n’s figure was disappearing through the view of the store’s window, arms clutching herself as she ran to the parking lot. There were more stares than when they first arrived when he ran out after her with a call of her name.

“Y/n!” He turned the corner to see her yanking violently at his door handle, tears streaming continuously down her cheeks now. Her shoulder jerked back and pushed forward until her knuckles collided on the material of the car. She was hurting herself. “Hey!” He yelled, yanking her back and wrapping his arms around her torso to restrict her movements.

She thrashed for a few seconds, sobs leaving her until she went limp, which was when he let her go. His eyes were wide with concern, not being able to believe what had just happened.

“Dovie? Look at me, dovie,” With a curled finger, he gently encouraged her to look at him. Irritated, doe eyes blinked with... fear.

“Do you want me?” Were the words that left her mouth in a breathy tremble.

“I always want you,” Jason said, not hesitating to respond to her abrupt inquiry. His thick brown eyebrows were still knitted, however, and she knew that she owed him answers. As much as she couldn’t bring herself to give them up, y/n said,

“Would you want me even if I was used?” She shut her eyes tight, not being able to bear looking at him. It felt as if she were the one using him then, comforted by his presence, but lying to him as well.

He scoffed, head shaking. “Yes. Even then I’d still love you.” Jason’s composure remains the same,neither alarmed or shocked that he had let it ‘slip’ past his lips because he hadn’t. He loved her and he told her.

Y/n, on the other hand, burst into tears and dropped her head, her forehead on his chest, chanting a pathetic, “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve you.”

“Y/n, I need you to tell me what just happened,” He crooned into her ear, his lips kissing her head in attempts to show his affection to comfort her, “Let me help you.”

She shook her head, and the gold zipper of his sweater scratched her forehead when she did. “No. No, I’m sorry.” She looked up at him, her voice pleading, “I don’t want to ruin our date. Can I tell you after?” Jason looked at her with lips pressed into a firm line. “Please.” She begged.

“Not gonna ruin our date, dovie,” He kissed her right cheek, and her eyelid, the bridge of her nose, and nudged his forehead against hers, “Spent so much time waiting for you, that I’m not gonna let a silly thing break us apart. I’m willing to fight, y/n. I already have.” He fumbled behind her, unlocking the door and propping it open before he pressed a kiss to her lips. A deep press that conveyed everything he just said. I love you.

A shaky, relieved breath left her when they parted, her eyes still shut when he said, “Get in the car, my love,” with another, plushy kiss to her lips before he stepped back to see her get in the car. Her eyes opened slowly to see him smiling at her, no trace of anything strange in his eyes- like he had forgotten everything that happened in the past 10 minutes.

Y/n mumbled an ‘okay’ and got inside, putting on his seat belt as he closed the door and walked over to his side. She wondered if this was it, if this was her messing up and at the end of the day she would be crying into her pillow because he’d broken up with her. If e was just playing nice because that was just Jason, his MO.

Lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t notice that he had turned on the radio until he started singing along to it. An oldies station that he always had on if there wasn’t any music coming from his phone. It was in the middle of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U to which Jason didn’t hesitate to start singing.

“I went to the doctor’s and guess what he told me, guess what he told me,” he looked over at her while he was singing, a playful look in his eyes, and he shimmied his shoulders. It was a classic ‘sing to your girlfriend so she’ll never forget this song and always associate this song with you’ moment.

“He said girl you better try to have fun no matter what you do,” his singing voice was a direct reflection on his character, smooth like honey, but deep and slightly scratchy like the comfort of burning wood, “but he’s a fool.”

Just then, his voice gets a little louder, “Cause nothing compares to you.” He placed a hand on her knee, his lips forming an exaggerated ‘o’ shape on the ‘you’. Jason was clearly singing to her, his eyes flickering from the road to her as a sweet gesture to direct his words to her.

Y/n sniffled and laughed, using her finger to trace the veins on the back of Jason’s hands, looking up at him while he sang to her. She had the sudden urge to reiterate what he had confessed in the parking lot. How it swelled in her chest, and consumed her.

But she couldn’t. It was hard and she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because he didn’t know the whole truth about her. Instead she wrote it on his hand. Her caresses going from random to spelling out letters on his knuckles. He noticed this. How the movements were calculated now, and the singing stopped. Green eyes went from the road to her eyes, to the road to their hands.

I love you, too.

She wiped her hand over his when she finished, and didn’t dare look up at him, so she looked out the window but left her hand in his hold. He brought it up to his lips, and kissed her knuckles, rubbing his lips over them repeatedly.

* * *

Jason stepped out of the car, and took long, quick strides over to her door, y/n admiring how long and muscular his legs looked in his jeans. He pulled the door open, leaning back so the door could swing past his torso, but staying relatively close to the car, giving her just enough space to get out. Y/n didn’t think anything of it, until she stood, and was face to face with his face, her nose swamped with the toned down scent of fresh, spring scented body wash merged with the soft smell of his skin.

Given how close she was, she could see the lines on his cupid's bow where his skin color changed from a golden tint to the strawberry of his lips.

“Can you kiss me properly now, baby?” He said, voice low and raspy. Hands came to flatten on the hood of his Prius, caging her in so she was close to his torso. A blush formed from the way he stared at her mouth like he was starved.

“P-properly?” She muttered, her hands taking purchase on his hips, and smoothing up his sides, the material cool under her hands.

“Yeah,” He licked the inside of his cheek, his head tilting, “Like this.”

Jason pushed forward until her back hit the car, and their hips were flush, y/n’s hands stuck between them, but she maneuvered them to she could palm at his chest, her nails digging in like cat’s claws when his lips found their way together, pillowed between each other in a passionate embrace that warmed her to her toes.

“Mmph, baby ‘ya marking me with your fingers,” He spoke in a sotto voice, heavy breaths and wet noises of their smacking lips resonating through their ears.

It took everything in her not to moan, and she knew that if they kept going it would be inevitable, so she unclenched her hands with a reluctant squeak, and ducked her head into his neck. Breath hot on his neck, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no, no. I… uhm, I liked it, my love. You didn’t do anything wrong, don’t be shy.” He flexed his jaw, his eyes rolling at the back of his head at recalling the feeling of her hands- dainty and small, and sweet,, and god* it was just her*- clawing at his chest. Jason dipped forward, and kissed her neck. His lips staining her skin with scorching heat, the soft skin creating a magnetic force between them.

She moaned at that, her teeth scratching at his neck tentatively. “Stop it,” Her head felt floaty, her limbs soft, “Wanna see the fishies and the way that you’re…” “The way that I’m what, dovie?” He’s stunned by her moan, his brain haywire. “Tell me.”

“The way you’re talking is gonna me make me wanna stay here, and I really wanna see the fishies. Please?” She’s whining; voice an embarrassingly high pitched tone. Her hands gripped the collar of his sweater for stability because her knees were shaking.

“Alright. Alright, let’s go see the fishies, baby.” Jason pecks her one last time at the juncture of her neck, and takes a step back to grab her hand. “Come on.”

* * *

“So, they’ve got McDonald’s, Tam’s Burgers, Ruby’s Diner, and Sushi.” Jason holds a tri-fold directory of the aquarium in one hand, and y/n’s hand in the other.

“Sushi? At an aquarium?” She skews half her face to the side like she tasted something sour.

“I know right?” He copies her face, “The irony. Up for burgers? It’s all they’ve got.”

Y/n’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food, and she giggled when Jason noticed and laughed at her. “Burgers sound good,” she said, rubbing her stomach comically. Although she was still heated by their earlier interaction, both were pretending like nothing happened, and like they didn’t have a big thing waiting for them at the end of the day.

Like she wasn’t going to reveal how sh-

“Anything for you, baby.” Jason Jason held up the tri-fold again and blew out of his lips as he made out the route to Tam’s burgers.

When they both got there, they ordered the same thing: one cheeseburger with a vanilla milkshake. Oh, and they were sharing chili cheese fries.

It was the epitome of a perfect date for a young couple in love. They chose to sit on the same side of the booth because they were greedy to get everything they could from each other. Unnecessary touches were made more than the amount of things they said to each other. Him brushing hair behind her each, hand on her thigh, rubbing her cheeks, feeding her, wiping her mouth, her arm hooked through his, pecking his cheek after a sip of her milkshake, nudging his feet with hers, caressing his thigh. It was on the rubbing his thigh part where things would get slightly heated, and Jason would stop to kiss her, licking into her mouth to taste the vanilla that was also on his tongue.

Jason paid for their meal, much to y/n’s begging, and then walked her over to the penguin exhibit.

“Heard one of their eggs just hatched, and I want you to see it.” He said, swinging their hands between them.

“Really?” She asked, her features lifted with excitement. “Well then let’s go!” Y/n ran ahead of him, looking back at him and pulling at his arm. Laughing, they swerved around people and ran past the large tank that represented the reef ecosystem, blue light from the sun that streamed through the top of the tank dancing on their skin like shadows. It was a magical moment, even though they looked like weirdos. In their head they were in their own movie, their own world.

“Jason, honey? Is that you?” A woman in green cargo shorts and the customary blue shirts with the aquarium’s logo on the left breast called from the inside of the penguin expedition. She had raven black hair in a low bun, and red lipstick paired with a bright smile. She was feeding the animals from two buckets on the edge of the pool where they were jumping in.

“Hey, Janet!” Jason called out, waving from behind the glass barrier. “Long time no see, have you gotten younger?”

She laughed and turned around, walking through an archway and disappearing from view. A male walked out, and smiled towards the couple, nodding once and turned his attention towards the penguins. He whistled once, and they all came to him, huddling around him expectantly.

Then he bent downwards and placed the back of his hand on the penguins tummy, pressing back and they waddled backwards. He did the same to four others, pressing them so they were in a straight line, and they stayed where he placed them. Janet came out then, with black objects in her arms.

“What are they….” Y/n asked, confused as to what was going on because she had been to this aquarium several times and had never seen such things. “... doing?”

Janet removed one of the items from her chest, and y/n could see that they were large letters. A ‘P’ which she placed at the feet of the first penguin. ‘R’ on the one following. They rested against their bellies, and after an initial peck at it, they left it alone and watched their keepers expectantly, presumably for food. ‘O’ followed, then ‘M’. And as the question mark was being laid on the last penguin, Jason turned to watch his girlfriend’s face, waiting for the realization to hit. It didn’t take very long.

“Oh my gosh, Jason, look! Look it spells prom!” She pointed at it excitedly, a smile from ear to ear as she looked on at the animals, amused by their antics. She looked over at him to share her glee, and found him watching her with a dreamy smirk. “Look at the animals! Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Will you go to prom with me?”

Y/n’s jaw dropped, the full realization hitting her. This had been planned, more specifically, Jason had planned this. “You did this?” She asked. Looking back and then at him again as he nodded slowly, still waiting for an answer. She stood there for a moment, stunned, and after a blink she jumped into his arms. “Yes! Yes! Yes, I want to go to prom with you!”

He didn’t waste any time in wrapping his hands around her waist and twirling her around, laughing. Kissing her cheek, he set her to her feet and she was watching him with bleary eyes, a pout on her lips. “You did this for me?”

“Technically, my mom did, but yes. Had her call in for me. Did you like it?” He put his hands in the pocket of his bomber jacket, his lips puckered as he tried to conceal a proud smile.

“I love it, so much, Jason I-” She’s left speechless, and she glances up at the animals again, where Janet and the other keep were throwing fish at them. “Thank you.” The tips of her fingers came to cover her mouth, tears of joy threatening to slip.

“Don’t cry, dovie. You weren’t supposed to cry,” he cooed, slipping his hands out again to wipe at the tears that fell down her cheeks.

“Shut up and kiss me,” Leaning up on her tip-toes, y/n abruptly yanked at his jacket, and crushed their lips together.

“There we go! Your mother would love this!” Janet whooped, and her cheers caused the couple to split from each other with red faces, laughs covering their embarrassment.

“Hush up, and let me kiss my girl will ya?” Jason pointed a finger at her and pretended to scowl. “We’re leaving to somewhere where we can smooch in peace!” Nearby people laughed at his jokes.

“Bye, sweetie! Tell your mother I said hello!” She waved goodbye, and returned her attention to the penguins at her feet.

Y/n waved a goodbye along with Jason, yelling a ‘thank you’ as she walked away. Her brain was still trying to process what had happened when they turned the corner and walked into the new exhibit of the darker layers of the ocean. A long, winding hallway where the only light was the glow coming from the bio-luminescence animals in the water.

An influx of serotonin swimming through her veins, squeals leaving her where she noticed where they were.

“The jellyfish!” She left Jason’s side to stand in front of the large glass. An abundant amount of jellyfish bobbed up and around each other at slow, hypnotizing speeds. Glowing, long tentacles swaying in their trail; networks of veiny light streams present in each of them. The blue hue reflecting off of her skin, and onto the pane where it showed her amazed reflection.

“They’re beautiful,” she mumbled. Jason caught up, and stood besides her, his figure also appearing on the glass pane that held the jellyfish. “I could watch them all day.”

His eyes drifted from the jellyfish to her side profile, admiring how ethereal she looked in that moment. Her face was soft with curiosity and wonder. “Me too.”

“You’re not even looking at them.” She gives him a side-eye glance.

“I know.” He turned so his feet pointed to her, and combed his hair back because a few curls were tickling his forehead. “Can’t believe I’m gonna have the prettiest girl as my prom date.”

Y/n’s nostrils flared and she sucked in her lips to suppress a smile. “Stop it.”

“S’true. Everyone’s gonna be so jealous of me.” He sucked in a breath, “Gonna have to hold on to you so no one steals you from me.”

She knows he means every word that leaves his lips. And that the words are meant to tickle her heart with their honesty. While they do so, they also break it. Y/n thinks she’s living a lie. Not her relationship with him, but the way she acts and portrays herself. So much of herself, she kept hidden. It hurt knowing that he was being so genuine, and she wasn’t. It hurt more than knowing he could break up with her if he knew the truth.

So, she decided to come clean. Even though they decided on the end of the day, her conscience wasn’t letting her live.

“Jason, I have something to tell you.” She said, her throat closing up on the second syllable of his name, and crying by the end of her sentence.

The boy brings his palm to her lower back, and moves his thumb up and down comfortingly. “Deep breaths, y/n. I’m listening.”

“That boy?” She tilts her chin so she’s looking at him, and he nods when they make eye contact. “From the cafe? I knew him from a party.” Deep breath. “We were playing truth or-” a sob leaves her, shoulders sagging as her composure breaks.

Jason raises his hand from her back to her shoulder, and steps closer so she’s pressed against his chest. “It’s okay. I’m right here, baby. I’m not leaving you. Take your time.”

It would’ve been a lot more embarrassing if people were passing, but they were the only ones there. Had there been someone, they would’ve seen a terribly emotional y/n and a very concerned Jason.

A creeping feel of panic like the one from that night teased her toes, anxiety of her confession crawling up her spine. But she had to push through. She needed to get this off her chest.

“We were playing truth or dare, and… and I got dared t-to suck him off in front of everyone else,” another hiccup interrupts her words, and she had to stop to take a deep breath like Jason said, giving him an ashamed, fleeting glance. Not long enough to see that his eyes were wide with astonishment, eyebrows furrowed with bubbling rage.

“What?” He said, more on the rhetorical side to encourage her to keep talking. His mind kept jumping back to the guy at the cafe and the way he said ‘there wasn’t anything in your mouth, babe’ with a knowing look in his eyes. How he practically violated her with his eyes. Rage filled him; all he wanted to do was punch the guy in the face.

Anger made itself present in his stunned comment, and y/n took it as a disgusted comment. She jumped to explain herself, “I didn’t want to do it! I swear I didn’t put they started calling me names, a-and I didn’t want them to be upset with me so I-” another collapse of her words, chest rising and falling with desperate breaths. The panis increased, rising up to her chest and gripping like a boa.

Jason knew that she needed reassurance on that moment and said, “Sh, sh Dovie, deep breaths. It’s alright, I know you didn’t, my dove. That’s called peer pressure.”

It was clear that this was something she struggled with for a long time, and it hurt him so much inside that he had so blindly lived in the presence of her pain. Held her, touched her, and never noticed that she was so deeply in pain. The anger in him became a mix of bitter remorse at the fact that he had done nothing to push at her, or present himself in a way that showed she could trust him. He was unaware he was crying too until his own vision became blurry with moisture.

“I left right after he… after he…. Because the other boys started touching me, too. That was when you found me under that tree. Remember?” Shiny doe eyes glimmered with the light that came off the jellyfish at him. They seemed to beg him for forgiveness, for understanding that she was sorry.

“Yes, sweetheart I remember.” Soft fingers crawl up her cheek, caressing like silk at the tears that still fell. Kisses were littered in her temple with strong pressure, a display of his comfort. “Oh, I’m so sorry that you had to go through that, baby. It’s not your fault.”

“I should have said no. I should’ve l-left or something…”

“No. No, y/n this wasn’t your fault. This wasn’t on you. You were under pressure, and they were bullying you as well… Oh my god, baby, this- You don’t want to tell authorities?”

“No! No, no, Jason I can’t l-let anyone find out I did…” Her eyes shut with distaste, “That. Please, don’t tell anyone.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” He nods.

“Do you still want me?” Her cross, and her nails dig into her arms. Y/n bowed her head and sniffled. Jason took note of this, and pried her hands off so she wouldn’t bleed. His heart clenched at the tone of desperation in her voice. It hurt him to even think that he’d leave her so easily, and his words came out more emotionally tainted than he would’ve wanted.

“Y/n look at me.” His hand cupped her cheek, and the other held both of her wrists. She wrapped her hands around his wrists and squeezed him tightly. “I’m not leaving you. Can’t you understand that I love you, baby? I’m not leaving you, not now.”

“God, Jason. I don’t deserve you.” Y/n leans into his touch, sniffling.

“No, dovie. You’ve got that all twisted. It’s me who doesn’t deserve you. You’re so good to me, so kind, and sweet,and I’m so so sorry thing happened to you. But it’s gonna be okay, yeah? We can work through this, I’ll be there by our side. I won’t leave.” The boy followed after her eyes, wanting to maintain eye contact with her, but she was shifty with her gaze. He wanted to be able for her to see-- in his eyes-- that he meant every word.

“I love you.” Y/n jumped into his chest and wrapped her hands around his neck, happy to be free of guilt, and blissfully happy that she had Jason. That he loved her, and she was able to tell him that she loved him.

After a moment of just standing in each other’s arms, head’s buried in each other’s neck with Jason muttering into her ear just how much she meant to him, they stepped back to look at the other, and y/n laughed halfheartedly, wiping at her eyes and underneath her nose. Quiet ‘thank you’s were exchanged and they took one last good look at the jellyfish in silence. Y/n suggested they go home, and Jason said he wanted to stop by the gift shop first. Something about how how he needed a polar bear to hold onto at night.

In reality, he bought her the sea otter she wouldn’t stop petting, and a key chain with the date engraved on it. He didn’t give these to her until they were in front of her house, and he reached into the bag behind her seat.

“These are for you.” He said, placing the stuffy on her lap, and the key chain on her open palm. “A memoir. The first time we said I love you... among other things.”

His tone was serious, mouth set in a grim line, but y/n was smiling.

“I knew something was up when you told me to wait outside. Thank you.” Leaning over the console, they both met each other halfway, and kissed each other goodbye. At the first taste of her lips, he removed his hands from the steering wheel in favor of having them on her face, holding her too him a few seconds longer than she usually would have let herself stay kissing.

“You’re welcome, dovie. I love you.” He said, pecking her lips once more, and then her nose, making her laugh through her nose. “I’ll see you tomorrow, but I’ll call you tonight. Yeah?”

“Yeah. I love you, too.” She opened the door, and waved once more at her boyfriend who smiled at her from inside the car.

Y/n was slightly upset over he fact that he hadn’t gotten out to walk her up the steps, and in any other situation, he would’ve. But out of his eagerness, Jason waited until she was inside, and lifted his hips to get his phone out of his pocket, calling the one person he knew would have his back if he wanted to set things straight.

It rang three times before he picked up.

“Andrew. It’s an emergency. Come over to my house tonight. Don’t let anyone see you leave.”

#IM SUCH A SOFTIE FOR JASON IM SORRY #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles one shot #harry styles smut #harry styles blurbs #harry styles fluff #harry styles fluff oneshot #fratboy harry styles

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tomhardysteeth · 4 years

Note

u wanna say anything for spn ending? Today's their last day of filming

Yeah sure! I love how you worded this ask, it makes me want to give a very serious answer. I’ve been rewatching random episodes the past few days and thinking about how much of my life was shaped by this random lil tv show, both positively and negatively, so here we go.

I started watching Supernatural during my junior year of college, when I was grappling with being gay and religious, and had a pseudo-girlfriend who was emotionally abusive. I remember I started watching the show because I had been on tumblr for a while and thought, well this is a popular show on tumblr and looks like something I’d enjoy, so I might as well try it. I remember barely paying attention to the first season and thinking it was kind of silly, and I distinctly remember making fun of it right up until the season 1 finale when that truck slammed into the Impala and I said oh.

I remember sitting in the dining hall between classes, hiding in a corner with my pink headphones and my laptop, watching one episode after the other, completely consumed by it. My personal life was a mess at the time and I was angry and sad and frustrated, but I could forget about everything for a little while when I watched spn. I remember falling in love with Dean Winchester, season 3, when Sam gave him the amulet.

Because I had already spent a lot of time on tumblr, I knew about Castiel. I couldn’t wait to get to season 4, the anticipation killed me. I didn’t really have a choice in shipping destiel, I literally shipped it before I even watched a single episode of the show lol. My first time watching seasons 4 and 5, I remember how mad I would feel every time the opening credits scrolled at the bottom of the screen and Misha Collins wasn’t listed. I cared about almost nothing but Dean and Cas interacting with each other. I was totally enamored by them, by their potential. At some point I got over that and watched the show because I liked the show, but boy did my heart and brain break for destiel.

I broke up with my abusive girlfriend. I started coming out to more people, including people involved in the Christian campus ministry I was heavily involved in, and it was very very hard. It was 2013. The first episode of Supernatural I watched live was the episode where Dean turns into a fucking dog.

I don’t remember when I started reading fanfic, and I had no idea how to read fanfic. A friend invited me to ao3, what is ao3? I didn’t know. I used my email address as my username. I read Twist and Shout and Pie Without Plot and other very popular fics that I knew about because everybody knew about them. I vividly remember the first fics I read because I was 21 years old and had never had an orgasm in my life and believed sex was sinful and so when the sex scenes in fics turned me on, I felt guilty about it.

I quickly got over that and started writing explicit destiel fanfic.

I still had no idea what I was doing. I know the very first fic I ever wrote was a mess, I’ve completely erased all traces of it, but other than that I began posting with abandon. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written for spn is still on tumblr and/or ao3. I was running a Hannibal blog at the time and started posting more Supernatural content than Hannibal content, so I created a sideblog, @deancasheadcanons, and things very quickly got out of hand after that.

I was depressed, I was confused, I was spending my last couple years of college trying to figure out my sexuality, trying to hold onto a religion that was rejecting who I was becoming, trying to find my identity while picking a career path and being sad and being pulled in a hundred different directions. Sometimes I was working three jobs at once, on top of 17-credit-hour semesters. I was getting a degree in a field I did not care about, and I spent every class reading and writing fanfic, scrolling through tumblr, making internet friends, letting my life be consumed by Supernatural. I projected myself completely onto Dean Winchester and partially onto Castiel and did not even realize it.

I started dressing like Dean, and my sister and brother-in-law noticed and assumed I was gay. They were extremely unsubtle in their attempts at getting me to come out by pointing out the flannel and army jackets, and I did not have it in me to admit to them that I was dressing like a fictional character, but I DID tell them I was bisexual.

I went to therapy every week during my senior year of college, and I was embarrassed about how often I talked about my “internet life,” as I called it. I remember having the arbitrary goal of getting 1,000 kudos on a fanfic, and I remember the day it happened for the first time and I remember going to therapy that week and saying that I didn’t feel any different, that I thought getting attention for my writing would make me feel better, somehow, but I still felt the same, and my therapist asked me if I would still be writing if I was the only one who got anything out of it and I said yes. But I was still obsessed with writing things that were meaningful, and despite the fact that I would receive 10 negative/mean anons per day, I never turned anon off because I desperately wanted people to tell me that my writing meant something to them, that it mattered to them. I was fighting with myself every day over my sexuality and my identity and my purpose, and I put all of that on the shoulders of Dean and Cas.

There was also chubby!dean. I had lived my entire life with this inexplicable thing, this shame that I knew I could not share, that I knew I would just have to suffer with for my whole life, and then I joined the spn fandom and found that there were others like me, others that had a fetish and had similar experiences as I did and were drawn to Dean Winchester because there’s no other character that could make eating and gaining weight be as enticing as he makes it (in fanfic). For the first time in my life I had a community of people that I could relate to about a thing that I never thought I would ever be able to talk about with anyone in my life. I don’t remember if I consciously chose to start posting publicly about it, but at some point I did, and I started writing kink fic, but I was still so uncomfortable with myself and so scared of the things I felt, and I tried so hard to temper myself and not offend anyone and not go “too far” and not be too weird and I was so sexually repressed and pent up and full of guilt and shame, and so now when I go back and reread some of the stuff I wrote it feels like reopening an old wound and letting myself bleed out.

I was constantly comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t getting as much attention as so-and-so, and I always made excuses about how maybe my writing was too weird and I was too much and maybe I just wasn’t good enough and I hated myself and wanted to delete everything I ever wrote, but also I’m awesome and receive a lot of attention and get a lot of good feedback but maybe that means I’m just a narcissist! I acted like an asshole online and justified it by saying it wasn’t really me, that I could be someone totally different on tumblr than the person I was in “real life,” but in hindsight, now when I think back on my early 20s, I cannot separate what I was doing in “real life” from what I was doing in the spn fandom. I shared so much of myself with the spn fandom without even recognizing that that’s what I was doing.

And I made mistakes, god I made mistakes, and I tried to be so careful about everything I said but I was also presenting a certain version of myself to the spn fandom so that people would like me (for instance: running a destiel blog and trying my best to hide the fact that I also ship wincest) and still I got in trouble constantly, and I grew bitter and mean because you can only receive the “when are you posting the next chapter?” comment so many times before you want to bang your head into a wall. I became defensive and unkind, afraid to check my inbox because it was a nightmare, and yet unable to turn off anon because, like I said, I desperately needed that feedback, I needed people to tell me that they felt what I felt, that they understood what I was writing and why I was writing it.

I expected Supernatural to give me everything I needed. I fantasized about Dean Winchester being canonically bisexual because I thought it would confirm something in me, that it would somehow make my life a little bit easier. I didn’t want to watch other shows that could maybe help me, I wanted Supernatural to do things for me that it had never promised and would never deliver, and it’s because I was defined by it for so many years. Now that I’m back on tumblr, I’ve been going back through some of my old posts on deancasheadcanons and it’s like reading a stranger’s words. Even so, I find myself telling people “I was deancasheadcanons” instead of “I ran a sideblog called deancasheadcanons” because it really was such a huge part of my identity. What’s wild is that every time I’ve tried to explain it to someone in real life, they just look at me like I’m not making any sense.

It was easy to stop watching Supernatural. I didn’t have cable, and I had been driving to my dad and stepmom’s house each week and watching it on their tv after they had gone to bed. I was in a new relationship with a woman I nearly married, I was back in school for a new career, I was working full time and absolutely did not have time to continue writing fanfic as prolifically as I had done for so many years. I finally reached a breaking point in 2017 and haven’t watched any new episodes since then (I don’t remember the last episode I saw). But now, as I rewatch some old episodes, it is easy to feel the way I felt the first time I watched the show. It’s easy to see why this campy little heartfelt show was a lifeline during my formative adult years.

So it turns out I have never reckoned with any of this, have never written it down, hence the 2k jumble of words you see here. And it’s like, I know that a lot of this may seem silly, trivial, especially for a show that in itself is not very serious, but as it comes to an end I have to reflect on it as a person who put so much of my heart, my creativity, my pain and my floundering identity into it. I am somewhat embarrassed and wish I could respond to this ask with a joke instead, but we’re in a pandemic and I live alone and have had way too much time to think and reflect and become a lot more self-aware, and part of that reflection has definitely been about my time in the spn fandom. I remember thinking the show was never going to end, yet here we are at the end and I felt compelled to type all this out with a desire to, I don’t know, get some closure? Convince myself that I was a whole person, that I wasn’t just a faceless URL posting destiel fics into the void, that my real life was not at all disparate from the time I spent online? In any case, I’ll always think fondly of the time I devoted to Supernatural, and I’ll take the good and the bad and everything in between. Thanks for the nice ask, anon, apparently I needed to get some things off my chest.

#madd replies #long post #spn for ts #this is 2k words i am sorry lmao #wouldn't it be cool if i had any semblance of chill

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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years

Text

Out Tonight (Part 1)

Part 2 ->

Summary: Barba would never admit to being a RENT geek, but when he gets drunk and no one from the SVU squad is there to see him, he can’t resist the siren call of the karaoke stage. You would never approach a stranger at a bar, but when you hear Barba singing your favorite musical, you gather the courage to ask for a duet.

Rafael Barba x Female Reader

Warning: NSFW, 18+, Dub-con!! Everyone is enthusiastically willing, but also super drunk. So... use your best judgement. (No smut this chapter just some intense kissing)

4,144 words

The thing about Scotch whisky is, it’s a drink meant to be sipped. A.D.A. Rafael Barba drank a Scotch every day, especially after a difficult case. One or two, mulled upon over the course of an hour.

At over 40 percent alcohol by volume, the practical difference between Scotch, the gentleman’s drink favored by lawyers and Wall Street executives, and the tequila swigged by rednecks ripping their shirts off at a dive bar is the speed at which the beverages are consumed.

The thing about being a Scotch drinker is, you’re only ever one particularly bad day and a few extra drams carelessly tipped down the hatch away from getting well and truly shitfaced.

This would never happen to A.D.A. Barba. He had complete control of himself at all times. In the courtroom. In his manner of dress. In his speech. He won cases other prosecutors wouldn’t dare to take on, because he was meticulous. He was relentless. And he never let his guard down.

But on this particular day, nothing was going according to plan. All week, in fact, a case he was certain of had been falling apart piece by piece, slipping through his fingers, until today, a man who made Barba’s stomach sicken walked out of the courtroom a free man.

It was his fault. He got cocky. The victims subjected themselves to retraumatization just to testify on the hope of getting some kind of justice, and it was all for nothing. He let them down. He let the SVU team down. The look on Benson’s face when the foreman delivered the not guilty verdict made Barba want to crawl inside himself.

So he did what he always did on bad days, and went to his favorite bar alone to sit quietly and numb his sorrows over a glass of Macallan.

Except it wasn’t fucking quiet. This was supposed to be a subdued, sophisticated establishment that didn’t draw a big crowd. This was his bar! But for some godawful reason, the new manager had decided—unbeknownst to Barba—to try hosting karaoke night.

Karaoke!

He scowled at the colored stage lights. Glowered at the rambunctious crowds of young people. Seethed at the bad 80’s music and off-key bellowing. He dropped heavily into his usual seat at the bar and exchanged withering looks with the bartender, who slid him his usual drink without needing to be asked. What the hell was happening to his life? Barba began to wonder whether he had anything under control at all, downing the dram in one shot.

As he gasped on the fiery liquid burning down his throat, he gained determination. They were not going to take his bar from him. Not a chance. If these tourists and college kids wanted to have their revelry, they would have to do it with a grumpy old killjoy glowering at them. He ordered another round.

***

An hour and a steep tab later, and Barba was gripping the microphone with sweaty fingers, belting out One Song Glory at the top of his lungs.

He rationalized it as “better bend than break,” but the truth was, he had dreamed of becoming an actor before going to law school to please his mother. His inner theater geek was always waiting to slip out whenever he let his guard down, but since that was never, it was side he rarely indulged. Tonight, his head was spinning, and it didn’t seem like a bad idea.

“One song to redeem this empty life. Time flies—and then no need to endure anymore!”

The wooden bar stool creaked as his weight sank back down on it, and he ordered another drink to question about his life choices. “Will I ever be remembered for anything besides my failures?” he asked the glass. He’d come this far from the poor barrio where he grew up, but every step was a fight. He couldn’t just be good, he had to be better than the privileged WASPs he was competing against. He had to be the best. Every little mistake, every lost trial, could be the end of all he had worked for.

Barba was so busy nursing his latest drink, he almost didn’t notice someone else drunkenly belting a track from RENT. Except, as his head swung up to listen, it wasn’t drunken belting at all. A woman with a low-cut blouse and tight jeans that hugged her curves was singing so seductively, staring right at him. She winked and sweetly begged him to take her out tonight.

No—he was imagining it. He was just drunk, lonely, and pathetic. She was working the crowd, making everyone feel like she was singing just to them. Maybe she was a Broadway performer to have that skill, or at least a master at flirtation. Either way, she was way out of his league. There was no chance she had singled him out.

***

So what if you didn’t know anybody, and it was dangerous to go alone? You were in Manhattan on a Friday night—you were going to go out and have a good time, dammit!

The promise of karaoke drew you into a small but packed bar, and you were a few drinks in when you heard a voice like an angel and a rock-star had a baby singing a song from your favorite musical ever. The voice belonged to a singer wearing old-man suspenders, a pink tie, and a light coating of stubble from not having shaved since morning. He was fashionable, you guessed. Dapper. But it was that expressive voice that mesmerized you. As he sang, your gut was wrenched with the emotional pain woven through each note.

You were smitten. You tried to go talk to him, but the moment the song was over he vanished into the tightly-packed crowd. It was silly. It was far too bold to approach a stranger in the big city, but the warm tipsy feeling in your gut gave you confidence to hatch a plan.

Step one: Locate him from the stage.

Step two: Impress him.

Step three: Bond over mutual love for RENT.

Step four, if you managed to get that far, was a bunch of squiggly question marks and “kiss his face?” hastily scrawled in pencil. It was a long shot, you knew that. You were way too shy, and he was far too handsome not to have a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or a husband. Frankly, even if he were single, he was way out of your league. But still, the nebulous step four could simply be “Have a fun night with your new karaoke buddy,” and that possibility alone made you feel like glitter was exploding inside of you.

When it was your turn to sing, you found him from your elevated vantage—he was sitting far from the stage, at the end of the bar—and tried to catch his eye. You’d been using Out Tonight as your karaoke icebreaker for years, so you’d gotten good at playing up the sexiness, tossing your hair and biting your lip. Your clumsy ass had even picked up a few dance moves to spice it up, and you gave them your booty-shaking all when you saw him look up at you.

You were glad you’d worn the jeans that made your butt look fantastic, and your sexiest, strappiest sandals (which were actually Tevas with a two-inch wedge heel, purchased from an outdoor gear store). He was watching you with fascination as you pouted the lyric, “don’t forsake me,” at him.

It sent a shiver down your spine to think he might really be looking at you that way.

The moment you got off the stage, you were bombarded by guys offering to buy you a drink, asking for your number. It was discouraging that Sexy Suspenders was not among them. Apparently your sexy routine worked, but entirely missed its intended target. Then again, a man like that probably let women come to him.

Ducking and weaving past your suitors like they were physical obstacles and not people, you reached Suspenders. The bar stool next to him was open, held by a briefcase and folded suit jacket. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and his hair was a little mussed. He appeared to be deep in conversation with his empty glass. You took a step forward to approach him, but an anxious constriction in your chest froze you in place.

Who do you think you are?! A gorgeous, sharp-dressed city guy will never even give you the time of day! Your mother’s nagging voice chimed in to warn you not to talk to strange men in bars when you’re out alone, in New York City, no less. You grimaced at your awesome double-dose of anxiety. He would either laugh in your face, or you were about to get murdered. Hooray!

But there was a loneliness in his demeanor that encouraged you he wouldn’t laugh, and up close, you noticed he was so short you could probably pick him up like a little baby chipmunk if things got out of hand. Ignoring how thick his forearms were, of course. But if he crushed you with those, you would die happy.

***

The next singer on stage had started screeching a rendition of Don’t Stop Believin’ with ten drunk buddies, and Barba was squeezing his eyes closed to try to drown them out, so he was caught completely unaware when a tap on his shoulder startled him.

“Is this seat taken?”

His vision blurred. He had to rub his eyes and look twice to be sure he was seeing who he thought he was seeing. “Mimi!” he blurted. “From the—nice, um—no. No one’s sitting here.”

He moved his belongings to the top of the bar, and you sat on the vacated stool, quite pleased with yourself. The bartender immediately handed you a pink icy cocktail with a slice of lime, and pointed his thumb to someone at the other end of the bar who paid for it. Barba followed his gesture to a very cute guy in his twenties and felt a twinge of double-edged jealousy that the most beautiful woman he had ever seen was most likely about to get up and leave him, and that the drink hadn’t been for him, because frankly, he couldn’t blame you. You did get up, but only to crane your neck to find your benefactor. When you did, you gave the world’s dorkiest thumbs up, while conspicuously putting your hand on Barba’s shoulder.

Barba’s lips spread into a smug bastard what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it smirk as he stared down his attractive rival. His head cocked to the side pleasantly. The other man’s flirtatious gaze fell into an annoyed tick. You sighed with relief as he moved away.

Turning back to Barba, you realized your hand was still on his shoulder and quickly removed it. You inhaled and said, “I heard you singing you were amazing do you want to do a duet together? Can we? I love RENT! I’ve always wanted to do Light My Candle—can we do it together?” in one breath.

Your flurried gush of words nearly knocked him off his stool—he put his hands up defensively and sat wide-eyed, nodding slowly as you went full babbling-nerd on him. You may not have been as suave as he initially thought, and oddly enough, he was okay with that. It was disarming, and your enthusiasm was infectious.

Because his instinct to distance himself from anyone he might risk forming a real emotional connection with wasn’t working at the moment, he grabbed you by the shoulders, locked his piercing eyes with yours, and emphatically answered, “Yes. We must!”

***

Having a karaoke partner is essential for Broadway musical numbers, as most of them are duets—two or more characters interacting with each other as the plot of the show advances. Light My Candle was one of your favorite songs, and snagging the mysterious suspendered singer meant you could finally perform it outside your shower.

It was a bouncy back-and-forth duet that was fun to sing, but you forgot how aggressively flirtatious it was until you had to ask him—you hadn’t even asked his name yet—if you had the best ass below 14th street, and about wax dripping between your… um, fingers. But the way he looked at you made seducing him so natural. You just had no idea if it was part of the performance, or if it was real.

When the song was over, you bounced on your toes, clinging to his arm for balance as you tripped on the stairs down from the stage, squealing, “That was so much fun!” He put his hand around your waist to steady you. It felt like it was made to be there.

His face was flushed red and his eyes sparkled with exhilaration, and he quickly agreed to another duet, though he muttered, wiping a light sheen of sweat from his brow, “Thank god no one from the precinct is here.”

Performing together with a partner always makes you feel a connection—even if it’s just drunken karaoke. When you sang one part of a harmony and he picked up the other part, your voices became two halves of a whole. And with musicals, it’s as much about acting as it is singing. He threw so much emotional intensity into the lyrics, which gave you something to respond to, throwing it back at him in fluid conversation as your voice soared above his and dove beneath it again.

You hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, and you had a feeling he hadn’t, either.

Not that you had any way of knowing, really. You guessed it by the ease in which he embodied Roger’s stubborn refusal to open his heart, by the mournful way he lifted his drinks to his lips like he was toasting at a funeral. His expensive leather briefcase and formal attire, too, suggested a well-paid but dreadfully boring line of work, like a financial manager.

Your guess was dead-on, in truth. Barba was vigilant against dating anyone he met professionally. Even if there had been a secretary or paralegal or two he’d had chemistry with, for the sake of his career, he could not afford to conduct himself in a manner that could raise even the hint of a scandal or ethical conflict in the workplace. And anyone he met outside of the workplace… well, he didn’t. His entire life revolved around his job.

The bartender had just brought a fresh round of drinks, and your head rested on your fist, elbow on the bar. Barba was staring deeply into your soul with those pretty green eyes, trying to figure out how he managed to get you and how he could keep you.

“We should do Another Day next,” you grinned.

“Who do you think you are, barging in on me and my guitar!” He sang in a gritty rock voice, poking at your chest accusingly while holding an air microphone with the other. You forgot to be surreptitious and blatantly checked for a wedding ring.

After Roger’s verse, you sang back Mimi’s part, seductively leaning in closer to him. “There’s only us. There’s only this...” As you leaned closer, his eyelids drooped, and his eyes darkened. “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.” The smoky smooth molasses of Scotch was strong on his breath. He studied your face hazily, his eyes drawn down to the movement of your lips. There was no mistaking his attraction for a performance now. You sang softer and softer until your forehead was resting against his, your lips almost touching. Then you just breathed.

“No day but today,” he mulled the lyric and the impulsive circumstances that had led him to being with you in that moment. “I should follow that advice more often.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” you murmured. “Here I am in the city, having fun,” your voice slowed to a crawl as your eyes flicked up and down his face, “...with a perfect, handsome stranger...”

His tongue ran over his lower lip again as his eyes dropped to your mouth and clouded over with some sultry thought.

You’re not sure which one of you moved first, but in the next moment his lips were melting into yours, desperate and passionate. That tempting tongue of his ran along your lower lip now, sliding easily inside as your mouth parted to invite him within, swirling in heated wet circles around yours. It was heavy with the taste of Scotch and the faint bitterness of coffee, as if that were all he’d eaten that day. You curled your fingers into his hair and deepened the kiss, moaning into his mouth, and his broad arms closed around your back and pulled you off your bar stool onto his lap.

His skin was burning hot, and waves of heat coursed up through your body like you were both on fire. Your pulse thundered in your ears until it drowned out the off-key music, and each pounding heartbeat sent a corresponding throb to your cunt. Your eyes closed. All that existed was the messy clashing of your teeth and tongues, the woody-sweet scent of his cologne filling your lungs, the heat of his strong hands on your back, and the bulge of his cock twitching beneath you.

When you finally had to come up for air, and hopped back onto your own bar stool, suddenly self-conscious of how pornographic that nearly was, all he had to say was, “I’ve never done that before.”

You blinked. “You’ve never… kissed someone?”

“Not someone I just met in a bar!” his eyebrows shot up and he sounded so utterly scandalized, your euphoric high from kissing him came crashing down. He saw you as some kind of cheap tramp for kissing him. Pretentious asshole. Suddenly you felt like shit.

You turned your attention to the second round of that fruity cocktail that random guy paid for. It turned out to be a pretty tasty drink, so you ordered another. Maybe you should have given that guy a chance.

“So, are you here by yourself?” Barba asked your profile, not bothering to hide the patronizing concern in his tone.

“Yeah,” you said without looking up.

“Jesus. I thought so. That’s really dangerous, you know.”

“Ugh,” you groaned and pivoted away from him further, leaving him confused. So first he implied you’re a slut, and now he was pulling the whole, the city is full of predators, but I’m a Nice Guy—let me walk you home routine. This is what you get for picking a guy based on how good he sings.

“I did not mean to imply that. I only meant that I’m usually more... careful.” Oh. You must have said all of that out loud. Oops. “But you’re right to be suspicious of my intentions. There are… all kinds”— he breathed the word out in a jaded huff—“of tactics predators will use. Manipulations, brute force, drugs, fake personas… And all they have to do is claim consent and half the time the jury believes it even if the physical evidence is horrifying.” He was getting visibly angry thinking about it, his drink dangerously close to spilling as he clenched his fist around it.

You stared at him. “Um.”

“Oh,” he cleared his throat, “I’m an A.D.A. for Manhattan. Prosecutor. I’m a lawyer,” he clarified when the acronym earned no look of recognition in your eyes. “Lately I’ve been working with the Special Victims Unit, so when I see someone drinking alone late at night, talking to complete strangers,” he gestured at himself. “You have no idea how many sexual assault cases start with this exact scenario.”

“Big-shot lawyer, huh? Sure, now pull the other one.”

“What?” His head cocked at you in utter bewilderment.

“Pull the other… leg. You’re pulling my leg?”

“I know what it means, I’ve just never heard it said by anyone under sixty. Are you secretly an old man?”

Your cheeks burned. “You’re an old man,” you retorted childishly.

His lips folded in on themselves as he tried to keep a straight face. “I don’t know. What can you tell me about the Model T?”

You took a grumpy swig of the fruity strawberry cocktail.

“What was World War II like?”

“So are you really a lawyer, or do you just use that line to pick up chicks?”

“I am, I am!” he laughed. “I can prove it. Let’s see...” he pulled out his phone, brought up a search result for his name, and scrolled through headlines. “DA’s Office Helps NYPD Persecute Immigrant Families,” “Justice at Last for Serial Rapist Victims,” and others rolled across the screen. He narrowed his eyes as his index finger hovered over each one. “Oh, sounds like I’m an idiot in this one,” his mouth twitched into a sardonic smirk, “and I’m a real asshole here… Oh, look, here’s one where I’m the big hero.” He held out his phone so you could see the photo of him in another flashy suit and bold tie, speaking to crowd of reporters in front of the courtroom steps. He looked so sexy in his full three piece suit, and much more severe, his face hard and intelligent. The caption below it praised his victory putting away a notorious rapist, and identified him A.D.A. Rafael Barba.

“Wow. That is you. Who knew I was doing karaoke with such an important guy?” You slung your arm around his shoulders, which were irresponsibly broad and solid. God, being with him felt so right. Casual touches were so comfortable even though you’d just met, and the way he responded, melting under you, sent a wave of heat through your lower back.

He kept flipping through headlines, his brow quirking a little at one, eyes narrowing at the next. Then he saw one that made him stop scrolling. He put the phone down on the bar and scrubbed his hand over his face and hair, blinking back tears suddenly forming. You caught the glowing screen before it automatically locked. The headline was from today. “Local Teacher Found Not Guilty—.”

His head dropped into his arms on the bar. “It was my fault. If I had done something different, been more prepared...” A sad groan emitted from the Barba puddle.

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” you soothed, and rubbed his back sympathetically. “So one guy got acquitted. It happens every day.”

“I know,” he growled. This fact was the opposite of comforting.

“You’re sure he was guilty?”

“He did it. To at least a dozen kids over the last two decades, but no one wanted to testify, or the statute of limitations was up, and then our key witness… There must have been something I could have done, something I didn’t think of. I let him get away with it.” His shoulders heaved as he sobbed into his arms. “I fucked up.”

You kept rubbing circles over his back, whispering soothing words to him. You leaned down and peppered his head with soft kisses. He shifted off the top of the bar and began crying into your chest, his arms wrapping around you like a baby lemur. You held him tight, suddenly understanding that this was the memory he came here to drown. This was why all night you had caught him looking wistful every time the conversation lulled. “I’m sorry,” you murmured. “It’s alright. Shh.”

His arms tightened around your waist, then relaxed, tension melting from his body. “This is nice,” he sighed into your shirt, enjoying being snugly pressed against you, surrounded by warmth. “Thank you… this is nice.” He never let anyone comfort him like this. Never let his need for comfort show under his stoic exterior. If his judgment were functioning properly, it would have struck him as a red flag how easily he sought comfort from a stranger that he wouldn’t have accepted from his closest friends, but it felt good to let it out.

Eventually, he remembered his dignity and sat up, drying his eyes on his sleeve and glancing regretfully at the wet splotch he’d made in your shirt.

“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. He picked up his latest glass of scotch, and swirled its half-empty amber contents before setting it down again. It was possible he had drunk enough.

“It’s OK. You had a bad day.”

His lips tightened at the corners in agreement. “Usually Liv is the only one who tries to cheer me up. So, thanks for…” He closed his eyes and tilted his head. “You’re very nice.”

Your chest fluttered. He was terribly cute, and far too vulnerable for you to be having these lascivious feelings about him.

#Rafael Barba #Rafael Barba x Reader #ada rafael barba #Raúl Esparza #svu fic #female reader #my writing #Headcanoning Barba as good at singing naturally #and is a fan of RENT change my mind #emotional hurt/comfort #sorry about the dubcon everyone but sober Rafa would never sing in public XD

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savnofilter · 4 years

Text

FLF Day 2

𝐀𝐬𝐮𝐢 𝐱 『𝐆𝐍』𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

↬ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ(s): Thalassophobia — Fear of deep/dark water. party planning gone wrong.

↬ ᴄʀᴇᴅs: x, x.

↬ ʀᴍ: february love fest

↬ ᴀ/ɴ: i need to stop posting mad late hhh- LOL so like my information about frogs maybe wrong in this because i couldnt have been bothered to fact check it,,, aNYways if there is anything wrong with the phobia part (or frog part vknfj) that needs to be fixed, lmk ASAP! we’re here for a good time, not a bad one. this one isnt angsty like the other one but i hope it still does it justice. <3

Asui had planned a birthday get-together for you and your friends to celebrate your most recent birthday.

she had spent days coordinating it, double-checking people could attend, and even had a cake specially made for the joyous occasion.

for her, we all know how natural it is for her to enjoy spots like this. places with enough sunlight exposure, the warm sand, AND a nice cool/scenic ocean? this was literally heaven (couldn't beat ponds tho).

she didn’t think or fathom the idea that anyone could have a fear for it so the party was brainless, easy, fun.

“You’ll see — ribbit.” Tsuyu smiled as she tapped the passenger seat for you to climb in on.

You were skeptical, climbing in anyways for your beloved girlfriend. You didn’t know what to think when she had told you to wear something light, prepared for anything. You trusted Asui with your life so you were at least sure she wouldn’t do anything with the intent of hurting you.

intentionally.

you were without a doubt excited before you had arrived at your destination. your mouth dried up and you couldn’t help but feel the twists and knots start to form in your stomach. you clutched at the bag as you started to bite your lip, your overall demeanor changing.

your girlfriend glanced over to look at you, softly frowning at your anxious posture.

“Is something wrong?” You perked up at the question, quickly trying to change your look. You pulled a bright smile and nervously laughed, hand resting on the back of your neck.

“I’m-I’m just fine! Do I look fine?” You ask nervously, your unsteady facial expression showing off your true feelings.

“...No”

“Oh”

it gets quiet in the Jeep wrangler, the gentle sounds of cars passing by and nature consumed your hearing for a few moments. sadly it had grown awkward. you shifted to talk before she takes the mic from you.

“I just-”

“Is there-”

“...”

almost as if you both were in sync, you apologized and paused once again. you couldn’t help but laugh at how silly it was, a snicker starting from you and a training effect of laughter coming from her. arguably, sometimes it was awkward between you both with her blunt but meek nature and this often happened.

“You go first.” Tsuyu encourages, unbuckling her seatbelt and shifting so she could have her full attention on you.

oh. you had forgotten the reason why it had become awkward in the first place.

“I um…” You mumble, twiddling with your fingers as you unbuckled yourself as well, eyes checking back at her as you spoke. “I’m afraid of water. Like — really deep water. Ocean deep water.”

she listened to you talk and nodded her head in understanding. her bottom lip pouted, looking down as she realized.

“I’m so sorry Y/N — ribbit — I didn’t even think to ask you if you liked the beach or not.” Tsuyu frowns, hands coming up to clasp yours as she starts to think of something else. “Do you want to go somewhere else? I can cancel the trip.”

“No no, it’s okay! I’m okay.” You smile sheepishly. You flinch once she glares at you, her eyes stern.

“N/N…”

“Tsu…”

She sighs, shaking her head. “You know I don’t want to make you do something you’re uncomfortable with.

You nod sternly. You squeeze her hands and bring up the back of her hands for a kiss.

“I-I promise I’m fine! I just can’t get too close or deep… or I’ll faint.” You shift your eyes away, mumbling the last part.

“We’ll move the party.”

“No!”

“Yes. For your own good — ribbit.” She grabs her phone and starts tapping away. You sigh feeling guilty but this was to be expected. She was the type to not even have a chance of something going bad if it could be avoided. “We’ll just have to celebrate at our house.”

You felt bubbly at her persistence, smiling a bit before leaning over to kiss her cheek and buckling in as well once she was ready.

“I love you~” You teased.

She doesn’t say anything but give you a playful look back, softly blushing but trying to keep it at bay.

“I love you too.”

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aelaer · 4 years

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Re: Blood in Your Veins

Hey so uh.

As anyone who’s been following me for a while knows, I started the serial “The Blood In Your Veins” about this time last year (it used to be ‘my veins’ but retitled it on its move to AO3 because execution of prompt had changed a bit over writing). It’s a prompt that I couldn’t stop thinking about and just dabbled in slowly to see where it went. Then 2020 fully hit and my writing came to almost a complete stop until about October, which is when I began again on Illuminating the Shadows, which was finished and posted in December.

Anyway, I’ve been poking and prodding fairly continuously at The Blood in Your Veins. The first four parts that I posted originally here on tumblr are now all on AO3, and once part 5′s up I’ll link it here and link everyone who wanted alerts to the updates then so they can see the new part. Then all future parts will be linked here as well.

(Cut because why the *hell* did I write this much about this?)

I’ve been slow in posting because I, against better judgement but why not, decided to post it as a WIP. But that means I keep on making edits to older parts because I think of something new that should be addressed earlier in the story. Like uh, when I was writing part 9, I realized I needed to go back to part 5 and add an addendum. When I was writing part 12, I realized I totally forgot a part that I ended up adding in part 8, because I needed it for a future connection. This happens all the time in my writing and makes posting WIPs almost dangerous because my thinking is rarely linear if the story takes place over a course of more than a couple days. Thus the very slow posting.

So this silly little prompt thing that I was just prodding and poking at to see where it went? The farking doc passed 50k words tonight. Yup.

Granted, like 10k of that is probably outlining, personal notes, and A/Ns filled to the brim with meta, medical science, fake science, and technical/computer engineering because I love talking about it and giving people info to access easily for their own knowledge. I figure I can’t be the only one who finds this stuff super fascinating and fanfic makes it unique in that it’s not a book where the research is irrelevant, you can show off all the interesting stuff right here and talk about it with people! I love that about fanfic, so much. Sometimes the A/Ns are just as interesting as the story in some stories.

So it’s gonna be a bit slow for however long, but I finished 11 parts (with 10 betaed), have the 12th largely written out (though I’m not 100% sure about it yet so I want to poke at it more), and parts uh, 13 to 17ish outlined. But considering I was like “yeah this is 8 parts at most” like, at the beginning of this, that number is bound to change because characters keep saying things and doing things (including the supporting OCs, who are demanding to be fully fleshed out within the bounds of supporting character roles).

And yeah, this is just a ramble of what I’ve been mostly doing as I haven’t been super active on tumblr this month as this has consumed most of my free time. I haven’t read a lot of works either, and once this is completed I hope to remedy that, before I go into my next two big projects (which were meant to be what I was working on *now*, but then this took over and what will you do. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to complete three novel-length fics in the course of the year, but I’ll see what I can do. I really want to tell these stories).

Uh, this was really long. Sorry, I’m super verbose and don’t know how to be like, succinct. My old boss, two bosses ago now, used to quote Twain about brevity being a sign of wit, but if it is, call me 100% unwitty because I like to ramble. And then I always feel a little bit guilty for writing *so much* about my bullshit, so I feel like if you read this far, you 100% deserve to read a preview of an upcoming section. Especially since you pressed the Read More button! So here you go, thanks for reading my rambles. This is a section from the longest part so far, part 8. It’s a long little bit!

---

"How high's the toxicity now?" Tony asked as he stepped off the scale.

"Yesterday's blood sample came back at 0.45 milligrams per kilogram of your weight," Stephen replied. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

Tony offered his arm for the blood draw. "And if 3 milligrams is the magic number for fatality, that'd put my current blood toxicity at 15%."

Stephen inserted the needle at the crook of Tony's elbow and watched the tube fill up. "That's not quite how it works."

"It makes sense to me."

"That's still not how it works." He removed the needle and capped the tube, and as he put everything away, explained, "Saying that your blood toxicity is at 15% implies that you're talking about the whole volume of blood in your body. You're probably at about 5,500 milliliters with your weight, and with the density of blood equaling about 1.06 grams per milliliter, it is like you're saying—"

"That 874.5 grams of my blood is toxic, yeah, yeah, I know," Tony interrupted. By now he was setting up the table for their breakfast.

"I was getting there."

"You were going too slow," he shot back easily. Stephen gave the engineer a look at the comment, but Tony ignored it. "Yeah, I know it's not my whole body's blood volume. Obviously. But putting a percentage on how long until I reach the point that I'm dead makes sense to me. I'm not measuring the whole volume of my blood, I'm measuring how much more can I handle until I'm dead."

Stephen shot him a frown. "It doesn't make sense to call it 'blood toxicity' then."

"Maybe not to you, but it does to me. And I'd design such a measuring tool for me."

The statement caught him off guard. "Design?" He finished packing up the kit and joined Tony at the table.

"Well, if I wasn't stuck in here, I'd design something to automatically read a blood sample, like how glucose meters read blood sugar levels. Wouldn't be hard to engineer something like that. And I'd have it give me the amount of toxicity as a percentage relating to how far along it was until the amount was lethal. Sure, I could memorize the numbers, but the percentage would be more concrete in my head."

Stephen smeared butter over a piece of bread as he listened. He shook his head at the end of Tony's explanation. "Wouldn't work for the consumer market; there's too much room for interpretation as to what the percentage means."

Tony huffed. "Well, like I said, it'd be for me. Not the consumer market."

His brow furrowed. "You're telling me that you can make a blood test as simple as the one used for testing blood sugar levels for something as rare as palladium poisoning?"

He narrowed his eyes. "... yes…"

"You can make it portable like the glucose meters?"

"Yeah, of course."

"And affordable to most hospitals?"

Tony looked up in thought. "I don't usually factor in the costs of materials and manufacturing in personal projects, and others do the number crunching to see if my ideas are viable for production in company projects. If they aren't, but I really want them to be, I'll tinker a bit more, sure."

Stephen couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do you realize the amount of money you could save for both hospitals and patients across the country with such technology? Specialized blood tests—like for many metal poisonings, for instance—aren't offered at every hospital. It may not be available even in every state. Those types of lab results can take weeks to get back to a doctor and the patient. And you're saying that you can not only potentially create this type of technology, but that you may be able to make it affordable if you really want them to be?"

"Well yeah, sure. I've done it a few times with other things. I could probably do that with a blood meter thing. I doubt the tech's that complicated."

His mouth was partially hanging open, Stephen realized this, but he couldn't bother at the moment. He was flabbergasted. The first thought that came to mind went to his mouth, unfiltered. "And you spent the last two decades building weapons."

"Don't." The word was sharp and filled with an overabundance of emotion.

Stephen fell silent. He crossed a boundary he had yet to see before now, and he was not so callous as to push against it. Instead he turned to his meal and focused on eating. He avoided looking at the other man.

A couple minutes later, Tony spoke again. It was low, pensive. Thoughtful. "There was a good reason I shut down weapons manufacturing after I got back from Afghanistan, you know. If the department ever comes back, it will be with major restrictions and modifications. Likely more defensive than offensive. More shields, less missiles. But in the meantime I've been restructuring. Expanded in commercial aerospace and industry. We entered the energy market properly. Consumer products is coming soon—end of the year, probably." A pause. "Don't see why we can't look into medical tech, either. Certainly wouldn't hurt to try."

He could only nod and say, "It certainly wouldn't."

#my writing #my wips #fic snippet #stephen strange #tony stark #also why do my fics spiral out of control like this #i mean really

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mollymauk-teafleak · 4 years

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baby, you’re like lightning in a bottle (chapter four)

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4

Huge thanks to my beta readers, @spiky-lesbian and @minky-for-short! And a massive thanks for all your patience in me getting this chapter up, turns out teaching during a pandemic is uh time consuming

Please reblog and leave a comment on Ao3 if you’d like to support me!

--------

Peter sat and looked at the cursor blinking on the comms screen. It’s incessant, rapid blinking seemed to line up with his own guilty heartbeat.

His report had been due for half an hour. Another hour and Mag would terminate the entire mission, assuming he’d been compromised and their goal, their planet’s freedom, would be set back who knew how long. Peter knew that and still, he was sitting here, with no idea what to write.

He even came back to the apartment five minutes after the report should have been sent off though he hadn’t even realised until he was sitting on his cot, looking at the screen. Five minutes, five whole minutes, more time than he’d ever allowed himself to make such a mistake in his entire life. Five minutes that, a day ago, would have had him cursing himself for a failure. Not fit to walk in his father’s footsteps.

But tonight, he had just sat there and stared at the blinking display, feeling nothing. And now, with more precious seconds ticking away, he still hadn’t the first clue how he was going to explain himself. He just sat cross legged, feeling numb in the fingertips as the realisation sunk in that he’d left part of himself behind without even knowing it.

It would be so easy to blame Juno Steel. After school, he’d invited Peter to come along with them to the park, just to hang out, that was all, but the fact that it had been him doing the inviting rather than his brother had pulled the yes out of Peter’s mouth before any more sensible part of his brain could interject. It would be easy to blame him for how long he’d stayed too, far past what he’d originally intended. Because every time Peter had thought he should be making excuses, Juno had seemed to choose that moment to smile at him, or challenge him to climb the next tree, or take a drag on his cigarette and exhale long and low in that way that fascinated Peter so much. There had always been the way his eyes looked in the quickly gathering sunset, the way he leaned back against the tree trunks when they’d all made camp in the field that sat at the centre of Halcyon Park, his rasping, barking laugh when Ben would do or say something funny or Mick would be oblivious about something obvious. There had always been another reason to stay, another thing that had led to this hole in who he’d thought he’d been. A hole that was five minutes wide and had rendered him numb.

It would be so easy to blame Juno for tonight and every other day where Peter had been feeling this way, forgetting why he was here and forgetting his mission. But he knew the blame was on him.

Because he was the one who was falling in love.

Those words didn’t sit easily in his mind but there was no denying the truth of them now they were there. With changing his face, his name, his life so often, Peter always tried to know himself completely, mostly out of fear that he’d eventually lose what was really Peter Nureyev if he didn’t. And he knew that he was in love with Juno Steel.

As inconvenient as that was.

He would choose Brahma. Of course he would. He’d worked far too hard, suffered and lost far too much to let something like this derail him. What was this compared to what his father had died for, what Mag had been sacrificing?

What has his own silly heart compared to all that?

With that decided, Peter tapped out his report, going into a kind of autopilot as he gripped the guilty feeling with both hands and made himself feel it’s low, shameful burn, like grabbing barbed wire. Mission proceeding. Target will be accessible beginning next week. Holding steady until then. Apologies for the delay.

As if to hammer home how foolish he’d been, Mag’s reply came almost instantly, barely a minute after his own had disappeared from the screen to be scrambled, broken, reassembled hundreds of times over in the expanse of space so it couldn’t be traced.

Don’t scare me like that again. Look after yourself.

Peter winced and stuffed the comms back into his bag, turning onto his side to face the wall. Two more days. Then he could do his job, go back to Brahma with his broken heart in his chest and remember who he was.

And hopefully he would have at least learned something.

Peter tried to keep himself at a distance over the next two days which smacked of far too little far too late but at least he could tell his guilty heart that he was doing something. He didn’t participate in conversation as much as he had, he professed to having a lot of homework when they asked him to hang out with them after school, he told himself that the disappointment he saw hidden behind their expressions didn’t bother him.

But it was the change in Juno that made it almost too difficult to bear. Peter had never really felt anything like this before, let alone having it reciprocated so he didn’t know how much he was just flattering himself or letting his brain run away with its own fantasies. But there did seem to be something different in how Juno was when Peter was around.

He was still grumpy and surly, apparently that was his natural state of being, but he certainly wasn’t outwardly hostile since Peter had broken a nose for him. They were certainly friends now; he was part of The Oldtown Gang, as Mick seemed determined to dub them despite everyone in said gang refusing to go along with him. Juno sat next to him when they spent lunchtimes at their camp, he’d ask him if he needed any help in the classes that were supposed to be new to Ransom. Sometimes it felt like he didn’t really need to be sitting quite so close to Peter as they’d sit in their circle and trade jokes and insults back and forth. Sometimes Peter felt like Juno’s eyes were on him, like he was studying his face for something, but when Peter would look, Juno would just be staring at his class notes. Some smiles that Peter caught felt like maybe they’d been meant just for him.

But Peter told himself he was being a fool. Well, even more of a fool than he already was being by falling for Juno in the first place. But to imagine that he could actually be feeling anything similar was just a form of self torture. Even if there was a chance anything more than one sided could grow between them, wouldn’t he rather not know? It was already going to hurt enough as it was.

So Peter retreated inside himself a little, going through the motions of a normal day, barely paying attention as they lazed around in their makeshift hammocks and Ben talked excitedly about the overnight field trip they were apparently going on to Olympus City. At least until he felt everyone else’s eyes on him.

“Sorry, what?” he blinked, blushing a little under the look Ben was giving him, something knowing in it putting him on guard.

“I said it’s just going to be you and Juno over the weekend,” Benten hummed, swinging his legs, outwardly innocent but the teasing note was still in his voice, “You’ll have to promise to keep my brother out of trouble.”

“You’re not going?” Peter looked to Juno, who was giving his twin a warning look.

“Didn’t feel like spending more time than I had to with the assholes we call classmates,” he answered shortly, in the kind of way that suggested there had been another reason that he certainly wasn’t about to give up.

Peter didn’t need too much of his observation skills, after so long being friends with the Steel twins and knowing enough about the average situation of Hyperion High students, to guess that there had only been enough in their family’s funds to send one of them on the trip and that Juno had feigned disinterest so Benten could have it. He wondered how many times it had come down to that, how much Juno pretended not to care so his brother could afford to.

“Maybe you two could go to the movies or something,” Sasha said placidly, earning herself a scandalised ‘whose side are you on?’ glare from Juno, “Peter’s hardly seen any of Hyperion. And what he has seen isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement of the place.”

“If you can find me something that is, I’d love to hear it,” Juno scowled.

“Aw but sneaking into the movies is so fun! And Peter would be so good at it, they’d never catch him,” Mick agreed, prompting Ben to rest his head against his shoulder and regard Juno with a poorly concealed smugness.

“I’ve never been to the movies…” Peter said quietly, before mentally kicking himself. Do you want to be crying your way back to Brahma on Monday night?

Juno’s scowl deepened and his cheeks flushed, voice rising more than it needed to, “Look, I have plans with someone, alright? I’m busy. So maybe stop sticking your noses in for five seconds?”

There was an awkward silence as he sank back in his seat. Mick and Sasha sent quick pitying looks in Peter's direction, who pretended he didn’t see them as he stared at his hands like all of this wasn’t happening around him. He didn’t care. Why should he care? Benzaiten shrugged like that was the end of it but he was giving Juno a look that was impossible to read.

And Juno just looked everywhere but at Peter.

“Anyone catch the game last night?” Mick put in after a few agonising moments, his affable obliviousness always good for bulling past awkward situations, “‘Cos I didn’t, I realised ten minutes before the end that I was watching football rather than baseball, I was hoping one of you guys got the score…”

“Mick, it’s a completely different shape of ball, how the hell did you manage that…”

“Leave him alone, it’s hard to tell from a distance, right babe?”

First rule of thieving, Peter thought miserably, sinking deeper into himself while his friends continued on around him, bad decisions will always come back and bite you in the ass. So when one does, know you deserve it.

Peter sat in the middle of the bare, empty apartment and organised his roll of lock picking tools. Doing that always calmed him down and it had been a dull, frustrating Saturday otherwise. Just hours and hours of going through the same plans and schematics he’d memorised months ago, showing his path from the fence to one of the first story windows to the principal’s office to the server room to an entirely different window. In and out inside of fifteen minutes, enter with a flash drive full of malware, leave with it full of proof that New Kinshasa and a number of other corrupt outer world governments were laundering money through Martian construction contracts just like the one that had built this school. He’d done far more complex heists than this but with such lower stakes.

And with his back up slightly closer than across the galaxy.

First rule of thieving, there is no room for nervousness, if you can find some room then you should fill it with more planning.

With the outside world grey, cold and full of thin SimRain, there was little else to do. His takeout dinner arriving had been the only highlight in his day and now an equally dull night had settled in.

So he took out the thin silver lockpicks from their sewn in pockets and cleaned them fastidiously, one by one, making sure each type was in it’s exact place. They were a little bit of a novelty, in this age of bioprinting and retina scanners, but they were still called for on occasion and Mag had drilled it into him that no self respecting thief would be caught without the classics on hand. And besides, their comfortable, familiar weight strapped to his chest was reassuring. Like he could never fail as long as he had them close, precisely placed and polished until they shone.

The knock at the door was so unexpected, so sudden, that he slopped his cup of tea on the carpet, a few dark brown stains soaking in. Good thing he wouldn’t be trying to collect any security deposit.

He slid the plasma knife out of its sheath, pressing himself against the door with a cold, almost serene focus. He wasn’t expecting any visitors, his food had arrived hours ago. Which meant either the person outside his apartment right now was an innocent, mistaken bystander and would go after a few minutes of silence.

Or they weren’t. And more than tea would be getting spilled.

The knock came again and Peter tensed, his grip on the knife tightening. Had he made a mistake? Had one of his reports been traced despite their precautions? Had they found a flaw in his fake records? Either way, his breathing stayed shallow and steady as the seconds ticked by.

Another knock. And then a voice, rough and tired and very familiar.

“Ransom? You in there? Damn it, I was sure this was the right number…”

The knife disappeared quickly, “Juno?”

“Oh! Hi...um, hi Ransom...sorry, Ben gave me your address. Can I come in?”

Peter looked around his apartment, wincing. Explaining its state was going to be uncomfortable, it couldn’t look more like the hideout of a sleeper agent than if he’d hung a sign to that effect. But Juno sounded so lost…

He did what he could in the space of two seconds, emptying out his neatly packed suitcase and spreading the clothes around like he imagined most teenage boys did, hiding the papers under a half heartedly done homework sheet. The pile of unwashed mugs in the sink and takeout containers he hadn’t gotten around to throwing away yet helped.

“Yeah,” he called then, only just remembering to kick his tool roll out of sight, “Come in.”

Juno had a face to match his tone of voice. There were dark shadows under his eyes that had nothing to do with any eyeshadow, in fact he wasn’t wearing a smudge of makeup on him for the first time Peter had known. He wasn’t dressed in his usual way either, in an oversized t-shirt and pyjama pants with a loud cartoon pattern, the same little robot figure from the first shirt he’d seen him in. He just looked exhausted, wrung out and worn down, his lips turned down at the ends. He looked like someone who needed some comfort.

“Is...is everything okay?” Peter tried not to make Juno’s distress sound as obvious as it was.

It hadn’t been enough, Juno’s eyes were dark with shame as he stared down at his own sneakered feet and Peter’s slippered ones, “Look, I’m sorry I’m showing up like this. It’s not okay, especially since I...um...anyway, I’m sorry.”

Peter swallowed, “It’s okay. What’s wrong?”

“I had a big fight with Ma,” Juno admitted, a tremor running through his voice, “She...she kicked me out. And with everyone out of town, I don’t have anywhere else to go. You’ve got every right to tell me to fuck off but...can I stay here?”

Juno and Benten had never said much about their mother. All Peter had been able to surmise, from his observations, was that she was their only parent and there was a huge weight around both twin’s necks because of her. He hadn’t pressed on the nature of it, he had no right to, and it wasn’t going to be any different than it was for so many kids in Oldtown. And more than a fair few on Brahma.

“Of course, Juno,” Peter said gently, stepping to one side, “Of course, stay as long as you need to.”

Juno mumbled a thanks as he stepped past him. If he found the lack of couch, stream screen, any kitchen appliances aside from a kettle or sign that this place was lived in at all strange, then clearly he felt he owed Peter enough not to say anything.

“Want some tea?” Peter asked, relocking the door, “I already ate but we could go get you something…”

“No, it’s okay,” Juno said quickly, “I’m asking enough of you as it is.”

Peter sat on his cot and sighed, “Juno, you’re my friend. I’m not going to hold every nicety over your head and present you with a receipt when you leave. I want to help you so just...let me?”

After a pause, Juno chuckled, the sound rough and raw in his throat but it was real. He slumped down on the floor next to the cot, leaning back against it so his head rested close to Peter’s knee, and sighed heavily.

“You know, there’s three people on the whole planet who don’t take my bullshit. My ma, my brother and you. But you’re the only person I like hearing it from.”

Peter smiled, though the pace of his heartbeat had increased a little. Juno was so close he could smell the shampoo in his curls from the shower he must have been having that evening.

“Benzaiten did ask me to keep you out of trouble. Checking your bullshit falls under that, I think.”

Something in Juno’s expression grew thin and the exhaustion showed through from underneath. There was enough of a pause that Peter wasn’t sure he was going to speak but then he did.

“It’s never as bad when Ben’s there. Me and her, I mean. It’s like he’s a buffer, stops things getting so nasty. He shouldn’t have to do it, I hate that he’s had to, but… it’s damn effective. With him gone, things just...they got out of hand so fast.”

Peter nodded slowly. He and Mag had their fair share of blow out arguments too, not that it had ever escalated to him being kicked out. Mag would never do that, he knew what having no roof over his head would mean to his protege, but he certainly knew what it was like to have said things you didn’t know could come from your mouth in the heat of the moment.

“Has she done this before? Put you out?”

“Yeah...sometimes with a reason. Sometimes not.”

“There’s never a good reason to do that,” Peter’s voice was more leaden than he’d intended but it was the voice of someone who’d been a child, promised protection by the world, but left out in the cold, “She’s an adult and you aren’t.”

Juno looked at him, clearly curious but he let it go after a moment, picking at his own wound instead, “If I’m not back in her good books by Monday, it’ll be a whole thing with Ben, he’ll feel bad about going…”

“You do this a lot for him, don’t you?” Peter asked softly, “Protect him. Pretend to not care about things so he can afford to.”

Juno shrugged heavily, gnawing on one fingernail covered in chipped polish, “What else am I good for?”

There was so much Peter could have said in that moment, answers that came rushing up to the tip of his tongue, some that surprised even him. But they’d start a conversation he really didn’t want to have, with Juno and with himself. So instead he just murmured, “Lots of things.”

Juno looked at him, something genuinely fearful in his eyes, like he knew exactly what Peter was holding back.

“Um...I think I will have some tea. If it’s still alright with you. Damn cold outside.”

“Of course!” Peter scrambled up and practically fled to the kitchen. It was hard to say which boy was the more relieved.

Peter could cope without a lot of amenities when he went out on jobs. First rule of thieving, never care about more than what you can carry in your pockets. But the first thing he’d bought when he’d gone on one of his short, necessity driven runs to the grocery store (a different one every time of course and dodging the cameras so he couldn’t be traced) was a box of good, high quality tea. He didn’t like coffee much, hated the tremble it put in his hands that could cost him his life in some circumstances, but he’d gotten a taste for tea very early on in his time with Mag. In fact, it had been the first thing his mentor had done, when he’d brought the scrawny, skittish, terrified young boy back to his home. He’d put a steaming, sugar laced mug in his hands that it had made it so much easier to believe him when he’d said everything was going to be alright.

He couldn’t give Juno much to ease his pain right now but there was some pride to be found in gladly giving him one of his few little parcels of sweet smelling, caffeine laced comfort. That much he could do.

Juno thanked him, hugging the mug close to his chest and pulling his knees in. Nureyev sat back on the cot, folding his legs underneath him and pulling the blanket over his knees. It was getting cold, he’d been right about that.

After a few moments and a few sips, Juno sighed and said without much surprise, “You don’t have a dad, do you, Ransom?”

Immediately, his shoulders tensed, well aware that he had absolutely no evidence to refute that accusation. And absolutely no back up explanation to speak of.

“Well…” he began awkwardly, very unused to having no way out of a situation.

“It’s okay,” Juno chuckled dryly, taking another drink, “I pretty much figured you were taking care of yourself over here.”

Peter swallowed hard, hand itching around the knuckles. The plasma knife he’d hurriedly shoved back in the holster suddenly felt very heavy, not that he was even going to consider that. He was also not going to think about what Mag would do, what he would urge Peter to do, what rules he would use to make Juno’s life seem a small price to pay for the mission. The same rules he’d saved himself with.

“Honestly, it’s impressive.”

Peter froze, “I...what?”

Juno’s cheeks seemed to colour a little and he could have been smiling into his cup as he sipped, “You’re here trying to make something of yourself. Trying to get an education and switch up the shitty hand you got dealt. Granted, you picked a terrible place to do it but...you’re trying. And that’s more than I’ve ever seen anyone do.”

“Trying…” Peter tried to keep his voice steady, “Yes. I’ve often thought that’s all a person can do.”

Juno nodded slowly, leaning back. His head was now leaning against Peter’s knee, enough that he could feel the damp of his hair, the comforting weight of him. He seemed so relaxed, so casual about it all, but Peter felt as if electrical shocks were sparking between them. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so close to someone, had someone touch him in such a friendly way, such simple, easy contact. Only since he’d come to Mars. Only since he’d met Juno.

For some reason, he felt absurdly guilty. He should be relieved, his disguise had survived even under Juno’s scrutiny who, Peter was beginning to think, was one of the most annoyingly observant people he’d ever met. But in his stomach was just a yawning hollow, a sad kind of emptiness. Like he’d have actually been relieved if Juno had looked him straight in the eye and seen who he really was.

Like he was tired of lying to him.

“Hey,” Juno grunted, his voice sounding further away than it had, “There’s another party on Monday night when everyone’s back. You’re coming, right?”

Peter’s throat tightened. On Monday night, he’d be going back to Brahma, back under the glare of the lasers, back in the fight. Ransom would be gone, a few lines of information that winked out of existence as if they had never been, more than dead. That was the plan.

“Yeah,” he nodded, hand moving over to lightly stroke through Juno’s curls. He’d seen Ben do that on a few occasions and it seemed to comfort him, “That sounds good.”

Juno seemed to tense a little under the touch though only for an instant, as if he hadn’t expected it. But then it was gone and he was leaning into Peter’s hand gratefully, like it was everything he’d needed in that moment. His hair was so soft, winding through his fingers in tight curls that opened for him, parted like waves. The world shrank down to just the points where Peter’s skin met Juno’s, like that simple contact was all that held the universe in one piece. He didn’t feel the weight of a planet’s survival on his shoulders, he didn’t feel like a revolutionary before he’d even had the chance to feel like a person, he didn’t feel the questions he couldn’t ask like bitter metal resting on his tongue.

In that moment, this was all he had to do. He had to be there for someone else, just one other scared, sad kid like him.

“Thanks for letting me in, Ransom,” Juno murmured softly, his voice a contented rumble in his chest.

“I’d rather you call me Peter,” he replied, after a pause where he begged himself not to.

“Hm? Oh, sure. No problem, Peter.”

It wasn’t the name he wanted to hear from Juno’s lips but it was close enough. It wasn’t a lie, at least.

“You should sleep now,” he murmured, before his throat closed too tight to mask, “It’s late and you’ve had a long night.”

“Oh I can just stay down here,” Juno said quickly, opening one golden brown eye. Clearly he was seeing that there weren’t many other options. No couch, no chair, not even so much as a rug.

Just Peter’s cot, the one he was currently sat on. Well, if I’m destroying myself, I may as well do a thorough job.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he rolled his eyes like it was no big deal, holding out a hand to him, “Climb up.”

Juno blinked then shrugged, allowing himself to be tugged onto the hellishly uncomfortable little camping bed. It took a lot of awkward maneuvering to get both of them settled, there was barely enough room for one person, let alone two. By the time it was all done, they were nose to nose, limbs in a tangle.

Juno was the first to break, snorting, “God, I’m sorry, I feel like I’ve skipped about seven friendship levels…”

“Well, I did break someone’s nose for you,” Peter grunted, trying to shift so Juno’s knee was no longer pressing against his stomach, “Surely that grants me some higher access. Just pretend I’m one of the people you’re courting…”

Juno stared at him for a moment before breaking into helpless barks of laughter that threatened to upend their precarious little arrangement.

“What?” Peter demanded, flushing pink.

“Sorry, sorry, it's just...god, courting. I don’t think I’ve ever courted anyone in my damn life. Probably no one has since, like, the 1800s or whatever…” Juno cackled.

“I’ve changed my mind. You can go back on the floor.”

“Nuh uh!” Juno suddenly wrapped both his arms around Peter’s middle, holding them fast, “No take backs now!”

Peter was so glad he had something to blame the colour of his cheeks on, especially when Juno managed to get a hold of himself and chuckled, “God, you’re so cute…”

“Shut up and go to sleep,” he muttered quickly, trying to sound annoyed.

Juno did, apparently thinking it more comfortable to just stay with his arms around Peter, resting his head on his stomach. They were still for a few moments as their breath slowed and evened out, as the exhaustion clearly caught up with Juno as he realised he truly did have somewhere he could rest and know he was safe.

With whatever consciousness he had left, he mumbled, “I mean it, Peter. I really needed a friend tonight and you came through. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Peter whispered back but Juno was asleep before he was halfway through, his body getting heavier as his muscles relaxed and he gave himself over.

All we can do is try.

It wasn’t a rule but in that moment, as he lay in the darkness and listened to Juno Steel snore softly, it made more sense to Peter than anything he’d ever been told.

Before he could think, before he could realise what he was doing, he dug his comms out of his pocket and tapped out a message to the only number he’d ever used on this thing.

Plans have to be delayed. Security concerns. Tuesday instead. Apologies.

He sent it quickly, watching the text disappear, leaving him with a dark reflection of his own face on the empty screen. What have you done?

Before any reply could come through, he tossed the comms to the floor, rolling over as much as he could, enough to bury his face in Juno’s hair. He smelled of damp and clean shampoo, coconut and clean towels and night air. A honest, planetside scent.

He knew the guilt was coming, building up in his chest, ready to burn him from the inside out. But there was a whole night in between then, to cling to Juno and imagine a future he could never have, a morning where he would open his eyes and the first thing he’d see would be Juno Steel and remember that he’d done a good thing. He’d been there for someone when they’d needed him.

Like he said, if he was going to torture himself, Peter Nureyev was going to do it thoroughly. After all, what was he if he wasn’t good at his job?

#jupeter #juno steel #peter nureyev #high school au #tpp #penumbra podcast #the penumbra fanfic #please reblog and comment!#benzaiten steel #mick mercury #benmick

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hazel-writes · 3 years

Text

Summary: While recovering from the events that took place on Dantooine, you learn more about Finn and Takoda's complicated pasts.

Word Count: 3,300

Warnings: mentions of canon-typical violence and childhood trauma

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

It will take a while

To make you smile

Somewhere in these eyes

I'm on your side

• Space Song - Beach House •

It had been three days since your mission to Dantooine, and you still hadn’t wrapped your head around what had happened there.

Rilea kept asking you if you were alright, and you always responded with an enthusiastic yes. Any other response prompted a long, worried conversation about stress following traumatic encounters, followed by a rant on the violence perpetrated by patriarchal societies. She wasn’t wrong, but you just didn’t feel like talking about it.

Akilah kept asking you how you escaped. You could tell she didn’t buy your story — and she knew that you knew that — but wanted to make you admit it anyways. How she knew this still remained a mystery, one you couldn’t solve unless you revealed something about yourself that you were determined to keep a secret.

Soren was quiet, as usual, but instead of shooting you his typical iconic glare, he had been avoiding your eye contact completely.

Koda, on the other hand, was furious. For some reason, he felt guilty for what happened, despite the fact that he was miles away at the time. You told him over and over that it was not and could not be his fault, but you could tell that your words were not enough to appease his guilt.

Based on Koda’s reaction, you felt as if you should be more angry about what happened, but you understood why the men had attacked you. Years of pent up anger, frustration, and loss, mixed with the alcohol they had most likely consumed earlier, had combined to incite the unfortunate turn of events. You had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No, I should be more mad, you shamed yourself. They attacked me. Hit me. Kicked me. Watched as I gave up.

A knock sounded on your door. You already knew who it was. Ever since Finn found out about what happened on Dantooine, he had started showing up everywhere you were: inside the cafeteria, throughout the hallways, and now, outside of your room.

You sighed, making your way to the door. You opened it, and just as expected, found Finn there, helmet in hand, smirking at you with a sheepish grin.

“Finn…” you drew out his name, as if patronizing a small child. He looked back at you with apologetic, yet pleading, eyes. “I already told you, I’m fine.”

“I know what you told me,” he said, stubbornly.

Darn his freaky emotional intelligence.

You rolled your eyes. “Well, since you are already here, I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

He nodded enthusiastically, eager at the opportunity to help out. “Yeah, of course. Anything.”

You ushered him into your room, closing the door behind him. Taking a deep breath, you continued, knowing he wouldn’t like what was coming next.

“What’s goin’ on between you and Takoda? It’s just… you both are so sweet and it’s weird to see you guys act so distant around each other.”

He smirked. “Well, first of all, we’re sweet around you — I am still a trooper, remember, so I can’t be this charming all the time.”

“Right,” you said, cheeks reddening slightly as you rolled your eyes. “But why the lack of charm around Koda?”

He sighed heavily, avoiding eye contact. “Koda and I… We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.”

“Such as…” you inquired further.

“Such as the trooper program.”

That didn’t make any sense to you; Takoda had never spoken about the program before.

“Why would Koda be interested in the trooper program?”

The room was silent.

“Because he was one.”

“Koda was a trooper??!” You couldn’t picture it. As hard as you tried, you just couldn’t. He was too silly, too full of life. But the same was true for Finn, and he was a trooper too…

“Yup,” he replied, somber. “We were in the same fleet too. We always had each other's backs.”

You thought for a second, processing the new information. “So what changed?”

He hesitated, looking down at his feet. You’d never seen him look this sad before, and it made your own heart feel heavy.

“A couple years into his program, Koda got injured.”

“Injured — how?”

“We were on a planet with a heavy rebel presence. Our orders were to… eliminate a village that housed supposed Resistance sympathizers. We went in with grenades,” he paused, choking on his words. You looked up at him, reaching out and grabbing his hand, supportively. He nodded appreciatively and continued. “At one point, a trooper next to me threw one. It landed by a little girl, maybe nine years old. Koda jumped forward — pushed her out of the way. He ended up catching most of the blow. I can’t honestly say that I would’ve had the courage to do the same. I hid my grenades in a nearby bush and ran over to him; he was hurt badly. So the med guys took him, and he was airlifted outta there.”

You squeezed his hand, gently urging him to continue. “What happened next?”

“I visited him in the hospital a few days later. He told me he’d been ‘medically discharged’ and was free to go wherever he wished… I was so happy for him. Not many stormtroopers get that kinda opportunity to start over, live their own life. Many injure themselves on purpose to get discharged, but usually they’re too obvious about it and end up executed on the grounds of ‘treason’.”

You shook your head in shock. “Stars…”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “So I asked Koda what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go… I mean, the possibilities were endless for him! But he surprised me. He told me he wanted to stay with the Order, try to make it 'better'. I couldn’t believe it — especially given his background.”

“What do you mean, his background?” you questioned.

“Koda hasn’t told you?” he said, eyes widening.

“Told me what?”

“Kriff…” he mumbled. “I think that’s something you should discuss with him .”

“Yeah, okay...” You paused, thinking. You were still confused about one thing.

“So Koda refused to leave the Order, and you and him just… stopped talking?”

He sighed, his hand leaving your grasp to run through his hair. He seemed frustrated, not at you, but at the newly-unearthed memories of his past.

“It’s not as simple as that. Koda had a choice. He had a choice to join the trooper program, and a choice to leave it. I never had a choice. I was forced into it. It was either this, or death.” He paused, sighing, before lowering his voice. “Had I known what it would be like here, as a trooper, I would’ve chosen death.”

Hearing that tore your heart in two. “Finn, please, don’t say that.”

He threw up his hands. “It’s true! Being forced to tear apart planets, villages, houses, families, people… It’s horrible. Sickening.” He paused. “I- I had almost given up hope completely, when all of a sudden you came into the picture.”

You gave him a sad, appreciative smile.

“Anyways, he had a choice to leave this life, and he said no. I’ve never had a choice, but if I did, I would be out of this place in a second. That’s why we don’t talk anymore.”

“I see.” You paused. “Finn, I-”

Words couldn’t describe how incredibly sad you felt that such a strong, empathetic man like Finn had been forced to endure so much pain.

You reached out and pulled him into the biggest hug you could manage. Your eyes prickled with tears. “I’m so sorry Finn, I’m so, so sorry,” you whispered over and over into his ear.

After a few minutes like that, you finally pulled away to see Finn smiling warmly at you. How could he still do that — smile — after everything he’d gone through?

“Hey, I just thought of one good thing that came out of me staying in this stupid trooper program.”

“What?” you asked, genuinely interested.

There was that sheepish smile again. “Well, if I left, I never would’ve met you.”

You didn’t deserve a friend like Finn.

“And I would’ve never met you…”

You grabbed his hands in yours and held them to your forehead. You closed your eyes and breathed deeply. It was your turn to worry.

“I wish there was more I could do for you,” you whispered.

He shook his head. “You’ve already done so much.”

“Not enough,” you replied.

He sighed, bringing both your hands back down to your lap.

“Listen, there’s something about you — I don’t know what — that gives me hope, and I don’t use that word lightly. I felt it from the first, or should I say the second, time I met you.” He laughed, his eyes brightening. “If anyone can change the way things are in the galaxy right now, it’s you.”

You looked at him, wondering where this blind trust was coming from. He had only known you for a short amount of time… You finally understood why the Commander was so surprised by your own blind trust in his orders.

“I should get back,” he said, standing up. “But please, try to remember what I said.”

After giving you one last hug, he put on his helmet and made his way out of your quarters, leaving you to your thoughts.

——————————————

You spent the next few hours reflecting on your conversation with Finn. You found yourself desperately wanting to find out more about Koda’s enigmatic background.

After pacing back and forth across your room a couple hundred times, your curiosity finally got the best of you.

I have to go talk to Koda. I need to find out what he has been keeping from me.

You found him sitting in the artist workspace, alone.

He didn’t seem to see you at first, so you cleared your throat, announcing your presence.

His head jerked up, startled. His brown hair was a bit more disheveled than usual, and his hair fell over his face slightly.

You smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, no, I was just spaced out for a sec,” he smirked. “I’m back now.”

A moment passed before his features became more serious. “How are you feeling?”

This was the first time you’d really talked about what happened on Dantooine with Koda. Most of what he knew was from Rilea’s retellings.

You shrugged. “Fine, considering. It could’ve been worse.”

He looked down, wringing his hands uncomfortably. “Why wasn’t it… worse? How did you end up getting away?”

You couldn’t tell him what really happened — it’s not like he would believe you if you did. You settled for a half-truth instead.

“I managed to kick one of the guys who jumped me and while he was distracted, I made a run for it. That’s when you guys found me in the field.”

He shook his head, still looking at his hands. “Kriff… I’m sorry. We should’ve never split up.”

“No, no, don’t apologize, it’s not your fault. I just seem to be a magnet for trouble,” you chuckled, trying to bring up the mood.

He nodded, unconvincingly. “So what brings you here? Shouldn’t you be in a hospital bed or something?” he inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, they won’t miss me,” you smirked, earning an eye roll from Koda. “I actually came here because I wanted to ask you about something.”

He squinted in your direction. “Uh oh, you have serious voice on.”

You laughed before continuing, “I just wanted to ask you about Finn.”

“Ahh…” he said, as if he knew this conversation was coming.

“I already talked with him today, so now it’s your turn to endure the wrath of my nosiness.”

“Okay, fine,” he said, letting out an audible sigh before rolling his shoulders and assuming a more comfortable position. “What do you want to know?”

You continued hesitantly, not wanting to offend Koda or worsen the tension between him and Finn. “Well, we talked about why you two don’t get along and how you chose to stay with the Order after you were discharged from your trooper duties. Finn mentioned — and please, don’t get upset that he told me — he was surprised by your decision… especially considering your background. What exactly did he mean by this?”

Takoda paused, looking at you as if considering something. Finally, leaning towards you slightly, he continued. “What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room, alright? People onboard wouldn’t think too kindly of me if they knew.”

You nodded. “Of course, Koda, I would never do something like that — never.”

His hazel eyes met yours as he spoke in a low, serious voice. “I wasn’t born First Order. I was born Resistance.”

He looked up at you, attempting to gauge your reaction. When you didn’t look angry or disgusted, he continued.

“I was pretty independent from a young age. My parents were never home. They were always working on something Resistance-related. They were pretty much consumed by their work. One year they even forgot my birthday,” he huffed, looking to his feet. “When they hadn’t come home by dinnertime, I left the house. I walked for hours before I came to a small village. A group of off-duty stormtroopers walked by, chatting about their latest mission, and I approached them.”

He took a deep breath before continuing.

“At that moment, all I wanted was to be a part of something. A team. A community of people that truly had my back. I couldn’t join the Resistance, not after what it had turned my parents into. So I asked the stormtroopers, begged them, to let me join them. FN-2187, or Finn, as you call him, was there. He was against it. The others that were with him, however, were all for it. So just like that, I went with them.”

You were surprised. “So the Order just let a random kid into their program?”

“Pretty much. At the time they were desperate. Less and less people wanted to be a part of the trooper program. They took anyone they could get. So, I signed up, trained, and fought as a stormtrooper. Finn took me under his wing. Kept me outta trouble.” He paused, his eyes downcast. “He was like the only true family I ever had. Then I got injured, Finn got mad when I decided to stay, and they transferred me here, to this job.” He looked up at the ceiling, releasing a dry chuckle. “Funny thing is, I found out years later that my parents had missed my birthday, their own son’s birthday, to attend some random Resistance diplomat’s birthday party instead. Talk about the ‘Parent of the Year’ award…”

You were starting to appreciate your family on Lothal more and more. They weren't perfect, but they had never forgotten your birthday.

“Listen, I know I can’t change how they treated you, but please believe me when I tell you that they are missing out. Big time.” You smiled at him. “You have the biggest heart. They don’t deserve you. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but Finn truly did, and does, want the best for you. He cares about you so much, but is too stubborn to admit it, just like another certain someone I know.” Koda rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not saying you should forgive him right away… I just think that second chances are important, and are something that Finn has hardly ever been offered in his life.”

Koda sighed dramatically before speaking again. “Fine, maybe someday, in the very, very, very distant future, I will consider talking to Finn.”

You smiled, satisfied. “Good.”

“But only so you will stop bugging me about, like I know you will.”

You smirked. “Hey, I’ll take what I can get.”

He shook his head, looking at you incredulously. “You know, you’re pretty good at the whole active listening while subtly brainwashing thing. It’s annoying.”

You smirked. “I have lots of experience.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do… So, is my interrogation over?”

“I suppose it is… for today at least.” You looked at the papers laying on the table next to Koda. “What were you up to?”

“Oh,” he started, looking a bit flustered. “I was just trying to sketch something up.”

A twinge of anxiety hit you. “What? I didn’t know we had a new assignment already!”

“No, no, it’s not for a new assignment,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “It’s for Rilea.”

“Rilea…” You smirked, knowingly. “I knew something was going on there.”

The look of panic on Koda’s face was almost comical. “What? No! Nothing is going on! The going is off. A hundred percent off.”

“Wow, consider me convinced,” you replied sarcastically.

He shook his head emphatically. “I swear, we’re just friends… not even that! We’re basically enemies.”

You smiled devilishly. “Alright, I’ll be sure to let her know the next time I see her.”

The panicked look on his face turned to one of pure terror. “No! Please! Ugh. Just- just don’t say anything alright?”

“Whatever you say, Koda,” you said, once again smiling in victory. “Anyways, I’ll let you get back to your project.”

You walked back towards the door, stopping briefly before you exited.

“And Koda?” You turned to face him. “Thank you.”

He looked back at you, confused. “For what?”

“For not giving up.”

And with that you made your way out of the workspace and back to your quarters.

———————————————————

Upon arriving in your room, you headed straight to the bed, face-planting into the pillows. You sighed loudly before turning onto your back, casually scanning your eyes over the space. Something on the floor next to the door caught your eye: a white slip of folded paper.

You stood up, making your way over to the mystery letter. The word artist was written on the front. Opening it up, you found it simply read:

Meet me in room E23 tomorrow night at 8. This is not a request.

Commander Ren

You chuckled. Of course he had to add the ‘this is not a request’ bit.

Alarm bells soon began sounding in your head. You wondered what this meeting was about: Were you in trouble? Was this about your Force abilities? Were you being led into a trap?

But there that strange feeling was again: trust.

For some strange reason, you trusted that the Commander wouldn’t hurt you. After all, he’d proven as much over the last few days, after saving you from Hux and the men on Dantooine.

You thought back onto your conversation with Finn, remembering how he told you about the way he was forced into the trooper program. It shocked you that some troopers had attempted to injure themselves to get discharged from their duties. You recalled how Finn, himself, said he would have rather died than have accepted his position with the First Order…

If that’s the way these seemingly robotic and unempathetic troopers truly felt, then what was to say that the Commander was any different?

You had seen him in battle — you had found footage on your data pad. He was fueled by emotion; each strike of his fiery crossguard blade exploded with passion.

Though this raw emotion scared most, it enticed you — it gave you hope.

An excess of emotion was always better than a lack of it.

Maybe the Commander was forced into his role, just like Finn was. Maybe he had no choice but to join the Order. Maybe that’s why he wore his mask: to distance himself from his true feelings, from his inner conflict.

Of course, you knew more than anyone…

Things aren’t always as they seem.

——————————————————

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gilbirda · 4 years

Text

Guilty (full vers.)

[Read in AO3]

Chloe is scared. She's scared, and she tips the liquid into his wine glass and ruins everything. Some part of her wants to stop. Her hand shakes. She knows she'll regret this, she knows it in her bones. Yet she has no control. She tips the liquid into his wine glass. (Again. And again. And again.)

"Oh," she hears from the elevator. She turns - she thought he'd been in the bedroom - and he looks different, sad and broken-

"No, Detective, no. You don't belong here. You don't belong here at all."

“Lucifer,” she manages to say, breathless. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Chloe,” the intensity of his eyes freezes her hand as she is going to pour the liquid in the wine glass, “this isn’t real.”

“I fucked things up, Lucifer,” she has tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

She only hopes he knows she isn’t only referring to the fact that she did send him to Hell. Or that she had lied to him, countless times. That she had used his feelings for her to strike when he was most vulnerable. She had betrayed him.

She realized it too late, and the guilt literally ate her alive.

Chloe blinks, her hand gripping around the skull vial. She knows she has to stop her hand, stop trying to poison Lucifer, stop killing him -

But she pours it. Again.

The other Lucifer approaches her and grabs her shoulders, shaking her.

“Snap out of it, Detective! You shouldn’t be here.”

“But I do,” she bites her lip, looking down at the full vial in her hand. She pours it in the cup of wine. “I do. I do. I killed you. I’m sorry.”

“Detective, don’t be silly!” he smiles despite the desperate look in his eyes. “I’m immortal. You just… shortened my vacation. I will come back, uh, eventually.”

He grimaces, but it is enough to trigger her again. She pours the poison in the cup, looking away from this other Lucifer. Why isn’t he drinking it? Why isn’t he looking at her like his heart broke as he falls down? She - She stomped it down, that day. She felt it. The moment he stopped breathing was the moment she knew she made the wrong decision.

The next only good choice she made was letting that perp shoot her. It didn’t matter. She had already failed everyone important in her life. Trixie didn’t matter, Dan didn’t matter, life didn’t matter.

She was in Hell, and she deserved it.

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

Lucifer knew something was wrong the moment his lips came in contact with the wine. The moment his body froze and he couldn’t even lift a finger. He thought that maybe this was yet another uncovered side effect of the Detective’s presence, maybe he was a bit too nervous and his body was acting out (He! Nervous! He was no schoolboy on the first date, for fucks sake!).

Then he saw her tears. The guilt in her eyes, a sight he was too damn used to, telling him without words what he needed to know. Somehow, Chloe had tricked him. He wanted to congratulate her in being smarter than the Devil, smarter than the King of Trickery - but the truth is that everything he could even think about was the feeling on something breaking inside his chest.

As his body fell down to the floor, he felt like he was burning again. Falling, burning. He wanted to chuckle but still couldn’t move - the irony of the situation was too good.

He opened his eyes in front of the Gates of Hell. He brushed his suit as he stood up, adjusted his ring and straightened his back. There was no use in lamenting over what had happened. The Detective made her choice, at last. All this time he wanted her to make an informed choice about him, and she had finally chosen that he wasn’t what she wanted.

She was only human, he couldn’t hold it over her head. She chose humanity.

Lucifer focused on those thoughts as much as he could over the next months, focusing on the riots and getting everything back under control. Once he reminded everyone who was King, he found too much time on his hands. Time to think about her.

He was in the middle of his accustomed afternoon wall-staring contest when he felt her.

Chloe. No - the Detective.

In Hell?

Impossible.

But she was there behind her own door. She was dead and she felt guilty over something. Had she been killed on duty? She couldn’t be in Hell! She was -

Reliving the moment she killed him, it seems. She looked haunted, desperate, with the eyes of every consumed soul that inhabited his realm. Her soul was his, she had been damned. Because of him, it seems.

"No, Detective, no. You don't belong here. You don't belong here at all."

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

Dragging her away from the door proved more difficult than expected. The damn woman was stubborn like no other, and her determination to go back inside was admirable. In any other situation, he would have told her how much he loved-

No. That was in the past.

Focus, Lucifer. Get the Detective out of Hell was the priority.

Once in the dark hallways of Hell, he slammed the damn door close and forced it to disappear. It worked like a charm, because it was then that Chloe blinked the daze away and really looked at him.

"Why?"

He couldn't understand. Why was she in Hell? Why was he bothering her once again?

"Why did you save me? I…"

"You don't belong here, Detective," he repeated, forcing his hands away from her shoulders. "I'll get you out of here in a yiffy and take you to the Silver City where you-"

"No."

"No?"

"I belong here," her eyes watered. She pushed her body away from his until her back clashed with the hard wall. "I'm not a saint."

"Detective, one little mistake won't erase all the good you have done," he frowned. "Think about all the criminals you've put behind bars. Think about all the innocents you saved."

"But I killed you," she let her body slide down the wall, not minding the ashes. "I betrayed your trust. I actually believed that you were-"

"The Devil?" He chuckled softly. "Because, darling, I think it is too late to deny it."

"Evil." She corrected him, shaking her head. "I thought you were what people think you are," she braved a glance to his standing form. "Father Kinley, he…" she gulped. "In Rome, he showed me things about you, stuff you have done… I actually believed that you were evil for a moment. And then, I… I did something horrible -"

She put her head in her hands, sobbing. He had never seen the Detective so lost, so broken and vulnerable. Killing him really did a number on her.

Lucifer took a step back and breathed, trying to assess the situation.

Chloe was dead. And damned. It was too late to bring her back to Earth, also. The only place he could take her was Heaven, and he'd do it gladly even if he was angry with her. And hurt. But in the time he had to himself in Hell he decided that it didn't matter anymore; that Chloe's decision had brought a closure he didn't know he needed. He had been rejected and that's it.

Of course, it was easier when he thought he would never see her again.

"Chloe," he called her with some command in his voice. "Stand up."

She did so, tears going down her cheeks.

"Come with me," the Devil extended a hand. "Let's get you somewhere safe and we'll talk."

The woman took his hand without saying anything else, a distant look in her eyes.

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

Chloe knew she didn't deserve any of this. His hospitality, his worry, his words. She had killed him. Not "tried to", but actually do the deed.

No. Scratch that. She knew he loved her and exploited that vulnerability to destroy him.

It didn't matter that, at least in appearance, Lucifer was the same. Alive. She had killed him on Earthly grounds and she felt horrible about it.

Even now, after having a quick shower and changed clothes, she felt dirty and undeserving. Guilty. Could he see that in her soul? Did he know how she died? She realized that she had no idea what he could do as the Devil. She didn't know him at all. She felt stupid for thinking otherwise.

Because as Lucifer walked her through his rooms in the castle, saying that this was the only place they wouldn't be disturbed by demons, Chloe felt like she was light years away from him.

"I'm sorry," she started when they sat down. "There's nothing I want most than going back in time and undo what I did. Or don't listen to Father Kinley. Or don't leave LA."

"The past is in the past, Detective," he made a gesture with his hand, brushing her worries away.

"No it's not!"

He blinked slowly. "It is. I have accepted it. You should do it, too."

"I can't," she sobbed without tears. "I should have realized how wrong it was, but I didn't and-"

"Detective."

"-a-and you died!"

"Detective, listen."

"It is all my fault. I was horribly wrong about you and I should have believed in the man I knew-!"

"Chloe!" He stood up, angry at her ignoring him. While it was nice to know she was repentant, he wasn't sure if he wanted to see her so broken. The woman flinched in her seat, but looked up at him. "Listen to me. It's okay. I'm not dead, nothing that mortal excuse of a priest could have done to really harm me, and I'm not angry with you."

She blinked slowly.

"But I broke your heart." Her voice was soft, unsure. Had she read him wrong?

It was Lucifer's turn to flinch. "It doesn't matter anymore. You made your choice, and you don't deserve to burn in Hell for it."

He really believed that, she thought, because Lucifer didn't lie.

"But I made the wrong choice," she stood up and craned her neck to look at him. "I let my fear cloud my judgement. And I'm sorry."

They held each other's gaze in defiant silence. Lucifer was the first to break form. "Apology accepted." The Devil smiled softly.

For the first time since she set a foot in Hell, Chloe felt hope.

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

Lucifer sat on his throne, wondering what to do now.

After a hasty escape and a promise to talk more later, he hid in his throne room to show his subjects some kind of normalcy. News of a escaped soul could undermine his peace and quiet; and he had to maintain a strong front and figure, for now.

Chloe had gone to sleep when he left her in his rooms. She didn’t seem to have the energy to do anything else, so he let her even if being a damned soul she didn’t need to.

What now? He could take her to Heaven, force his way in and somehow convince his siblings that she was deserving of Paradise. Even if the Detective herself felt undeserving, he was completely sure she should not spend the rest of eternity here with him.

The idea brought a slight chuckle to his lips. How much he would have given in the past to spend eternity by her side! It could sound like a dream come true - if he didn’t feel like an elephant was sleeping on his chest everytime her mere name was whispered in his mind.

This is ridiculous, he thought. He had gotten over the heartbreak, he had enough time to accept her rejection, he had to! She may be sorry for killing him, but that didn’t mean she loved him back or that she wasn’t scared of him. Nothing of this absurd situation changed how things are.

Chloe.

Non-existent wind brought her name to his ears. His mind was filled with memories of his short time by her side, his dream that almost came true; his own silent torture to deal with until the end of times. Because he still loved her more than anything and nothing had changed.

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

Lucifer squared up and knocked on his bedroom door, swallowing down the tumultuous feelings that consumed him at the thought of Chloe. Shaking his head, he reminded himself once more that no, loving her didn’t mean he had to hope for a future with her anymore.

“Detective?” he whispered, opening the door.

She was sitting in front of a window, watching the ash fall down slowly. Shoulders slumped, defeated, she was still a shadow of the woman he falled for. Something in his chest hurt.

“Detective, I’m taking you to the Silver City.”

“No.”

Lucifer took a breath. “Come.”

“I don’t deserve Heaven, Lucifer.” He forced down the shiver caused by hearing his name coming from her lips. She refused to turn around and look at him. “You can’t take me there.”

“Actually my dear, I can.”

Ignoring her protests, he scooped her body up from her seat, unfurled his wings and looked up to the ceiling. She had to go, she had to leave Hell.

With a powerful stroke, he was standing in front of the Pearly Gates with a very distressed woman in his arms screaming his name. People waiting in line to enter Heaven looked at the Lord of Hell and the wailing soul like they were crazy. He ignored them all.

“Chloe, look at me,” he placed her down on her feet. She did as he told, gazing up at him with her impossible blue eyes. “It will get better. I promise.” Lucifer smirked as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. “My siblings will take care of you.”

He noticed the approaching form of another angel, sword in hand, and pushed her towards them.

“Lucifer, don’t -”

But her words reached nothing. He wasn’t there anymore.

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

A misplaced soul, they considered her. It wasn’t uncommon, the angel that found her said, for a soul to feel unnecessary guilty and land in Hell when they didn’t have to. She had nothing to fear, they would amend the mistake as soon as possible.

She found a place to stay in Heaven; and after a boring welcome speech, she was introduced to her neighbours and companions of district.

Chloe ate with them, shared stories and told them how she ended up in Hell and how it was (a very watered down version of the story), unbothered by the fact that she knew the Devil himself. The part where she felt guilty for killing him usually made her audience scatter.

She didn’t care. She wasn’t going to stay here for long, she was sure. Someone out there would find out that she was undeserving of Heaven and would throw her downstairs again.

The woman waited what felt like weeks, but as no one came to fetch her she decided to venture out herself.

Everything was too bright and cheery; too shiny, too pretty, without fault. It sickened her. Nothing existed without fault. There wasn’t such thing as perfect garden or perfect frozen yogurt or perfect house. She had been a cop, she was used to humanity’s imperfection; to the horror hidden behind perfect faces.

To betraying a man that loved her.

Her wandering feet took her towards another part of the city, somewhere with angels flying around and ignoring her. As she walked and walked, the density of angels augmented; until she couldn’t make a step without almost bumping into one of them.

She ignored them all - they weren’t stopping her or taking her back to Hell.

Chloe stopped in front of the only locked door in Heaven. Smirking, she knocked. If Lucifer wasn’t going to listen to her, then his Father could be a better bet.

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

Lucifer convinced himself once more that it was the best choice, sending Chloe to Heaven. She didn’t deserve Hell and nothing he could do would have convinced her of her innocence. Now he had an eternity to forget her, this time for real. Not worrying about her dying or if she would end up in the wrong place anymore.

As he sat in front of the Lake of Fire, he wondered what she could be doing right now - was she happy up there? Reuniting with her dad? She always talked so fondly of him, about how he was an important part of her decision of being a Detective. If Lucifer could go to the Silver City he would definitely thank that man for it - he doubted he would have ever met Chloe otherwise.

Pathetic. He was being pathetic. If Maze was there she would tell him the same thing. One look at her and all these… feelings came back. Stupid. Absurd. Useless-

A noise from above interrupted his thoughts. It was like the sky was breaking into pieces, bolts of lightning casting shadows on the innumerable spikes and walls around his domain.

What was going on?

His eyes went to the ball of fire going down at high speed, and his heart stopped for a moment.

It couldn’t be.

How?

Which one of his stupid siblings had decided to pull a ‘him’ and fuck up in Heaven so much to be send here?

For a moment he considered ignore it and keep sulking and brooding around the Lake, but a nagging curiosity pulled him to his feet. Lucifer groaned, walking in wide strides towards the place he presumed the ball of fire would land, not very far from him. He wondered for a moment what he would say to them. A laugh at their expense was in order. Oh how the tables turned!

He adjusted his suit and walked around the last tower, prepared to meet his new roommate, a grin already prepared and in place.

What he found there, badly burned and smoking, he wished it was one of his siblings.

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

She fell for what felt days. Who knew that Heaven and Hell were to far apart? Maybe it was her mortal body, unprepared for such a journey, that was perceiving a passing of time warped and unrealistic.

The thing is, she was plummeting down and down and down. Towards Hell. Towards Lucifer.

He couldn’t send her back to Heaven anymore, she thought with a chuckle, ignoring the burning in her skin. Screaming at God and ask ‘why’ maybe was out of line. No, well. What was out of line was breaking down his door and threaten Him with a sword (the things weighed a ton, let me tell you), demanding to be sent to Hell.

When He asked why, all she wanted was to wipe that stupid smile off His face. Why no one understood that she deserved to be punished? She couldn’t be here, enjoying paradise. She failed her best friend and let fear cloud her judgement - she killed him!

Armored angels - archangels, she was informed later - arrived in record time, subduing her and forcing her to drop the sword. For a moment it was weird being at this side of justice, earning a nervous giggle she totally didn’t think was of a madwoman.

The worst part? God told her it was ‘all part of a plan’. She wanted to burn the place down. How could any of this be part of any plan? She was a monster! She killed an innocent man. The angel at her side scoffed, murmuring something about Lucifer not being innocent. Chloe bit him.

This was a waste of time. Everything was pointless.

She spat at His face, declaring that if He loved his son He would send her back to Hell to be punished for what she did. That what a stupid plan it was if Lucifer suffered in it. That he was a manipulative bastard.

Chloe took advantage of the paralyzed outrage of the archangels around her to get free, run towards God and slap Him. “That’s for doing nothing while your son is blamed for humanity’s sins.”

Looking back at it now, falling through layers of reality, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Once she reached the bottom it was going to hurt.

The woman closed her eyes when the familiar ash clouds parted to show her an upside down view of Hell, knowing that the end was near. At least the burning would stop.

She hit the ground hard, the air forced out of her lungs in a big ‘oof’.

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

“Chloe?” his voice trembled, weak with the knowledge that it was her and no other soul at the bottom of the newly formed crater.

Lucifer blinked back tears as he got near, looking down at the smoking body looking back at him. Chloe smiled weakly.

“Hey Lucifer. I’m back.”

He would have laughed if the situation was different.

“How?”

“I Fell.”

He snorted. “Mortals don’t ‘Fall’ from Heaven.”

“I did,” she chuckled as she tried to move. “Ouch. Anyway, it seems all it took was threaten God with bodily harm.”

“You talked with Dad?”

“Yes, and it was utterly useless,” she rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath to overcome the pain and sit back up. “The thing is I’m back here.”

“Why? Why reject eternal paradise?”

“Because I don’t deserve paradise.”

“Chloe, what you did was -”

“Lucifer, what I did was more than a mistake. I betrayed you. I threw all I knew about you out of the window, believing that you were as evil as people say you are. I made me forget that I loved you.” She sighed. She have had enough time to reflect on what she would tell Lucifer once she saw him again. He had forgiven her, but he still didn’t know her feelings for him. It was enough of this game.

She’ve had time to feel like herself again back in Heaven, calm down and go past the stage of “I’m guilty, I need to be punished”. Lucifer had accepted her apology, now she had to work on gaining back his trust. That is, if he still loved her.

She was prepared to be rejected if it wasn’t the case. He had the right to, after all. It would hurt but she was an adult and she could face it.

“Detective?”

“Help me up, please?” she ignored his bewildered look and extended a hand. “I think we need to talk.”

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

Back in his bedroom she felt like another completely different person, Lucifer thought.

And now they were looking at each other, waiting for the other to start.

“I-”

“Sorry -”

She chuckled at the awkwardness. “You first.”

“Yes, well. Hm,” he cleared his throat. “I was going to apologize.”

“What for?”

He made a gesture towards her burnt clothes and ash-covered body, like it was enough argument.

“It was my own decision, you know.”

“But you are not in your right mind, Detective.” Why wasn’t she seeing it? If she felt guilty for killing him it was a bad reason to base any love. Not that he expected her to truly love him after all this.

Chloe pursed her lips, like he had just said something specially stupid or out of line, and she was trying to think something else to say than what she was thinking.

“Lucifer,” she started after a few minutes of staring at him. “My head had never been clearer. I had enough time to get past the guilt and the worry. I’m just tired now. Of waiting. Of second guessing.”

The Devil blinked slowly. “And what does that mean?”

“It means,” she took a step closer to him and carefully put a hand on his cheek, “that even if I know that what we had has been irreparably damaged by my betrayal, I want to try again. Start all over.”

“How can you expect of me to act like nothing happened?” his voice was barely above a whisper, his eyes fixed on her. If he didn’t know any better, he almost saw hellfire burning inside the blue.

“No. Not like nothing happened. A lot have happened - starting with me dying,” he flinched at her words. “Sorry, but it is the truth. I won’t be going anywhere. If you want me, that is.”

Lucifer held her gaze, not even blinking. He watched her resolution crumble under his silence, the fingers on his skin tensing with aborted movements of withdrawal.

“If you don’t, I can find a way to be out of your sight,” Chloe was trying to be brave, but both knew she had very few places to go to apart from his palace in Hell.

He chuckled. It was absurd to think that he wouldn’t want her around anymore; that he didn’t want to get back to what they had before. He would give up his throne to go back in time and never show her his Devil face, to confess before the Cain debacle, to show her his wings when he got them back. But he knew that time only moved forward and it was impossible for things to be as they were before.

Still, he felt hope. He put a hand on hers before she could take it back and smiled softly. “Of course I want you around, Detective. I wouldn’t want you anywhere else.” Chloe smiled back. “Well, I can think a few other places I’d be delighted to have you, but you might want to stretch before.”

The tension was broken and she laughed; and, for a moment, it felt like a new hellish version of ‘before’.

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

Chloe was glad that Lucifer never tried to label what they were and just let things flow. He never pushed her towards compromise or acting in a special way around him. In fact, he encouraged her to work on whatever she desired to pass the time in Hell, including following him in his devilish affairs.

Another thing she noticed was how he never initiated contact, but was open to whatever she wanted. She could invade his personal space as much as she wanted, in private or in public, never talking about boundaries when imparting orders and justice to his demons. Still, she had been on her best behaviour, being happy with just a bit of hand holding.

Now, as she sat on his lap while a beast-looking demon spoke with him in their language, she was content with feeling the deep rumble of his voice vibrating in his chest, lulling her to sleep even in front of a dangerous looking horde of demons. Not once they made a comment about her presence, but she could feel their eyes on her.

Not that she cared about them, though.

“Darling,” she was awoken by his voice, making her jump. She had fallen asleep and now the throne room was empty. She didn’t need to sleep anymore (being dead and all that), but sometimes she liked to nap for a bit. Specially in his arms, but he didn’t have to know that just yet. “I have a bit of free time. Fancy a walk?”

She rubbed her eyes and nodded, yawning. When she opened her eyes she found his dark chocolate watching her fondly. Something told her he enjoyed her little naps on him, too.

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

Lucifer could almost imagine they were somewhere nice, walking hand in hand in a park with plenty of flowers and a lot of couples doing the exact same thing as them. Maybe a buy an ice-cream and share it, sit under a tree and get a few laughs until they kissed -

Or maybe he had watched enough rom-coms to conjure his own version of things.

Because the nicest place he has to show her was the Lake of Fire where he first landed in Hell, and only because it somewhat resembled the beach where they kissed for the first time. He hoped she thought the same too. Because he did, too much.

At least they were walking with their hands joined, fingers entwined, and Chloe sometimes did a bounce in her step and swung their arms back and forwards a bit. She was quiet, but it has long stopped worrying him - the tiny smile on her lips and steady beating of her heart calmed his racing mind.

“A penny for your thoughts?” he slowed their walking until they arrived at their spot on the volcanic sand in front of the Lake. From there sometimes the lava splashed and did fancy pyrotechnics, which the Detective loved.

“Hm…,” she sat down without letting go of his hand. “I was thinking about Trixie.”

Lucifer tensed. Earth was a common topic of conversation, but the people they knew there was still kind of a sore subject.

“Is okay. I was just wondering how old she might be now and if I’m going to see her again.”

The answers to those questions were easy, but not what she wanted to hear. “Time here moves slowly. She might still be a child by your standards. I don’t even think a year had passed there since you, uh -” her death, another difficult subject. Chloe squeezed his hand and smiled at him.

“Is that so?” she looked back towards the Lake. After a few minutes in companionable silence, she spoke again. “And she will go to Heaven.”

It wasn’t a question. “I’ll make sure of it.” He answered anyway; not needing to add that she wouldn’t see her again if that was the case.

Chloe understood anyway.

The woman scooted closer to him and rested her head in his shoulder. “Hug me. Please?”

Lucifer let go of her hand to do as she requested; and when he kissed the top of her head he was delighted to feel her cuddle closer to his chest, seeking comfort.

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

She was the first to bring it up.

“Can you go back to Earth?”

Lucifer didn’t tense at her question. Probably because he had been expecting it.

“Yes.” He answered carefully. Chloe tilted her head.

“But I can’t.”

“Not without a freshly deceased body to occupy,” he shivered, thinking about the Abel failure. The woman was already shaking her head.

“Too creepy for me. At least long term.”

“Long term?”

She smiled. “How do you feel about a date upstairs? Borrow a body for a few hours, maybe check on our friends?”

He knew she missed them, but she couldn’t let it consume her. With a frown, he warned her about it. Chloe smiled, hugging him briefly.

“I know, I know. I’m dead and they are not. And when the time comes they will go towards the Pearly Gates and we will never see them again,” when she pulled back her voice was calm, but her eyes weren’t masking any pain. “Is okay. I just want to take a vacation? I’m getting a bit bored here and a little birdie told me you are used to taking vacations from time to time.”

She leaned in to deepen the hug, delighted when his arms reached around her without any prompting from her person.

“If it’s what you desire…”

She shook her head against his chest. “Only if it’s okay with you. I want - I want to do this right, Lucifer. Small steps. Communicate.”

She felt him relax in her arms. This was the main difference from “before”. No more evasion, no more hiding.

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

Lucifer lost track of time. Had it been a month, a year, a decade? A millenia? His time was measured in the little steps Chloe and him did towards redemption, towards each other. Each new realization, each new experience, was a chapter in the book of his life with her he never knew could end like this.

Somehow things had settled themselves in a comfortable ebb and flow of events. They never defined what they were, because what had transpired between them went beyond anything they knew; but it was fine with them. Their compromise was endless, and their faith in each other grew with every argument and communication effort.

Linda was proud of them, or at least that was she said so once the news of their resurrections stopped freaking her out. Some couples’ therapy sessions and a bottle of scotch helped, that’s true.

No one else but the doctor knew about them lurking in the background, watching them and maybe nudging their paths in this direction or the other. The favour business was extremely helpful for this, something that Chloe was grateful for more than a few times. She even commented that they were their fairy godparents once, to which Lucifer snorted and asked her to wash her mouth before daring say it again.

Eventually, when Trixie was old enough, they paced their Earthly visits more and more. It was a matter of time before everyone they knew died and they made peace with it.

Linda’s company in the palace was a nice surprise, though. Maze was ecstatic either way.

The rest of the humans? Pearly Gates. Would they ever be forgiven and allowed to visit? It was a miracle to be seen, but Chloe still had faith.

Lucifer snorted, making the woman at his side look at him in question. They were at their spot in the beach by the Lake of Fire, waiting for nothing and enjoying peace. Chloe had brought a book that he suspected entailed filthy erotic encounters and epic sword-fighting, but she denied everything when he asked.

“Nothing, dear,” he picked her hand in his to kiss her palm. “Just thinking that I Iove you.”

She rolled her eyes, knowing that while it was true, it wasn’t exactly what he was laughing about. “Whatever you say, babe.”

Lucifer knew it was silly, that they had been together together for a century or so, but he giggled and smiled like an idiot when she called him that.

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