#something she continues to enforce when she needs to

[carefulfears]

what do you think mulder thinks of diana fowley after biogenesis through amor fati? i don't think we really see anything on screen/in text (though i think it says a lot that he didn't have much of a reaction when scully came to his apartment & instead focuses on scully & their relationship lol)

yeah there’s basically NOTHING in the text but tbh i think finding out for certain that she was working with CSM really kindaaaa snapped him out of some things…mulder doesn’t give a fuck what people do to him, obviously, but it’s a different thing entirely to find out that your ex is involved in something like that. like there are MILES from “my partner makes me feel like shit and is maybe pretty abusive” and “my partner is like 3rd on the call list of a eugenics group that treats women like test subjects”

like, scully was right, diana was monitoring MUFON women and collecting data on them. she was heading up the tests on cassandra. she probably knew the truth about samantha the whole time. just nasty nasty shit.

she’s the villain in the amor fati dream: the dismissive symbol of abandonment that offers another path.

one of the most interesting scenes of diana’s character to me, is in the sixth extinction, when she comes to see mulder in the hospital. and she knows what the effects of the artifact are, that he can hear what she’s thinking. that, therefore, he knows who she works for and what she’s doing. (imagine your ex-husband/wannabe boyfriend/obsession finds out you’re lying to him because he can read your mind….shit is crazy!)

and she tells him that she knows he knows. but that he also knows that she loves him.

and she does love him. there’s no reason to lie about that then, she knows he would be able to tell.

scully knows it without hearing it, that’s how she gets diana to save mulder’s life, ultimately. she comes to her and begs. tells her to please just think of him, who he is, who he was when she met him, who he is now. in the end, because of scully weaponizing how diana feels, diana can’t go through with it. she gives her life to help him.

diana seems to be one of those influences on mulder that’s only really all that significant when she’s close by. it’s like how all the tension in the beginning builds up to him getting in her car when she tells him to, leaving scully, when diana is there instructing him.

i think being able to know who she truly was and her true intentions and allegiances, prior to her death, really goes a long way in the way he responds to losing her.

don’t get me wrong, i think he’s upset. you can kind of see the shock cross his face when scully tells him. but he stays focused on his goal, which is to express to scully how important she is to him, in the wake of how discarded diana always made her feel.

mulder loved diana and grieves that she was killed, he doesn’t have it in him not to, but mostly he…wanted something from her, right? he wanted that approval and “affection” and to please her. he wanted her to believe him. the first thing that she says to disarm him (in the end) when she can tell he’s uneasy, is, “hey. i’m on your side.”

learning who she really is, it’s easier not to crave her approval so badly.

(this is the crux of amor fati’s “last temptation.” it’s diana saying: you’re childish. you are going to fail. your path is not your own. “you have to let go, fox.” and it’s scully countering: we need you. this is who you are.)

(it’s why he responds in the end by telling scully that it’s her that’s the voice of truth.)

and then in death, diana’s not…there for him to want anything from!! so it’s like, again, yeah he obviously feels the loss, this was someone who meant a lot to him for over a decade. but also it’s likeeeeee freeing in a way? it makes things simpler in a way? (he’s able to communicate all of that to scully instantly after hearing diana is gone, after over a year of the tension hanging around it)

if you asked him about diana now, or even a year later, i think he’d be like…damn that’s crazy! 😭😭 mulder doesn’t have an awful lot of object permanence you guys sjdjsjfj

when scully comes to tell mulder that diana was killed, and he says to her, “you were my friend, and you told me the truth,” the language matters so much. that’s what scully called diana, “i know she was your friend,” and he turns it back onto her. you were my friend. you told me the truth.

in my opinion, it’s not that he doesn’t love and grieve diana, but that there’s a freedom in knowing the truth. knowing who someone is, and their intentions. knowing who has your best interest at heart. knowing where you stand in the world, what you want to do.

that’s really what allows for the openness and lightness of s7, in the wake of diana’s absence. mulder’s always seeking, always learning.

[princessbrunette]

just thinkin about pope n innocent!reader,,, and her calling him daddy while he has her on her lap stuffing her w his fingers :( just thinking…

also, could i please be 📝 anon? :) i loovee ur writing

✧˖°.🩰✧˖°.

pope liked to reward good behaviour. he found positive reinforcement worked well with you, and was happy to use that to his advantage as it kept the two of you content.

if you were to make a good suggestion to the pogues, you were rewarded with something small and quiet as acknowledgement to your deed, like a kiss on the temple or a reassuring smile and nod. if you were to go out of your way to do something kind or helpful, like bringing him food when he’d forgotten to eat — or sewing up his shirt that got ripped on a pogue mission, you’d be rewarded with copious praise and affection, calling you his ‘good girl’ which seemed to be your favourite, melting like putty in his hands each and every time.

now these were things he did naturally, for nothing in return, purely because he wanted to. but it didn’t go unnoticed that the sweeter he was on his girl, the softer and more vulnerable you’d become — stripping you down to your most true self. he wanted you, wanted all of you— so he’d keep going, keep praising to work you out. you were popes favourite thing to study.

when you’d been consistently well behaved through the entire day, even when odds were against you — he’d often help you unwind with your favourite type of reward, having you on his lap with his long skilful fingers deep inside.

“i know, i know. how’s it feel when it rub you like this, hm? can you talk to me?” he used his softest tone on you, not the voice he uses to sark at jj or argue against john b’s outrageous plans. he was his softest, most relaxed with you — and he loved that you brought that out of him.

“i—i like it, m’gonna cum soon.” you wail but it’s muffled into the smooth skin of his shoulder muscle, the plane that had been bearing all of your pleased tears and sounds.

“thats good, bambie. gonna keep rubbing that pretty clit just like this okay?” he lilts his voice gently, tilting his head when you don’t respond, too focused on breathing out heavy breaths against him. he noses at your cheek, craning down to try and get your eyes on him. “okay?” he repeats and you screw your eyes shut, nodding.

“‘kay, daddy.” you release with a held breath. he’s kind of glad your eyes were shut, because it catches him off guard for a second, blinking down at you as he continues to work his fingers inside you, thumb resting over your button.

daddy.

he couldn’t say he was surprised that you were into that kind of thing, infact — jj had in a way predicted it in once when the two of them were out on the boat fishing. something along the lines of “nah dude she’s real sweet. i see why you like ‘er. got the whole innocent, ‘daddy please fuck me’ thing goin’ on, ‘ya know?” now at the time, pope had been too preoccupied with scolding jj over being vulgar about his girl to entertain the conversation, but now it was coming back to him and he realised he was right.

it definitely made sense. bad relationship with your own father which had wound you up in his arms— someone calm, nurturing, enforces gentle rules and guidance, teaches you new stuff. even away at college before he met you he was a magnet to a certain demographic of girl, one who needed a gentle demeanour and occasional firm hand.

he wracks his brain for what to say as he drops a long kiss to your forehead, blinking rapidly as thoughts fire off. he wants to please you, wants to be that for you— and for once he hadn’t done his ample research beforehand to really support you through it. he decides on something simple, trying it out.

“daddies right here, let it go for me, pretty girl.” he’s more of a natural than he realised, and as if he flipped some sort of switch— you gasp, clutching onto him hard as he feels you gush around his fingers in a water-fall like consistency.

you slur a bunch of nonsense against his skin as he shushes you kindly, ears pricking up and heat rising to his face and cock each time the word ‘daddy’ comes out muffled against his shoulder. if daddy was what you needed, daddy was what you’d get. he better get studying.

✧˖°.🩰✧˖°.

[pastanest]

Spencer Reid x she/her!reader

A/N: inspired by this post by @shy-taylorsversion !! hope you like it sweet! ♡

warnings: references to Maeve but nothing too specific

I Can See You

It was as though fate herself was playing the cruellest joke in human history, the day you joined the team. Spencer’s heart was beyond scarred, it had been locked away under every wall he knew how to craft within himself, for his own safety. And yet, with no more than a glance, you began to disarm him. 

The team spotted the sparks almost before Spencer did, in the way they acknowledged that he reached to shake your head in greeting; a gesture he typically avoided at all cost. It was the wide eyes from his chosen family that made Spencer realize his body had acted on its own accord, without any consideration for his mind, or heart.

“Doctor Spencer Reid, uh, pleasure to meet you.” He had cleared his throat in his attempts to hold your gaze, a task he had not anticipated to be anywhere near as challenging as it turned out to be. 

And the way you had smiled at him? That was the first splinter, in the very first wall that surrounded Spencer’s heart.

It was not drastic enough for Spencer to notice right away, and by the time that he did, it was too late. Anyone would think your moves to be calculated, but the worst part of it was that Spencer could see that your actions and words were completely without ulterior motive. 

It is simply who you are, much to a genius’s absolute dismay.

Naturally, Spencer tried to deduce exactly what this immediate connection was on the very first meeting. He sat at his desk with a concentrated frown, and within 15 seconds, he had formed a hypothesis: it was a basic biological attraction, something found in primal creatures, not civilised beings, and certainly not ones with three PhD’s, but if he had to admit that he had animalistic desires on occasion, that was favored over this meaning anything more. With a satisfied nod, he rose from his desk and tried his very best to continue with his day. 

He had ventured down the hall of the BAU office, with the intention of retrieving some files he needed to work on, and he was determined to not even remotely acknowledge that you were walking down the very same hallway, in the opposite direction. He did not notice your hair, or your eyes, or the way you walked, the softness found in your smile, and his eidetic memory had definitely not stored each and every detail. 

Aaron Hotchner was giving you a tour of the office, Spencer surmised; he absolutely did not strain his every thought to tuning into the conversation in an effort to learn more about the wonder that was you. The width of the hallway allowed for you and Spencer to pass each other without any contact whatsoever, but when your gaze lifted to catch his, neither of you made any effort to increase the distance between you. Instead, you had smiled at him - again, his heart skipped a beat as it reminded him - and the two of you walked, neither one hearing Hotch’s continuing tour of the office as you neared each other. Then your sleeve brushed his. The contact was gone as quickly as it had arrived, but Spencer knew he had goosebumps beneath his suit jacket, and he couldn’t help wondering when he looked over his shoulder to find you doing the same, your eyes locking once again; did you feel it, too?

Only once safely behind the front door of his own apartment, could Spencer Reid regain the ability to think straight. It was foolish, he told himself. A workplace romance? He shook his head as he shrugged off his suit jacket, his gaze lingering momentarily on the sleeve you had brushed against. There was no substance to it, Spencer’s objective brain enforced, need you be reminded of the statistics surrounding workplace entanglements? It was simply the proximity; he had never worked with someone he found so physically attractive before, that was all this was. His mind just needed to adjust to your presence. His eyes were just latching onto the most attractive sight they could find, after forcibly reliving the loss of the love of his life. This was not love, Spencer concluded, it felt nothing like what he had felt for Maeve. The physical weight of the anxiety and stress he had experienced, the secrecy, the pain; all of that was missing, and that was what Spencer understood love to be.

This was foolish, he reminded himself. As of tomorrow, he would put a stop to this, whatever this was.

Spencer walked into the BAU office with newfound purpose the following morning, prepared to focus on his work and nothing else, which would not be a difficult task. Not in the slightest. He was a professional, after all, and you-

“Good morning, Spencer!”

You were already sitting at your desk, and you were smiling at him - the very same smile that Spencer had noticed you had not given anyone else on your first day. 

And, like a fool, Doctor Spencer Reid’s eidetic memory jettisoned his previously formed plan of nipping whatever this was in the bud, and instead, he smiled right back at you.

It would be fair to say that he has been a lost cause ever since. His mind has crafted a permanent residence for you, where thoughts of you swirl at a constant rate, and he has allowed such a heinous development; shocking, really. The worst part? Spencer has managed to maintain professionalism, because everything between you is mostly unsaid. It is longing glances, lingering smiles, subtle touches that nobody else would notice; save for the team of profilers that you both happen to work with everyday. You have found your footing within said team and formed fast friends, almost like you had always been part of said team, but you were still such a new and pleasant sight to Spencer each and everyday. You had not seen him through any emotional turmoil, you saw him as he was from when you knew him, and you liked what you saw, in the same way that he liked what he saw in you. There was a mutual understanding, a reciprocated tension that you were equally, acutely aware of. 

By now, Spencer knows that when he says something particularly clever, he need only glance at you from the corner of his eye to find you already looking at him with stars in your eyes. By now, you are accustomed to trying to beat Spencer into the office each and every morning, because whoever arrives first will prepare the other’s choice of beverage for the morning, which will be left on their desk in time for the other’s arrival, without a word, but with a complete understanding. By now, the rest of the team are used to sharing eyerolls and exasperated sighs as they watch you and Spencer dance around each other in such a ridiculous, but still undeniably sweet way.

You are something new to Spencer. He doesn’t have to overthink about your safety outside of dangerous cases, he doesn’t have to worry about where he stands with you, because one look is enough to reassure him. Whatever this is, it is something different. It brings about a relief to the stress of the job; the same peace a hot bath would provide, Spencer finds in every smile you give him.

But, at its core, this is unsaid. The layers to it are secret, even with what the team are able to infer from what they can see.

While his brain is focussed on the case at hand, that same little space in Spencer’s mind is alive with thoughts of you. Today, he has been tasked with working the geographical profile with Blake, who is obviously very aware of what is forming between you and Spencer, but elects to say very little about it, given how sensitive the topic could be to Spencer’s still raw heart. That said, she can’t help noticing or smiling at the way Spencer’s gaze continually drifts to the door of the small office within the local police department that they have been working all day, as though willing you to walk through it.

“I’m sure the interviews are going well.” Blake chooses her words carefully, referring to what you have been tasked with, rather than you directly, in an effort to perhaps allow Spencer to open up, just a little. 

He frowns at this, trying to convey confusion as he refocusses his gaze on the maps in front of him, running his fingers over them. 

“(Y/N) is very good. Knowing her, she’ll come in here in a few minutes saying ‘don’t worry, guys, case closed, we can all go home because there’s a rerun of Doctor Who that I can’t miss’.” Blake tries again, this time using a joke referencing a shared interest of yours and Spencer’s, which pulls the desired smile from him, though he doesn’t lift his eyes from the maps.

A moment of silence passes, in which Spencer considers his own words with equal care, before he decides to respond to what he feels is the most important section of Blake’s last sentence.

“She is…very good.”

 Feeling somewhat reassured by Blake’s words in a strange way, in her validating the obvious chemistry between you and Spencer, he finds it easier to continue to working. Of course, he still glances at the door out of habit, wishing for no more than a glimpse of you walking past it, if that’s all he’s allowed for now, but he is focussed on his work. He is a professional, after all.

That is, until his ears - finely tuned to deciphering your voice even in a sea of others - pick up on a distressed tone from you. While the wall between you prevents him from being able to piece together any words, the discomfort he can hear is enough to bring Spencer up from his seat. 

“I need to update Hotch on some details of the geographical profile that could assist with the interviews he’s conducting.” Spencer blurts out hurriedly, picking up a random case file without looking at it before rushing out of the room, once again not mentioning you by name, but making his intentions crystal clear to Blake.

She doesn’t question anything, but there’s a knowing smile on her face.

Spencer is out of the door in an instant, his eyes locking onto you a few feet down the hallway, seemingly caught in an uncomfortable exchange with a local police officer. The way your arms are crossed over your chest is enough for Spencer to understand exactly what is going on, and when your gaze gravitates to him, he sees you visibly relax, a soft smile spreading across your face. The local cop continues his attempts at sweet talking you, until he sees your expression and follows your gaze, seeing Spencer stood down the hall with a case file in hand and a frown that could challenge Aaron Hotchner’s. Clearing his throat awkwardly, the local police officer skulks off, and you breathe a sigh of relief, walking over to Spencer and smiling up at him.

“Find anything?” You ask him, gesturing to the case file in his hands, which is now crumpled in his almost white knuckles.

“What? Oh, no, I just- you sounded uncomfortable.” Spencer babbles, his mind shifting from a possessive fury that he’s never previously held for anyone, before settling into a peace that only the subject of that possessive streak can bring. 

“I was. Thank you for saving the day, as always.” You smile up at him, and with a rush of confidence, you make a gesture of standing on your tiptoes to kiss Spencer’s cheek as you pass him, and his brain short-circuits.

It takes a whole three seconds for Spencer to regain his 187 IQ points, at which time he looks over his shoulder to find you at the other end of the hallway, mirroring his action with a beaming grin. He stays still - mainly because his brain has not recovered enough for him to trust his ability to walk - but his mind conjures up a beautiful daydream of him strolling right up to you, pushing you up against the wall and kissing you until both of you collapse from lack of oxygen. His hands holding your face, your hands in his hair, his body pressed against yours, holding you up against the wall as your knees attempt to buckle under the weight of what would be the most passionate kiss in human history, Spencer is more than certain of that.

“Are you coming, pretty boy?” You call out to him, abruptly forcing him back into the present. 

An interesting choice of words, considering. 

“Where?” Spencer asks you, in turn, a smile playing on his lips.

“Lunch!” You state, like it’s obvious.

Spencer glances at his watch, bemused. “It’s 3pm!”

You shrug, but your smile is widening as the amusement grows. “Yep, and I haven’t had lunch, so, you coming?”

Spencer rolls his eyes and refrains from giving you yet another lecture on remembering to take a scheduled lunch break to ensure you have the amount of energy required for maximum efficiency while on the job - which is, obviously, his way of reminding you to eat regularly because he cares about you, not because he cares about your ‘maximum efficiency on the job’.

He quickly pokes his head through the door to the little office, tossing the crumpled case file back on the table where he had previously been sitting.

“Just going to get lunch.” Spencer tells Blake, and she raises an eyebrow.

“Lunch? At 3pm?” She questions, much like he had, and that only makes him smile again. 

It isn’t just a smile, though. It’s a bright, wide grin that takes up Spencer’s whole face, making the corners of his eyes crease, and then he disappears without a word, because his expression is explanation enough.

As silly, and as common as it is, after having lunch with you, Spencer’s smile is unwavering for the rest of the day. Yours is too, resulting in both of you receiving teasing remarks from the members of the team that you have been working with, away from each other in the hours that have passed since. 

By the time Spencer shuts himself in his own hotel room for the night, his mind is fried, and as a consequence, he cannot withhold thoughts of you to that one corner of his brain. Instead, he sees you standing in the middle of his hotel room, walking up him with a smirk he’s seen time and time again in his dreams. He feels your palms on his chest through his shirt, loosening his tie as his lips ghost yours. His shoulders rolling as you help him take off his suit jacket, discarding it on the floor before his lips fall on yours. And he can see you waiting for him on his hotel room bed, as though you were really there, and had already been there a thousand other times, on a hundred other nights. Oh, how he wishes. 

Shaking his head, Spencer forces himself back into the present, into the newly depressing sight of his otherwise empty hotel room. He removes his suit jacket with a bitter expression, knowing you would do it so much better, but alas. 

Realizing there is absolutely no way he can sleep in this state, Spencer rolls up the long sleeves of his button-up shirt, kicks his shoes off, and settles in the armchair in the corner of his hotel room. He retrieves his favorite copy of ‘War And Peace’ and decides to reread it to unwind. Just a bit of light reading.

That is, until approximately 10 minutes - and just under halfway through the book - later, when there is an unexpected knock at the door.

Deciding to place ‘War And Peace’ on the physical bedside table and mental backburner, Spencer rises from the armchair and crosses the threshold of his hotel room. The moment he opens the door, his heart leaps right out of his chest. 

There you are, in your pajamas, hugging your laptop close to your chest with a smile that Spencer wholeheartedly believes could persuade any man to do anything and everything for you.

“‘The Impossible Planet’ and ‘The Satan Pit’ were rerunning tonight, and we haven’t finished the case in time to watch them, so…” You lift your laptop in a wordless gesture, stars shining in your eyes, and Spencer Reid has to seriously consider whether this is a dream.

His perfect girl, arriving at his door because she wants to watch Doctor Who with him? Surely, fate jests.

“You are an impossible girl.” Is all Spencer can manage to say, a smirk on his face when he sees the recognition in your eyes at his own Doctor Who reference.

“Ooh, you can’t say things like that to a girl, Doctor!” You giggle, knowing you’ve got him right back with a reference of your own.

With that, Spencer invites you into his hotel room, and just like so many times before, you fall asleep with your head on his chest as the end credits roll on your laptop screen, an ever encouraging score from Murray Gold being the soundtrack to Spencer’s longing glance down at you as he brushes your hair away from your face. With a kiss to your forehead and one arm holding you in place, he turns off your laptop and sets it down beside the bed, his other arm wrapping around you to hold you to him in a gesture of affection that was foreign to him before you, but is now second nature. 

Spencer never understood what it was to fall asleep with a smile on his face, until he started falling in love with you.

By the time the team is boarding the jet home, you are all beyond exhausted, but relieved in equal measure. Another case closed, another life saved, and another trip home. As opposed to the typical night flights you tend to catch, Penelope managed to secure the jet in time for everyone to be on their way home by midday. So, instead of a silent jet occupied by sleeping FBI agents, Hotch is living vicariously through Rossi and Derek’s latest tales of seduction, you are gossipping with JJ, and at the other end of the jet, perfectly in your line of sight, Spencer is sitting with Blake, unable to resist glancing over at you every so often.

Blake has that same knowing smile on her face, picking up on more than the rest of the team has, given the almost maternal bond she has formed with Spencer, and she decides that this time, she’s going to speak less carefully.

“Spencer, what is the statistical likelihood of history repeating itself?” She asks pointedly, but quietly.

Spencer frowns. “Well, that depends on a number of variables. Technically, it would be impossible to provide an exact statistic, because there are an infinite number of possibilities at every point in every sequence of events that there can ever be, but for history to repeat itself in a direct pattern, it would be incredibly unlikely. Why do you ask?” He rambles, very much enjoying this question, this challenge to his analytical mind.

“Have you ever asked a girl out before?” Blake answers Spencer’s own question with a question, something she has previously reprimanded him for.

And Blake’s question is enough to freeze a genius in his tracks.

He doesn’t have to think about it, he knows the answer, but his confusion and shock makes that one word difficult. 

“No.” Spencer says after a moment’s pause.

“Then, to reduce your own anxieties surrounding history repeating itself, why don’t you change that and create an entirely new chain of events for yourself?” Blake suggests, giving him a small, encouraging smile. 

As always, she knows exactly what advice he needs to hear. Blake is right, if Spencer does ask you out, what’s unfolding between you and him will truly be unlike anything he has ever experienced before, meaning it cannot possibly end in the same way, the same tragedy cannot befall him if he takes the path he has been so afraid of treading. 

“How?” Spencer asks, his voice barely above a whisper, because he’s vulnerable now. He needs help from a friend, a friend he trusts with a situation that is as precious to him as this. 

Grateful that he’s taking her advice on board instead of dismissing it, Blake nods, leaning forward in her seat on the jet. 

“Do whatever feels right to you, because it’s you, exactly as you are, that (Y/N) smiles at like that.” Blake says simply, sitting back in her seat and watching as Spencer’s gaze flickers to you again, knowing from the look in his eyes that he’s just received that very smile from you, and that is the only encouragement he needs.

Nodding to himself, Spencer stands up and rushes to the jet kitchen, walking past you and brushing your sleeve with his as he does. 

From where you sit with JJ, you can’t help glancing over your shoulder at Spencer, curious as to what he’s doing in the jet kitchen and why he’s trying so very hard to hide whatever it is that he is doing. 

No more than a few seconds later, Spencer walks past you again, returning to his own seat at the other end of the jet, but not without very discreetly dropping a small, folded piece of paper into your lap. With a smirk, JJ turns away to look out of the jet window, granting you some privacy as you unfold the piece of paper, your hands trembling ever so slightly as you scan over the page, and Spencer’s own shaky handwriting.

“Meet me tonight?”

Grinning, you lift your eyes from the note and to its sender, who is already staring at you with a mixture of hope and anticipation in varying shades of hazel. From across the jet, you nod at him, and he nods back at you, biting back a disbelieving chuckle as he looks down at his lap shyly, avoiding your eyes.

You want to ask when, where, and how he wants to meet you tonight, but the excitement within the unknown is even better. For the rest of the flight home, you and Spencer exchange expressions of yearning that exceed even your usual standards, and it’s very clear that whatever this is, it’s about to come to a head.

When the jet lands back in Quantico, the team rise from their seats and stretch their limbs, retrieving their overnight bags and heading for the door. You and Spencer fall back in a silent understanding, and he wraps his large hand around yours to take your bag and swing it over his shoulder, giving you one of his signature charming smiles and ridding you of every coherent thought you’ve ever had in the process. With his hand free once again, his fingertips graze yours as you step out of the jet and head back into the office, sparks flying to such a severity, Spencer considers alerting the pilot of a problem with the jet engine.

Much to your mutual dismay, the team is tasked with case reports the second they set foot into the office again, given it is not officially the end of a working day and there is no better time to complete a report than when the case is still fresh in your mind; not everyone has an eidetic memory. And so, your equally yearning glances continue, this time from across the office, as the hours tick by and the anticipation between you grows. 

As the hours tick by, Spencer grows restless. He checks his watch, and debates with himself as to whether 6pm can be considered ‘tonight’, before he decides he no longer cares for such technicalities. With his legs bouncing beneath his desk, he quickly writes out another note, then picks up a case report and practically flies over to your desk, dropping the piece of paper on your keyboard before walking out of the glass doors and round the corner, down a hallway that takes him - begrudgingly - out of your sight.

Confused and excited once again, you open the scrunched up note and scream internally.

“Please follow me in 10 seconds and bring your case report - doesn’t matter if it’s finished.”

You stare up at the clock on the office wall, counting the slowest ten seconds of your life, and then the gravity of Spencer pulls you from your desk to fulfill your secret mission. Clutching your incomplete case report to your chest, you try to walk past your coworkers desks as casually as you can, but you can’t help feeling that the room of profilers that surround you are acutely aware of every little tell. You wouldn’t be surprised if they can hear the irregularity in your heartbeat right now. 

With trembling hands, you reach for the handle of the glass door and push through it, rounding the corner and immediately freezing on the spot. Halfway down the hallway, Spencer leans against the wall, his case report hanging from his hand loosely at his side, his other hand in a tense fist in front of him as he frowns down at his watch. 

As though sensing you, Spencer’s head turns, and when he sees you, he sighs deeply.

“12.5 seconds. I thought you might not be coming.” He says quietly, his words soft and his relief palpable.

An interesting choice of words, considering.

“Sorry, I tried to walk slowly, didn’t want to give anything away.” You explain, your voice as quiet as Spencer’s had been, the distance between you already closing on its own accord.

He shakes his head, but his eyes never leave yours. “No need to apologize. I’m certain they’ll know something’s going on, even with our efforts.”

You can’t help chuckling at that, nodding up at him as he walks closer and begins to tower over you, all words suddenly losing their meaning. In what can only be described as a silent, instinctual mating dance between two equally besotted creatures, with each step Spencer takes towards you, you take a step backwards until your back gently hits the wall, your gazes locked in an indescribable heat, lost in a tension that cannot be defined in any kind of eloquence. 

Case report still hanging loosely between Spencer’s index finger and thumb, he closes the space between you until there are only centimeters separating your face and his. With each inhale, you taste each other, smell each other, feel each other closer than ever before, and the primal attraction that Spencer had been foolish enough to believe he was too rigidly sophisticated to ever experience slaps him in the face with a rather rude awakening, but it is a welcome one. His curls touch the skin of your forehead, and you bite your lip in an effort to restrain yourself, but when Spencer’s free hand moves between your bodies to uncurl one of your hands from its fierce grip on the incomplete case report you clutch to your chest, to place your palm flat against his shirt, over his heart, you forget your own name.

“You know, researchers from the University of Chicago analyzed people’s eye movements as they viewed black and white photos of both couples and attractive strangers to judge whether the people they saw were eliciting feelings of sexual desire or romantic love, and the results revealed an interesting pattern; when the subjects judged a stranger as depicting feelings or romantic love, their eyes stayed fixed on the stranger’s face. However, when the subjects felt the photo was exuding sexual desire, their eyes strayed over the rest of the stranger’s body. The co-author of the research said that by identifying eye patterns that are specific to love-related stimuli, the study may contribute to the development of a biomarker that differentiates feelings of romantic love versus sexual desire, and an eye-tracking model may offer a new avenue of diagnosis for routine clinical exams in psychiatry and/or couple therapy.” Spencer rambles, bringing an enamored smile from you that makes his heart sing. You are always so interested in every single thing he has to say; where others roll their eyes and cut him off, you listen, and you adore him for exactly who he is.

“The reason that I’m telling you this,” Spencer continues, “-is because scientists found that the subject’s judgment can occur in just half a second, suggesting the way we categorize whether we feel lust or love for new people is innately automated.” He wets his lips with his tongue.

“Is this your sciencey way of telling me that, despite it typically being perceived as illogical, you believe in love at first sight? That’s quite controversial for a man who is so often analytically inclined.” You muse thoughtfully, your smile unwavering as you look up at him.

“I didn’t. Not until three months, four days, 9 hours, 12 minutes and-” Spencer checks his watch before meeting your eyes again, “-27 seconds ago.”

You cannot believe Spencer is daring to ask your brain to perform what is nothing short of a miracle in the form of basic mathematics when his lips are almost touching yours.

“You mean…when I…” You can barely form words.

“At the exact moment when you walked into the office on your first day, yes.” Spencer nods, his forehead brushing yours.

The palm that is still pressed to Spencer’s chest through his shirt moves to feel his tie, as though holding onto something for support while the Earth beneath your feet shifts and he is the only thing keeping you here; which, in fairness, he very well might be. 

Quite suddenly, the tension between you is suffocating, having long surpassed boiling point, and your breaths are as shallow as his.

The case report held between Spencer’s index finger and thumb is hanging by a metaphorical thread, his other hand lifting to tuck some of your hair behind your ear, his fingertips caressing your cheek as he drinks you in.

“Can I kiss you, (Y/N)?” He whispers, the boldest words he has ever spoken.

“Yes.” You breathe, without missing a beat, and Spencer does not waste another second.

In one swift motion, the case report falls to the floor, both of his hands coming to cup your face as his lips take yours, your hands holding his to keep him there. Spencer’s body presses into you, acting on a primal instinct that goes beyond his understanding, kissing you like a man starved of physical affection all his life, and there’s far more truth in that than he cares to admit. When one of your hands reaches for his messy curls, Spencer sighs into the kiss, lowering his hands to grab at your waist, squeezing your hips gently. The kiss is its own infinity lived and shared, the two of you only parting for air, but your bodies remaining intertwined, the sound of your heavy breaths echoing down the hallway until you’re both laughing, your foreheads pressed together and an insurmountable love in your eyes.

What this is, is different. You don’t know every detail of Spencer’s past or pain, in the same way that he is yet to know yours, but you have every intention to learn about each other, with this as your foundation. This, without the physical weight of anxiety and stress, with a different kind of secrecy, and free of pain; this is a mutual understanding, a reciprocated attraction beyond what Spencer thought was possible for someone like him. You are different, different to him, different to every person he has ever known, and he has no doubt that he is much the same when compared to the people in your life, too. 

You are different, you are new. You are a breath of fresh air that he will never grow tired of breathing. 

And he will always, always see you, in every conceivable way that you’ll allow him to.

[persevereforahappyending]

Luck Runs Out |Part 7|

Pairing: Mabel x Reader

Summary: When your luck runs out you unknowingly drag Mabel back into the life, she's so desperate to escape.

Warnings: Violence, Beating, Threats, Kidnapping

Word Count: 3.5k

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Epilogue

You weren’t sure how long you held Mabel before you got her to calm down. When she did finally settle down you led her to the edge of the bed and had her tell you what happened. She explained how when they got to the dock she saw a shifty looking guy, when she described him, you knew he was an enforcer for the man you worked for. He was not a good guy, whenever the boss wanted to teach someone a lesson or dispose of someone, he was the guy sent to get the job done. You’d never interacted with him, luckily, but you had seen the aftermath of his work.

Mabel went on to say how they basically tore the boat apart looking for the drugs but couldn’t find them anywhere. Charlie’s brother and the others were missing, no sign of them anywhere, which you knew was unusual, Tommy practically lived on that boat, he would never disappear without a word right after bringing in a haul. Then she got to the part where Charlie answered a call thinking it was Tommy, but it was the man she had seen on the dock.

Your breath caught in your throat. Your boss had the drugs back, only three packs but it was the three packs that had kept you alive. He most likely didn’t know you were still alive, but he had somehow found out the crew of the Finestkind wound up with some of his missing drugs and he wanted them back. He had them taken, probably because he thought they knew where the rest of the missing drugs were. He would stop at nothing to get his drugs back, he already had his main pickup crew killed, a random fishing crew wouldn’t even be a sacrifice to him, just an obstacle the way.

“He told me to leave,” Mabel whispered, sniffling as she continued to calm herself down. You furrowed your brow and looked at her. “The guy seemed to want me as well, but Charlie convinced him to let me go.”

You nodded, it seemed you owed Charlie again, first he saved your life, then he saved Mabel’s. He might not have even realized just how much he was saving her, he probably only thought of it as keeping her as far away from all this as possible. You almost admired him, it was annoying how good of a guy he was, Mabel deserved someone good like that. Now, because Charlie was such a good guy and saved your useless life he was in danger, all of them were in danger.

“That’s good,” you said softly. “That man you saw, he’s not a good guy.” You knew Mabel was familiar with this world, she probably had already guessed what you meant and what this guy did. You didn’t want to cause her anymore panic though, you didn’t want her to stress about just how much danger Charlie was in. After all, for all you knew, Charlie was dead with the rest of his crew. The second your boss realized Charlie and the others truly didn’t know where the rest of the drugs were there was nothing stopping him from putting a bullet in each of their heads.

 “What are we going to do?” She asked, tears filling her eyes once again.

You instantly wrapped your arms around her, pulling her in for another hug. You went through idea after idea as you held her. You needed to fix it, not her, she needed to stay as far away from this mess as possible. You needed to fix it, you needed to try and save Charlie and the others. You didn’t want anyone else to die because of your mistakes, you caused the mess, and you were going to be the only one to clean it up.

After a few hours of comforting Mabel and trying to talk her out of doing something stupid she was finally asleep. With the way she had her windows covered you had no idea what time it was, but you knew it was late, Charlie and the others had been gone all day, Mabel hadn’t heard anything from anyone. You looked down at the sleeping girl, you knew it was just because she was upset but she had passed out next to you on the bed and was now cuddled up against you. This was the first time she had slept in her bed since you had been brought over, you tried to move to the couch a few times insisting your wound would be fine, but Mabel wouldn’t have it.

You enjoyed the moment of feeling the warmth of her against you. You smiled down at her, she looked so peaceful, a part of you felt guilty for what you were going to do because you knew she’d be pissed when she found out, if she knew, she’d do everything in her power to stop you. She would try every way imaginable to save your life, to save the life of a stranger, someone she hadn’t even known a week. You couldn’t let her do that, it’d been a long time since someone cared about you, but you couldn’t let her risk her own life for yours. You brushed the strands of hair out of her face before you gently lifted her off the side of your body and slid out from under her as quietly as possible. You slipped a pillow into her arms, waiting and watching as she curled her arms around the pillow and buried her face into it.

You crept to the door, moving effortlessly around the furniture. When opening the door you gave her one last look before slipping out. She would be mad at you, but it was worth it if it meant saving her, besides, if things did go wrong, it’s not like she’d remember you. You would become just a faded memory, a story she told when joking around at the bar as she laughed with friends, reminded about the person who was practically dropped off on her doorstep, someone she helped save until they disappeared in the middle of the night.

You closed the door as gently as possible then slipped out into the night. You turned down the street and began making your way to your apartment. You were going to go after Charlie and the others, you were going to clean up your mess, but you had to do something else first.

A few hours later you began making your way to an old warehouse in an abandoned part of town. You fiddled with your trident necklace as you got closer to the building. It was rundown, the windows caked in dirt, it looked like every other abandoned building in the area, not a soul in sight. You knew what secrets actually lay behind the rusted doors and crumbling walls. Before you got to the large, rusted metal doors you tucked your necklace into your shirt, as much as you would like his help you weren’t sure how much he cared when it came to drug dealers.

You brought your hand up, knocking on the door, the sound echoing throughout the seemingly empty warehouse. The grinding sound of the slot in the door sliding out of the way pierced your ears. You saw the eyes of the guard on the other side appear through the slot; you didn’t have to say anything as his eyes widened with recognition. He quickly slid the slot back into place. You bounced on your feet, looking around as the area remained silent. Finally, the grinding and groaning of the metal door scraping against the concrete filled your ears as the man opened the door. Before you could even step forward an arm reached out pulling you into the dark warehouse before quickly shoving a sack over your head. You groaned as the man aggressively grabbed your injured arm before gripping your other so he could wrap your wrists together with some rope.

You stumbled through the warehouse as the man would occasionally shove your shoulder to get you to keep moving. You had been through this before, they were very secret when bringing people inside, even if you had been there over a hundred times by now. You knew where the warehouse was, you knew where deliveries were made, you even saw the room where they unpacked the product, you’d also been in your boss’s office, but you were sure there were rooms you had never seen, rooms you didn’t want to see. You wondered which room you were going to be taken to, you were doubtful it would be a simple office visit.

You came to a stop as you heard someone unlatch the door, the metal scraping together before it was grinding against the concrete floor. The man leading you around shoved you, sending you stumbling into the room. The door was quickly closed, and you were left you didn’t know where. You swallowed nervously as you strained your ears, trying to pick up if anyone else was in the room or how many of them there were.

The bag was quickly ripped off your head, making you blink your eyes rapidly as they adjusted to dim lighting. You looked around, the walls were all solid stone, not a single window in sight. Various parts of the walls and ground were splattered with a dark brown color. You looked down, noticing the drain and the stains that were leftover in the concrete, completely imbedded now that no amount of scrubbing would ever get them to come out. You flexed your hands, your wrist straining against the rope as it dug further into your skin, before intertwining your fingers to help hide the shaking.

You looked up, your breath catching in your throat as you saw your boss standing before you. He was in his usual black suit and tie, a suit that probably cost more than you ever made on a job for him. His hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place, if he was walking down the street, he would look like a rich businessman, no one would ever peg him as wealthy drug dealer and one of the most ruthless leaders of a powerful gang. He hadn’t bothered to look at you yet, he was to busy wiping off one of his knives with a cloth. You tilted your head trying to get a better look but couldn’t see any blood on the knife.

“I was told you were dead,” your boss finally spoke. He still didn’t bother looking at you, he just held his knife up to the light, turning it to make sure it was to his liking. If you didn’t know him you would think he wasn’t angry, his tone was so casual, but you did know him, his calm and cool persona was scarier than his angry one.

You opened your mouth, letting out a shaky breath, you were ready to defend yourself, though you didn’t know what you wanted to say. The grinding of the door opening again made you jump, your head instantly whipping around to meet whoever was about to enter. Two large men, strapped with guns led four people into the room, each of the people had their wrists tied like you and sacks over their heads. The men led the prisoners to the far wall, cuffing two of them to a metal pipe that ran up the wall near the back of the room, then the other two to another pipe running up the wall closer to where you stood.

The men ripped off the bags on the prisoners, revealing Charlie, Tommy, Costa, and Nunes. You couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief at seeing them alive. Tommy had a blackeye, Charlie a busted lip and dried blood under his nose and down his shirt. Those two had clearly been mouthing off, luckily the other two looked relatively fine, besides the whole being kidnapped and held prisoner thing. Charlie’s eyes widened when they met yours, you had to look away, silently hoping he wouldn’t do something to screw this up. There was still a chance, a small chance, but a chance nonetheless that you could get them all out alive.

You watched as one of the men who brought the boys in left the room, closing the door. The other man stayed in the room, moving to stand at the door, his arms crossed as his eyes watched you and the prisoners. Your boss finally turned around, looking you up and down as he waved the knife around in his hand. Maybe you wouldn’t get to plead your case, beg for the lives of the others, maybe he’d just kill you quickly before you ever got to say a word.

“I want my shipment back,” your boss said simply. “These boys,” he pointed the knife at the guys, “were found with some of my property.” His eyes moved back to you as he took a step closer. “They’ve been refusing to tell me where the rest of it is.” He let out a humorless chuckle, his eyes were practically black, you couldn’t look away even if had wanted to. “I’m hoping you’ve come to cooperate.”

“Yes,” you rasped out. You licked your lips; you didn’t realize your mouth had gotten so dry.

“Fantastic,” he smiled, holding his arms out wide.

“As long as you let them go.”

He tilted his head, his eyes somehow becoming darker. “That’s not how this works,” his tone was still casual but there was a lingering sense of danger behind his words.

“They don’t know anything.”

“Is that so?” he tilted his head, but it was clear he didn’t believe you.

“Yes.” You tried to keep your voice steady, but it wasn’t working out well. “The only reason they had your product is because they found me in the ocean and saved my life.” He hummed, clearly interested but still not willingly to believe you. “They don’t know anything. They aren’t involved.”

“What were you doing in the ocean?” he narrowed his eyes. “Your captain, may he rest in peace,” he looked up as if he actually cared and wasn’t the one to kill him. “Said there was an accident, your life tragically lost, along with my merchandise.” You heard the shift in his tone when he said merchandise, he cared much more about losing his product then about your life, but you already knew that. “And yet, here you stand.”

“My captain shot me.” He raised his eyebrows at that, clearly your captain had neglected to divulge the full truth to him, that also explained why you weren’t shot on site, if he knew you dropped his drugs in the ocean you wouldn’t have even made it to the front door.

“Why would he go and do something like that?”

You swallowed, ignoring the way tears began to fill your eyes. Your next words would solidify your death, maybe you should have said goodbye to Mabel, left a note or something. “Because I cut the line.” You were almost impressed with yourself; your voice didn’t waver at all that time.

Everything was silent, you didn’t see the shift in your boss, you only felt his fist meet your ribs, making you double over, before he gripped you by the hair to hold you in place as he brought his knee to your face. You stumbled back, coughing as the blood poured out of your nose, spitting what you could on the floor. He didn’t use his knife, you wondered why. You heard a struggle to your side, glancing to see Charlie on his feet, straining against the cuffs keeping him bound to the pipe.

“You cost me a lot of money,” your boss said, gripping your injured shoulder tightly. “You got your entire crew killed.” He moved his hand to the back of your neck, keeping the tight grip so you were forced to look him in the eye. “Now, you’ve gone and dragged these boys into this,” he pointed his knife at the guys.

“I can make this right,” you said between gasps, spitting up more blood in the process.

“How?” he shouted, raising his voice for the first time. “How can you possibly make this right?” he tightened his grip on the back of your neck, pulling you closer as he brought the blade up with his other hand, pressing it against your neck.

“I-I-I can get your drugs back,” you gasped out, hissing as he pressed the knife down, just enough to draw blood. “I-I know where we were. I-I can show you the coordinates, ta-take you there my-myself.” He kept the knife to your neck, sliding it up as he began to trace your jaw with it. “Just let them walk.” You glanced at Charlie, seeing him shake his head, seeming to realize what you were doing.

“Why would I do that?” he whispered.

“They have nothing to do with this. They’re innocent.”

“I can’t be letting witnesses just walk about,” he shook his head.

“You owe them.”

“Excuse me?” he pressed the knife harder, drawing more blood from you.

“They saved my life, they are the reason I’m here, without them you wouldn’t have any chance of getting your drugs back,” you spoke rapidly. You knew you were grasping for straws, but you were just trying to get Charlie and the others out of there alive. “And if you don’t,” you tilted your head down to meet his gaze, ignoring the way the knife dug into your skin. “I won’t tell you shit, and you can kiss your merchandise goodbye.”

He stared at you unblinking for what felt like hours. You weren’t sure if he was going to take you up on your offer or just shove the knife in your throat and watch you bleed out. Suddenly he released his grip, letting you stumble back. He smirked, chuckling to himself as he pointed the knife at you.

“Release them,” he ordered, pointing the knife from the man guarding the door to the boys. The guard looked at the boss but didn’t move from his post. “Now!”

The guard was across the room in a few steps, quickly uncuffing each of the guys before leading them to the door. He gave three knocks before the door opened and the other man from before led them all out. Charlie looked back, trying to stay in the room before he was shoved out, the metal door slamming behind them. You released a breath, you might have guaranteed your death after you followed through on your end but at least Charlie was safe, at least Mabel would be safe.

“For someone so clever it sure was stupid for you to drop my drugs into the ocean,” your boss said, back to his casual voice as if you were doing everyday business with him.

“There was a storm,” you said. “If we didn’t drop it the whole boat would have gone down. I just… I didn’t want anyone to die.”

He nodded as if he understood. “And look where that got you.”

You looked down, nodding. You couldn’t help but agree with him, look where it got you. You dropped the drugs with the intent to save everyone but because of that you got shot, your crew was killed, innocent people were forced to be involved because they saved you, you turned their lives upside down, and almost got them all killed. If you had just stopped, if you had jut not tried to be a hero, if you had just listened to your captain, maybe everything would have been fine. Maybe the drugs would have tipped the boat, and they would have been lost anyway, there were life rafts so maybe you and the crew would have been fine, or maybe you all would have been lost as sea, that certainly would have been more deserved.

“Before we get started though,” he said, turning to face you again. Your heart dropped at the look in his eyes, already knowing what was coming before he finished his words. “You still need to pay for your betrayal.”

That was your only warning before his fist met your face. Before you even had time to recover, he dealt another punch. He grabbed you by the back of the shirt and tossed you against the wall. You caught yourself as best as you could with your still tied hands, only able to recover enough to lean back against the wall. He took off his suit jacket, tossing it to the side before rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. That was the last thing you remembered clearly seeing before he was hitting you again, you ended up on the ground at one point, coughing up blood as your vision got more and more blurry. With a final kick to your face everything went black.

[lostryu]

i need gay rights because literally not a single self-proclaimed cis/het 'ally' understands the alienating experience that comes with being the only gay person in the workplace.

i am a gnc butch lesbian. i use he/him pronouns. when i came out to my manager regarding my pronouns (i had been an open lesbian since the moment of my hire), she told me that she supported me, but she could not enforce or ask our clients to use the correct pronouns for me. she told me it was something i would have to learn to deal with. she never uses the correct pronouns for me unless a person from a different department (who also happens to be LGBT+) is present. she is our HR in addition to manager.

none of my coworkers in my department ever remember to use my pronouns. if i remind them, they go over the top with the "im sorry's" and the "im still learning" and "you know i try my hardest's!" and "i swear im not homophobic!", it has been over 6 months since i came out. if i say nothing, they continue to use she/her (unless that other lgbt+ person from the other department is present, then they miraculously get it right).

sometimes they call me 'girl'. they always flounder and correct to "man-boy-uh youknowwhatimeanright". they laugh it off. they never bother to ask what terms i am comfortable with, or if i even cared in the first place. they don't care about my gender, they never bother to ask. somehow the subject gets changed every time i try to tell them, or set a boundary.

once in a while in a slow shift, the conversation will hop to our dating lives. somehow, it always jumps to how men suck and how dating a woman must be so much easier. they wish they could be gay and not straight. every time, they'll stare at me expectantly, like i am an animal at the zoo. no matter what i say, positive or negative, i must be lying. i cannot be that happy in my relationship, or if i have any issues, they must be minor. if i say 'why don't you try dating a girl then' to their remarks, they'll laugh, say something like "there is no way i possibly could" with that special tone of disguised disgust.

i am a prop, at work. they tell me about how much they love their kids. how they could bring anyone home and they wouldn't care. "they could be black, brown, or purple," they'll say "it could be a woman or a man! I support gay rights!" Then they will talk about how hungry they are, and how they will be going to Chick Fil a for the 4th time this week. 'as a treat'. it is thursday. they talk about going to Hobby Lobby again for christmas decorations, or another sale. sometimes i think i can taste blood.

its june. they talk about the pride parade and how excited they are to see the queens and their 'funny costumes'. they talk about how fun it is to go and watch, how they like the free things the corporations hand out. they don't want to bring their younger kids though. they're not old enough. they do not know that the first pride was a riot. they do not know what happened during the AIDS crisis, how many died. they don't really care when i try to tell them, they'd rather focus on the fun parts of the parade. the spectacle.

i wear a pronoun pin, to make it easier. still somehow no one can get my pronouns right. a client notices it. commends me for "being brave" and "coming out." she never uses my correct pronouns. i stopped wearing the pin after the 11th person asked me if my name on my name tag was my real one, and after the 45th person went out of their way to use incorrect pronouns every sentence. my manager, the HR, did not care.

i need gay rights, but somehow everything got resolved when they allowed us to marry in 2015. to our allies, the work is done. somehow i am left more alone than when we started.

[celtic-crossbow]

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Chapter 11

Warnings: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SA. Please venture forth with caution. Typical TWD violence and gore; blood; injury.

A/N: I don’t know why but I feel like Daryl is extremely OOC in this chapter. Maybe I’m just being a bully to myself. I’ll try to rein him back in with future chapters. I’m sorry.

Daryl’s feet carried him at a slow pace, seemingly knowing where he was headed. He ended up outside of the cell Hershel would use for medical purposes. Reluctantly, he tapped his knuckles against the bars and waited for the veterinarian to invite him inside. 

The curtain was moved aside and Daryl noticed the absence of you and Carol immediately. “She okay?” He asked gruffly, not willing to show any fondness toward you. You likely knew exactly how he felt, at least in a physical sense. He didn’t need everyone else donning those knowing smiles like they had any clue of the turmoil he was battling inside. 

Hershel stood with the help of his crutches and hobbled his way to the archer. “She’s just fine. A little shaken up but that’s to be expected for someone with her background. She said she was going back to the fences.”

Daryl nodded. “Okay then.” He turned to leave— to find you —pausing when a gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder. 

“She trusts you, you know.” Hershel said with his gentle smile. The hunter enforced his unreadable mask. “She has a lot of fear and rightfully so. But she trusts you.”

“She shouldn’.” Daryl replied, blue eyes dropping toward the floor before he presented another nod and left the cell. It wasn’t that he didn’t want your trust. He didn’t deserve it. The archer knew what had been done to you, yet when he lay awake at night, it was you that he envisioned while stroking himself to the precipice of pleasure. 

It was wrong.

It was immoral to fantasize about how it would have felt to have you that night beside the fire. You were willing but it wasn’t real. You wanted him because of obligation, not because you felt anything toward him. Not even because you just needed to be fucked. But because you had been brainwashed to think that was what you were supposed to do. 

Guilt sat like a stone in his gut and he didn’t know how to process it; how to move past it. Maybe training you— building you up to take care of yourself —would absolve him. He could give you that, asking for nothing. You could move forward with knowing that someone could show you kindness with no strings attached. 

Daryl heaved an intensive sigh and stepped outside. You would be waiting for him with those wide, pretty eyes. When he was closer to his destination, however, he found that you weren’t there. He continued regardless and collected your knife, slipping it behind his belt. You had probably wandered off with Carol when he didn’t show. It was probably for the best. 

He was about halfway back to the prison door when he saw Carol exiting. Alone. Something didn’t sit right. “Hey!” He called out, waiting for her to find him when she began looking around. 

“Hey, yourself!” She shouted back. 

“Y/N with ya?” 

“I thought she was with you.” 

Fuck. Carol’s expression mirrored his own, communicating without speaking as they often did. “I’ll check the cells.”

“I’ll check the towers.”

Daryl hated running. It was all he had done since the world ended. He ran for his life or someone else’s. The latter only amounted to anything half the time. “Y/N!” He yelled the minute he stepped foot inside the prison walls. 

Beth stepped up to the cellblock door with baby Judith in tow. “What’s the matter?”

“Y/N been in there?” He asked breathlessly. 

“I haven’t seen her. She doesn’t spend a lot of— Daryl! What’s going on?” The young blonde yelled at his retreating form. 

He didn’t answer, didn’t even stop when he snatched up his crossbow and sprinted back outside. If you had gone beyond the fence, you were as good as dead if he couldn’t get to you in time. Carol had forbidden you to enter the tombs. Surely you wouldn’t have. Would you?

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He muttered, pacing back and forth in front of the door. Either scenario would mean death if he didn’t act quickly. The thought alone left a hollow ache in his chest that he was too panicked to give any attention. 

You stood less of a chance in the tombs. He would start there and pray to some deity that he made the right call. His fingers had hardly brushed the door when his keen hearing picked up a sound. A shout. Daryl froze, tilting his head to listen. There was no other noise but his gut told him he needed to go investigate. 

He kept his steps light but quick, crossbow loaded and ready to aim. The closer he got to the opening in the outer wall, he could hear voices. Two males. 

“Don’t fuck it up too much, man.”

“Looks like someone already did that.”

Daryl’s back was pressed to the wall, about to lean around the corner for a look. The voices belonged to two men that had been allowed in that very day. Lonny and Marvin. He hadn’t felt right about them but Rick vouched for them along with the rest of the group. They could be engaged in innocent conversation, but something about the whole thing was making the archer’s teeth itch. As discreetly as possible, he peered around.

In a span of mere seconds, Daryl went through an onslaught of three intense emotions. Firstly, he was in shock. You were facedown on the concrete, blood pooled around a portion of your head while your nails scratched at the concrete. Then came the guilt. There was the smallest whimper accompanied by an utterance of ‘ow’ that made his eyes sting. Lastly, came the anger. No, it was fury. The men had ripped off the clothing from your lower half. Marvin had a hand pressed hard into the middle of your back while his other hand moved aggressively between your legs. Lonny stood just behind him, stroking his cock with the most vile expression Daryl had ever witnessed. 

He didn’t hesitate to step around, crossbow level with his eyes. The weapon trembled in his grip. His blood was boiling just underneath his skin. “Ya got less than one goddamn second ta move away from her ‘fore I put a bolt in yer brain.” The low growl of his tone added intent to an already very clear threat. 

Lonny moved first, releasing his dick to put his hands in the air and step back a few paces. Marvin hadn’t moved, actually smirking at Daryl. The archer gritted his teeth, really really restraining himself. 

“Daryl.” 

It was the tiniest whisper of a breath and the anger disappeared in an instant, his expression shifting, softening. “M’here.” 

“This here your pussy, man?” Marvin’s arm moved, bringing three blood-coated fingers to his lips. “I mean, maybe we could work something out and sha—”

The bolt pierced through the side of his middle finger, into his mouth, and out through his cheek. The screams were bound to bring reinforcements, not that Daryl needed them. His blue eyes shifted to Lonny. The man hadn’t moved and continued standing stock still while another bolt was loaded. 

“Ya got any propositions fer me, asshole, cause yer givin’ me a helluva target.”

Lonny shook his head vigorously. 

Daryl glanced down, wanting nothing more than to run to your side but he couldn’t let his guard down. Not yet. 

“Both’a ya, back the fuck up.” The archer stepped forward and Lonny stepped back while Marvin continued to scream. 

“Oo choht ee ehn uh ouhth!” He attempted to complain while using the hand that wasn’t bolted to his jaw to clamber to his feet. Daryl took another step forward. 

“I said BACK!” He roared. His patience was wearing thin. Marvin finally reacted and stumbled away. 

“Daryl!” Carol called from just around the corner. 

With help so close, Daryl abandoned the crossbow and dropped down beside you, stripping off his vest to at least provide a little coverage for you. 

“Hey, ya with me?” He placed his hand on your back as gently as possible, bending forward so you could see him without the need to move. Carol, Rick, and others had arrived and were handling the men but the archer was paying them no mind. The moment your eyes blinked open, you were his sole focus. 

“I… I…” You attempted before your face contorted in pain. 

“Need ta getcha inside. Getcha ta Hershel.” He was trembling again, anger threatening to resurface amidst all raised voices. Keeping his hand on your back, his wild gaze searched out Rick in the flood of people. “Get ‘em the fuck outta here!”

“Hey, hey. Calm down.” Carol kneeled on your other side, sweeping your hair away from your face. It took Daryl a moment to realize she was talking to him. He nodded, gaze back on you. You hadn’t moved but your eyes remained open. “I’m gonna get a blanket.” 

The archer nodded again, leaning back down after she had gone. “Yer gon’ be fine. Yer safe.” A broken sob escaped from your lips, the sound ensnaring his heart and squeezing. You moved as if you were going to push yourself up, sending Daryl into a panic. “No, don’. Stay still. M’a getcha there. Jus’ another minute.” You didn’t respond but the quiver of your lip told him you were still conscious. 

The hunter heard the pounding of Carol’s boots well before she appeared with an off white sheet. His vest was tossed aside, giving him the briefest look at the blood smeared on your inner thighs. He knew then that he would murder someone that day. But you came first. 

“Roll her this way.” Carol instructed, helping him move you into a position from which he could easily lift you. “Easy, easy.” 

You gasped and whimpered and tried to curl in on yourself. It was all Daryl could do to keep you still. Once you were on your side, Carol brushed your hair back again. You flinched at her touch. 

“You…you promised.” 

His friend looked as if you’d punched her in the gut, a hand flying to her mouth; her eyes heavy with gathering tears. “Get her to Hershel.” She commanded softly. 

Daryl slipped an arm under the curve of your neck and slid down to your shoulders while his other maneuvered under and around your thighs. When he lifted you, a broken cry worked its way from your throat. He was left cradling you awkwardly but you were shielded by the blanket and he could make the position work in order to get you inside. His feet were moving before his brain even registered he’d given the order. 

“Daryl.” You whimpered. Your fingers, with their broken and bleeding nails, curled into the front of his shirt. “Hur…hurts.”

“I know.” He didn’t know how to reassure you; how to make this better. Carol had promised you a better life there. He had brought you there under the same assumption. If he was honest with himself, he took you out of the frying pan and tossed you right into the fire. His pace continued to increase only to slow when you’d start to cry harder. “Jus’ a lil’ further.” Was that for you or himself? He didn’t know. 

When Carol caught up, she didn’t touch you. Daryl knew it wasn’t out of anger or cruelty. She felt as if she had failed you. He knew that because he knew her better than anyone. 

He knew that because he had failed you too. 

Daryl sat on his mattress, legs outstretched and arms lying limply in his lap. It had been hours since he’d found you. He’d taken you to Hershel and was quickly ushered out due to the location of your injuries. Carol had remained, although unsure if you even wanted her there. 

The archer, with nowhere to release his guilt and anger, had headed straight for the cell where he knew Lonny and Marvin would be kept. Rick had temporarily taken his keys after the former sheriff and Glenn had finally managed to drag Daryl off of both men. 

At least he had retrieved his bolt from Marvin’s face. It was now lying on the floor below his feet. 

He was told to stay back when Carol had come from the medical cell and a decision was made on the fate of the two bastards. They counted his vote which was just shy of flaying them open and tossing vital organs over the fence. He had wanted to ask about you but there was no time. Everyone wanted the issue dealt with and the perpetrators out of the prison, one way or another. 

In the end, they were stripped of their clothing and put outside the fence. Carol wanted them to suffer as you had suffered. Rick had disagreed but was outvoted.  

Lonny and Marvin would now be two more walkers snarling at the fence. 

It wasn’t enough, in Daryl’s opinion. He would have tortured them, willingly chipped away at his humanity to hear them scream; to watch them writhe and see them bleed. Regardless, the anger had given way to all encompassing guilt. He wanted to blame Rick for bringing the assholes in based on the answers to three questions that anyone could respond to with a lie. But he couldn’t. 

He was the sole reason you were even there at the prison. He had gone against Rick and traded valuable assets to free you. He’d never know what would have been the better option for you. Still…

He selfishly wanted you to stay. 

It would never be worth the risk of your wellbeing to explore the urges he had been feeling. He’d never put you in that position; subject you to that confusion. He just wanted you to stay for reasons he couldn’t even grasp himself. What was wrong with him? He didn’t do emotions. It was always easier to remain closed off. 

Footsteps echoed from the bottom of the stairs. Carol. Daryl pulled himself from his defeatism, only to see your blood dried on his arms; his busted up knuckles. 

“Hey.” He didn’t look up. “Brought your vest and crossbow.” 

He still didn’t acknowledge her. He wasn’t angry with her in the slightest. He just didn’t know how to verbalize all he was feeling. He didn’t want to. So, when the mattress dipped beside him, he sighed. 

“Hershel says she’ll be okay. There were…lacerations that will take some time to heal. And she has a nasty concussion.” Carol fiddled with the hem of her shirt for distraction, allowing silence to permeate the room. “She won’t talk.”

Daryl scoffed. “She thinks ya broke a promise.”

“No.” She countered. “She won’t talk to anyone. Just lays there and stares at the wall.”

He hated how that image settled in his chest, causing an unfamiliar ache. How could Hershel say she’d be alright when she had been subjected to behaviors straight out of the hell from which he’d taken her. He couldn’t do more than hum in reply. 

“You like her, don’t you?”

“Nah.” He lied. “Jus’ wanted her ta be safe.” That much was true, at least. 

“I’d like to think I know you better than anyone.” Carol whispered sadly. “And everything in me says that you like that girl.”

“Wha’s it matter?” He would usually snap at her, but he didn’t have the energy; lacked the bite. The memory of you lying there, broken, had stripped all that away. 

“It matters.” She squeezed his shoulder and stood, dragging her feet toward the stairs where she paused. “You should go see her.”

“I ain’t what she needs righ’ now.” Or ever. 

It was her turn to hum. “Maybe you’re exactly what she needs.” 

He listened to her steps fade the further she walked. Carol did know him better than anyone, but that didn’t make what she knew right. He needed to stay away, for your sake and his own. 

So why did he find himself taking a shower to scrub away the blood you didn’t need to see? Why did he walk to the medical cell? And why was he standing in the doorway, staring at your back? 

Now that he was there, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. ‘Hey, sorry ‘bout those two dickheads that took advantage of ya’? Eventually, he chose just to seat himself in the chair behind you and remain silent. He couldn’t be certain if you even knew he was there. 

You looked so small on that table, the thin blanket pulled up to your shoulders. The sheet he had wrapped you in was wadded up in the corner, the crimson splotches scattered like a grizzly design. Daryl’s hands curled into fists. He wished he could have watched the walkers tear into those two depraved assholes. 

He remained that way— a coiled spring of anger and self-loathing —until you stirred. It was the slightest shift accompanied by a nearly inaudible mewl. The archer straightened his spine but otherwise remained still. He still couldn’t understand why he was there; couldn’t even attempt to sort through the sentiments stirring inside. They were slowly consuming him, confounding and confusing in their ambush. All he knew was that you were there, breathing and heart beating, and the sight of you provoked the overwhelming emotions. They threatened to swallow him whole. He’d gladly allow them if it meant he’d gain understanding. 

You shifted again, turning your head slowly to peer at him with tired eyes from over your shoulder. Daryl felt his lungs attempt to freeze while his pulse fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings. Carol had said you refused to speak. He wasn’t refusing. He simply couldn’t. He settled with offering a slow nod. 

His breath stuttered when you responded— not verbally —but with a small smile. It didn’t meet your eyes, but it was new and not unwelcome. His fingers dug into the arms of the chair, knuckles white. He wanted to run. This wasn’t him. For Rick, for Carol, he’d do this. He’d stay. They had become friends. No. They had become family. You? You were different. You weren’t an enemy. You weren’t really a friend. You were a stranger, a newcomer. Yet somehow, you had managed to slither your way right under his skin. 

That was terrifying. He’d rather be thrown into a pit of walkers with only a toothpick to protect himself than deal with matters of the heart. He was out of his depth, alone in unfamiliar territory. And at that point, it was sink or swim. 

Daryl cleared his throat. “How, uh, how ya doin’?” He managed to relax enough to free the chair from the death grip. The corners of your mouth turned down, your eyes beginning to shine with moisture as you looked away. The archer didn’t know how to interpret that. “I should go.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, finding himself hesitant to leave you alone. But it was for the best. He shouldn’t have come in the first place. He wasn’t sure what else to say. The silence made him feel even more awkward. 

Hands on the wooden chair arms, he pushed himself up to stand. Grunting was apparently Daryl-speak for ‘goodnight’ or ‘feel better’ but that’s what he went with. It never failed him before. Quick to turn his back, he made it two whole steps. 

“Daryl?”

The archer’s eyes closed, a curse sitting on the tip of his tongue. Of course he’d be the one you chose to talk to. Dixon luck at its finest. He turned his head toward his left shoulder, purposefully keeping his eyes on the floor. 

“Stay?” Your request came softly, but powerful enough to shatter any resolve he had managed to muster within his inner battlefield. Daryl found himself easily turning back to you, taking back those two steps, and lowering into the chair. 

“Okay.”

Taglist:

@royaltysuite @thegeorgiahuntsman @livingdeadblondequeen @deansapplepie @feral4daryl @walker-bait-1973 @lazyneonrabbitt @bizquake @littlelovingideas @ririi-3 @ankhmutes @blackvelveteen1339 @sokkasimp101 @lehhos @1ivinqdeadqir1main @loganlostitall @callmeyn @lilyevanstan1325 @the-lonely-abyss @gutsby @eljaynosine_triphosphate @abbyreedus @wifeof-barnes @bananafire11 @hutchersonsgurl @the-milk-is-rotten @she-could-never @Kenzimae67 @nessa-mayfield @ilovedilfs4eversthings @richardsamboramylove55 @annhells @abi67sblog @nessieart @imgeorgeclooney @brinteylovesaliens @eduardast4rgirl @daryldixmedown @willowaftxn83-87 @atyourmomshouse01 @bultamer @mia051 @memphiscity69 @flowerspetalsthorns @riya12044 @ariacraigggg @morgan556 @carley12041 @timeladyrikaofgallifrey @twdislifee @bae-live-0 @elbellmam @aleemendoza2425-blog @randomhoe @ren9sstuff @pandarooooo-blog @let-love-bleeds-red

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

Lumine, Eula, Noelle (obviously), and anyone else of your choosing with a late night working S/O, how would they go about persuading their S/O that they need to go to bed and sleep?

(Genshin Impact) Jean, Noelle, Shenhe, Dehya, Lisa, Xinyan, and Ei forcing their S/O to sleep

...Maybe I should sleep after writing this considering it's 12:45 AM. Also, Lumine and Eula's parts were done in a prompt very similar to this one!

"My goodness my glass house is sparkling delightfully in the morning sun, what a nice day to indulge in my favorite hobby of projectile mineralogy! - Yahtzee Croshaw

Yeah, Jean has absolutely zero room to criticize her S/O for working late into the night.

She does the exact same thing, usually passing out for doing so.

But ever since S/O had come into her life, she had been working on adjusting her schedule so she can properly rest at the behest of Barbara, for both their sakes.

Not to mention S/O was also concerned for her well being, so a compromise is made between the two.

(Jean) "If you rest S/O, then I will too. Like Lisa says, there's always tomorrow."

The last thing everyone needed in the Knights was two workaholics falling unconscious after all.

Noelle also has no room to criticize S/O for working too hard.

That being said, Noelle usually brings some tea for S/O, gently sitting it next to them.

(Noelle) "S/O, I know that I may not be the right person to say this, but you should get some rest."

Similar to Jean, Noelle also makes sure to take better care of herself so S/O doesn't have to worry, and hopes that they would do the same for her.

She has no problem helping S/O get tucked into bed before quickly settling in next to them.

WIth Noelle, she doesn't take long to convince them at all.

(Shenhe) "You should be resting S/O."

Shenhe is quite confused as to why S/O is up at this hour.

They should be resting, surely the work can wait until tomorrow?

At first she offers to stay up, thinking it was something related to no one keeping watch.

Only for S/O to explain it was just some work they could be finishing tonight instead of the morning.

(Shenhe) "It'd be far more efficient to have a clear mind and work later, would it not?"

Shenhe stares at S/O with an innocent expression, eventually making them break and relent.

It makes her feel more at ease, knowing S/O won't suddenly pass out from exhaustion.

(Dehya) "Jeez, you're still at that? Come on, it can wait till morning!"

Dehya playfully wraps her arms around S/O's upper body.

If they refuse to budge she'll make a loud and obnoxious sigh.

(Dehya) "If you don't put the paper down, I'll pick you up! It's reaaaal easy for me to do that, y'know!"

When they relent, Dehya chuckles and stretches her arms.

(Dehya) "Finally. Some shut eye will make you feel better too. Can't get paid for your work if you're paying for medical bills."

Part of her wishes that they would try to continue working, just for the excuse of getting to pick them up and embarrass them.

But alas, that would have to wait for another day.

Lisa refuses to bring any work home once she's done for the day.

And by all the damned souls in hell, Lisa will enforce that rule upon S/O as well.

(Lisa) "Darling, no bringing work home.~"

Despite her teasing tone, she is 100% serious.

Lisa was a hard worker herself, but that was only when she was supposed to be on the clock.

Their home was a place to relax and not think about work, so she'll first take S/O's hands gently and have them wrap around her hands instead.

Archons forbid S/O tries to continue working, then the tone of her voice becomes more lethal as S/O starts to feel electricity in the air.

(Lisa) "Won't you pay attention to little ol' me instead of some papers, S/O?"

(Xinyan) "S/O, get your tush into this bed! Don't make me sing some crappy ol' love song, I'll do it!"

The tone of Xinyan is half playful and half serious.

She doesn't want to play some cheesy song just to catch S/O's attention (mostly).

Xinyan just doesn't want S/O to overexert themselves when they don't have to.

Even she didn't write songs that late into the night

...Well, mostly, but S/O didn't need to know that little detail.

(Xinyan) "Trust me, your brain will make the work flow waaay better when you sleep, speaking from experience here!"

Ei convinces S/O to rest, though not in the way most would imagine.

Being an Archon, she could simply use her godly authority to force S/O to heel.

Or if it was the Raiden Shogun, then smiting S/O was an option.

Instead, Ei has S/O stop their work simply by being herself.

(Ei) "S/O, if you are going to stay awake during this time, can we eat some dessert?...It's too late at night? If you're working, then we can drink some dango milk!"

Simply put, it was annoying them for sweets if they stayed up for too long.

While it was because she was concerned for their well being, since humans are meant to rest, she was holding out for some hope that she can sneak in extra dessert for the night.

So far, it didn't work, much to her quiet dismay.

[they-call-me-emmy]

The Past is The Past 3

Part 1 and 2 on my account <3

Tara Carpenter x Fem!Reader

Summary: Tara was faced with her 3 ghostface, and this time got so seriously injured she was in a coma. When she wakes up, she has no memory of the past 3 years...including you, her girlfriend.

Notes: Imagine this as our gals scream 7...since Jenna apparently quit and left me fucking DYING

Warnings: Uh, injury, violence, blood, our boy ghostyface with knives. Coma and memory loss if thats even a warning. Swearing. Uhm. Shitty 7th grade writing.

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

Tara pushed the food around her plate using her fork. She'd barely eaten a bite all dinner, busy glaring at Sam and avoiding any sort of eye contact with Y/N.

"So." Sam began, putting a hand to her mouth and pausing, to finish chewing. "Y/N. How's life been treating you? I haven't seen you around in a while."

There was a second of silence as Y/N finished her food.

"Fine." She stated, setting her fork down on her napkin. "Work's been rough, but nothing besides that."

Sam nodded. "You work at that bookstore, right? The one with the bunny in the window? I drive by it on my way to the grocery store."

Tara had no idea what they were talking about. She hadn't gone shopping since she'd come home. What bookstore? What bunny? It was like listening to people speaking nonsense.

"Yeah. That's the one. Shifts have been longer recently, we're low on staff."

Sam nodded, continuing to eat. Y/N cleared her throat.

"Tara," Tara startled from her daze at the sound of her name, in Y/N's voice no less. "Sam's been telling me your getting back into horror? Is that true?"

Tara glared at Sam.

"I've always been into horror."

Y/N nodded, pursing her lips, sensing the tension in the room. The need to just...not talk.

"I was-" Y/N cleared her throat and took a sip of water. "I was wondering if maybe you wanted to watch some of your favorites...y'know, the few we watched in the last year you really enjoyed? I wouldn't mind re-watching them with you."

Tara couldn't help but feel weird. She's watched movies with this girl. She'd watched horror movies. She'd watched horror movies and enjoyed them. With this girl? This girl she hardly knew now?

"Maybe."

Y/N nodded.

"I've been busy lately." Tara pushed a cooked carrot into her napkin. She didn't like those.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Tara, you've been sitting on your ass for the past week-"

Tara suddenly stood up. "I'm finished. I'm going to go wash the dishes." She took Sam and Y/N's plates and left without another word.

Tara knew they'd talk the moment she left. She hovered at the door, running the sink in the background so they'd think she was cleaning. Maybe they'd mention the big thing tonight. Maybe they'd say something that would finally help her understand her past.

"I'm sorry she's being an ass." Sam's voice was muffled through the kitchen door.

"It's fine. I wasn't expecting a heartwarming welcome. I mean, come on, I'm practically a stranger to her. And it's hard on her too, Sam. Remember she's struggling too."

Tara would have felt mad if anyone else had said this, as if they pitied her and felt sorry for her state of mind. But hearing those words, those words in Y/N's sweet voice...felt like reassurance that someone understand how she'd been struggling.

"I know...I'm trying to get her to...connect. Y'know? Re-enforce those bonds...god, you two were like peas in a pod. I can't imagine how long it'll take for that to be back, especially with her new...attitude." Sam sounded empathetic, but there was still a twinge of annoyance in her voice.

"I'm not expecting it to just click again...but I can wait. I'm assuming you haven't told her?" Y/N asked.

Tara could feel her heart beat a little faster. Was this it? Was she about to learn what this secret was that everyone seemed so desperate to avoid?

"No. I don't feel like it's the right time. I mean, you see the way she is. Putting that much more pressure on her is bound to do no good."

"You have to tell her at some point." Y/N said. "You and her would both prefer you telling her rather then her randomly learning one day, or even worse, getting a flash of memory from it. The doctor did say those happen, especially with traumatic experiences, at least in her case."

"I don't feel like now is the right time."

"Soon, Sam. Please. The girl deserves to know. This is important."

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

I'm a slut for comments people.

[sleepiexx]

Hi sleepie🖤!! SorryI'm bit shy but I was wondering if you could a valeria x fem!reader x farah if you can't it's ok.

(have a great day or night🖤)

Everything is Falling Apart

Farah Karim x fem!Reader x Valeria Garza

Note: you requested this in late December I’m soooo sorry it took this long 😭😩 I wrote a lot and I’m willing to do a part two so anyone feel free to request!!

Summary: Farah and Valeria were never destined to meet, but when they come across a common enemy they find they work rather well together.

Warnings: canon-typical violence, torture (not on reader

Word Count: 4476

It was not often that one of 141’s sworn enemies stormed through Farah’s front door looking to make a deal, yet in front of her stood the infamous Valeria Garza, backed by cartel, carrying a file of someone Farah knew very little, yet oh so well.

“Farah Karim.” Valeria addressed her steadily, looking at the woman for any hint that she would retaliate.

Farah straightened herself up, crossing her arms and staring with the exact same purpose, “Valeria Garza.”

Valeria’s lips quirked up into a smirk, “I see your little British friends have already told you about me.”

Farah continued to analyze every move the woman made, “what do you want?” She asked.

Valeria’s posture changed, any sign of smugness erased as she got to business. “We have a common enemy.”

Farah scoffed, “what common enemy could I have with you and your drug runners?”

Valeria threw the file she’d been carrying down on the table between them, opening it up and displaying its contents to Farah. Farah looked at the file, then back at Valeria with a quirked brow.

“Two weeks ago your systems were hacked by a seemingly untraceable source.”

Farah straightened her posture, gaze turned scrutinizing. She thought through a million different ways she could disarm Valeria and her men, holding steady, waiting for just one reason to enact any one of those plans.

Valeria’s smirk returned, “That got your attention, huh?” She laughed slyly, at the standoffish look on Farah’s face, “don’t worry, I had nothing to do with it.”

“And how am I to believe that?” Farah glared, “Am I meant to take your word for it?”

Valeria shook her head, “No, you’re not. But right there in front of you is proof that it was not me.” She pointed at the file, Farah began to read some of it.

“I only know that you were hacked, Farah, because three nights ago that very same hacker stole some important information from me.”

Farah nodded, a new sense of understanding, “so what do you propose?”

Valeria stepped forward, making the conversation more intimate and intense, “alone, neither of us have had much luck finding who did this. They’re skilled, I’ll give them that. Covering their tracks like nothing you or I have ever seen before, no doubt they have someone strong backing them. But with your forces and mine combined? They stand no chance. What do you say?”

Farah looked back to the file once more, taking in as much information as she could before offering her hand, “Deal.”

Valeria had proven correct.

Working with Valeria who wasn’t constrained by the politics and the rules enforced by the government proved to ensure things were done in half the time it took Graves or the 141. Their forces together found out more about this hacker in mere days than Farah alone had achieved in weeks.

And while they hadn’t exactly found a name, they found something much better: a location.

Still, they couldn’t go in straight away. They needed a plan. Blueprints for the building, how to get in and out, methods of capturing this hacker— and yes, they’d opted for capture over kill because while Valeria wanted the situation over and done with, Farah made good points on how they needed more information. Hacking through both cartel and rebel militant networks is not just an everyday endeavor, after all.

The time they spent prepping allowed for multiple revelations by the hacker herself.

She sat in a cold room, staring down at a computer monitor and debating herself. There was not a bone in her body that was confrontational. An anxious people pleaser, always scared to disappoint. Yet everyone has their breaking point, in which those bones which constantly allow themselves to be stepped on snap under pressure and you rapidly try to mend them with a splint of rage and conflict. Overcompensation.

She was anxious to disappoint, yes, but there were bigger issues at hand; namely, the documents she had nabbed. She was not supposed to be going through them, her job simply being to acquire them through any means necessary and, well, she’d always been good with computers. But it’s only human nature to peruse information you were never meant to have. The original sin, Eve and the apple, y/n and the documents she was absolutely under no circumstances allowed to open. Tale as old as time.

She knew it had to be bad. You kidnap someone to hack into such intricately protected servers, those servers are bound to have something important. She’d realized that as she hacked the first network and the fact that she wasn’t meant to look at the contents only cemented that fact.

Clicking into the files left her with an unbelievably guilty conscience, but that was nothing compared to the guilt she felt antagonizing over the possibilities of what her hacking would be used for. She knew nothing of the people who kidnapped her, but she knew they could not possibly be the “good guys.” Her mouse hovered over the most recent file for all but three seconds before she took the leap of faith and clicked on it. What she found was, simply put, confusing. Lists of locations, dates, times, she didn’t recognize any of it. No major events which had happened, although she didn’t much watch the news. She clicked into a search engine, looking up each of the dates and locations, only to come up short.

Her brows furrowed, left with more questions than answers. But there were more files she could search, she’d done a lot of digging, they ensured that. She clicked on another file, opening up a black screen with a play button and a timestamp on the bottom. She double checked that the volume on her computer was quiet enough that it could not be heard from outside of the room before pressing play. The scene was horrific.

It was an interrogation, clearly. A man tied to a chair, bag on his head. In front of him were two people, a man and a woman. Both looked intimidating, dressed like they were ready for trouble, muscular arms painted with inky black tattoos, a stare lingering on either of their eyes like they hungered for blood.

The bag was ripped off the man in the chair’s head by the man who was standing. The woman remained where she stood, leaned against a table, arms crossed, watching. Y/n didn’t let the woman’s lack of involvement fool her. The woman had the same predator stare as her companion, if not more sinister. She did not take the backseat, it was almost as if the man was following her silent command.

The interrogation methods which ensued were gut wrenching. Y/n felt as though she may get sick. The man’s screams were unlike anything she’d witnessed or heard before in her entire life. She pressed her palm to her mouth as she stared on in shock. Despite everything, the man would not give the pair the information they wanted. Y/n had no clue what the breaking point was, but the woman stepped up, waving away the man as she called him incompetent— he seemed fairly competent at torture, at least to y/n. She couldn’t fathom what the woman had in plan.

Her face flushed and dread seeped into every inch of her body. She had no idea it could get worse, but it did. The man was left choking on his blood, finally breaking to the woman’s will after a mere five minutes.

While her attention was fixed on the computer screen, the sound of the door opening went unbeknownst to y/n. She clicked off the file, opting to open another but she was stopped short by a stern voice.

“What are you doing?”

Her head shot up from the monitor, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. “I- I was just-“

“Opening the file you were specifically instructed to leave alone?” He took a pernicious step in her direction.

She was scared, beyond belief. She knew she had to respond and she had to respond well, but thinking on her feet never seemed to be her thing. “Well it- it’s necessary that I- uhm, ensure I uploaded everything properly.”

His face was stone cold, he was not fooled by her words, that much was evident. “Shouldn’t you have done that when you acquired the file to begin with?”

She licked her lips, shifting her gaze across the room, “I forgot.”

“You forgot?”

There was nothing to do but double down, it was almost like she could physically feel her chances of making it out of this alive spill away and seep down the cracks in the floor as the “mhm,” left her mouth.

In anger, he violently slammed his boot clad foot into the metal trash can beside him, creating a thundering noise to go along with his rage filled voice. “Do you think I’m a fucking idiot? Huh?”

“No- No, no sir! I just-“ her voice cracked, she knew she couldn’t talk her way out of this one, “please just let me go! I won’t tell anyone I swear. I just want out, please!”

The man shook his head, “we will let you go when we are through with you. Until then, you stay right here.”

She shook her head in frustration, “these people you’re fucking with are dangerous, I- I don’t even want to know what they’d do to me if we’re caught.”

He got up in her face, grabbing her wrist with a near bone breaking clutch, “you don’t want to know what I’ll do to you if you don’t do as I say.”

Her face twisted in pain, “fuck- fuck- Jesus fucking god okay! Okay? Let go!”

He dropped her wrist, allowing it to fall to her side. For a moment, he stood unmoving, yet all at once he was impossibly closer, “I’m the one in charge here, you’d do well to remember that,” he snarled. He stared for a tense moment before turning on his heel and leaving the room, not bothering to lock the door when he knew well that there were guards she wouldn’t dare cross.

And all at once she was alone again.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

She pleaded with herself. She could not cry, not here, not now. She would not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her tears.

She sat still and suffered in silence for just a moment, praying to everything and to nothing, that this would all just be over.

Hours passed, and she swore up and down she was driving herself crazy in that room. Those four walls seemed to cave in on her, she paced and paced, thoughts racing, searching for any way out of the situation she’d found herself in that fateful night she decided to go on a walk at night. Such a stupid idea, looking back on it, to walk the barely lit pathway from her apartment to the corner store, music blaring in her ears. Almost as though she was begging someone to snatch her up off the street and take her away, never to be seen again.

She felt sick, but self hatred had to be cast aside for now. She had to clear her mind, had to think. How could she get out of this? Could she get out of this?

She was shook from her thoughts by a loud explosion, like gunshots— no, not like. The closer she listened, she realized they were gunshots.

The door slammed open, some part of her, no matter how minuscule, hoped it was the man from before. Better a devil that you know, right? But it wasn’t that man, no it was some woman she’d never seen before. She knew better than to trust it, but her brain couldn’t help her here. Not against trained freedom fighter Farah Karim.

She didn’t know the woman but she knew she was screwed as she was slammed against the table. Even more so when she caught a glimpse over Farah’s shoulder. No more than 5 feet away stood the woman whose image she would never burn out of her head, the woman from the video.

Terror shot through her very being. She knew this whole thing would go tits up, could feel it from the moment she saw that goddamn video. This “organization” which had kidnapped her would fuck up and she would reap the consequences.

She kicked and she hit, flailing around in a desperate attempt to fight her way out of the grasp of the woman on top of her. It wasn’t until she felt the sting of cool metal on the base of her throat that she stilled. Her eyes met cold, dark brown. The same eyes she’d seen torture that man in the video without a hint of sympathy. Her chest heaved.

“You’re not going to move unless I say so, you got that?” The hacker tried to nod but the knife moved further up on her neck, pressed harder, nearly piercing her skin, “What did I just say? Tell me, out loud.”

“‘M not gonna move,” she breathed out.

The woman scoffed, lightening the tension between blade and throat only slightly, keeping it there as a reminder of what would happen should the girl before her choose to disobey, “damn right you’re not.”

The other woman in the room was aloof, uncaring about the air of violence caused by her comrade, almost relishing in it yet refraining herself, “Where are they?”

“What?” The hacker asked, wanting nothing more than to answer without a struggle but not understanding the question.

“The files you stole, where are they?”

Those files were important, she could guess that the moment she was kidnapped and forced to retrieve them. Even more so when it was drilled in her head that she was never to give them up, that the man tasked with holding her captive would hurt her worse than the women before her could even imagine. But in their presence, it was easy to tell who was scarier. After all, she’d seen what just one of them could do. But that man? Well, who’s to say he’s not just all talk?

“They- they’re on the computer.”

The knife was pulled from her neck Valeria gestured to the desk. When y/n made no attempt to move, she spoke, “go on then, show us.”

She stood hesitantly, keeping her eye on the women as she went over to the desktop. It wasn’t password protected, there was no need. Not when it wasn’t her own personal device and the men holding her hostage couldn’t tell their ass from their elbow when it came to technology.

She clicked on the file which she’d opened mere hours before and to her horror, what popped up on the screen had been the last thing she viewed. The sight of blood spattered all over that room made her queasy, the fact that the woman who spilled that blood was right behind her with a knife bid her no semblance of security. She flinched, like a teenager who’d been caught watching a porno. And all the same, she scrambled to click out of that specific file and into the folder containing all the information she’d thieved.

The tension was thick, yet it was broken by the loud click of the door being slammed open. Every head in the room turned toward the man in the doorway.

Shit.

She’d been obedient to these women, riding on the fact that the man who threatened her not to wasn’t in the room. Yet here he stood before her, pointing a gun like he’d done so a million times— and she didn’t doubt that he had. What that said about his aim was scary, her end seemed almost imminent yet she could not just accept that. No, her body refused. Adrenaline raced through her veins, preparing her for something she hadn’t half the mind to do.

“Hands up!” His voice boomed. They each listened, her scurrying to put her arms up, palm faced towards him. The other women were slow to do it, but followed, scoffing as though this were only a minor inconvenience.

He did not seem to like that.

“What? You think this isn’t serious?” His brows furrowed, and his face twisted to near rage. The barrel of the gun scanned the room, coming to a stop on the hacker.

Her mouth fell open— she was the least threat in this room, why was the gun on her?

“You need her, right? She’s the one who knows everything you need. I put a bullet in her brain and you’re left with nothing.”

She looked at the other women, suddenly realizing that they were fuming. Farah’s eyes shot to her, searching for signs of betrayal. She found none, but fear was evident— must not have been close with this specific man.

She was patient, calculated. And so was her confidant, but in the presence of such a foolish man, brash measures were deemed necessary. They stared on like predators.

Events flashed one after another, adrenaline making it seem like time ran faster than it truly did. One moment the man held a gun in his hands, trained on the talented young hacker, the next a fight broke out between him and the two military trained women and just when it looked like he had the upper hand, y/n found herself standing over the man, hands coated in thick splatters of blood that wouldn’t seem to stop spewing from the wound she’d made in his eye. The scissors weren’t meant to go so deep. Fuck. This couldn’t be happening.

She had no idea what came over her, it was like she wasn’t in her own body. Like instinct had taken over; if you don’t kill that man, he’ll kill you first. But, he couldn’t be dead, could he? She couldn’t have killed him.

Her bloodied hands shot to his neck, holding two fingers to where she assumed the artery was. She didn’t know what she was searching for. A pulse, maybe, something to prove that she wasn’t a killer. That she hadn’t done this. She moved her fingers around when she felt no movement, surely she just hadn’t found the right spot.

Valeria pushed her hands aside, taking over where y/n had left off with 20 times the precision. Her head turned back to the other woman, “he’s dead.”

Y/n’s heart dropped, her airway seemed to tighten and her face twitched as if in agony.

“One less problem for us to deal with,” Valeria remarked with a smile.

Farah shook her head, eyes trained on the bloodied hacker. This prompted Valeria’s smile to drop as she turned to where Farah was looking in curiosity.

The face the girl before them made was one they knew well. Innocence broken. First blood. She had never killed anyone before.

“Oh- oh god. He’s dead- I killed him!” Her eyes couldn’t stop themselves from holding steady on the man’s body, “they- it, it wasn’t supposed to go so deep. Oh my god, I’m a killer.”

Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

The voice that seemed lately to constantly echo this in her head, finally went silent. Tears dripped down her face. She felt pure dread.

Farah and Valeria couldn’t take their eyes off the scene. They couldn’t get a proper read on the girl. Maybe she’s been conducting her crimes behind a screen, never getting into the nit and grit, leaving the dirty work to other people. But one nagging thought creeped in, one neither of them could seem to push away no matter how hard they tried; maybe, just maybe this hacker girl wasn’t as guilty in this as they had originally thought.

“Fuck.” Farah whispered, cautiously stepping towards the near catatonic hacker despite the harsh look Valeria gave her. She kneeled between the girl and the body, hoping it would urge her eyes from the spot where his body lay, it did not.

“Look at me,” Farah said, voice steady, commanding, yet full of tact. Y/n looked up, lashes lined with tears, lips trembling, nose twitching, still desperate to listen to the woman who seemed to hold her fate in her hands. “You didn’t do anything you didn’t absolutely have to.”

The girl shook with such intensity you’d think there was an earthquake, a haunted look in her eyes as she sniffled and sobbed, “I killed him.”

Valeria was slower to melt at the sorrow than Farah had been, burned one too many times by some teary eyed kid pretending they were traumatized only to sheath a knife in her back. But that look in her eyes was unmistakable, the type of panic and grief you couldn’t fake. An innocence that was irreplicable.

She kneeled beside Farah, placing a hand on the shaking shoulder of the hacker, “for good reason.”

The girl shook her head, in a downward spiral, end nowhere in sight.

But there was no time to console her. Alarms blared across the building, startling the hacker into letting out something between a sob and a scream.

No matter how much the women wanted to help, they knew it would have to wait. Time was running out. Valeria pulled her off the ground, grabbing her shoulders and giving her precise instructions.

“You listen to me, you do exactly as I say and you make it out of this alive. Go to the computer, I want you to put all the information— the files, videos, logs— on this drive,” she pulled the girl’s hand from her side, roughly placing a thumb drive into her hand and clasping her fingers around it, “and then you are going to follow us out of this room and we are leaving. Do you understand?”

She nodded, unable to even form words. When the woman let go of her hand, she hightailed it to the desk, moving information faster than she had ever done in her life. It wasn’t like she did high-stress “hacking,” on the regular, just small things, things that seemed stupid in comparison. When she was done, she placed the drive on the table, wiping all original copies clean off the computer.

The second she gave the indication that she was done, they were out the door. Farah behind her, Valeria in front, pulling her along by her wrist.

They didn’t get far before they were stopped. Pulled into a flow of violence and fighting as they went down a flight of stairs, meeting what was presumably their forces fighting ferociously in the hall. The hacker had no clue what to do with herself, staring around aimlessly, for a moment, she considered tucking tail and running while everyone was distracted but the thought was quickly snuffed out as she made eye contact with Valeria. Brown eyes glared into her own and she stood confused, it’s not like the woman could’ve heard her thoughts.

A slamming pain is what made everything make sense. Oh. She was not glaring at y/n, rather what was behind her. All too fast, the world faded from focus.

Existence was fuzzy. Life seemed so far away. A ringing in her ears was all she could tether herself with, floating around the endless mind scape that was her thoughtless brain.

What brought her to consciousness was a stinging pain ringing through her skull, like the buzz of an amp before a concert. She was confused. Looking around, her surroundings were unfamiliar. Had this entire ordeal been a dream? Some weird post-one night stand nightmare? Post nut clarity? She didn’t remember sleeping with anyone, and she knew good and well that she had a couple weeks worth of memories in captivity, but the mind was a fickle thing, and that was a kinder thought than the realization that everything she experienced had actually happened.

She went to wipe her tired eyes but found that she couldn’t move her hands. Looking above her, she found her hands bound with a pair of fuzzy handcuffs. Huh, maybe this had been some weird sex dream after all. But if that’s so, where was her partner? And why was she still tied.

She tugged at the cuffs, seeing if there was any give, but her hands stayed trapped. She huffed in frustration and a slow building panic, what if the organization recaptured her? The fuzzy cuffs were strange, sure, but maybe they figured her wrists needed to be in tact for hacking. That didn’t take other forms of torture off the table, she had betrayed them after all. Whether she had any loyalty to them in the first place or not.

She heard the door to the room open and she sank into the bed, letting her eyes fall shut as she pretended she was still asleep.

The room was quiet for a moment, until right next to her ear she heard, “I know you’re awake.”

She flinched, eyes opening only to be met with the same dark brown she’d seen as she was hit over the head.

She wondered briefly where Farah had gone, but her question was answered as a scoff sounded behind the other woman. “Leave the girl alone, she passed the test.”

The hacker’s brows furrowed, “test?” She wondered aloud.

Valeria smirked, “the cuffs. Any trained professional could know how to get out of these in seconds,” she grabbed onto the metal, tugging on it to prove that the cuffs were still tight, “you, clearly, are no trained professional.”

Anxiety bubbled in her stomach, it felt as though they could smell her fear. They knew now that she had absolutely nothing over them, no way of fighting back, no thumb drive as leverage. They could drag her through their every whim and she would have to just take it. Her frightened demeanor was evident.

Farah stepped forward, “you have nothing to worry about,” she fiddled with the cuffs before pulling them away and holding them up, freeing the hacker’s wrists, “just means you don’t have to wear these any more.”

“Can I- can I go home?”

“Not yet.”

The hopeful gleam fell from her face unceremoniously, you’re not out of the woods yet, she reminded herself.

“Cheer up,” Valeria almost commanded, “we just have some things we need to sort out, until then you’re staying with Farah and I.”

The hacker looked on expectedly for the woman’s name, presuming that Farah was the other woman in the room.

“That’s Valeria,” Farah explained, “what’s your name?”

The hacker's eyes flitted between the women, anxious, holding off on answering until it seemed almost inappropriate to do so, “y/n.”

Unbeknownst to the group, this little alliance between Valeria and Farah which held y/n captive would become so much more than ever intended.

[kasagia]

you can make a one-shot for klaus mikaelson very much in love with y/n based on the song i wanna be yours by arctic monkeys (you can do it from klaus's point of view)

I wanna be yours

Pairing: Klaus Mikaelson x Katherine's sister! reader Summary: Over the ages, Klaus finally matures to admit that he has fallen in love with you, Katherine Pierce's sister. However, can you two be more than occasional "once in a century" one-night stands? Can he be yours, and you only his? Nonsense from me: So sorry it took me so long. I hope You like it. <;3 Warning(s): the reader is afraid of relationships and commitments; Klaus loves the reader, but it takes 400 years for him to realize it; violence; blood; curses; and so on Word count: ???(9k)???(I don't know why and when it became so long, and I'm a little nervous that it's such a long tapeworm)

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust

It started very innocently, like any real apocalypse or nightmare. Klaus didn't even realize when Y/N Petrova—the sister of the cold bitch, pain in the ass, and one and only Katherine Pierce—stole his heart.

Yes. She stole it. Klaus did not believe that he would willingly give her the meager remnants of his humanity (even if he hated them).

He could easily have been hiding his unwanted desire for centuries. Occasional encounters with the younger Petrova, their accidental, intense trysts, and once-in-a-century one-night stands, were completely enough to quench his thirst for this diabolical, dangerous woman.

But since their paths met again in Mystic Falls (while searching for a cure for vampirism), Klaus wanted more.

He desperately sought her slightest attention. He followed her around the city like a shadow. He stayed with her as much as he could, even giving her access to his cure research and telling her what he did know about it… well, part of it - Mikaelson can't trust the devil's sister. But everything he was doing since she arrived was just for Y/N to find her way back to his bed again.

He needed to vent his lust to Y/N. He was sure that after one night together he would revert to his murderous habits and continue his ruthless fight for the cure without the (delightfully tempting and beautiful) distractions around him. He was wrong. Terrible wrong.

Her warmth, touch, scent, the softness of her skin, the wonderful moans that lingered in his mind, the delighted look on her blissful post-orgasmic face, and the soothing weight of her body on his as she fell peacefully asleep were like a nercotic to Klaus.

He needed more.

He needed more of her. He would take from her everything she could give him. Even if it was her hate, anger, frustration, or just pure physical desire. Even if being with her was leading to his downfall. She was a siren, and he willingly fell for her alluring song like a foolish pirate.

And now, lying with Y/N in his arms, as he tenderly combed her hair after a passionate night they spent together, he couldn't get the one stupid, irritatingly frequent thought out of his mind.

He wanted to be hers.

I wanna be your Ford Cortina I will never rust

He remembered the day when their mutual interest in each other turned into something more. (At least on his side.)

Y/N and Katerina were hiding from the originals in Venice. Klaus and his brother, thanks to their vampires, found the sisters there. So under the cover of night, masks on their faces, they mingled with the celebrating crowd.

Klaus sensed her before he saw her.

The scent of her sweet perfume hit his nostrils, enforcing his determination to find the fleeing vampire. He had to find her. Now.

He made his way through the crowd of people, searching among the masks and bodies for the one person who, despite such blatant betrayal, could easily soothe his anger with one banal kiss.

He remembered clearly one day teasing Elijah that he was starting to care about Katerina. He had no idea then that the younger Petrova was already paving the way to his cold, dead heart. Or that Y/N had him wrapped around her little finger. Klaus laughed bitterly, remembering his old words. "We do not feel and we do not care, Elijah." What would his former self think of him if it saw him chasing the slightest trace of the woman who had thwarted his plans to become a hybrid? What would he say if it came out that all Klaus wants to do now with the youngest Petrova is kiss the living hell out of her and lock her in his arms forever?

And when he saw her. On a gondola in the middle of one of the rivers, when her night-black mask concealed her beautiful face and eyes, which sparkled in the light of torches and lanterns floating above the water, he felt something he hadn't felt for a very long time and was very frightened to admit to himself...

For these eyes, many men have completely lost their minds. Suddeny, she looked in his direction, subconsciously sensing that she was being watched. And in this moment, when their eyes met, Klaus knew that, like those unfortunate fools before him, he too was lost forever. It takes her one look to make him forget his main goal.

In a second, he was on the other side of the river. He was standing on the pier, waiting for her gondola to reach the shore.

"Hello, love." he said, extending his hand to help her out. With incredible grace, she stood next to him, completely ignoring his gesture. He smiled. That's what he loved about her. Stubborn, steadfast independence.

"Klaus. I guess you're not here for food and music?" he smiled involuntarily, ignoring her feigned hostile tone as her irises met his again.

"I much prefer beautiful views. But you're right, my main goal was not to enjoy the festival. I had… completely different plans."

"With my sister? I can assure you that I'm much better company than Katerina. We may have… a different kind of play together. Much more pleasurable." she said with a seductive smile, blinking her eyelashes innocently as her hand played with the sleeve of his coat, occasionally touching the skin of his rough palm with her soft fingertips.

Another reminder of how different they were from each other.

"Are you trying to distract me so your lovely sister can run away again?"

"You tell me…" Y/N took a step towards him, pressing her chest against his. She licked her lips, drawing his heavy, watchful gaze. "Am I a good distraction, my lord?" she whispered, leaning closer to him so that their noses were touching.

Klaus had never been this close to her lips... but he couldn't afford to indulge in his darkest desires. Not like this - thanks to a cunning plan hatched by the Petrova siblings.

"You're playing a very dangerous game, love…" he responded quietly, slipping his hands into her hair. And when their lips would finally meet after century of chasing, he pushed her a decent distance away from him. Y/N gasped in outrage as she nearly bumped into the crates with fruits behind her. "You should be careful, or you'll get burned because of it someday. And know when and on whom to use those sweet eyes of yours, which can work, but only on lesser men. Now get away with Katerina before I change my mind."

Without waiting for her response, he headed in the opposite direction, leaving the young vampire behind. But Y/N wouldn't let him go that easily.

"You won't fool me! Not about that!" He turned to her, raising an eyebrow questioningly. Klaus was doing his best to hide from the woman in front of him his stupid fondness for her. He was the original vampire, a hybrid, and the most powerful and fearsome being on this earth. He couldn't have a weakness, much less a simple woman who had tricked him, escaped, and ruined his plans. But all he could do was stand there and watch her in fascination as she got angrier with every step closer to him. "I see desire in your eyes every time you look at me. You want me, and that's why you're playing cat and mouse with us, but you know what? I'm tired of taking orders. From Katerina, you, and others who best know what I should do."

"So? What are you going to do, love?" he asked, smiling maliciously in challenge. He was genuinely curious to see where the young vampire's frustration and fury might lead him today. She must have had a good argument with her sister before he got here. Otherwise, she would never touch him.

Y/N used her vampire-speed and pinned him to the wall of one of the buildings.

They stared into each other's eyes, building tension with anticipation of what both of them had wanted since they met. Y/N's running away and him killing her family didn't seem to be conducive to building a romance. But now, when so much time has passed and the youngest Petrova is still struggling with the vampire's heightened emotions? They succumbed to the pleasures of a forbidden affair, finally connecting their lips in their first lustful, passionate kiss.

"What time is it?" Y/N's soft, surly mumbling against his neck snapped Klaus out of his memories. He glanced at the alarm clock.

9 a.m.

"6 a.m." he lied to her, tightening his grip around her half-asleep body. He wasn't ready to let her go yet.

"So stop staring at me and go back to sleep, half-wolfie." she mumbled, squirming in his arms until she found a comfortable position with her head right over his heart and her legs between his.

"Half-wolfie?" he asked amusedly, laughing softly, which made the vampire's head bob slightly. She rose for a moment, opening one eye and shooting him a angry glare.

"Would you rather be an crossbreed? Sleep or I will take another bedroom in this ridiculously large house." she groaned, laying her head on his chest again.

"As you wish, love." he murmured, kissing the top of her head and letting himself go back to sleep, hugging the one woman he could never truly have.

Because no matter how many nights they spend together or how much time they devote to each other during the day, all they will be are midnight lovers, hiding their relationship.

They stood on opposite sides of the barricade.

Y/N would never leave Katerina, and Klaus wouldn't abandon his siblings for the younger Petrova.

The world and fate were against them.

And Klaus was the only one who was ready to fight with them, only to gain the feeling of a sleeping beauty in his arms.

If you like your coffee hot Let me be your coffee pot You call the shots babe I just wanna be yours

The problem that has plagued Klaus for ages is that he and Y/N could never truly belong together.

He couldn't make any claims to her, and every time he tried to transfer their friend/enemy relationship with benefits to something more, younger Petrova brought him down to earth. He never cared much about it. He believed that Y/N needed time to understand her feelings for him. However, one conversation he overheard put his hopes of being hers in great doubt.

"What's going on with you and Klaus?" Katerina laughed out loud, obviously genuinely amused by something. "Don't make that face. I was talking to Kol about how often you show up at their mansion at night and you don't really go to gossip with Rebekah or Elijah. Are you two together?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." she brushed it off, trying to get off topic.

"Oh come on, spill the beans! Do you love him?" Klaus unconsciously held his breath. His heart was beating wildly, waiting for her answer that could change everything between them, made his deepest dreams come true.

"If you must know, I don't love him. It is just sex. Very good and pleasant sex. No feelings except pure, animal desire and passion." Klaus felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. Yeah. What was he counting on? After all, no one could love a monster like him. Unconditional, sincere love was not meant for him… even if he wanted it so much.

"Ugh, okay! Spare me the details, I don't want to vomit. But I thought you…"

"Love is a vampire's greatest weakness, Katerina. And we are not weak." his breathing quickened as he realized the true meaning of her words.

She heard them. Somehow, 1,000 years ago, she'd heard him talking to Elijah about love in a vampire's life... Back when he didn't believe in the true power of such a thing as love.

"And what about me, then?"

"You're my sister. That's something different. Now, I have to go. See you tomorrow." he hid in the shadows, waiting for the two women to pass him, and stayed there for a while.

Even though Klaus' heart was broken into a thousand little pieces, he knew he couldn't resist Y/N. He would take anything she could give him. Even that delusion of romance and a loving relationship that he both dreamed of and hated at the same time.

He couldn't believe he could just fall for her when he knew full well that things between them could only be physical. However, he soon found out that love really doesn't choose.

Secrets I have held in my heart Are harder to hide than I thought Maybe I just wanna be yours I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours

Klaus wasn't about to show it to her. It was supposed to be a secret he would take with him to the grave (if someone managed to kill him). However, Y/N's curiosity, coupled with his lack of focus on finding the cure, made a very bad, devastating combination. He finally managed to focus on something other than the vampire who had been distracting him for centuries, and for a moment of inattention everything went haywire again. Ages of slowly and uncertainly, but still, winning Y/N's heart have gone to hell.

Only because he didn't lock up his damn art studio.

Kol is going to laugh so fucking hard when he finds out. His younger brother will never let him forget that he lost the love of his life because she was scared by a million paintings of her in his house. She probably thought he was a goddamn stalker.

Klaus stood in the doorway, watching Y/N's expressionless face. He admired and hated her ability to hide her emotions. He had the impression that she always read him like an open book. He couldn't hide anything from her. But she could easily hide from anyone behind her mask. It was both terrifying and fascinating at the same time.

"Are you going to say something?" he finally asked after waiting a long time for any reaction from her.

She shifted her gaze from the paintings to him. Klaus felt shivers run through his body. He couldn't remember the last time he felt such intense fear.

"Well, it's... it's nice. But you painted my nose wrong."

"What?! I didn't! I..." he stopped when he heard her burst out laughing after valiant attempts to hold back. A smile involuntarily formed on his face upon hearing this beautiful and rare sound. "You're not mad… or scared?"

"Of what? You weren't able to paint my nose properly? Or putting on me a yellow dress when you know that I hate that color?"

"It's not yellow, it's orange mixed with… Do you really have to tease me like that? Stop laughing, bloody woman."

"I'm sorry, you just make a funny face when you're protecting your art. To be honest, it's so sweet." she laughed so loudly that she had to lean in half.

"You should know better than to mock a very powerful and angry hybrid, love." he grunted in anger. Y/N, seeing how grumpy he had become, walked over to him with a cute smile. Klaus groaned internally. He didn't know which was worse. She running away from him or teasing him about it for the foreseeable future.

"Do you really think that after I saw all those paintings you can threaten me? I know you're obsessed with me, so I'm the most fucking safest person on earth." she bragged, throwing her arms around his shoulders.

"Don't be complacent, your pretty features are not unusual. I have seen many of them in my long life." he grunted, slapping her hands off of him.

"And yet I'm the only one who has a private collection of portraits made by the mighty hybrid."

"You won't let it go, would you?" he sighed, looking at the very amused woman as he tried to ignore the growing, warm feeling in his chest. God. How come that just hearing her laugh made him feel calm and happy?

"Nope." she said, putting her hands again on his shoulders and pulling him closer to her as she was playing with his hair. "But it's quite a nice feeling... you know, being your one and only beloved muse."

"Someone here is terribly pleased with themselves. I think I have to remind you of your place." he grunted feistily, grabbing her waist.

"I'd like to see you try."

Suddenly, Klaus swung her over his shoulder and slapped her bottom as he carried the laughing woman to his bedroom. Yeah... he was definitely in love with her.

Wanna be yours Wanna be yours Wanna be yours

Klaus began to squirm in the bed, trying to pull Y/N's warm body to him, which he had somehow lost in his sleep. He froze in place, feeling the emptiness on the other side of the bed. A familiar bitterness and disappointment took over his body. He could have guessed that she would leave him as usual. However, as he became more aware of his surroundings, he heard her muffled voice coming from the bathroom. She was talking to someone. This time she didn't leave him, she even stayed with him all night! Excitement and hope rose involuntarily in him. Maybe this time it will be different?

"Yes, Katherine, I know. I don't know how I overslept either. I know I'm irresponsible, and I'm ruining our plans. No. I'm not enjoying this situation, you're just acting like you got your period magically. It's not my fault I missed the plane, believe me, and don't you dare take your anger out on me just because you had a fight with Elijah. Talk to me when you've calmed down. I'm not going to be your punching bag. Bye." The bathroom door handle began to move, and Klaus quickly closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.

Y/N walked into the room and sighed as she dropped the phone into her purse. She ran a hand through her hair in nervousness and turned to the hybrid. 

"I know you're awake. You stopped snoring." the man snorted indignantly, opening his eyes and appreciating her underwear-clad body. He could wake up to this view every day. "I'll castrate your brother as soon as I see him. You're lucky you're useful, or you'd have suffered the same fate for tricking me this morning."

"Very brave for an ordinary vampire to plan an attack on the original as the first thing to do in the morning. Apart from that, I don't snore."

"My nights experience with you says otherwise. And please, we both know I'm not just an ordinary vampire. You'd better make up for your deception toward me today before I get offended and seek someone else's company. Maybe Damon will be perfect? I've heard that for Katherine, he is very good in..."

Klaus cut her off by pinning her against the wall. Their chests rubbed against each other, her lacy bra teasing his bare, exposed skin. She raised an eyebrow, completely unimpressed. Klaus growled, baring her neck and extending his fangs to teasingly run them over her most sensitive spots.

"You will not talk about another man in my bedroom. These lips..." he said, resting his thumb against her soft pink lip, forcing Y/N to part her mouth. "Can only whisper, scream and moan my name. I must have been too gentle with you yesterday if you had the audacity to tease me like that. Maybe I should make sure you know who you belong to?"

"I don't belong to anyone."

"Wrong answer, love." he growled throatily, pulling her against him and pushing her against the bed as he climbed over her until their faces floated at the same height.

"What are you going to do? Fuck me to death? You should know better than to scare me with a good time, Niklaus."

"I'm going to do something completely different, love." Y/N raised an eyebrow questioningly, challenging him. Suddenly, fear flickered in her eyes as she realized his true intentions.

"No, Nik. We agreed never to…"

"That was ages ago, love." he murmured with a smirk as he began tickling her over the bare skin of her sensitive belly that was exposed to him.

"NO! HAHAH-NIK, STOP! I-HAHAHA!" she screamed, throwing herself into his arms, trying to avoid his fingers.

"I'm sorry. There is no mercy for you, love. At least you apologize."

"I"M-HAHAHA SORRY! PLEASE-HAHAHA SSSTOP IT!"

"You know what I meant, Y/N." he replied unfazed, only strengthening his attack against her sensitive skin.

"I CAN'T WITH-HAHAHAHAH YOUR FINGERS-HAHAHAH ON ME-AHAHAHA!" Klaus took pity on her, stopping to tickle her as he studied her red-laughing face intently as she took in quick, short breaths. "I hate you." she panted, breathing heavily. Klaus took a breath to answer her, but his sister's scream stopped him.

"Nik! Kol is in danger! He went to the Gilbert house to kill Jeremy, and they still have an white oak stake left! What the bloody hell?! Y/N?!" she screamed, turning her back to them two as soon as she entered the room and saw... THIS.

The two vampires looked at each other in shock.

"Hi, Rebekah. That's not what it looks like."

"So you don't fuck my brother?"

"Well, I did it earlier, but… Klaus, could you please get off me? This is awkward enough already."

"And put some clothes on you for the love of God!" Rebekah added, still with her back to them. Once they were both decent, Rebekah looked at them in disbelief.

"You two... How? When?!"

"Some 400 years ago. So, Kol…"

"WHAT?! But you hate each other! Well, maybe he's staring at you with puppy dog eyes in love, but you loathe him!" she shouted, pointing at her grumpy brother with her finger.

Klaus rolled his eyes. He didn't care at all about what situation Rebekah found them in. His siblings had an extraordinary tendency to come into his bedroom at more... steamy moments. To be honest, he was more surprised that Rebekah had only discovered their little secret now. Talking about her.

The original turned his curious gaze to Y/N. Again, their future was in her hands. But the vampire didn't seem eager to change their relationship in any way. Certainly not in the way Klaus had dreamed of for so long...

"Am I the only one in this room who actually cares about your brother's life? What did Kol do this time?" her attention turned away from her the penetrating gaze of the man sitting next to her.

Y/N breathed a sigh of relief as the siblings plunged into conversation. However, from the look Klaus gave her, she knew things would change drastically between them in the next few days. She could no longer avoid his longing glances and dismiss his attempts to establish a friendly, partner relationship instead of stopping at their one-night stands. But did she want to change anything?

Let me be your leccy meter And I'll never run out And let me be the portable heater That you'll get cold without

"It's a cold night." he said, sneaking up behind her and throwing his cloak over her shoulders. "I dare say that a short dress doesn't help keep you warm."

"Don't even start. I'm just waiting for the moment when I can wear pants without getting those judging, murderous looks from other women and lecherous expressions on the faces of these perverts."

"Rebekah says the same thing…" he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and fastened the buttons on his coat. Y/N giggled, returning Klaus' blue eyes to her face again. Only then did the man realize what he was doing, and he let go of the buttons, leaving her half-buttoned with a mischievous smirk on her lips. He felt his cheeks heat up slightly. "What are you doing here?"

"Katherine is playing with humans nearby. I thought I'd drop by for a visit and see for myself this great kingdom you've built, Klaus the Madness." she replied, leaning again against the railing of his balcony and staring out at the lively, dancing streets of New Orleans.

The light from the street lamp illuminated her face. Klaus absorbed all the changes that had taken place in her appearance, stating only that she was even more beautiful than when they last met. He didn't know how she did it.

"Is my fame starting to finally overtake me?" he asked, joining her side quickly. Y/N looked at him with a teasing smile, playing with the bracelet on his wrist. The same she gave him an century ago. She didn't think Klaus was sentimental enough to keep it.

"You are on the lips of all supernaturals in the world." she finally replied, shifting her gaze to his eyes, which shone in the light of the street lamp.

"Well, I would rather be on the tempting lips of only one, beautiful supernatural."

"And who could it be, my lord?" she replied in an equally flirtatious tone as her hand began to travel along his arm and muscles.

"Those mesmerizing eyes and cheeky lips will put you someday in a big trouble, love."

"Please, I'm Y/N Petrova. I'm always in danger, but I can get myself out. And also…" she kissed him, slowly undoing the buttons on his shirt. Klaus groaned, drawing her closer with one arm and cupping her warm cheek with the other hand. God, he missed the feeling of her in his arms. She pulled away from him, placing one finger over his lips, and staring at his eyes dilated with lust as they both breathed heavily. She ran one hand over the exposed skin of his chest, suddenly grabbing his necklace and pulling him to her with all her strength so that their noses rubbed against each other. "I'm not afraid of you."

"And that is your great mistake, love."

"Probably." she whispered, licking her lips in anticipation. She smiled as soon as she saw his gaze follow the movement of her tongue.

"Definitely." he replied, grabbing her waist, lifting her, and vampire-speeding her to his bedroom, where they could be as loud and as naked as they wanted.

That night was amazing. One of the best they had: she visited him for the first time in his beloved city, the home he built and hoped it would be theirs in the future, where he is for Y/N something more than a nightly forbidden pleasure. However, the pain of rejection when Klaus woke up in the morning among cold sheets with no goodbye note effectively pulled him out of this childish fantasy of belonging to her. He could never really have her. And Y/N reminded him about it every time.

I wanna be your setting lotion (Wanna be) Hold your hair in deep devotion (How deep?) At least as deep as the Pacific Ocean I wanna be yours

"What you were thinking about?! YOU COULD DIE THERE!" Klaus yelled at the woman as Rebekah took the last bits of wood out of the vampire's wound. She was only allowed into Y/N because Klaus' hands were too trembling for him to remove the white oak from his vampire's body by himself. Kol watched with great guilt as Petrova winced in pain.

"If that kid hit Kol, Rebekah wouldn't have much to fix, Klaus. I would be nothing but ashes, and you know that. Besides, I can say the same about you. You ran in there uninvited and ran out with me in your arms when you almost passed out from the pain yourself. What if they had more stakes? You could have died too." he ignored her, thrashing about the room in anger. Y/N snorted, falling onto the couch, so she got more comfortable while Rebekah was searching for the last splinter.

"I'm going to burn down their hellhouse as soon as I put my dear little brother back in the coffin." Kol jumped up from the couch with a horrified look.

"What?! But Nik, I..." the original tried to explain himself but stopped when Klaus threw a bottle at him.

"You went there even though you knew full well that they could kill us! You are a danger not only to yourself and Y/N but also to us, showing them how weak and easy to kill we are. You don't remember what the hell happened to Finn?! You want to share his bloody fate!" he shouted, walking towards his brother. Y/N jumped up from her seat and stood between the brothers, placing her hand on the hybrid's furiously beating heart.

"Klaus. You need to calm down."

"Go away, Y/N. This is between me and Kol. Rebekah, take her somewhere safe until I can deal with this mess our brother created." he growled at his sister, not giving the woman in front of him a single glance.

"No."

"What did you say?" he growled, finally looking at her for the first time since he saw little Gilbert stake her (luckily for the young hunter, he missed).

"I said no, Niklaus. You won't tell me what to do. If I want to, I'll take a stake for him again and again. I'll even protect him from your stupid daggers, and you can't change that." Rebekah and Kol nodded, both agreeing to leave the room as soon as "mom and dad" began to fight. They left unnoticed as the two stared at each other. Y/N with incredible calm; Klaus with incredible fury.

Why is she so devoted to Kol? What did he do that Y/N, without a moment's hesitation, threw herself in front of him to protect him from the white oak? What did he say to her to elicit such feelings from her?

"Why? What happened that you suddenly started feeling so strongly attached? I thought you were afraid of commitment, love." he asked bitterly, with clear resentment in his voice.

"Don't you dare to do this about us."

"YOU ALWAYS DOING IT ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT NOT US!" he shouted, tired of hiding his emotions. Especially after less than 15 minutes ago, she was in danger of dying in his arms. He had had enough. He was tired. And the object of his only desire did everything in her power to make things difficult for him. Yet he still couldn't be mad at her.

Good thing Kol got the hell out of there. Otherwise, his brother would have ripped off his head with my bare hands.

"Klaus, there is no time for..."

"Do you love him?" he asked, interrupting her. Panic rose in his chest, waiting for her answer—for Y/N to plunge the dagger into his barely beating heart and destroy whatever hope was left in him.

"What?!"

"You've heard me. Do you love my brother?"

"Yes. And this is exactly why I was fucking with you for the last 400 bloody years! My god, are you so blinded by your rage at Kol that it attacks your last brain cells?! That you insinuate some made-up, idiotic stuff and pounce on everyone like a rabid dog?!" she screamed, walking up to him unconsciously so that she was shouting it straight in his face.

"It's not anger that controls me." he growled through his teeth, clenching his fists in anger.

"Then what is it?!"

"Do you really want me to say it out loud, Y/N?" he whispered, staring at her softly. Y/N immediately calmed down. The atmosphere in the room changed from agitated to terrifyingly calm. They could both hear their frantically beating hearts in the oppressive silence between them.

"I..."

"NIKLAUS!" Elijah's scream and his quick footsteps interrupted their conversation. The woman thanked all the gods above who had sent the original at that moment.

"The worst bloody moment." Klaus whispered under his breath, thinking she wouldn't hear him, and brushed past her, leaving her alone in the room.

And Y/N wondered, breathing heavily after their argument… did she really want to hear THAT from Klaus? Was she ready for such a big change in their lives?

Secrets I have held in my heart Are harder to hide than I thought Maybe I just wanna be yours I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours

"Miss Mystic Falls? Are you kidding me? You know, if you're sending me a dress with a place to visit, I'm expecting more than some stupid, stiff party for teenage girls and their rich parents." she whined, walking around the pond with the laughing hybrid.

"Be quieter, love. These girls have pretty sharp nails."

"And I've got fangs, claws, and you. I'm damn better armed." she said, counting on her fingers, smirking mischievously.

"Should I take that as a compliment or an insult?"

"As if you cared if I offended you."

"Well since we're on our date..."

"Date?! First of all, since when do you even date? Secondly, we're not on one. And third: a beautiful dress will not suddenly win you my favor. Aside from the fact that neither of us is suited to any kind of relationship, I have to ask you. Who are you and what have you done with Klaus Mikaelson?!" Klaus started laughing out loud, unknowingly attracting the attention of the Mystic Falls gang. They did not think either of them had ever seen the original in such a good mood without committing any murder first. "Seriously, what happened to you? You're nice, you're flirty, and you haven't threatened to kill my sister once. I almost didn't recognize you in that suit. Are you trying to be Elijah?"

"Maybe Klaus is on vacation." they walked all the way around the pond and went back to the party. A slow tune started to play. "Will you please me, love?"

Y/N blushed slightly, accepting his outstretched hand. Klaus led them to the dance floor, keeping his distance from her, which made Y/N curse him internally. After being apart for so long, all she wanted was to feel his skin against hers. Nik didn't need to make this romance feel, prolonging everything... But her stupid, treacherous heart was beating madly with every minute she spent close to the original shamelessly flirting with her. And she didn't know how much more she would be able to push him away.

"On vacation? Do you have a split personality, or are you just not in this cure fight? I thought you would like to turn your doppelgänger into a human." she finally broke the silence, returning to their earlier conversation.

"I don't need hybrids that much. It turned out to be… not exactly a good idea."

"Let me guess. They inherit your character, and now you can't take these anymore? Welcome into my world! I have to deal with your grumpy attitude at any time we meet."

"Ouch. That really hurt." he leaned closer, waiting to see if she was going to push him off. She leaned closer still, trying to concentrate on anything but how his hands were on her waist. Y/N missed him in this big break they had. But she wouldn't be the one to admit it first.

"And yet you still come back to me like a lost puppy. Am I such an astonishing person that the mighty hybrid just can't imagine his life without me?" Klaus smiled and dipped her, holding her tight in his arms like she was about to disappear in any second. They looked deeply into each other's eyes, enchanted by the moment and totally forgetting about the world around them. Their lips were so close…

"Maybe." he whispered, gently nudging her nose with his. Y/N held her breath unconsciously, waiting for his next move as they still couldn't tear their eyes away from each other. "Maybe I just wanna be yours." Klaus leaned closer to her, willing to cross the last millimeter between them, but someone's loud grunt effectively killed the mood. If looks could kill, Damon Salvatore would be dead by now. Probably long before meeting any originals.

"I'm not sorry for interrupting you while you were trying to get a bite into your snack, but we kind of need your help… Y/N? What the hell are you doing here?!"

"Long time, no see, Damon. Did you miss me? Or maybe you spent a hundred years trying to find and rescue my sister. Oh, wait... you did. Such a poor thing."

Damon took a step toward her, growling, but Klaus stood in front of Y/N, staring warningly at the young vampire. Y/N was smiling ominously, pleased with the black-haired vampire's surprised expression. She might as well play with him just a little bit after she returns to Katherine.

"I didn't think you'd be close to the originals. Especially, after what he had done to your family."

"And I didn't think that after what Katherine did to you and sweet Stefan, you'd fight for the love of her doppelgänger. See how ridiculous the world is, Dame?"

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into, Klaus. To be honest, I thought you were a little smarter than to fall for her, but I guess I was wrong."

"Watch your mouth, Salvatore! He is an original, a hybrid. You don't want to know what he is capable of." Y/N growled, stepping out from behind Klaus and facing the younger vampire herself.

"You're really worth each other." he spat and started walking away from them.

"And since you started talking about honesty, we're both on team Stelena!" she shouted after the man, smiling as she saw him tense with anger. She turned to the original, frowning as Klaus looked at her with a raised eyebrow and his own smug grin. "What?"

"Nothing. You saved me a few hours of dealing with this bunch of young vampires by scaring Damon off. Name your prize, love."

"I'll pretend you didn't just call me a bogeyman, and I'll say I want one thing from your great collection of antique jewelry."

"Just this?"

"Well, if you find me something really beautiful and shiny, I can call Katherine and tell her I'm not coming home tonight."

"Just tonight?" he teased with a smirk.

"We can negotiate it later."

"Good." he took her hand and kissed her forehead. "Let's get out of here. This party is dead anyway."

Wanna be yours Wanna be yours Wanna be yours Wanna be yours Wanna be yours Wanna be yours Wanna be yours

Klaus played with the ends of Y/N's hair as they lay in bed together. After a stressful week in which he and his siblings managed to escape Mikael's clutches, Petrova's unannounced visit was a pleasant surprise for him. But now that they both lay exhausted after... very satisfying activities, came the moment that Klaus hated the most.

Y/N was probably about to leave.

He hoped she would fall asleep in his arms, so he could steal a few more hours in her presence, but that didn't happen. She was lying partly on top of him, drawing patterns across his chest. Klaus buried his nose in her hair, enjoying her closeness while he still could.

"You're nothing like Mikael." she whispered, stopping the movements of the man who was now staring at her in shock.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I heard you arguing with Kol about it before… you know, you dagger him and put him in a coffin. I just want to make sure you know about it. You seemed so… pensive at first and a little bit sad. I thought it was because of this nonsense he said."

"What if it's true? If I'm really turning into him?" Y/N frowned, turning in his arms so that she was on her stomach and could look into his eyes as he continued to hold her.

"Well, he is not your real father, so I don't think you could inherit his psycho genes. Besides, if that were true, you'd kill me instead of fucking me so I could see the stars, so..." he chuckled, pulling her closer to him.

"You see the stars, huh?" he asked maliciously, with a smug smirk.

"Shut up. You know very well that you are extraordinary. I wouldn't come back to you if you weren't."

"And I wouldn't let you into that bed if you weren't just as tempting."

"I see what you're trying to do, but you really need to hear it, Nik. You're not a monster. You're just trying to keep your siblings safe. Maybe not in the best way, but you have good motives."

"You from all of the people should know that I'm not good. I'm pure evil, love. The monster parents tell their children about at night. I killed your family, Y/N... you shouldn't even be here."

"But I am. And I think we already talked about giving me orders or advice. I know what I am doing, Klaus. If I decide that you're worth my time, then you are. So shut up and let me finish." she kissed him, preventing him from trying to respond. Before Klaus demanded more of her, she pulled away from him, placing her index finger on his lips as he watched her in complete silence. "My parents were horrible, heartless people. And honestly? I'm glad they're dead. You are not a monster. You are Niklaus Mikaelson, a hybrid, loving brother who will do anything to protect your family from a father who abused you physically and mentally your whole childhood. You may not always make the right decisions, but none of us is perfect. And I regret some things in my life, but I will never regret meeting you. Not a single second have we spent together. Because I think you're someone worth knowing. Even if you don't agree with me."

Klaus stared blankly at her. It was the first time someone ever saw him for more than his murderous, dangerous side. His heart started to beat faster, and he prayed for all the gods that exist to prevent her from hearing it. Instead of letting himself take off his mask for the first time since he had become a vampire, he decided to cover up his real feelings, so that Y/N wouldn't know that his soft side for her wasn't only out of desire... but also something he couldn't admit to himself right then.

"Don't pity me." he growled, throwing her off him and walking over to the window.

"That's not a pity. You know I wouldn't tell it to you if I didn't think so." Klaus spun around furiously, trying his best to camouflage his fear with anger.

"And what else did you read from my personality? You're doing pretty well so far, considering we're just fucking in corners under the cover of night." Y/N stood up too, not hesitating to face the hybrid for a moment.

"This attempt to make me angry will do nothing. You try to push me away before I go too far, but it's too late. I know you, Klaus, and I know what you're most afraid of."

"And what is it?"

"Loneliness." Klaus froze in place, watching her with not even the slightest emotion on his face. "You don't want to be alone, which is why you gather so many people around you. Though you never let anyone get close enough to know your real self. But you know, you'll never get over that feeling if you don't let anyone in. Or if you keep locking your siblings in boxes or coercing others into obedience. It's... a beautiful, wonderful city, but how many people are really willing to follow you of their own free will? You may be king, but ruling vampires, werewolves, and witches with fear will accomplish nothing."

Klaus stood silently, watching her intently. Y/N shook her head in disappointment as she turned away from him and began to gather her belongings scattered around the room.

As she was about to put on her dress, Klaus ran over to her and gently grabbed her arm, turning her to face him. She raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Stay." she snorted, shaking her head with a bitter laugh as she brushed his hand off her. But Klaus didn't give up. He cupped both of her cheeks, forcing her to look into his eyes. It was the first time he had looked at someone with such pure desperation. "Please."

Her defensive posture dropped. The dress fell from her hands as she grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the bed. Without a word, she clung to him again as they tried to fall asleep.

They both took a risk today by showing each other their other faces, which they had never shown to anyone else except their families. They saw the lost, struggling in their darkness, people who needed the closeness of each other.

They both let themselves sink into their own dreams, where they loved each other unconditionally. But then both of them were too scared, distrustful, and hurt by fate to fully trust the other one.

But this time, Y/N stayed with him until he woke up. And Klaus, for the first time in his 1000 years of life, felt hope.

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust I wanna be your Ford Cortina I will never rust

Y/N has never been more scared in her entire life. She ran as fast as she could to Mystic Falls High School, hoping Katherine had either won the duel with Elena or had come to her senses and fled as soon as she realized the younger vampire had the cure.

She had no plan, no emergency escape, and no secret weapon. She had nothing. But she knew she had to help Katherine, even if she had to turn human herself in the process of rescuing her sister. She was all Y/N had left in this world. And she knew well that Katerina would do the same for her. Even if people didn't believe in her.

She ran into one of the corridors, following the sounds of the fight.

Her heart was beating wildly as she pushed Elena against the far wall, glancing out of the corner of her eye at the unconscious brunette on the floor. She breathed a momentary sigh of relief when she saw that Elena was still holding a cure in her hand.

"It ends here. Katherine will recover soon. You can't beat us both."

"I got along quite well with Katherine. I doubt you'd be a stronger opponent."

"Then you're dumber than I thought."

Elena lunged at her, trying to break her neck, but Y/N dodged, scanning her surroundings for any weapons. But Gilbert didn't give her enough time to think. She kept attacking the older vampire, inflicting small, meaningless injuries on each other. Y/N had to think of something, and fast, before Elena somehow got the upper hand on her.

The younger Petrova stumbled as Elena pushed her against the opposite wall. She groaned as blood began to run down her hair and down her spine. As soon as Gilbert got closer to her, she swung, causing the brunette to fall next to her on the floor.

They struggled for a while until the younger vampire bit into her neck, startling her. Both immediately plunged their free hands into the other's chest, holding each other's hearts tightly.

From Elena's determined look, Y/N knew she wouldn't be happy with a tie. One or both of them will end up with their hearts ripped out. There was no other way.

"Let her go! Or your dear Damon will die with her!" Klaus' voice coming from behind her made her heart beat even faster in Elena's strong grip.

How the hell did he get here?! After that fight at his house and their goodbyes, he was supposed to be in New Orleans rebuilding his relationship with siblings and his kingdom, not in Mystic Falls saving my ass as usual.

"How do I know he'll survive if I let her go?"

"You have my word, Elena." Elijah came out from the other end of the corridor.

Seeing my sister's ex made me both happy and murderous at the same time. Although... maybe he still cared about her, since he'd come to his noble ass here to save her.

"Be careful, doppelgänger; I'm holding your heart too. Don't forget that." she reminded her, clutching Elena's heart tighter, and she moaned in pain.

"Y/N." Klaus' warning snarl got no reaction from her. She stared defiantly at the doppelgänger.

"I told you. It ends here, Elena. Nobody has to die. Just let it go." her gentle tone of voice weakened the vigilance of the brunette kneeling in front of her. Y/N took advantage of this and, at the speed of light, loosened the doppelgänger's grip on her heart and ripped her hand from her chest with a scream. She also let go of her heart and shoved the medicine down her throat, pushing her to the floor.

Klaus was at her side immediately, taking her into his arms and watching the doppelgänger unconscious from the fall. He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt his vampire heart beating. A second too late, and it could have ended very differently. He pulled the living vampire closer to him, trying to chase away the dark thoughts.

"Niklaus!" her raised voice brought him back to the world. His brother stood beside them, holding the unconscious Katherine in his hands, watching him closely. He turned his gaze to the tired woman in his own arms. "Please get us out of here."

Klaus nodded, getting up with her and holding Y/N in a bridal style, close to his chest, so she could rest her head on him. Both originals left the school and went to their cars. Each of them finally took his girl home.

I just wanna be yours (Wanna be yours) I just wanna be yours (Wanna be yours) I just wanna be yours (Wanna be yours)

"Penny for your toughts." Klaus crept up behind her as she stared blankly at the streets of New Orleans. Involuntarily, he remembered how they had met here 100 years ago... and the night that made him realize how he really felt about her—the night she had stayed with him for the whole night and day for the first time.

She looked much better after resting in their mansion. Klaus could get used to having her so close to him, along with his entire family.

"I'm offended that you value them at a penny. But if you must know, I was thinking about you."

"Me? What a pleasure. And what you had in your smart brain, love?" he asked, glad he wasn't the only one of the two who thought of the other when they were apart.

"I've lost count of the amount of times you've been there for me and everyone you care about. But today you save someone who doesn't mean a thing to you. You could just take me out of there and let Elena shove the cure down my sister's throat without telling Elijah that she is in danger. But you didn't. You of all people saved Katherine's life, along with mine. Why?" Klaus avoided Y/N's scrutinizing gaze, pretending to be very interested in seeing the town below him.

"Leave it Y/N. I just did it. I wasn't thinking then. In hindsight, I should have made sure she turned into a human myself, and kill her. I still can do it, so for her own good, don't put any ideas in my head."

"Klaus. Just answer it."

"I did."

"Niklaus." he turned to her, meeting her expectant gaze. Klaus swallowed. He had dreamed of this moment so many times, even in the very place where they stood… but could he overcome the fear of rejection? Being alone again?

"I don't know if you're ready for the truth, love."

"Try me. Maybe you'll be surprised." Klaus sighed, looking away from her. Were they both ready to cross that safe line they had set so many years ago? He did not know. But he figured he'd never find a better time…

"I saved Katherine because you wished it... Because what's important to you is important to me. What makes you laugh makes me want to keep it. What scares you I want to tear apart. You are the most important thing to me. I can't spend a single day, sleep, eat, or do anything without thinking about you deeply in my head. You own me. Body, mind, and soul. I've been yours since the day I met you. And I'll always wanna be only yours, even if you don't want me at all."

Klaus plucked up the courage to bring his gaze back to her face. She was expressionless. Totally poker. He felt a cold shiver run through his body, and the pain of rejection paralyzed him so much that he was unable to make any move. The hybrid cleared his throat, controlling the trembling in his voice and the coming tears.

"You can run away now. I won't chase you, Y/N."

Those words brought her out of her trance. However, Klaus kept his head down, not wanting to see the love of his life walk away from him.

If he hadn't, he would have known the love and emotion on her face.

Y/N walked over to him, shocking him to feel her gentle hands on his cheeks and stunning him as she pressed her lips to his in a tender, soft kiss.

They couldn't get away from each other. They clung to each other as if they were the only anchor holding them in this world, embracing and kissing so hard that neither of them could mistake this moment for a dream.

It was only the lack of air that forced them to move away from each other significantly, resting their foreheads against each other as they inhaled the familiar, calming scent of their second halves.

"I'm tired of running." Y/N whispered, planting kisses across his face, teasing him as she deliberately avoided his seeking lips. "And I never want you to let me go. Ever. You stuck out with me, my lord."

"As you do with me, my queen."

"Good." she smiled, drawing him into another of their many kisses as she led him to his bedroom.

She stayed with him that night. And the next, and the next one. And she never left his side again.

He was hers. She was his. They belong to each other.

And Klaus was in heaven. 

[pluto-supremacy]

YOUR VI JAIL FIC WAS SO GOOD AND THE HEADCANONS WERE SO SO ACCURATE. :'( IF POSSIBLE, CAN YOU MAKE A P2 TO HOW THEIR LIFE IS OUTSIDE OF PRISON WHEN THEY MAKE IT OUT? or an angst with caitlyn being blackmailed by the warden to only let one prisoner out? :3 said one being vi, and vi having to abandon reader?

Vi Fic: Bye Bye Bun

➼ Aaaah thank you so much! I'm so glad so many people liked the Stillwater headcanons^^ I was afraid my Vi was going to be soooo out of character. I decided to write some angst first >:) if this fic does well or I get another ask I'll also work on life after Stillwater, give you guys some fluff after this

➼ Continuation of Vi Headcanons: dating f!reader at Stillwater

➼ No beta we die like Claggor (I'm running out of people who die in the series-)

➼ Warnings: None! Bit of a longer fic for you guys today, enjoy!

GIF does not belong to me! All credits to the owner

The sound of knuckles meeting hard concrete echoed throughout the cell block, small grunts following close behind. "You know we don't get clean bandages for another two weeks Vi, your knuckles are going to get infected at this rate." you called out. Suddenly the pounding stopped and a small chuckle was heard. "Don't worry about me bun, just trying to blow off some steam," she said, pacing around her cell instead of beating up a wall. "You should really get some sleep. Long day tomorrow"

"No such thing as a short day here." you groaned. Carefully you laid down on the ground of the cell. Vi's was only a few doors down, close enough to talk just above a whisper but way too far away to see each other. Both of you always slept against the walls that faced each other. It was the closest thing to sleeping next to each other in this shithole. Aside from whenever you two napped during free time of course. Even then Vi stayed wide awake to ensure you were okay.

"Goodnight Vi, wake me up if anything happens, okay?" "I will Y/N, I promise"

That was nearly two hours ago. You were sound asleep by now, the cold, hard floor no longer keeping you up. It was something every prisoner in Stillwater had to get used to. Mattresses weren't provided. The few that did get a thin mat to sleep on at night only got one after a lot of medical visits and several notes stating they needed one for medical reasons. You and Vi weren't so lucky to have any notes. Still, there were worse things here. Like the food. That's why any food or snacks that were smuggled in were high value items. Currently you had a packet of chips hidden under a loose brick right where you slept. You scored them a few days ago and wanted to surprise Vi by sharing them tomorrow.

The elevator dinged as the doors opened, the clack of heels filling the halls. Caitlyn stopped in front of Vi's sell, her hood still up. "What the hell do you want?" Vi asked, glancing over at the taller woman. "Your help. You beat up an inmate, I needed to question him about a crime scene from yesterday. Why did you break his jaw?" "Because I wanted to." She responded with a small shrug, disinterested in whoever this enforcer was. "Why are you in here?" Caitlyn tried again, looking over the file in her hands. "For my sunny personality." Vi shot back immediately.

Caitlyn shook her head, sighing. "This was a waste of time." she closed the file and her journal, starting to walk off. Maybe she could find away around a broken jaw, pen and paper perhaps. "Couldn't have said it better myself. Give Silco a kiss for me on that winning eye of his." that was what caught the enforcer's attention. Turning around she walked back to Vi's cell, getting a bit closer to the bars. "Silco? The industrialist?" "Hardly what I'd call an industrialist." She scoffed, leaning against the bars. That's when the other woman held up something that caught her eye.

In Caitlyn's journal was a picture of a spray-painted monkey. Just like the ones Powder used to make. "Where did you get this?" Vi asked, desperation creeping into her voice. "My question first. The inmate worked for Silco?" "Everyone in here does. You of all people should know that. Now where did you find that?" "It was at the crime scene, this is evidence" Caitlyn responded. She had the upper hand here now. "If I'm to believe you about Silco, I'm going to need proof."

A way out. Vi could get both of you out of here. "I can provide you proof. Just, not from in here" she gestured to the bars around her. "And," she began to add on "I need another inmate. Inmate 381. I'm not leaving without her." Caitlyn seemed to consider this for a moment. Then she turn and left without a word. What that meant, Vi had no clue.

Caitlyn had ran off back to the warden, forging papers along the way for the release of two inmates. She needed Vi's help to track whoever this person was down, so if someone else had to come along, so be it. As she put the papers down on the warden's desk, he seemed to lazily look over them. "I have orders to release inmates 381 and 516." she spoke up. He hummed in thought before shaking his head. "I can only release one." "What? It says right there-" "I can read. But I'm only releasing one. Pick." "..inmate 516."

So when Caitlyn returned and opened Vi's cell, she immediately ran to your cell. Or at least tried to. The enforcer stopped her a few steps in. "The warden only let me release one of you. You understand that-" "No I don't! This wasn't part of the deal!" Vi went to grab the collar of Caitlyn's dress, the other wrapping her hands around Vi's wrists as she was pressed against the wall. "You will-" "If you try anything I will make sure you're put back behind bars and you never see that other inmate again." Cait rushed out. It wasn't what she wanted to resort to, threats, but it seemed to work.

Almost instantly Vi's grip loosened, slowly setting Caitlyn back down on the ground. Leaving you...

"Once we're done, you let her out. Immediately. No excuses, exceptions, or delays. And I get to say goodbye." Vi demanded. That was fair, anyone could agree to that. Thankfully Caitlyn began nodding, dusting her dress off. "Go ahead then. Afterwards we need to get going to the Undercity."

This was going to hurt.

Vi walked over to your cell, kneeling down at the bars. You were still all curled up, dead asleep. She gently knocked on the bars. "Bun..bun you gotta wake up." That was odd. Vi's voice sounded so close...as you opened up your eyes you saw your girlfriend just on the other side of the bars. There was no quicker way to wake up than seeing your lover free from her cell. "Vi! You escaped! How-" you were cut off by seeing Caitlyn standing behind Vi.

"Who is that?" "Y/N, I can explain." "Vi, who is that!" you were shouting now. You didn't even fully realize it. "She's the one that got me out-" "So now you're going to get me out?" you interrupted. Seeing the pain flash on Vi's face told you everything that you needed to know. "You're leaving me.." your voice was barely audible, but Vi caught every word. She could feel her heart shattering as she saw the tears form in your eyes. "It's only for a little bit. The warden wouldn't let us both out, once I'm done helping Caitlyn we're coming right back for you, I promise."

You wanted to believe her. Vi had never lied to you before, why would she start now? Maybe it was the fear of never seeing her again. Or maybe it had to do with the enforcer standing behind her. Caitlyn was beautiful, you had to admit, so what if...

"No, no this isn't right. Vi you can't leave me here!" you shouted, crawling up to the bars and reaching out to grab Vi's wrist. "Vi you can't leave me! Please don't leave me!" the tears finally began rolling down your cheeks faster than you could wipe them away. Vi's own eyes were starting to gloss over with tears. "I'm coming back for you, Y/N. I swear on my life I'm not leaving you. It'll be a few days tops." "What does she," you nodded your head towards Caitlyn "even need help with, huh? What are you going to do for her?"

That cut deep. Vi tried not to take it to heart as she stood up, pressing one last kiss to the back of your hand. "I'm coming back for you." she repeated, steeling herself to actually leave. To not fall to her knees and tell Caitlyn to find someone else. This was your guy's chance of freedom. Even if this hurt you now, it was better in the long run. Everything would be better when you two could be together outside of Stillwater. "Bye bye, bun. I'll be back for you" and with that she turned around and started walking away. Vi knew if she turned around to look at you one last time, she'd never leave.

That's when the shouting started.

"Vi! Vi turn around right now! You can't leave me here!" you were standing up now, having an iron grip on the bars. Almost trying to bend them out of the way so you could run to Vi. Unfortunately you weren't that strong and the bars weren't that weak. "Violet don't leave me!"

Vi quickened her pace, rushing towards the elevator. Your voice was starting to blend with Powder's the day they were separated. It was all too much. She was going to find Powder and come back for you. Everything would be okay, everything would be right. As the elevator doors closed, she heard one last thing. Yours and Powder's voice were nearly indistinguishable from one another as you yelled out:

"TRAITOR!"

[pathetic-sapphic]

Hi! Will you be able to do the arcane milfs with a fem s/o w attachment issues and just cries and hugs them when they get home after work? 🥺

Arcane milfs with a S/O who has attachment issues

SEVIKA's cold and rough façade completely melts whenever she is around you. You're her only weak spot which gives her motivation to try even more at her job so that she can ensure a better future for you. Unfortunately, this means that she is sometimes gone for days, her work being extremely taxing and unpredictable. She also can't communicate with you during long and dangerous missions, too worried for your safety. She does her best to make it up to you whenever she is home. You two never leave each other's side and love doing domestic chores together, basking in the warm feeling and lightheartedness. Sevika hates seeing you so worried and lonely, always reassuring you that she will come back to you no matter what. She needs you to understand her devotion to the cause and the importance it bears for her. She does it all for you, so that the two of you can one day live in peace instead of being plagued by the constant danger and threats from the enforcers. She holds you tight as you sleep, whispering promises and sharing her dreams of a better future while you peacefully slumber away in her warm embrace.

I know, babygirl, I hate it too. Believe me, I hate knowing that you're always all alone at home and I hate making you worry. But this dark period won't last. Soon, we'll have our freedom and then I'll be home so often that you'll be sick of me. When the time comes, I promise to completely devote myself to you and make you the happiest girl in the world. I want us to have a good future, which means that now we have to sacrifice some things. But I need you to know that I'll never leave you. Whatever happens, I will always find my way back to you, okay? Good, I love you, baby. More than anything.

Oh, you have no idea how much GRAYSON's heart aches whenever she leaves to go to work. She absolutely hates knowing how lonely and scared you must be whenever she is away. She'll gladly write you letters whenever she has time and is overjoyed if you come to visit her at her office. She hides loving notes all over your house so that you remember how much she loves you. Grayson is very in tune with your emotions, so when you get all teary-eyed whenever she comes back home from work, her heart painfully squeezes. She cannot wait for retirement so she can completely devote herself to you but she still has goals she wants to achieve before stepping down. Until then, she will continue to show you how much she appreciates your support despite the stress and loneliness her job causes you. Grayson cherishes you so much and plans to do her best to ensure your happiness and safety before retiring and spending the rest of her life by your side.

Come here, my darling, I've missed you so much today. Oh, don't cry please, I promise I'm alright. I'm sorry I was gone for so long, you must have been lonely. I have the next weekend off, so I thought that you and I could spend some time together, just being lazy and indulging ourselves, how does that sound? Great, I cannot wait to sleep in next to you, I plan on thoroughly relaxing and making up for lost time. I can't wait to spoil you rotten, my love.

As much as CASSANDRA hates leaving you by yourself for long periods of time, such occurrences are to be expected due to her job. However, communication is something very important to her and she does her best to maintain it whenever she is with you. She lets you know that you are her priority and that she misses you just as much whenever she is away. She will send you thoughtful gifts such as flowers or clothes and whisk you away to a romantic date every now and then. Whenever you get emotional after not seeing her for a while, Cassandra will hold you in her lap and reassure you that she will always be there for you. She will tell you how much she loves you and misses you, wiping away your tears and hugging you until you've calmed down. She can be a very gentle and kind woman, especially when it comes to her darling girl.

It's okay, sweetheart, no need to cry. I'm here now, aren't I? That's right, I'm right here and I won't leave anytime soon. It's okay to be sad, I've missed you terribly these past few days. I'll hold you as long as you wish, I have longed to hold you in my arms the whole day. Did you like the chocolates I sent you? I thought you might, they taste almost as sweet as you, my darling. Ah, there's that lovely laugh, how I missed the sound of it. How I missed you, beloved.

AMBESSA finds your attachment to her cute, you're like a little puppy, always begging for her company and attention. And she has no problem giving it to you, indulging you with quality time and frequent trips. However, she is, after all, a warlord. This means that oftentimes you cannot join her on her trips because they can be too dangerous for you. As capable as she is of protecting you, Ambessa feels more at ease when knowing that you're adequately guarded and far away from any dangerous situations she may find herself in. She knows you get worried and anxious over her safety so she makes sure to always have someone notify you of her current state and situation. Always comes back home bearing gifts, ready to completely spoil her sweet girl until there are no doubts left in your pretty little head.

There you are, my darling. Oh! Eager, aren't we? That's quite alright, I missed you too, very much. Did you fare well while I was gone? I hope you didn't stay up at night worrying lest I'll have to make sure you won't be leaving the bed for the next couple of days. Although I doubt I'll let you sleep even then. There's that cute red face that I missed so much. How about we take a nice bath together and you can tell me all about what you've been up to while we're at it. After we bathe and eat, I plan on making up for lost time by thoroughly worshipping you. I brought back some... 'souvenirs' that I believe you'll like and I cannot wait to test them out on you, my sweet pet. Now, let us go, I'm eager to get you out of those pesky clothes so we better hurry along.

[thethirdromana]

I was going to send Jack Reacher to @canyourfavesurvivecastledracula but since they're drowning under an ask mountain right now, I thought I'd have a go myself.

Jack Reacher:

Does not believe in the supernatural.

Would accept the crucifix from the old lady; he hates material possessions but I think she would remind him of his mother.

Would go exploring after being told not to.

Would be rude to Dracula.

Probably good at climbing (though he's huge - would he fit on a windowsill? Probably irrelevant, he would break the doors down).

Would choose being eaten by wolves over being eaten by vampires, but would also be able to punch a wolf to death.

But let's rewind a little. Because Jonathan Harker, when travelling through the countryside and being warned of scary things ahead, continues on his way because a) he has a job to do and b) he's never experienced this before. But going to a strange place, learning that bad things are happening there and fixing them is Reacher's entire MO. Even before he reaches Transylvania, he's probably foiled a train robbery and broken the nose of a pickpocket in Munich. It's what he does. Also, he doesn't need the money.

So when people start muttering ominously around him on the journey, he might not be prepared to learn about the supernatural specifically, but he knows something's up, and he is not going to that castle unprepared. In fact, I don't think he even gets as far as being offered the crucifix, because he heeds the landlady's warning and doesn't get on the coach.

There are now two possibilities.

One is that Dracula is annoyed at his retired military policeman not showing up, travels to the inn, lures Reacher outside and eats him. But that would seem to be showing his hand too strongly, and feels out of character. I think Dracula maybe sends more letters, or waits, or orders another military policeman from somewhere instead.

The second is that we have a situation where Reacher is in a remote rural area, the local landowner is murdering people with impunity, the locals are all too scared to act, and something must be done, probably with violence. In other words, we are in a Jack Reacher novel. He's going to have a lovingly described breakfast with lots of coffee. He's going to make friends with the One Good Cop in local law enforcement. He's going to get an impressive array of weaponry. He's going to seduce the barmaid at the inn. He's going to gather information. And he's going to defeat Dracula.

A lot of this hangs on how much information he can get on Dracula-fighting from the local villagers. But the superstitions about the eve of St George's Day suggest that they're well informed. I think he'll learn roughly as much from them as Van Helsing did from his academic sources. Though he might not believe the supernatural explanation, he'll take people's claims about Dracula being weakest at sunrise and sunset seriously.

What happens next is basically what would happen if Van Helsing (1897) was replaced by Van Helsing (2004). Wolves get punched. Doors get ripped from their hinges. Girlies get staked. Dracula gets decapitated. The charming barmaid inherits the castle, somehow.

Jack Reacher can survive Castle Dracula.

[kindestegg]

Collector, Hunter and Caleb: On cycles of violence

Baby titans. Flapjack. Evelyn. What do they all have in common?

If you guessed "they were key components in making a character question what they've been told and pursue a new life, kickstarting major events", you're correct!

Hi, I'm Romeo the local Collector obsessed TOH fan!! And I REALLY need to talk about how Collector's backstory parallels Hunter's and Caleb's. Like I REALLY REALLY do.

Just as a quick disclaimer, if you're still feeling lost on Collector's backstory, I made a quick write up of my analysis for it here.

Now, if you're up to speed, we can start talking about the parallels. You see, I feel Collector's backstory is so fascinating because it really solidifies one of the recurring themes of The Owl House: cycles of violence.

Specifically, I want to talk about cycles of violence that aren't easily changed or broken. Societal ones, ones that worm themselves into the very norms of conduct that inform a certain people's behavior.

For Caleb, that was being a witch hunter, something that not only do we know was part of the local culture of Gravesfield back when he and Philip came to it, but that also apparently by Philip's memories, was even something he looked forward to.

I'm not going to get into how this ties into historical, real life witch hunting, because I feel it's hardly appropriate I, as someone who's not that well versed on such history, go into it in a theory post about a Disney cartoon.

But even in this fantasy world, the fact of that matter is that this witch hunting was enacting a system of organized violence. Children were brought up since early on to act out witch hunts, to understand witches were enemies and should be hunted. The othering of witches, the insistence of them as monstrous and inhuman. All this must have led to the witch hunting culture of Gravesfield.

And Caleb and Philip were deep in it.

Now, we know how the story goes. Both brothers go to the demon realm, meet a witch. Caleb gives it all an earnest chance, resolves himself to learn about how witches really are, and humanizes them, even possibly falling in love with a witch, who we now know as Evelyn. Philip despises it all from the start, refuses to ever see the place as anything but damned and monstrous.

From this, Caleb and Philip become symbols of opposing forces: That of change, a break in the status quo, a shining light of questioning why things are and calling for peace VS That of tradition, the desperate want to keep the cycle going, inability to envision anything different than has ever been, to question the old teachings.

Each fought for what they believed in. But Caleb lost and the cycle continued, evolved.

In the real world it is much of the same. Change happens gradually, but even when it does, the cycle does not break easily, it evolves into something else.

Philip's hunt turns to the entirety of the Boiling Isles. He creates the Coven System, to get rid of all witches, yes, but also to keep them easier to control, predictable. He becomes Emperor, and now there is a new system of control, a new cycle of violence.

The Emperor's Coven is suspiciously the only one allowed to use all kinds of magic, a way to assert this authority as well as making recruiting Coven Scouts easier. Witches who do not conform to the system are captured and petrified en masse, the Coven Scouts ensure all witches and demons must fall in line, or else. The parallels to our world and state forces used to control the population is not something that goes unnoticed.

Hunter is part of the Emperor's Coven, too. He's placed as the Golden Guard, the most important symbol of the Emperor's Coven, a substitute for Lilith once she reforms. As such, Hunter too starts out by enforcing a system of violence, just as Caleb did before.

The cycle even more glaringly becomes a cycle now, as Belos literally keeps making grimwalkers and restarting the cycle of the golden guard. Belos enforces the cycle of violence, and hopes this "new Caleb" will do it too, and every time he attempts to break it, Belos breaks him first. In a way, there are two cycles of violence at play: that of which is systemically mantained over the Isles, and that of which Belos mantains over Hunter and every other grimwalker he's made.

Hunter, of course, eventually defects as well. He meets Luz, Flapjack, and then Willow and Gus and when he knows it, he's got a whole lot of people he cares about and that care about him. And he becomes a little less willing to carry out the system of violence he was placed in every day. Until he defects for good.

So the cycle breaks once more, but this time, Belos doesn't catch up to him, at least not yet. In the present, Hunter is still surrounded by friends and a loving mother figure. He was part of breaking the cycle, of at least helping stop the Day of Unity. Change is starting.

So where does Collector fit into all of this? Well I'd first like to address the elephant in the room. For a character whose backstory also involves breaking cycles of violence he sure was aiding in one, by giving Belos the draining spell and encouraging the creation of the coven system. But that's just another aspect of cycles of violence.

Because cycles of violence don't just imply systemic violence or even violence perpetrated through constant abuse. But also, the cyclical nature of violence. The ability that someone who has grown up with violence normalized and has had violence done unto them can then channel that into violence towards others.

Now, before I am misinterpreted, I'd like to make some things clear: One, I am not of the simple opinion that "abused people turn into abusers", that is an ugly myth. Two, I have been a victim of abuse myself, and am a psychology graduate. I feel confident speaking with authority about this subject. Third, there is a difference between the psychological concept of generational trauma and internalized violence and the idea that being abused will turn someone violent.

What I am implying here is that Collector's behavior of dismissing both the violence done unto the grimwalkers, as well as towards the victims of the draining spell is something that he has learned and internalized as normal due to his life experiences.

Recall if you will that Collector is a member of an alien species that has a high disregard for life. In the same breath that they will say they preserve creatures to study them, they will also attempt to destroy all that opposes them. Collector grew up with this violence being seen as normal. He was brought to meet the titan trappers and taught to wear the titan skulls, following in his family's footsteps.

But... just like Caleb and Hunter before them, they saw a different path they could take when it came to the titans. A way to approach them without violence. They gained an interest for titans, just like Hunter with wild magic, just like Caleb with the demon realm.

Once left alone to do so, they approached the titans, specifically young ones, close to their age. They played and maybe even learned some of their favorite games for the first time there.

They also became horribly traumatized.

Both Caleb and Hunter have suffered greatly as a consequence for their defiance. No system of violence lets itself be broken peacefully. Caleb had his life taken, so did all the grimwalkers. Hunter, while having escaped with a good support system, lost Flapjack.

For Collector, that came in the form of having to watch all the remaining titans he had so happily introduced himself to play with get killed off by his own family. We do not know the full logic of how or why his family did this, but we know it was brutal and we know the end result: King's egg alone and Collector in the disc, imprisoned for centuries.

Collector is a child, and if there was still any doubt in any fan's mind of this, For the Future stomped it out for good. Collector was a child when he had to watch his family kill off his new friends. He was a child when King's Father, likely in the middle of these attacks and motivated by it, sealed him away. He remained in stasis for centuries during this imprisonment.

I can only imagine that would really mess up any kid up. And through that, I think we can begin to understand what the mindset was for Collector when he took Philip up on his offer.

I've seen people be surprised by how friendly and childlike Collector acted in this latest episode when compared to his previous appearances in season 2, and I think we need to remember that Collector was in a much different condition back then. He had lost everything he cared about, got stuck in a prison for centuries with no one to talk to and no hope of anyone ever finding him, and when someone did find him, it was Philip fucking Wittebane.

And something I think most of us have already clocked about Philip is that he prefers the people he collaborates with to be vulnerable. Someone he can easily control, usually through their emotions and attachments.

We see this in Elsewhere and Elsewhen with his tendency to praise and lead Lilith and Luz on to get what he wants, knowing they need something out of this and are desperate.

We see this with Lilith, whom he uses the guilt of her sister being cursed to make her follow his every command and not question his rules.

We see this with every grimwalker including Hunter as they're told he was the one who "saved them and took them in".

We see this with Luz and how he leads her thoughts around in Hollow Mind to twist it in how she helped him unwittingly before.

And though his relationship with Kikimora and her schemes is more of an odd one, with him mostly paying her no mind, Follies at the Coven Day Parade at the very least touched on the fact her mental health at the Emperor's Coven is not doing well. She's also desperate for something and being led around by Belos' promises, even if that thing she's desperate for is... power. But er, we love an evil girlboss.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that Philip saw a child that had been horribly traumatized from seeing his friends die and then getting stuck in fantasy perpetual prison for centuries with no enrichment, no one to talk to, just eternal loneliness and sadness and he absolutely took advantage of it.

He used every single part of Collector's broken psyche to his advantage, including possibly withholding his freedom to interact with the outside world through the disc, shutting him up and cutting his vision whenever he might have wanted to.

And Collector, having grown up in an environment that encouraged killing everything in your way if necessary, having nothing else to lose because everything he could have cared about not killing was to his knowledge gone...

Absolutely took him up on the offer. And so, the cycle of violence is mantained, the one who had to witness such violence, unable to stop it, now carries out the same type of violence against others. Out of anger, maybe, but mostly out of desperation. For Collector, there's nothing left to do but do what Belos says, otherwise it's back to loneliness and darkness. And if Belos says "kill every last witch and demon in the Boiling Isles", he'll get that.

Collector's glee in this is not something that can be excused, however. It must be examined through the lens of understanding this is a bad thing, that this is a case study in how children internalize violence and learn to be not only compliant to it, but also even revel in it. He's gone from victim to perpetrator. Not because of any of the abuse or trauma he faced, but because of his environment creating the perfect conditions for it.

But that's when our heroes come in. The cycle of violence did not complete itself. The draining spell was stopped. And the way it was stopped is also incredibly powerful in its symbolism.

Because it was King who went out of his way to contact Collector and who freed him. King, a titan, the last of a species that was at war with the collectors, now extended a hand for our Collector to be free. Despite everything indicating that they should not find each other, should not be together, they came together to stop the Day of Unity.

In the Day of Unity being stopped by the Collector, so another cycle of violence is broken: that of titans and collectors being at odds with each other. In them is represented the hope for the future: two children who are free of the anger their species would hold for one another, now united in their wish for a better future.

When King decides Collector shouldn't be imprisoned again and insists to Lilith and Eda that they let him talk to them peacefully, that's him taking a step to break the cycle of violence. When King says "it didn't work" he's not just talking about the fact Collector could go free. He's talking about the fact imprisoning Collector was a violence done unto him that only brought about more danger and more violence, did not teach him anything, and doing so again could risk worse things to come.

When he says "it's worth a shot if no more people get hurt" he includes everyone in that equation. He includes Collector. And that's breaking the cycle of violence.

In a way, you could say if Belos and Collector's arcs as villains are both about stopping cycles of violence in different ways.

With Belos, he has spiraled down so deeply he has become the cycle itself, eating everything in the way and infecting everything, unable to live on without creating more violence onto others, and so he must be stopped by force if necessary. In this, The Owl House doesn't shy away from the fact that in the real world, sometimes you need to fight back, you cannot resolve everything peacefully, and breaking the cycle will involve hurting someone before they hurt more people.

But with Collector, another side is shown, one that reminds us that we must have nuance, and sometimes, we will be faced with the difficult reality that those doing violence unto others are also people who are hurting, who are lonely, who are sad. Specially children who have grown in environments where violence and prejudice was normalized. Sometimes children will be violent, will be bigoted, will repeat every little horrible thing the adults in their lives taught them. But they're still children. And they still deserve a chance to learn and a chance to grow.

It's about recognizing the difference between a young person who genuinely wants to learn and hasn't had the opportunity to, and someone who is not interested in this. Collector's backstory tells us he does have an interest in being good, he just needs the opportunity.

Collector isn't an easy character to approach like Hunter or Caleb. They do not have the benefit of starting off the narrative dead and buried, leaving the audience to assume mostly good things out of his deviation. Neither do they have Hunter's rebellious teenage bravado that allows him to show his defiance to Belos or his tragic fate of being a grimwalker binding him. They just are an alien child with immense power who tried once to deviate from the norm and then got the worst luck of the entire universe after them, and procceeded to become bitter and angry and absolutely sadistic afterwards.

But there's still good in them. And just like Caleb and Hunter, their efforts to break the cycle of violence they were raised in, as well as the efforts to denounce their fellow collectors will not go unnoticed.

[verybadatwriting]

Just a Little Stab Wound

Summary: Reader, a vigilante, is injured and goes to Peter for help.

Warnings: injuries, blood loss

Notes: I experimented a little, and wrote this on paper for the first draft. I think I like it.

Gn!reader

Word count: 1,141

He was just trying to study for a chem test when his phone buzzed. At first he ignored it. After two more buzzes, he finally glanced down at the notifications, and saw they were from you. He smiled before reading them.

Need you

Pete

i’m hurt. on way. be ready.

He hurriedly replied,

how hurt?

u there?

Y/n??

When it was clear he wasn’t going to get a fast reply, he went about gathering a whole bunch of first aid stuff.

“Pete?” He heard a tired but authoritative voice. Crap. He’d thought Aunt May was asleep.

“What’re you doing?” She asked, both bemused and amused.

“Science homework?” He said, wishing it had sounded less like a question. Aunt May did not look like she was buying it, but instead of challenging the answer she sighed and reminded him to clean up once he’d finished “Whatever it is you’re really up to.”

Peter nodded itching to go prepare his room. He grabbed a heavy blanket from the bottom bunk and laid it on his floor. He tossed a pillow on top, and made sure that the first aid boxes were close at hand. This next part he always hated. The waiting was excruciating. Never knowing if you were only a moment away, or if you had bled out in some grimey back alley.

You were a vigilante, like he used to be, before he joined the Avengers. You though, you did not have the favor of law enforcement, since some (okay, much) of your activities weren't exactly legal. Peter met you while you were both stopping a robbery. Both of you had a fun time, probably due to the fact that you had the same sense of humor. Just before the cops arrived, you and Peter fled to a nearby rooftop. 

All that said, you and Peter had become friends, and then something more. You’d been to his home before, usually just to hang out, but also if you were injured he’s who you’d head to.

For the most part, Peter was used to it. He appreciated having someone his age who really understood the weight that came with having superpowers. If talking to you came at the price of occasionally patching you up, he’d happily help you out.

Finally, after what felt like hours, but was really only ten or so minutes, you landed on the fire escape and knocked on his window. You smiled when he looked up and let you in. As he got closer, he saw it was more like a pained grimace.

“Oh my God,” Peter whispered, eyes drifting to your abdomen, which was painted red with your blood. You held your hand against it, but the blood still leaked out. 

“Hey Pete,” You said, gasping through the pain before promptly tumbling through the window and into his arms.

Peter gingerly lifted you over to the blanket and set you down. You held pressure on the wound as you lay there, splayed out on the floor. Peter was readying a wad of gauze bandaging when out of the corner of his eye he saw yours start to drift closed.

“Hey!” He said. “You need to keep your eyes open, okay?” He asked. Reluctantly, you complied.

“You’ve got pretty eyes,” You murmured. 

“Thanks,” Peter smiled, not taking his “pretty” eyes off the gash across your body as he continued bandaging.

“Keep talking, love,” He prompted you.

“M’kay,” You hummed. “Just for you, pretty boy.”

At this, Peter’s cheeks flushed and he glanced at you, worry filling his eyes.

“You must be delusional from blood loss.”

“Nuh uh!” You protested as he turned back to work. “I’m just incredibly lucky and got you.”

A few minutes later, Peter had you all patched up. Then he helped you sit up, a rather painful process. Your shirt was filthy so he helped you out of it and upon seeing how much blood and grime covered your skin, he retrieved a basin and rag to gently wash the filth away. After he was done, you put on one of his t-shirts.

“It’s comfy,” you said.

“Looks good on you,” He replied.

After a moment, you looked up at him, truly taking in the worry lacing each and every one of his features.

“Thank you,” you finally, quietly said.

“Of course,” he replied.

“What’d I do to deserve you?” You asked, leaning your forehead onto his shoulder. His arms wrapped around you, holding you close, but he stayed careful not to hurt you. 

“You’re in no shape to even think about going home,” Peter said. “So you might as well spend the night.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

He gently scooped you up and somehow managed to climb up his bed’s adder. He set you down on your side, facing away from the wall, and tucked you in. He climbed back down, and started cleaning up while you drifted off to sleep. 

You later felt him slip into bed behind you. It was comforting, having his chest against your back. You nestled into his arms and stayed like that the rest of the night.

Peter woke up first. He didn’t dare move a muscle. From how peaceful you looked right now, nobody ever would have guessed that you’d come awfully close to death just a few hours ago. 

He heard his aunt get up and start making breakfast. Her footsteps slowly came down the hall to his room. Hastily, he covered your face with the blanket.

“Hey, Peter,” Aunt May called as she entered the room. “Do you want eggs? I’m making some.” 

“Sure! Thanks!” He said, internally cringing at his voice, which sounded way too cheery. For one wonderful second, Peter thought she was going to leave. Then, her eyebrows shrunk together as she noticed the suspiciously human shaped lump in her nephew’s bed.

“Uh,” she started, “Who’s that?”

“Promise you won’t get mad?” He asked after a moment. She raised an eyebrow in response.

“Uhm, Aunt May,�� Peter said, “This is my partner. They’ve got superpowers, like me, and they don’t really want other people to know who they are. Last night they got hurt, like really hurt, and they came to me. Please don’t be mad at them, they didn’t have anywhere else to go.” 

His aunt just stood there, this stressful moment stretching on forever. Finally, someone broke the silence.

“I’s okay, Peter,” you said, pushing the blanket away from your face. “Hi Ms. Parker. I’m Y/n.” Your groggy voice wavered slightly, as if afraid of what she might say. Your face, soft from sleep, made Peter fall in love with you all over again. Seeing the way Peter looked at you, combined with your honesty and desperation, Aunt May seemed to relax.

“Nice to meet you, Y/n,” she said. “Would you care to join us for breakfast?”

[ctitan98official]

Anonymous: Can you do Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters fussing over reader to take vitamins and eat properly because they feed off reader and don't want reader getting hurt please? 😅💕

Yeah! They’re hungry and Y/N is a tasty snack ;) Let’s get into it!

Alcina:

Alcina was always nurturing, but now with her feeding from you, she is even more diligent about taking care of you. She constantly reminds you to eat or take your vitamins. It’s rough on your system to produce so much blood for her and she needs to know you are okay. “You need to take your vitamins, draga,” She demands says as you come down to the dining hall. She holds out a bottle of supplements to you. “I don’t want you getting sick.”

You roll your eyes affectionately, taking the bottle from her.

Alcina watches as you swallow the pills. “And you need to eat properly,” She adds, gesturing towards a plate of food in front of you. “I need you to be strong and healthy. I made it just for you, draga.”

You huff. Alcina is so worried about you. “I’m fine, babe!” You reassure her.

“Only because I’m taking care you, my darling. Now eat.” She says and kisses your head.

You crinkle your nose at the leafy greens on the plate. “What the hell is that?!” You ask, revolted. “How about pizza instead!” You suggest.

Alcina just raises an eyebrow and you shut your mouth. You know better than to argue with her. You reluctantly take a bite of the food.

Alcina watches with satisfaction as you eat, knowing that you will feel much better after your meal. You won’t admit it, but she can see how tired you are. It warms her heart that you want to help her so much and she’s determined to do the same for you.

“I’m only doing this because I love you,” She says, placing another gentle kiss on your forehead.

Bela:

Bela paces around her room, her gaze fixed on you, lounging on the couch. You look so tired. She can’t help but worry about your well-being, especially since she feeds off of you.

“Have you taken your vitamins today, baby?” Bela asks, her tone laced with concern.

You look up from your book and chuckle. “Yes, Bela, I took them this morning,” You reply, rolling your eyes.

Bela sighs in relief. “And have you eaten something substantial today? You need to keep up your strength,” She adds and comes over to you, her eyes never leaving your face.

“I had a sandwich for lunch, babe. I’m fine,” You reassure her with a smile.

Bela huffs, clearly not convinced. “You know I worry about you, Y/N. I need you to take care of yourself,” She says, taking a seat beside you.

You take her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I know, Bela. And I appreciate your concern. But I’m okay. You don’t have to fuss over me so much,” You say and lie your head on her lap, cuddling into her front.

Bela can’t help but smile at your words. She softly strokes your head as you lie on her. “I know I can be overprotective at times. But it’s only because I care about you so much,” She admits, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on your forehead.

You grin, feeling loved and appreciated. “I know. And I love you for it. But trust me, I’m taking care of myself,” You say, your tone firm yet loving.

Bela nods, her mind at ease for the moment. She knows she will continue to worry about you, but she also knows that you are strong and capable. She will be there to take care of you in every way possible.

Cassandra:

Cass is so in tune with you. She knows your schedule and makes sure you keep to it. When it comes to taking your vitamins and eating, she is a strict enforcer. She only wants the best for you… Plus, when you’ve had a nice meal, your blood is really tasty. But that’s just a perk, really! Her main goal is to take care of you. She loves you so much.

“Darling, have you taken your vitamins today?” She asks as you sit on the side of her bed.

“Yeah, sure, babe! Vitamins…” You reply, totally engrossed in the comic you are reading and not really hearing what she said.

Cass lets out a sigh of relief and smiles at you, coming over to hug you and kiss your head. “Good. And have you eaten anything? I can make you something if you’re hungry.”

You enjoy her warmth, but… This is a really good part! You can’t put it down. “Huh?” You ask distractedly.

Cass huffs and plucks the comic book out of your hand. “Come on.” She tells you and drags you to the kitchen, eager to whip up something delicious and nutritious for you.

“Hey!” You protest. “I wasn’t done!”

Cass whips her head around and she glares at you.

You wince at the look she’s giving you and sigh as she sits you down at the table.

Cass pulls out a variety of ingredients, carefully selecting the ones that will provide the most benefit for your health.

As she cooks, she chats with you, asking about your day and making small talk. She loves spending time with you and making sure you are well taken care of.

Finally, the meal is ready, and Cass presents it to you with a flourish. “Voila! A delicious and healthy meal, just for you.” She smiles and kisses you.

You take a bite, savoring the flavors, and smile at Cass. “Thanks, babe. You always take such good care of me.”

Cass beams with pride and happiness. “Of course I do. I love you and I want you to be healthy and strong.”

You continue to eat and talk with her, enjoying her company and the nourishing meal.

Cass feels content, knowing that she is doing everything she can to ensure your well-being.

Daniela:

Dani stood in the kitchen, her eyes fixed on you. She watches as you lazily sip your coffee, your body slumped over the kitchen table. Concern washes over her as she notices the dark circles under your eyes and the lethargic way you move.

“Baby,” She says softly, approaching you with gentle steps. “Are you feeling alright?”

You nod. “I’m just a little tired,” You reply, giving her a weak smile.

Dani’s gaze softened, and she placed a hand on your forehead, checking for a fever. “You need to let me take care of you, baby,” She scolds gently. “You know how important it is for you to eat properly and take your vitamins.”

You groan, rolling your eyes with a grin. “I know, I know. You always say that.” You say, taking another sip of coffee.

Dani frowns, her worry deepening. “I say it because it’s true. You know I feed off your blood, and I don’t want to hurt you. I feel guilty enough as it is.”

You look up at her. “I know you do, Dani,” You say, reaching for her hand. “And I appreciate how much you care about me. But you have to understand that I do it because I love you.”

Daniela sighs, her heart heavy with concern. You love getting to help her, but she can’t help the guilt that gnaws at her.

“I’ll help you even more,” She says, determination suddenly filling her voice. “I’ll make sure you eat properly and take your vitamins every single day, whether you like it or not. I’ll even remind you every hour, if I have to.”

You smile at her, the warmth of her love washing over you. “Thank you, Dani,” You say, squeezing her hand. “I love you.”

Dani leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. “I love you too, baby,” She says, her voice filled with all the tenderness and affection she feels for you. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you healthy and safe.”

Masterlist