#that shit is a gentle cradle to never feel lonely

[coolnonsenseworld]

Has anyone maybe counted which Klance floating lovingly mid air of mine is it? Sixth? Eight? But first one to become a standee though. I adore the idea of them gravitating toward each other, away from trouble, without any other context beyond love and bliss and I will be happy to draw 50 more versions of it.

Linktr.ee/mezzy

[gretavanlace]

Sugar II (part 6)

Jake Kiszka x reader

18+ only! Minors do not interact!

Warnings: graphic sexual content, illusions to cheating, illusions to oral sex (f rec), language, dirty talk, mutual masturbation, phone sex, etc

Your phone is lying on your chest when it begins to vibrate. Pretend you weren’t waiting for it all you want, your self-deception is laughable even to you. But isn’t that what you’ve become? A miserable joke who spurns the truth with a smile on her face and untruths in her heart.

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others, Dostoevsky once said. Wise and brilliant, he was. He also loved someone he shouldn’t have too deeply to let them go.

He is beside you, arm draped across your middle, forehead tucked against your shoulder…so placid and secure in his place next to your wandering mind. So blissfully unaware and peaceful as he dreams of things you don’t care enough to wonder about. But hasn’t he always been? Unaware, that is? He has lived in the dark, oblivious to the fact that he has never truly cradled your heart in his hands.

You are a wicked, black-souled creature, and no one knows that better than yourself. He doesn’t deserve this, and he never did.

Maybe you shouldn’t answer. Maybe. But you will, and you do.

Slipping out of bed like a phantom, you move through the house on silent toes, creeping along until you’re folded into the chair in the far corner of the living room.

“What took you so long?’ His voice drifts out, lazy and quiet, “Hiding from Mr. Wonderful again, are we?”

“You have to stop calling me like this.” You’re quiet, but not like him. Your quiet stems from deceit, and some inexplicable fear of what? Getting caught on the phone? And that’s all this is, right? Just a conversation with an old friend? There’s that self-deception again.

“Stop answering, then.” He counters coolly. Unbothered and wholly aware that that won’t be happening.

“How was the show?” You ask, rather than comment on the ridiculous confidence laced through his tone like sex on his tongue.

“Good.” He sighs, and you can picture his flippant, nearly shy shrug so clearly it grips your heart tightly for a breath. “I may have had a whiskey or three too many. May have tripped. May have fallen. May not have been very rock and roll.”

Your soft giggle tightens his heart just the same, but he doesn’t tell you that. “Did you play through?”

“Of course I played through,” He scoffs with feigned offense. “Who’re you talkin’ to?”

“Then I think that’s very rock and roll, Jake.” The smile won’t leave your voice. “Besides, you misjudged those stairs, don’t blame the whiskey. You should wear your fucking glasses.”

“Oh!” Now he sounds incredibly pleased with himself, dragging the word out like the cat who ate the canary, “Sounds like my sugar caught the show…”

“I may have popped in to peek at a livestream.” You concede, curling down into the chair to get comfy.

“Groupie.”

Pulling the throw off the back, you sling it over your bare legs and shake your head at his nonsense “Miss my Sammy, that’s all.”

“Fuck you.” He laughs.

“Fuck you, too.” You toss right back, but you both hear the love hidden behind those terrible words.

“You miss my stupid kid brother so much, why don’t you come and see him? I could have you on a plane tonight. How long would it take you to get to the airport?” There’s a sincerity in his offer that makes you long to pack a bag and go.

“Jake…”

“Should I send a car, or do you think Mr. Wonderful would mind driving my girl?”

Little shit.

“Stop calling him that.” You scold with little conviction.

“What should I call him then, baby? Since you won’t tell me his name…”

Fighting to sound steadfast, you square your shoulders and issue a warning you don’t feel a drop of in your bones “I’m gonna hang up.”

“Liar.” There’s that gentle laugh of his that echoes through your mind all hours of your lonely days. “What did you do today, sugar? Tell me.”

“Um,” you pick at the blanket absently and search back through the monotony. “I had a work thing. Then I went to the supermarket. Saw a movie. I smuggled a bottle of water inside in my purse like a criminal.”

“I should alert the authorities, but they’ve probably already got your wires tapped.” He’s teasing, but he suddenly sounds so sad. “Did you go to the movies with him?”

You hesitate, which tells him everything without a word.

“Damn,” he’s so quiet now. “I hate that, sweetheart. I hate that so fucking much.”

It makes no sense, he knows you’ve just crawled out of the bed you share with him, he knows that a ring rests on your finger right now - he knows. So why does he sound so broken-hearted? Why this?

“You just go around doing stuff with him, you know?” He clarifies as though he’s heard your unasked question. “Simple little things. The movies. The market. Dinner with your friends. Bookstores. We never really got to do those things together.”

It surprises you, though you aren’t sure why…he’s always been this way, soft and romantic about the strangest things. “You’d want to go to the grocery store with me?”

He laughs as you verbally poke at him to lighten the mood. “I’d go anywhere with you.”

“That’s good. Because I loathe going to the gynecologists alone. Care to attend my Pap smear, Jakey?”

He laughs again, but this time, it’s halting and loud… your favorite of all his laughs, “Absolutely, I do. I’ll steal the stirrups and take them home to use later. The doctor will see you now, sugar.”

You’re laughing now too, likely a bit too loudly “You’re so fucking weird. I feel like I’m talking to Josh.”

“Spending too damn much time with him lately.” He offers by way of excuse, “his shit is rubbing off on me. The other day I briefly considered a perm.”

Your laughter trails off with matching sighs, “I should go.” You say it, but you don’t want it.

“No, you shouldn’t.” He argues quietly, and with a strange tone…he’s fighting something.

“What is it?” You press delicately.

“I just,” he pauses, collecting his thoughts before pouring them out to you. “I just thought you’d be back by now…but you’re still there, with him. And I’m still here.”

“Jake,”

He doesn’t allow for you to finish whatever it was you were about to say that he doesn’t care to hear. “Hush, baby…I know. Do you miss me?”

“Yeah,” you secret into the phone, stealing a glance down the hall. “I miss you very much.”

“Good.” He has quieted to match your whisper. “How much do you miss me? More than Sam?”

“Yeah, I miss you more than Sam,” you see? This is why you’re a bad fucking person. “But like I said, I should go.”

“Why?” There’s that terrible, beautiful rasp again, the one that fails to belie how hard for you he likely already is. “Because you’re afraid you’re going to slide your hands into your pretty panties for me just like you did last night, and the night before, and the night before that?”

It’s a knee jerk reaction that you can’t explain when your finger jabs at your phone to end the call.

He calls back right away, and right away, you answer.

“That wasn’t very nice.” He taunts into the phone with a grin dripping from his accusation. “Don’t you dare hang up on me. Have you forgotten your manners, little girl?”

“Can’t we ever just talk?” You’re struggling to remain on solid ground, but for what? You want nothing more than to sink into him. “Do you ever think about anything else?”

“Other than what?” He counters. “Other than fucking you? Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I think about loving you, and lying beside you like that fuck gets to do. Taking care of you, making you laugh, cooking for you, and drawing you baths, and going to the goddamn movies to watch you smuggle in bottles of water, but you won’t let me have any of that, will you, sugar?”

“I—“ you’re shocked into silence.

“Right.” He agrees, as if you’ve said something poignant. “So forgive me if I indulge where you see fit to allow.”

“Jake, this isn’t right…” oh, don’t you sound righteous? “It has to stop.”

“Isn’t right for who?” He is rife with condescension, “For him? Ask me if I give a fuck about him. Not to ruin the surprise, pretty girl, but I don’t. And maybe you do a little, maybe you do even more than that. Maybe you care more than I’d ever want to know, but you’ll never care enough for it to matter more than you and I.”

No one has ever seen you like Jake sees you…and it is both intoxicating and frightening.

“You want to hang up? Hang up. I won’t call you back tonight.” There’s an edge to his promise, but you know better than to believe it, and you’re thankful it's a lie.

“I don’t want to hang up.” You should want to…but you can’t imagine giving him up right now.

“I love you, sugar.” He breathes, and it’s the loveliest song you’ve ever heard. You want to close your eyes and drift away into it like a symphony. There are cellos and violins in those words, magic and pain more beautiful than anything else you’ve ever known.

“I love you, Jake.” You want him to feel those same things living and breathing inside your own words, but they feel so lacking.

“Do you know what I did this morning?” He questions. You can picture his face so perfectly, and you long to touch it, to simply run the back of your hand down his cheek.

“Hmm?” You hum, still lost in the daydream of being near enough to touch him, to soak in the warmth of his skin.

“I tuned the piano in our front room.”

You know right away that he means the house he visits in the corners of his mind, the place he keeps just for you.

Your gaze has drifted out the window. If you look hard enough, you can almost see the house in the distance, windows glowing golden with light and love “You did?”

“I did. You’re teaching the girls now. I wanted it to be perfect for the four of you.”

“I don’t know how to play the piano, Jakey.” You tease, staring harder still at the mirage of your make believe home.

“Yes, you do. I taught you. You took to it right away, and now you’re better than Sammy, even. You play like an angel. And sometimes, when the girls are asleep, we make love on it and scatter notes around the room in the night.”

Your hand finds its way into your panties all on its own, but it’s innocent somehow, gentle. “We make love on the piano?”

“We make love everywhere, sugar.” He hushes, “I’ve slipped inside of you against the maple tree in the backyard in the Autumn while it drops its leaves at our feet. I’ve nestled my face between your thighs on the porch because you like to watch in the moonlight. Bent you over the kitchen sink so you’ll forget about the dishes, in a closet or two when the girls were too busy to notice, in the dirt in the garden, everywhere.”

A soft moan you attempt to swallow escapes you as your fingers sweep, wet and warm, across your clit.

“What was that, sweetheart?” The smugness in his query is so loving you forget to be annoyed with it, “Are you touching yourself imagining all the places I’ve made you mine? All the places I’ve taken you and made you shake, over and over and over?”

“Tell me,” you beg, slipping your leg over the arm of the chair, opening yourself up for him, offering something he isn’t here to take. “Talk to me. Tell me.”

“That’s my girl,” are you imagining the sound of his zipper through his praise? “What do you want to hear? I’ll talk to you all night, sugar…talk to you forever. Until my voice gives out.”

“The porch,” Another brush against your aching clit, another airy moan you fail to quiet, “Tell me about on the porch.”

“Yeah? You want to hear all about how I lick your pretty pussy on the front porch until you’re dripping down my chin? Want me to tell you about how good you taste, and how sweet you sound when you whine and rock against my mouth?” His voice is like sandpaper smoothing out the frayed edges of your heart. And you most definitely heard his zipper.

“Jake, please…” you would give nearly anything for him to materialize in the room. To listen to his boots clip across the hardwood as he moves, closing in on you until you’re trembling with anticipation.

“Shh, sugar…” he clicks his tongue in mock sympathy, “We wouldn’t want to wake Mr. Wonderful. He doesn’t belong on this porch with us, does he?”

“Tell me.” Your demand falls short through another shaky sigh.

“It’s late, baby,” you can hear it now, the rhythmic, slick slide of his fist along his cock, “and we really should go inside and go to bed, but I can’t take my eyes off of you, you look so fucking stunning in the starlight. You’re curled up next to me in the thinnest, whitest nightie, and I can see the tops of your thighs. So soft and smooth. And I only want to kiss them, but the second I’m on my knees you’re spread open for me like you’ve been waiting for my mouth.”

You’re so wet you can almost pretend your fingers are his tongue drawing tight circles exactly where you need it “And then?”

“Then I slip your panties off, and you give me a little shit about it just for show, but you shut up quick when I start licking along the insides of your thighs. You smell so fucking good, and you taste like heaven, and my cock is so fucking hard for you, but I don’t care about that, all I care about is getting my mouth on you.”

“Do I really taste that good, Jakey?” You pant, arching away from the back of the chair as you slip inside your warmth and fish for compliments.

“You do, baby.” His breath drags in and out of his lungs hard and fast. “You taste so sweet…prettiest, pinkest pussy I’ve ever kissed, you taste like home, you taste like my sugar.”

“Fuck, I’m—“

“Slow down.” He interrupts, sounding gentle in a way he seldom does when he’s hard and throbbing for you. “You just go real slow for me and listen.”

You nod, and though he can’t see you, he seems to feel it all the same.

“I’m on my knees against the porch you helped me strip and sand, and you’re spread open for me on the swing. It creaks every time you move. Your hands are in my hair, but you’re being such a gentle girl, fucking your lovely cunt up into my mouth, begging me softly to suck your spoiled little clit, begging me to make you cum.”

With your fingers fluttering light as air, you can almost imagine it all to be real, and you’re close…so close.

With a choked gasp of your name he pauses, but recovers in a blink, “You’re whining for my fingers, but I want to get you there just like this. I don’t want anything in the way when you finally let go on my tongue. I want to drink you down, baby…every drop. It’s all mine, and I want it. And you let me have you that way, don’t you?”

“Yes,” you nod frantically, writhing in the chair until the blanket falls away, forgotten.

“And you’re going to be such a good girl for me, huh?” That, leading, teasing tone has joined the party, and your stomach is twisting and turning, wringing the lust out of your very soul, “You’re going to be the sweetest little sweetheart and cum right in my mouth because I’m just so fucking thirsty, aren’t you?”

“Oh fuck, Jake…” you’ve hardly made a sound, your constricted throat won’t allow for much more, “Say it again.”

He knows what you want, and like always, he gives it to you without question or thought. “Want you to cum in my mouth right here on the porch, you beautiful fucking filthy girl. I want you, sugar…c’mon and make a mess on my tongue.”

“I’m gonna cum,” you’re spread wide and thrusting into your own touch, but it’s Jake you feel…he’s everywhere, all around you, you’re drenched in him.

“Of course you are, sweetheart,” he soothes, sounding near the end himself, “Because you know how badly I want it, and you’re my girl.”

“I’m your girl,” you whimper, desperate for more more more… “I’m your fucking girl, Jakey. I love you…”

“Love you too, sugar,” a growl rumbles out of him low and menacing. “Love you so fucking much. Come on, baby, c’mon…”

With a fist drawn to your mouth and your teeth dug in deeply, you let it happen. Welcoming that sparking, searing, electric bliss only he seems to be capable of gracing you with, no matter how near or far he happens to be.

You’re quiet somehow, but he doesn’t seem to need anything more than your muted gasps to get there with you. Though on his end, he sounds feral and violent…like the beautiful, seedy underbelly of something you shouldn’t want. Pornographic and obscene. Improper. Dirty. Wrong. Perfect.

With the calm of the afterglow, comes the shame. The guilt. The self-hatred. He knows it all too well already, and rather than drawing attention to what has just happened, he shifts focus to help you through.

“I might order room service. If you were here right now, what would you want? That’s what I’ll get.”

“Hmm,” you think it over, kicking the blanket up from the floor to recover a bit of modesty, “Soup sounds good. Broccoli cheddar if they have it.”

“Soup?” There’s that wide open laugh of his again.

“Yes.” You pretend-pout. “And don’t laugh at me. It sounds divine.”

“Soup it is, sugar.” He sounds soft and a little unlike himself. “We’ve got a small break coming up. It’s only a couple of days, but what if I came to see you?”

“Jake,” you’re preparing to wage a loving war, though you want to see him more than you want the air you breathe to quench your lungs.

“I just want to take you to the movies, that’s all,” he holds up his metaphorical hands innocently. “Will you go see a flick with me? No illegal bottles of water necessary.”

“You want to go to the movies?” You laugh at the idea of it all. So PG in a manner so… not Jake.

“Yep.” He sounds positively delighted at the mirth in your response. “Bring Mr. Wonderful, we’ll have a great time.”

You roll your eyes, stretching out your limbs, which have been tense and contorted for far too long, “Oh, don’t be silly, Jacob, like I would ever share you with Mr. Wonderful.”

Taglist: @gretasintrees @greta-van-chaos @celestialfauna @s0livagant @groggyvanfleet @kiszkathecook @brokenbellz @llightmyllovee @doodle417 @seventieswhore @jake-kiszkas-smirk @weightofdreams-gvf @imdepressedaf1996 @alisonwonderland29 @gretavanfleas @gretavangroove @jakesgrapejuice @sparrowofthedawn @xserenax-13 @tbagggvf @obetrolncocktails @tripthelightfandomtastic @tripthelight-fanfic @jakeslovehandles @poofyloofy @70sgroupielovr @heatmyfleet @age-of-nyahh @sammiboo162 @gretasmokerising @spicedandicedtea @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @saoirsemaeve @mywickeddivinity @thelvnternskeeper @paintmyhouse @mckenna4 @sarakay-gvf @theweightofjake @thewritingbeforesunrise @joshsmama @sammysvanfeet @rhythm-of-space @highladyofasgard @jordie-gvf-admin @calumspretty @sad1lynn @demolitionndann @gvfpal @starcatcher-jake

[lunarmochi]

vent

ugh.

experiencing another heavy emotional drop after a serotonin rush for a few hours. this happens every time something exciting happens but it never gets any easier to deal with.

i think.. it feels extra horrible tonight because lately has already felt lonely enough as it is.

"reach out to people" "ask for help" "why won't you just ask for comfort" those phrases feel so horrible and insensitive, even though i know they come from a good place. let me raise the question... who am i supposed to reach out to when everyone is almost always busy, having fun with their friends, or flat-out not a person i feel comfortable asking for those things from. who am i supposed to "reach out to" when to me, no one ever feels available to go to?

my thoughts aren't organized tonight, my apologies.

i hate myself for not forming more suppose systems and connections. it's my fault, and i hate when people blame themselves for my shortcomings. it's not anyone's job to worry about my support systems. no one should worry about all of this shit i talk about, when they have problems of their own.

i don't know what i need right now. perhaps.. just gentle comfort and company. people that are often talking about their other friends or how much fun they're having with other people feel... even more unavailable, if that makes sense? the last thing i would want is to bring down their mood and interrupt time they spend with their loved ones.

my chest feels so.. so heavy tonight. my body feels like lead. the weight of existing is almost too much to bear, tonight. i don't want to be here anymore if it means going through more of this.

who cares about what's going to happen tomorrow. what stream is going on tomorrow. what happy things will happen tomorrow. who cares what joys i'll experience tomorrow if this moment is already too much? what genuine reason do i have to go on?

i wish someone could cradle me. even just quietly sit with me and whisper soothing words that i need to hear. god, i sound like an annoying fucking crybaby. i'm sorry for always complaining about this stuff.

i'm sorry for always complaining.

i'm sorry for never being smart enough.

i'm sorry for never being supportive enough.

i'm sorry for not working hard enough to have people around me that love and appreciate me.

i'm sorry. i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry.

[angelamajiki]

PAIRINGS: Father! Yandere! Enji Todoroki x Daughter! Reader

CW: yandere, incest, soulmate AU, fluff, slight angst, nsfw, kissing, praise kink, virginity kink, size kink, bathroom sex

A BNHarem Collab!

AN: my longest piece to date! the prompt this month was sex work, so i decided to stretch the prompt and do sexual slavery. wanted to go for a softer version of daddy endeavor, so please enjoy <3

5.2k words

The mark on his wrist was one that was shared with yours. Enji had given up on finding his soulmate, deciding that his career and legacy were far more important than some silly marking on another’s body. Love was something he thought he could go without. But when he saw your bright eyes gaze up at him, your chubby hand wrapped around his index finger, his heart had fallen hard—such a sweet, gentle thing. No traces of fear, of disdain, of disgust for him as a human being. Just pure curiosity and unconditional love. His heart leaped for his little girl.

Enji was determined, then and there, that he would never fail you, not like he forgot the others.

Oh, what plans he had for you, his precious princess. He couldn’t wait to spoil you, to marry you and start a new family once you were old enough. Rei realized this as well. Her youngest daughter, her last hope at salvaging her broken family, was to be had by her husband. The thought frightened her, especially after seeing the adoring look in her husband's eyes when she saw him cradle you for the first time. It was so unlike the stoic nature he held for the other children when they were born, only caring to see that they were healthy before leaving off back to his agency, never giving them more than a fleeting touch. It was nothing like when he held you, snarling at any nurse who dared to take his soulmate from the grips of his arms.

Something that had Enji’s conviction more so than his career was something to be feared. Your mother swore to herself that she would not let her husband ruin you.

Once he fell asleep with you tucked in the crook of his arm, a social worker came and collected you to be sent to a foster home and be set up for adoption. It was better than falling into the hands of the monster of a husband.

After the death of Touya, the pair decided to have one more child in hopes of fixing their broken family, but Rei now knew it was for naught. Nothing could save them know, especially now that Enji had nearly burned the building down when he discovered that his little girl was gone, just hours after he had finally found you.

Rei alerted the commission as well for your protection, that utter bitch of a woman. They very well couldn't have the number two hero caught in an incestuous bond with his daughter, now could they. All information of your whereabouts was hidden from him, blacklisting him from working with any foster children, lest he loses his hero license. Enji may have lost you for the time being, but his patience grew as he did. They couldn't keep him from you forever. You'd be reunited one day; he knows it.

The first time he saw you again was when you were fifteen. It was your birthday and the day he had become the number one hero officially, plenty of reason to celebrate. Usually, he would have taken the time to sit near the rose bush he planted in your honor in his courtyard on your birthday, renewing his vows to find and love you to the best of his ability. Enji took great pride in keeping your memory alive with the bush for his beautiful little rose gone too soon from his grasp. But there you were, mere meters from him.

The foster home you stayed at took you out for dinner when he was meeting with Hawks after the billboard awards. Your eyes were unmistakable, a perfect cerulean just like his own. He was so close, yet so far. My, how you had grown since he saw you. Unlike him, you bore your mark proudly on your wrist, not ashamed to admit to the world who your soulmate was. Not like you actually knew who it was anyway.

Enji was prepared to leave Hawks at the table; a new flame lit under his ass, one far more exhilarating than the thought of being the number one hero. He was up and on his way to speak to you before Nomu attacked him. Damn villains, they'd pay for separating the two of you once again. But his conviction only grew stronger. It wasn’t hard to find you after that; he knew what city you were living in. Instincts lashed out at him, demanding that he go sweep you up and hide you away. No, no. That would make you frightened; he can't have that. He’ll watch from the sidelines, waiting until you were of age to make a move. He was curious to see just how life as a foster child was treating you.

Growing up in the foster system had been a nightmare from hell for you. A cursed child is what they saw you as when your skin sprouted flames every time it was touched by the human hand, burning everything and everyone who came in contact with it. From the moment your quirk manifested, you were an outcast, an untouchable, unlovable freak. Someone destined never to feel the touch of their new parents, their lover, their soulmate.

It wasn't long before you realized that you would remain in the foster system until you aged out. Who would adopt a child they couldn't hug when they cried, hold their hand when they crossed the street, snuggle up to when it was chilly outside? Any potential parent was taken aback by your quirk once you reached for the warm touch of mommy and daddy, only to singe their hand or burn a hole in their shirt.

You learned quickly that your touch was something to be feared, that you were something to be feared. You supposed that’s why you looked up to him so much. So much so that you thought about him late at night when the loneliness seemed to drown you in the sea of your insecurities.

Endeavor was the only one who could understand you, understand your quirk. If only your soulmate mark could match him, maybe you feel the warmth of another human being without hurting or mauling them with your power. Abrasive he may be with the media, but there something about him that was so comforting and endearing to you. In your eyes, he was simply misunderstood, a gentle giant amongst the mass personalities of the other pro heroes.

Watching his interviews brought you comfort when you were lonely, his merchandise made you swell with pride and confidence, and his posters on the wall reminded you that you were never alone. It was a silly crush, but it made you feel better about your miserable life.

You even got to see him on your birthday! Well, not exactly. You happened to be in the same restaurant when your foster parents took you out for your birthday. It was apparent that they just felt bad for you, having looked after you for 15 years only to still have custody of your sorry ass. You were almost certain that they were going to kick you to the curb the morning of your 18th birthday.

Too bad they never had the chance. That fate would have been much kinder than the reality you faced now.

Once the Paranormal Liberation Front had effectively ripped society up by the roots and let the tree of life rot for the world to see, your foster parents packed their shit and left the country while you were at school. You’d been alone in the world ever since and were snatched off the streets, ready to be sold into slavery by the villains of the world. Your quirk was the only thing keeping you from being bought like a bitch from the auction floor.

Enji, on the other hand, was more than eager to do just that. After his public smear campaign by his allegedly dead son, he was dead to the world, finally abandoning his family for good in hopes of finding his beloved daughter. His life was dedicated to searching for you, having managed to track you down through his vigilante work. He likes to lie to himself and say that he’s continuing to fight for the greater good, but Enji does it just to have the chance to see your sweet face again. There wasn’t much to go off of, but he’d rather see his fiery end than to give up. That's how he found you at the auction.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Another auction night was approaching, which meant another night of humiliation and being displayed like a slab of meat for a crowd of degenerate wolves. Your quirk was the only thing keeping you from being sold; no one wants a fucktoy they can’t touch. It reduced you to physical labor for your captors, but you were better fed because of it. That didn’t mean they still didn’t try to sell you.

After being stripped down into nothing but a collar, leash, and a muzzle, you were brought to the stage and shoved in front of the ravenous, roaring crowd. You could feel their stares seep into your bones, the grime from the floor on your bare feet only adding to the overwhelming sensation of disgust you couldn’t even begin to describe.

The crowd’s excitement was raucous, jeers and shouts echoing off the halls of the underground auditorium. Masks covered their faces for the sake of privacy lest a vigilante break-in and hunt them all down. Even in the lawlessness of the world, heroes were still crawling everywhere to trail after even the slightest scent of villainy. Doesn't mean they’ll win, but hey, the death of a hero is just the same as the auction was to them.

“Up next, a darling girl with a fiery quirk!”

That was your cue. A handler had a fierce grip on your leash, giving it a few tugs for good measure as the crowd laughed at your stumbling. The auctioneer began to list your qualities and physical attributes, including your quirk.

“And she’s a virgin!”

Added for good measure, the crowd fell silent after listening to the abilities of your quirk. You couldn't hate it anymore; it's what was keeping you from being someone’s onahole until the day you kicked the bucket.

“Can I get $10,000?”

Ah the starting bid. The silence was relieving. Just a few more moments and you'd be off that damn stage.

“No? Going once, going twice, going-”

“One million.”

A booming voice came from the back row, the depths of the shadows to further hide the masked man who just bought your life. Why did it sound so familiar?

“Outstanding! One million dollars for the young lady!”

“Going once.”

It couldn't be.

“Going twice.”

This can't be happening.

“Sold for one million!”

No!

You were supposed to be unwanted, just like you have been your entire life! Yet some mysteriously familiar man outbid the entire auction for little ol’ you.

“Off the stage, bitch.”

The handler snarled, yanking you off the stage and causing you the fall and bruise yourself in the process.

“Watch it!” He spat, picking you up by the roots of your hair. “The merchandise needs to be handled carefully before reaching the customer. Let's hope he doesn't mind some bumps and bruises. For your sake.”

“That won't be necessary; I'll be taking her as is. Immediately, if you will.”

The mysterious man stood had already made his way backstage and behind you, standing formidably over your stark form. Your hair was released, dropping you back to the floor.

“Excellent, sir! I’m more than happy to get this welp off my hands.”

A brief exchange was made while you recovered on the floor, shaking in fear as the situation weighed heavily on your already broken self. The handler took the money and returned to the back room, leaving the two of you alone together.

The stranger crouched down to you and extended a hand to brush the stray hair out of your face, touch remaining tender and gentle when you flinched harshly.

“My poor girl, what has the world done to you?”

His coat enveloped your body as he scooped you up in his arms. The scent of him comforted you more than you would have liked to admit. Teakwood and coffee grounds filled your senses as he held you flush against his chest, leaving the auction house with a renewed sense of vigor.

You were placed in the backseat of a car before he dressed you in simple pajamas.

“Rest. You deserve it.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

At some point in the car ride, you let yourself fall asleep only to wake up in a cozy king-size bed wrapped up in a soft blanket next to a warm fireplace. The false sense of comfort lulled you for a few moments before your situation hit you like a ton of bricks. The anxiety you'd had known your whole life had finally kicked back into gear, forcing you out of bed and into the rest of the house.

It was daybreak, the sunlight slowly trickling in through heavily curtained windows as you walked through the halls and into the kitchen. The man was standing over the stove, sans mask, dressed in a wife-beater and his pajama bottoms. It couldn't be-

“Come in; breakfast will be on the table in a moment.”

Now you were certain.

“Who are you?” Your voice barely above a whisper. “Why did you buy me at the auction?”

A deep, rumbling chuckle flowed from the man.

“I think you know the answer to that, little one.”

His focus was retained on the meal in front of him. “I’ll explain myself over breakfast. Now sit.”

You couldn't help but feel compelled to obey him. While sitting, you took the time to honestly look him over for the first time in your life. Never did you think you would be so close to your childhood crush in such a domestic setting.

He had noticeably greyed but still possessed a majority of his red hair. Muscles were still taught and budging, but he had grown a little bit of a belly. Endeavor was as handsome as ever, aged like a fine wine that you couldn't wait to sip on.

The food was placed in front of you as he took the test next to you.

“Eat and have some water. Then we’ll talk.”

Once again, you obeyed him without question and refrained from eating like a rabid animal. It wasn't even a question, so much so that it is evident that you hadn't had a decent meal in a long time. You were still muscular from the labor you did for your handlers, though.

And Enji liked that about you. How resilient you were, he loved that you inherited his strength but still possessed Rei’s gentle nature. Not that he wanted to credit that woman for anything, but he couldn't deny the obvious. You were his strong, beautiful little girl who had to endure so much because his bitch of a wife decided to separate you from him.

But he was here now, ready to give all his love and protection to his only love. It took everything in his power not to swoop you up from your seat and hold you in his arms until his last breath.

Enji watched you eat, pride swelling in his chest at the thought that you liked his cooking. He couldn't help but wonder what your favorite meals were as well. There's certainly all the time in the world to get to know his little girl now that he had you. And he was never going to let you go.

Your breakfast was devoured quickly, both out of desperation for a real meal and answers to your questions.

“Why did you buy me from the auction?”

It was a complicated question, but you wanted a simple answer.

“I’m your soulmate.” His wrist was on display as he reached across the table to hold your hand.

For the first time in your life, you felt safe. Your one, shining hope was meant to yours and he wanted to be yours. You didn't even question how he knew at all.

His touch was warm and slightly rough, but it was welcome all the same. Even though your skin was lit aflame at his flesh against your, he paid it no mind. He was built to take your quirk, to take you.

“Endeavor…”

“Please, call me Enji.” His thumb rubbed over the palm of your hand. “I’m sure you feel better after having something to eat.”

“Why don't you go take a bath? It’ll help you relax, I can take care of your dishes.”

It was strange how insistent he was on taking care of you, but you can't say you don't enjoy the attention. He seemed to care for you in a way that went beyond caring for a partner, or in your case, a soulmate. But who were you to judge? It wasn't like you had a lot of experiences to use as a comparison.

Making your way back to the bedroom, you took the time to study the house you were in. A traditional, well-kept home, it practically looked like it was untouched. And maybe it was; buildings and homes fully intact were hard to come by these days, let alone ones that were clean and warm.

Enji seemed to lull you into an instinctual sense of safety, even though he bought you out of slavery. Just because he was your soulmate didn't mean that he had good intentions for you, but somehow, his presence alone filled a void in your heart that you had forgotten was even there.

Once you made it to the bathroom connected to the master bedroom, you drew yourself a bath just like Enji had instructed you to do. It wasn't the wisest decision to let your guard down like this, but the man already had plenty of opportunities to fuck you up by this point.

The water was warm and inviting when you sank yourself into it; you couldn't remember the last time you had warm water to clean yourself with. It made you feel light and hazy, slipping into a headspace you had long forgotten—a place of safety and comfort.

Three raps on the door pulled you from your haze as Enji entered the bathroom with fresh towels. Despite the fact that he had already seen you naked, the intimacy of the situation only left you feeling more vulnerable than ever.

“Let me help you.”

He kneeled next to you outside of the tub and pulled a lavender chamomile shampoo from the tub’s shelf. There was room to protest, but you couldn't find yourself willing to do so.

Water was poured over your head before he started a lather in your hair, gently scrubbing your scalp for a while. Even this simple touch made you shudder, it was a long time since you last felt the warmth of someone’s touch. And everything about this man was warm, for you at least. His words, his touch, his heart.

Conditioner was added to your hair as well before he moved onto washing your body. The scrub was gentle across your skin, his hand following after it to help keep the suds from rising too much. Strong hands massaged your back and your neck, both of which needed the much-deserved relief.

“So tense.” He murmured, mostly to himself.

There was a comfortable silence shared between the two of you as he massaged out all the knots and kinks that had built up over the years with your handlers. His touch should have made you flinch but you found yourself pressing into it. A small moan escaped your lips as he worked through a particularly tender spot on your neck.

“Are you enjoying this?”

His lips ghosted your ear as warm breath tickled your cheek and neck.

Your face flushed with a fiery warmth from a combination of the steam, your embarrassment, and the man whispering sweet nothings in your ear as his hands worked at your tired skin.

“Let me help you relax, sweet thing.”

Enji picked you up momentarily to slot himself behind you in the tub. Placed on his lap, you gasped when you could feel his erection hard against your back. Fear started to trickle into your veins as you squirmed slightly, attempting to get out of his grasp.

“Shhh, it's alright, you're okay.” His hand made its way to your throat and rested there gently, stroking over your artery with his thumb. “I’m not going to hurt you, sweetheart. Let me show you how much I've missed you.”

His touch made you feel alive, feel wanted for the first time in your life. You couldn't help but whine when his other hand made its way down your body, gently groping your breast as his lips were pressed to your ear.

“Do you trust me to take care of you?”

His fingers toyed with your nipples, obviously skilled.

“Do you trust me to make the sweetest love to you?”

Another whine caught in your throat as his hand went further, cupping your sex in his much larger hand. He kneaded gently, pressing a soft kiss to your temple when you writhed in his grip.

“Please! Enji-”

Shushing you gently, Enji’s thumb made its way to your clit to stroke in small circles.

“How does that feel, sweetheart?”

You were used to touching yourself, but oh God it never felt like this.

“Good!” You managed to choke out in a wanton moan. “So good! Enji, please, I need-”

A warm pair of lips sealed over yours, silencing you once again. Enji knew how wrong this was, to take advantage of you like this without revealing the truth. But he wanted at least to just once to have you in his arms willingly and eagerly. He wanted to kiss you breathless, listen to your cries and feel your nails dig into his skin as he gave you all of himself without a fight from you. He can worry about revealing himself to you later.

The rough pads of his large fingers started to apply pressure to your clit as his middle finger slipped into your tight hole under the water.

“Don't worry, little one. I'll give you what you need.”

Soft kisses were trailed along your cheek and hand that was on his that was still holding your throat tenderly. Finger pumping in and out of you, Enji whispered sweet praises to you as he felt your hole clench around him.

“Doing so well for me, sweetheart.”

Your breathy moans and whines only served to harden his cock. He felt like a teenager all over again, closing to cumming just from the sound of your voice.

Another finger slipped into your tight core, careful not to overwhelm you too fast. It was obvious you'd hadn't been touched before, not even by yourself. You felt full but greedy for more of his touch.

“Deeper, Enji! Please, can you?”

You were babbling at this point, writhing in his lap as he fingered you nice and slow with thick digits. Enji hummed as he pressed further into, curling his fingers into your G-spot.

Your cry was loud as he began to abuse your most sensitive spot, fully squirming in his arms as tears of pleasure breached your eyes. The sensation was too overpowering for you, making you thrash and arch in his arms.

“Shh, you're okay, sweetheart. You're okay; I'm right here.”

His fingers continued to stroke in a curled fashion, thumb still circling over your twitching clit. Enji kissed you again, deeper and more fierce as he began to fuck you earnestly with his fingers.

“Cum for me, darling.”

Squealing, you gripped his forearm and cried helplessly into his mouth. The build was slow and intense, allowing your orgasm to wash over you in waves of pleasure rather than a blinding, quick light.

“E-Enji!” You wailed. “Enji!”

You shook in his arms, holding onto the larger man for dear life as you experienced your first orgasm. It seemed like Enji knew your body better than you did.

No words were exchanged between the pair of you, but you could feel the tension of your desired hanging thick in the air. This man was going to take your virginity, here and now.

Enji removed his hand from your throat and between your legs in order to maneuver you to sit facing forward in his lap.

“Are you ready for me?”

His honesty made you flush even more. Biting your lip nervously, you hesitated to answer. Were you ready? It wasn’t like you had much of choice; the man could very well take you by force if he so chose to. But you felt safe in his arms, safe with him.

“Let me help you, my love.”

Warm, large hands gripped your backside as he held you steady above his cock. Your hand reached down to line yourself up with his throbbing sex, lowering yourself down on it slowly.

It burned in the best way, stretching you out fully as you pressed your forehead against his chin.

“Good girl, taking my cock so well, darling.”

A pitiful whine left your throat at the praise, hands gripping the forearms that held you in place.

“Can...Can you hold me?” You whimpered. “Please?”

Enji’s arms enveloped you and pulled you flush against his, tucking your head into the crook of his neck as you continued to lower yourself onto his cock. Your breath tickled his ears, making him groan lowly once he bottomed out inside of you.

“Such a sweet girl you are, taking all of me on your first try.”

Another whine responded for you as you ground your hips down on his.

“E-Enji.” You whimpered his name over and over again like a prayer. “Enji!”

“Be still, little one.” Hands back on your hips, holding you in place near the tip of his girthy length. “Let me take care of you.”

Hips in place, the man began to thrust up into you slowly, holding you tight as he stood up from the water. You only gripped and nuzzled yourself into him further, letting out sweet whines and whimpers into his ear while he thrust into you.

Your back was placed against the cool tile of the wall when he tilted your chin up to meet his gaze. Even in this position, he was still at least another head taller than you.

“Look at me when I make love to you.”

Through wet eyelashes, you gazed up at his eyes and let your mouth hang open as he rolled his hips into yours. His eyes shut briefly when he moaned, hissing at the feeling of your wet cunt hugging his cock so well.

“You were made to take my cock, little one.”

Arms reached up to wrap around his neck as he thrust into you, taking his time to make his strokes slow and deep. His hips were flush against yours when you asked him, “Kiss me, please? I want all of you Enji.”

Your bold proclamation stunned him for a moment before yielding, placing a deep kiss and a hot tongue against your lips.

His thrusts became faster as he kissed you with more passion and vitality. For an old man, he certainly had his stamina up to par. Your fingers thread through his red and grey tresses, tugging him closer to you gently as you moaned shamelessly into his mouth.

The pleasure in your core was more intense, fiercer this time around as his thrusts became hard and fast. The sounds of both of your moans and skin slapping against skin echoed off the tiled bathroom walls as the both of you felt your orgasms coming.

“Enji, fuck!” You whined, beginning to squirt on his fast-paced cock. “I-I’m cumming; I’m cumming!”

“Cum for me, princess.”

With a choked sob, you creamed yourself all over his cock, which continued to pound into your hole before he groaned your name and came deep inside you.

Nothing but the sounds of the water sloshing and your labored breathing could be heard as you both came down from your highs.

After a moment of rest, Enji pulled out and wrapped you in a towel before laying you gently on the bed. A towel was wrapped around his own waist as he looked at you fondly, brushing stray hairs out of your eye sight as he sat next to you on the bed.

“I must ask, how did you end up at the auction site?”

What a loaded question, but the intimacy you two shared allowed for it.

“I was kidnapped off the streets after my parents abandoned me when the prison break happened.”

He sighed gruffly and took your hand in his.

“What utter fools, tossing aside a beautiful rose such as yourself.”

His thumb traced over your soulmate mark. You still had yet to know how he knew before ever meeting you.

“It's alright; I never considered them my family. I just wish I could have met mine, but at least I met my soulmate.”

A crinkled smile adorned his face.

“You've done more than meet them.”

What could that have meant?

“I’m your father and your soulmate, little one.”

A rock hit the pit of your stomach as you retracted your hand from his.

“That isn't a funny joke, I'm serious.”

“So am I.” His hand was quick to snatch your back. “What could I possibly gain from lying to you?”

“P-Prove it.”

“Our soulmate marks, I saw yours the moment you were born in the Hosu hospital before my wife separated us all those years ago. I can recite your birthday if you'd like me to, for good measure.”

Fuck, he really wasn't lying. A lump formed in your throat as tears sprung in your eyes.

“Why would you do this to me?” You whispered, barely even able to hear yourself.

“Because I love you. I love you so much, sweetheart. Ever since I saw you for the first time in the hospital, my entire life has changed because of you. All I ever wanted was you.”

Enji was quick to shush your cries, using his free hand to wipe your tears away.

“Will you forgive me for being selfish?”

The disgust and horror filled everyone of your senses, especially when you came to a realization that he was everything you've ever wanted.

What came out of your mouth next stunned the both of you.

“You can apologize by begging on your knees and cleaning me up with your tongue, Daddy.”

TAGLIST: @tomurasprincess @bonesoftheimpala @sightoru @cxnicalsweetheart

[scuttle-buttle]

WC: 2261

Rated: M

Tags: angst, medical issues, pregnancy complications, hurt/comfort, anxiety, brief mentions of medical procedures but no gore, nothing is technically sad, fluff, papa laszloooo

A/N: honestly tho I am sorry. also i maybe cried a little writing this, which is a first. also also everybody is fine in this it's just emotional

Blame @hardlyinteresting

🧠

"Three weeks…. Three weeks little bean…" you mumble as you rub your protruding stomach after a particularly harsh kick to your ribs. The chair was a sweet relief to your ankles after a long day at work and doing some light chores around the house all afternoon. You had three weeks until you hit 39 weeks into your pregnancy. As much as you were anxious you were ready. Ready to not feel like a bloated whale. Ready to not have sore feet. But most of all, ready to hold your baby girl.

Laszlo had been trying to convince you to take it easy and start maternity leave early, but you resisted. The last thing you were about to do is nothing. Most first pregnancies went late anyway, you'd argued, so you didn't worry about it yet. I’m pregnant, not dying - give me another week, you'd told him.

What you didn't tell him was about the headaches. Or how sore your legs were. Or how absolutely exhausted you'd been feeling the last couple weeks. Whenever he would ask if you were alright or offer a foot rub you would just brush it off as third trimester woes. You didn't want to worry him.

You were sat in an armchair in the parlor, feet propped up, damp rag over your eyes. The droning from the tv had your nerves on edge. All you wanted to do was take some tylenol and feel better, but you had been knocking back more than was probably safe the last few days so you went without.

A sudden pain shoots through you causing the rag to fall onto your chest. “Ohh...ow? OW!” You sit up straighter as the ache persists; the dull throbbing in your upper abdomen unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Were you in labor early? Did she just kick in a bad spot? No no - surely the pain would’ve died down by now had that been the case. Unless? Can babies kick so hard they rupture something? Did my kid just bust my liver? Your thoughts run rampant as you wait, in vain, for the pain to go away. The pricking behind your eyes and in your temples only made it more hellish. Pressing your palm to the spot does nothing, nor do the breathing exercises you had been taught.

When five minutes have passed by without relief you make the choice to call out for your husband. “Laz?” No response. “Laszlo!” A beat passes; nothing. You swallow through your building nausea.

“I swear to fucking-” you growl as you snatch your phone from the end table to your left. You use all your concentration to dial his number.

It rings four times.

“Bärchen, why are you call-”

You don’t let him finish. “Something’s wrong.”

______

Head thrown back into the flat, starchy hospital pillow you groan in frustration. “permanent bedrest?” You scrub the hand not clutching your belly down your face.

The emergency room Obstetrician gives you a pitying look. “I’m afraid so - your blood pressure is high and we want to keep it under control to prevent outcomes such as pre-eclampsia. I recommend doing as little as absolutely possible; get rid of as many stressors as you can.” He flips through your chart. “You said you’ve been having headaches and fatigue for nearly two weeks? Why didn’t you come in sooner?”

Huffing, you tell him “I thought it was just part of the third trimester. Everyone always complains about how bad it is.” He hums in response.

“Well. I’m going to go take a final look at your labs, make sure everything else is fine before we discharge you. I’ll send in my Nurse Practitioner to give you the run down and anything else you’ll need to know. And should anything else like this happen again - get in here immediately.” He pats you awkwardly on the hand before nodding at Laszlo and leaving the room.

Laszlo.

Sparing a glance from the corner of your eye you see him looking towards his lap, his weaker hand cradled in the other. He’d been quiet since you admitted when your symptoms had first begun. Every single time he’d asked you how you were feeling you had lied to him. Granted, you didn’t technically know you were lying. But it makes little difference when you’re sitting in the ER. He had every reason to be upset.

“Laszlo honey,” you reach over to him. Slowly he takes your proferred hand and stands, coming to stop beside the bulky bed frame. His thumb caresses your wrist.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve examined the signs, kept a better eye on you.”

“Laz-”

“-No-”

“-I didn’t want to worry you, okay?-” Your voice breaks as you defend yourself.

“-I could’ve done something, maybe- I don't know!” His slightly raised voice startles you quiet. The pain in his eyes only makes you feel guiltier. He licks his lips. “I took the liberty of calling your mother. She will be here tomorrow afternoon and will be staying in the guest room as long as we need her.”

Now you look away, indignant. “I don’t need to be watched like I’m a child.” The tears behind your eyelids rush in; a lone drop trailing down your cheek as the embarrassment settles within your gut. You knew that at some point it was likely you would need her here. However you imagined it to be under happier circumstances. A deep inhale fails to calm your sobs. “I just- I don’t want to be a burden with all this.” Your tears flow freely now.

“My dear you could never be.” Laszlo sits on the edge of the bed. He rests his right palm above the swell of your child, his left cupping along the curve of your jaw. He tilts you to face him. “But the health of you and our girl is what is most crucial now. Let us take care of you. Please.”

A gentle kick underneath his palm from your daughter is answer enough.

__________

Two weeks. 14 days.

Lying in bed, sitting in the same spot for hours on end was actually going to be the death of you. You were sure of it.

Your mother truly has been a huge help since arriving. Laszlo wanted to start his paternity leave, but you insisted that he stay until you were closer to your due date. Which couldn’t come fast enough, you might add. Both Laszlo and your mother were prone to pestering you about some things, but at other times if you truly wanted to be alone they gave you your space. Now was one of those times. Laptop to your side, you watch another episode of Grey’s Anatomy. A knock sounds. You turn to see your husband standing in the doorway, the blood pressure monitor in arm.

He gives you a bright smile. “How are you two on this fine afternoon?”

“Cut it with the attitude, bucko. Let’s get this over with.” The words, while harsh, had little bite to them. His brow raises but he says nothing. You honestly felt bad that you’d been in a pretty foul mood since being discharged. On more than one occasion you’d said as much to Laszlo and your mother - they didn’t deserve your ire. Thankfully they understood why you were so frustrated.

You held the strap in place as he secured the velcro and started the machine. Buzzing filled the overall quiet room. Closed eyes you wait. Some days your results were higher than others. Unless you became higher than a certain threshold the doctor said you were safe to be home. At the sound of a beep Laszlo unhooks the cuff, reporting that your levels are within the acceptable range. When he goes to leave you alone you clutch at his sleeve. He waits as you peer up at him. “Stay?”

He never could say no to you.

______

Little bean’s ruthless treatment of your bladder had you up for the second time that night. You waddled to the bathroom to attend to your business and wash your hands. Glancing at the circles under your eyes in the mirror you sigh. “I love you baby bean but you’re giving me a run for my money here, kid,” you whisper as you rub your stomach. Three days, you remind yourself.

The floor creaks as you shuffle back to bed. Suddenly, an odd warm trickling sensation travels down your legs. “What the fuck?” Looking down around your bulging bump you find yourself standing in a small puddle, the glint of the bathroom night light reflecting off the surface. “Shit okay…ah Laszlo? Hey, I need you to wake up.”

He grumbles. With a roll of your eyes you walk over and shake him awake. “Hey- what-” he sits up instantly and blinks at you. “Is everything alright?”

“My water broke.”

He hops into action right away. Moving you to sit on the bed, he pulls out his cell phone to call your doctor. As he talks you watch him move around the room, the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, as he collects your hospital supplies. You feel useless as you sit. Yet, you know that your priority needs to be keeping yourself calm and that moving around could exacerbate your condition.

He hangs up. Coming to stand in front of you he presses a kiss to your forehead; “I’ll go wake your mother. Don’t move, Liebling.”

As you sit you blow out a long breath. You look down at your bump. “Guess you decided you’re ready to go, huh kid?” The tip of your fingers brush along the side of your stomach. “I know we’re ready for you too. We’re going to love you so much, and your daddy? He’s gonna be the best, you’ll see.” Placing your palms flat she nudges you from within.

_____

The doctors decided that a c-section was the safest route. You both knew it was a possibility, but you had hoped that after weeks of bedrest that your blood pressure would balance out enough for a natural delivery. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. They monitored you for an hour before your contractions began, officially confirming you were in fact in active labor and dilating. After the fourth hour your blood pressure began to spike again. That’s when they decided to prep you for the procedure.

The operation went smoothly. The atmosphere of the surgical suite was tense with your nerves, but Laszlo’s calming words and his hand squeezing yours kept the anxiety from spilling over. You even found it in you to poke fun at how ridiculous he looked in the puffy blue elastic hair cap he wore.

When the first cries rang out you nearly tried to hop off the table to see your baby. The doctors worked quickly to ensure you were in proper condition while the infant was cleaned.

“Dad? Would you like to come and cut the cord?” one of the nurses calls out.

Laszlo looks back at them before turning to face you. He searches your eyes for a moment; “go,” you nod with a smile. You watch as he did what the nurses instructed as best you could, her soft wails echoing in the small room. He returns to you right after while they finish wrapping her up in a blanket.

“She’s beautiful my dear,” your professor confesses. He leans to give you a lingering kiss. “I’m so unbelievably proud of you.”

“I love you so much.”

“As I love you.”

The doctor interrupts your moment. “Would you like to hold your baby girl?” The question is directed at you, but you look over to your husband. The man you love more than life itself. He stares at the little bundle as if she’s the most incredible sight he’s ever laid eyes on. He can’t take his gaze off her. His irises sparkle with unshed tears as he looks on with wonder.

“Laz?” Finally he breaks away. “Hold your little girl - she’s been waiting to meet her Papa.”

Carefully the doctor shifts his hold on the babe to slide her into Laszlo’s waiting arm. He swallows as he pulls her to his chest. Something caught between a sob and a laugh leaves him. You blink through your own tears at the sight of your husband and daughter, a sight so far beyond perfect there could be no words. Laszlo held her with such delicacy, such reverence. It was as if any moment she could slip away as though a dream.

“Hello there my little dove, I’ve been waiting a very long time to meet you.” He doesn’t bother to wipe away the streams that fall from his eyes. “I’m your Papa and I-” he sniffs, looking towards the ceiling and blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. You rest your hand on his bicep. “I love you so very much. I would give you the world if I could. Your grandfather didn’t...he was not....” he pauses to gather himself. “To me you are the greatest gift I could ever receive. I will be the best father I can for you. A father worthy of you. Mein Gott, Ich liebe dich my darling dove.”

He continued to hold her in his arms until it was time to take you into the recovery room. When he had asked if you wanted her you simply shook your head. You would get your chance, you had a lifetime to do so. But your Laszlo needed this. He needed his little dove.

Tag list

@hardlyinteresting @lorna-d-m @livvyshmiv @somethingthatsaysbubbles @greeneyedblondie44 @unbeatablecurlgirl @apparrio @marchingicenotes7 @anteroom-of-death @bruhidaniel @lemairepstuff @thehuiabird @zemosimp05 @alindeluce @iamnotthecatladynextdoor @laura-naruto-fan1998 @trelaney @boneheadduluc @i-am-dead-inside-666 @fictionlandslanddreams @that-one-fandom-kid @hb8301 @fandom-princess-forevermore @foggycandywitch @creme-bruhlee @andy-rocks @nonamec0s @everythingbeginsineternity-blog @uncomfortablebagel @rachelicouss @wisia02

[fangirleaconmigo]

Eskel is wounded in a hunt, and no one in the three towns he passes on his way back to Kaer Morhen will give him aid.

Geralt has a bit of a breakdown about it.

This is Eskel x Geralt hurt/comfort fic. You can also read it as x Lambert, but that isn't explicitly defined, as this focuses on Geralt mostly. But they obviously all love each other.

About 2500 words. Rated Teen I guess? Not explicit. Now beta’ed and posted on AO3.

------

Rage pressed out from Geralt’s chest cavity, like bony fingers clawing an escape. Freezing wind whipped his hair into his eyes. He growled in frustration and shook his head to clear his vision. He brought the sledgehammer down on the last remnants of the shed. It cracked and threw splinters into the furious wind.

A throat made a scraping sound behind Geralt. He jerked in surprise, and whipped around, eyes still wild.

“Hate to interrupt, but he’s asking for you.”

Lambert looked comfortable, as though he had been leaning against the tree for an age. Geralt dropped the hammer.

“Oh.” He looked around the wreckage of the perfectly good structure that he had spent a week building. The scrapes on his knuckles and the rips in his trousers told the story of his outburst, if the ruined shed hadn’t done so. “Fuck. How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough.”

Geralt pushed his hair out of his face with fingers that were unsteady and still unsure of why they no longer gripped the handle of a hammer. Then he rubbed his eyes.

“Take a breath, big guy,” said Lambert.

Geralt’s body instinctively obeyed, and his chest expanded as he pulled in a deep breath. What he had done was setting in. “Why didn’t you stop me, then?”

Geralt knew it wasn’t Lambert’s job to stop him from having mental breakdowns, but he felt defensive. He had given himself one brief moment of self indulgence, and all of this rage had just roared into being. The thought that he didn’t actually know what was inside the yawning chasm of his own heart was terrifying.

It was also embarrassing.

“We all need to let it out sometimes.” Lambert shrugged.

Geralt began to realize how cold he was, and therefore how freezing cold Lambert must be.

“Sorry. I’m an idiot.”

“Ah,” Lambert said easily, dismissing him out of hand. “It’s a relief to see someone else in this family admit to how fucked up it all is.”

Lambert did look relieved. There was recognition in his face. Kinship. Geralt felt a twinge of guilt. How lonely he must feel sometimes.

“How do you handle this? How do you get rid of it? It feels like shit.”

Lambert pressed the inside of his cheek with his tongue as he considered the question. “Being an asshole helps sometimes. Revenge is good. But don’t take my word for it, I’m not the model of fitting witcher behavior.” The last three words were said in a mimicry of Vesemir’s voice. He held both hands up in a sarcastic surrender.

Geralt thought for a moment. Lambert allowed the silence to stretch out between them.

“I know the new cleric down in Ard Carraigh has been working people up, turning them against us. It’s made everything worse,” said Geralt. The gut wrenching image of Eskel bleeding, gasping, and cradling his split open wound as town after town turned him away, blazed to life again in his mind’s eye. He clenched both fists. “It didn’t have to be that way. If only one of those motherfuckers, if only one of them had helped him...he almost...he almost died.” Geralt spat the final word and when he did, he could feel hot tears prickling his eyes.

“I know,” said Lambert. “Believe me I know. But he wants to see you, and you can’t go in there like this. Breathe.”

Geralt nodded and breathed again.

“How’s this?” offered Lambert, “If you don’t come to your senses by the time the snow melts, I promise I’ll help you come up with a really good way to fuck with that self righteous piece of shit in Ard Carraigh.”

Geralt laughed airily. “Yeah, alright.” He put his hands on his hips and waited for his thudding heart to settle.

Lambert’s eyes lit up with glee. “Really?”

Geralt nodded. “Really.”

“Alright. Now come on.” Lambert began walking towards the keep, and beckoned for him to keep pace.

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

Geralt washed his hands and cleaned his cuts. Then he changed into fresh clothes and let himself into Eskel’s room with the soft creak of a door.

Eskel lay in bed with his eyes closed. It was a large bed, piled with just about every spare quilt they had been able to find. A neat bandage was wrapped around Eskel’s stomach. Vesemir had done it as Geralt cursed himself for his shaking hands. Eskel was a shade more pale than his usual warm brown. He looked drained, of blood and of energy. The lines of his face were slack, and his hands rested with fingers laced across his chest.

The sight of him provoked a tangle of emotions in Geralt. The usual feeling gripped him of course...the one he felt whenever he saw Eskel’s familiar face...the full lips that melted him to a large helpless puddle whenever they smiled or kissed him....the round, solid shoulders that were the best place on the continent to lay your head. That bit wasn’t a mystery. It was just love. That was the most natural thing in the world for Geralt to feel for Eskel.

But the soft pink suggestion of blood beneath the white cloth kindled a very different feeling. That was the rage. Still there. There were probably not enough structures on the continent for him to destroy to sate it. Also, the slight puffiness in Eskel’s skin surrounding the bandage implied a nascent infection they would have to continue to fight off. That provoked a feeling of powerlessness that threatened to shatter him from the inside out. It intertwined with the desperation to kiss his soft stomach...to make it better somehow.

But he couldn’t make it better. He couldn’t heal him. He couldn’t protect him. He couldn’t do anything at all but be angry and fucking useless. Impotent, helpless, and fucking useless.

What good was it? He thought. What good was love, if no matter the degree of its ferocity, it would never be enough to protect the ones you loved?

For a moment he truly glimpsed the reality of his powerlessness, paired with the vulnerability of Eskel’s flesh. His body. His heart. It could just stop beating, and there would be nothing Geralt could do to help it. The breath sucked from his body, and he swayed, dizzy on his feet.

Eskel opened his eyes, and as he focused on Geralt, he blinked at the look of anguish on his face.

“Hey, wolf. Hey. I’m good. I’m here. C’mere.” He tried to lift an arm to beckon him to bed, but he winced.

His voice was soft and gentle, as though Geralt were the wounded one. That broke the spell of despair gripping him, and he rushed to Eskel’s side. He sat down gingerly next to him on the bed. Eskel leaned his head into Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt situated himself so he could wrap his arms around Eskel’s shoulders, and he dropped a kiss onto the top of his head.

Eskel made a noise of contentment. They sat there for a short moment, breathing together in the quiet room.

“Hey,” said Eskel. He looked up, concerned.

“What?” Geralt asked.

“Hey!” Eskel sat up and unwound Geralt’s arms from his shoulders. He squeezed Geralt’s hands in his. “You’re trembling. What’s going on? What are these scrapes from? Are you hurt?”

Geralt snorted and gently pulled his hands back, tucking them at his side. He was too much of a mess to hide his little breakdown. He would have to explain just a bit. “No. You’re the one that’s hurt. I’m fine. Just. You know. I hate...I hate seeing you hurt.”

Eskel tilted his head. “I said I’m fine.”

“You’re hurt.”

Eskel looked at him quizzically, and dug Geralt's hands back from his sides and clasped them again. He swept his thumb gently below his injured knuckles.

“This is our job, Geralt. Our life. We’ve been doing it for almost eighty years.”

Geralt swallowed. It was true. He felt ridiculous, of course. And defensive. Like he needed to explain himself.

“I know. I know.” He thought of why this was different. But it really wasn’t. Factually, this was just another hunt. Another instance of humans treating them like garbage. He shouldn’t care anymore. And yet? “And most of the time,” he pressed ahead, “I don’t notice. Wounds. Dressings. Combat. The sun rises, the sun sets. It is what it is. I tell myself that all the time. Why worry about something you can’t change?”

Eskel touched a stray bit of Geralt’s hair and tucked it behind his ear. “Then what? What was different about this one?”

He sounded so gentle. He was always so gentle. Geralt couldn’t bear it sometimes.

“Nothing,” he choked out. “There was nothing different about it. It’s just that sometimes...” he leaned back against the bedframe and looked at the ceiling. He just couldn’t look at Eskel right now. “Sometimes I look at you,” he continued haltingly, “and I see the bruises. I see the wounds.”

“You don’t usually see them?” Eskel was teasing him lightly, trying to make him smile.

“Not really. They’re just things to fix. Things to bandage. Things to watch disappear and then on to the next hunt.” He was silent for a good long stretch. Eskel didn’t fill it. He just brushed the palms of his hand and waited. “But then. Every once in a while, I see them for what they are. They are things and people who hurt you. Who stood there, and fucking hurt you. Who saw you as a thing to hurt. And I want to burn down the whole world.”

He pretended that he didn't notice the tear the slid down his cheek.

He finally looked at Eskel, who was sitting up now and watching him intently, with a complicated look on his face.

“Geralt. I’m fine.”

Geralt looked away again, dragging his arm across his face to dry it. “But you almost weren’t.” His voice insisted on breaking, against his will. He cleared his throat. “You could have died. And why? Because no one in three towns would help you? People who you’ve helped countless times??” He felt the thudding rage threaten to swell again like the first ripples of a tsunami.

“Geralt,” Eskel touched his chin. Geralt turned, and was rewarded with a soft look and a kiss. “I don’t have your pretty face, wolf. Even if I weren’t a witcher, they would react the way they do.”

Geralt knew it was true. Eskel’s looming size. His voice. The way his eyes seemed to glow. The scars. All things he loved. But not everyone else did. He clenched his fists. “Idiots.”

Eskel loosened his fingers and clasped them again. “It’s been ages since I got the scars. I’m used to it.”

“Yeah well. You shouldn’t have to be,” hissed Geralt. “Sometimes,” he remembered Lambert’s voice telling him to breathe, so he did. Eskel watched him with concern and something else. Affection. That was it. “Sometimes," Geralt tried again. “I just want you to have the gentle life that you deserve.”

And there it was. As sensible, as strong as Geralt tried to be...as he was, sometimes he was like a little child stamping about how unfair the world was. How he wished it were different. Ridiculous. Fucking stupid.

He waited for Eskel to tell him again that he was fine. To be practical, like he always was. To tell him that it was better than what a lot of people got. That most of the time, he liked being a witcher. That he was good at it. Eskel was like that. Even. Solid. Where Lambert wanted to punch destiny in its smug face, and Geralt hid from the spiteful bitch, Eskel just rode it. Like a ship on a wave. Sometimes he and Lambert resented his ability to do that.

But Eskel didn’t do any of that. He looked at Geralt, and his expression was so raw that Geralt was taken aback. And he was taken back. That was a look he hadn’t seen in many years. It wiped about seventy years away from Eskel’s face. Geralt was transported to this same room. But instead of a large bed, there were two bunkbeds. And instead of two grizzled witchers, there were two small, hopeful, frightened boys, who loved without wariness. Without skepticism. Without doubts.

Eskel pulled his hands to his lips and kissed each knuckle softly, in turn.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice husky.

Geralt shook his head. “Ah, for what? Me being angry doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t help you heal faster.”

“You don’t know that. It might.”

Eskel patted the blanket covering him. “Crawl in with me wolf. We’ll huddle together until it passes.”

The corner of Geralt’s mouth twitched into the hint of a smile despite himself. It was what Eskel used to say when Geralt had nightmares and he would stand stupidly around Eskel’s bed, hoping to be invited in. Geralt had always made up some excuse to accept his kindness. Something that wouldn’t be interpreted as weakness.

“Alright, but only because I want to keep you safe.”

Eskel grinned his lopsided, perfect grin. “I feel safer already.” That was what he used to say. Even as a child he knew how to respond to Geralt. How to handle his pride and his need to be the hero.

Geralt slid under the covers, still fully clothed. He laid his head on Eskel’s shoulder and gingerly draped his arm across his chest, avoiding his injury. With his free hand, Eskel turned his chin to face him.

They kissed, slow and unhurried. Geralt barely pressed against his lips, his fingers ghosting Eskel’s cheek. They could have kissed for a minute, or an hour, or a day. Geralt lost track of time, love settling in his chest and chasing away the rage and the fear. He could also hear Eskel’s pulse growing more steady. He could see that some color had already returned to his cheeks.

Maybe he wasn’t so useless after all.

Then, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Eskel called.

Lambert swung open the door and stood there with a shit eating grin. “Did Geralt tell you we’re gonna go down to Ard Carraigh and really stick it to some piece of shit priest? We’re gonna work out how to make him really suffer.”

Eskel raised his eyebrows and turned to Geralt.

Geralt shrugged. “I’m not saying I won’t.”

Lambert laughed and took stock of the two of them. “Look at you. Two bugs snug in a rug.”

“Come on,” said Eskel. “You too.” He patted the bed on the other side of him. Lambert’s grin stretched wider and he clambered in, pressing up against Eskel, warming himself with relish. He reminded Geralt of a blissed out lizard sunning himself on a rock. Eskel managed to turn enough to plant a kiss on Lambert’s cheek.

Lambert made that noise he always made when he loved something but didn’t want to admit it. It was like a combination of a snort and a laugh.

And when Vesemir came into the room in the morning to check Eskel’s dressing, he found them all asleep side by side.

He chuckled and watched them for a moment as they drooled and snored against one other.

The remaining Kaer Morhen wolves, together.

It was as it should be, how it always was, and how it would ever be.

They needed each other, after all.

[alderaani]

still i find you there

summary: after Rako Hardeen, there are several things that need fixing.

written for @codywanweek and the day 1 prompt fix-it. I fully intended to have more days completed for this, but given that it’s *checks notes* day 5, it’s probably not going to happen. this is very angsty and perhaps a bit melodramatic, but the heart wants what it wants. also catch me forgetting obi-wan was wearing his vambraces when he ‘died’ and having to stretch to make it work for me. warnings for grief, percieved death and all that good stuff.

-

He’s alive.

It seems impossible. It feels entirely predictable. And yet...Cody can’t make himself believe it. He saw Obi-Wan die, the grainy security-holo footage of slick Coruscant rooftops showing little more than a bolt of red and a lone figure reeling, falling. No sound, no clear faces, and yet...He knew that red hair. He knew that posture, how it could startle like that if timed very, very well.

It had been the only thing that made it real.

It had been a terrible idea to look at the footage, just like Rex (and Fox, and Wolffe, and Boil) had told him, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d needed something to help him break out of the stupor, the long silences, the staring at the door like Obi-Wan was going to walk right through it. The war didn’t stop just because someone had died, and the GAR hadn’t cared about the cataclysmic shockwave it had sent through Cody’s life.

They’d sent the 212th packing to Mimban within a day of the assassination, and Cody had nearly gotten his head blown off after leaving his left flank wide open, expecting the snap-hiss of a lightsaber to cover him. Instead Wooley had been his salvation, yanking him back at the last second and roaring that he needed to get it together. It had been like walking in a dream.

Watching the holo had worked. It had convinced some deep, desperate part of himself that Obi-Wan really wasn’t coming back. That somehow he was going to have to carry on alone, or worse, with another Jedi, whose differences would grate at him like a knife paring into bone.

And in the end, it had all been a lie.

Cody takes a deep breath and leans his forehead against one of the blaster racks in the armoury, the durasteel sharp and cool on his skin. His knees shake and he grips the shelf edges until his fingers hurt, just standing there, just breathing. 

His heart feels big and swollen in his chest, gluttoned with relief and anger, paired with a sharp, aching grief that now, more than ever, has nowhere to go. There’s no reason to harbour it; he should know better. 

He just can’t help it. 

He’d stood through the shuttle landing, through the torturous debrief, through strange, hairless Obi-Wan meeting his eyes and explaining earnestly that ‘if it hadn’t been classified of course he’d have said something…’ without so much as a twitch, but a great yawning chasm in his belly had opened and only kept getting wider the longer they kept making small talk about provisions, and reopening Obi-Wan’s quarters and a million other things that had happened since he’d - gone away. In the end he’d excused himself, planning to retrieve the personal effects he’d personally cleared out of Obi-Wan’s quarters because he’d needed to feel close to him, after, and there hadn’t been any other practical reason to go in there.

Except now he’s standing here, the relevant box at his feet, and he just can’t move. 

Eventually the trembling in his legs slows, and he lifts his head from the shelf, turning instead to slide down it, using it for balance until he hits the floor. His knee thunks against the crate as he collapses, the scant things inside clinking against each other. 

That had been one of the worst things; Obi-Wan always filled a room. His presence was a gentle, quiet, pervasive thing. Cody had held his small collection of two plants, a meditation mat, a few trinkets from planets visited and a lightsaber maintenance kit and felt nothing. 

He swipes ruthlessly at his face with one hand, thumbing under his eyes to scrub away the moisture. 

He needs to get moving. They’ll be looking for him soon. 

Instead, his knee has dislodged the thin fabric covering the crate, and his eyes catch on the vambrace stacked on top, the straps frayed and snapped. Cody had helped paint this one and its pair, had shown Obi-Wan how to get the colours to take properly to the unwieldy plastoid. 

He’d been the one to break it, too. Obi-Wan had just come out of the field medstation, bruised to shit but still smiling, and Cody had crowded him against a powered down holostation in the empty command tent and yanked at his clothes, just needing to feel his pulse under his skin, to feel the warmth of him safe and alive. It had been too much for the worn out armour to bear. 

Two cycles later Obi-Wan had been on his way to Coruscant again, and there had been no time to fix them. It’s stupid, but Cody had taken one look at them on the little desk, in the space that had once been Obi-Wan’s room, and all he’d been able to think was that he hadn’t been properly protected. Cody had broken his armour. Cody had left him vulnerable.

Obi-Wan’d taken his spare set, of course, but he’s always complained that they chafe, and if there’s one thing Cody knows, it’s that if your armour isn’t right you aren’t fighting at your best.

He reaches for the broken piece now, thumbing the frayed synthleather and the chipped paint, yellow and red and faint scuffed up grey. 

He knows now that it wouldn’t have made a difference to what happened, but he still heaves himself up to his feet after a moment and goes to the supply closet, pulls out a new strap, and sits back down again, committing to unpicking the stitching of the old before he can attach it.

He should’ve done this sooner. 

He should’ve been more careful. 

He should’ve been there.

He should’ve - 

He could have - 

He’s crying.

He’s crying, and he doesn’t realise it until the salt is heavy on his cheeks, until his neckline is wet, until his vision blurs so hard he can’t see. Cody makes a low, animal sound and curls over the vambrace, his fingers stilling against the threads. 

His throat aches, his face is swollen, his body hot. He feels sick, and disoriented, overwhelmed in a way he can’t name.

“Cody?” 

He flinches like he’s wounded, turning his face away from the door, like it will hide the evidence of his weakness. He knows he’s failed when Obi-Wan’s breath sucks in, so loud in the quiet. 

“Cody?” His voice comes again, much closer this time. “Will you...will you look at me?” 

Through the haze, Cody catches something that does make him turn. Obi-Wan sounds...hesitant, so uncharacteristically tentative that it cuts through the rest. 

He wipes quickly at his face, smearing the mess, and gets his eyes just clear enough to find Obi-Wan’s face, so foreign and smooth but so dear for all that. His eyes are still the same, glacier-heart blue, and worried, right now, focused on his face. 

“Oh,” Obi-Wan whispers at whatever he finds there, then reaches out, stutters halfway through, and drops his hand. His wrist is bare, and his robe sleeves flop backwards.

“I was trying to fix it,” Cody croaks, shifting to unveil the half-mended vambrace. “Before I brought it back. I broke it, and then you left without it and then you -”

It’s Obi-Wan’s turn to flinch back this time, while Cody greedily drinks him in, taking in the changes to his face, the way the lack of a beard makes his jaw look sharper, his features look younger. The stubbly fuzz of his hair is odd, true enough, but it’s still him.

“I - I never thought,” Obi-Wan says haltingly, and now Cody frowns, because it’s so unlike him to lose his words. Obi-Wan’s eyes flicker away, then back, like he’s steeling himself. Almost like he’s afraid. 

“I never imagined you’d feel responsible - Cody - I’m so sorry -” 

He reaches out, his fingers loosely catching Cody’s wrist this time. Cody feels it, the warmth of his hand sharp and electric. Tears spring to his eyes all over again; it’s the first time they’ve touched since he walked Obi-Wan to the hangar and he kissed him goodbye behind a LAAT/i. He’s replayed it so many times since, thinking he’d never get another, but the memory does the reality no justice, failing to preserve the way heat floods under his skin. 

Obi-Wan moves to take his hand back, and Cody traps it there, anchoring his fingers and dipping his head, just breathing through it.

“If I could have told you,” Obi-Wan continues. “I would have, I swear it, I -”

“I know,” Cody says instantly, because he does, he’d never doubt it. “I know you couldn’t.”

Their fingers curl more securely together, calluses and knuckles finding a home against their pair. 

“I didn’t know if you’d be angry,” Obi-Wan says. Cody shakes his head before he even thinks about it.

“It was your duty. I just -,” he squeezes his eyes shut again, voice breaking. The deception had made him angry. He can admit that, but it was never directed between them. The war stops for no-one, after all. “I can’t believe you’re still here.” 

“I promise, I always intend to stay,” Obi-Wan murmurs.

Cody’s smiling when he kisses him, so full his cheeks ache with it. It tastes of salt and bitter-sweet and just a hint of desperation, their hands clasped with the vambrace cradled between them. 

Then Obi-Wan draws him in, tucking his head under his chin. Cody presses his wet skin to the hollow of neck, listens to his heartbeat, and weeps.

[cafeacademia]

Laundry Day

Fred Weasley x Reader (SMUT)

Summary: After you accidentally catch your best friend and roommate, Fred doing his laundry in just his boxers, you turn into a flustered mess, but it’s when you make the next clothing slip that either of you act on your feelings.

Warnings: Straight up smut!!! Oral (female receiving), sex, a bucket load of fluff, quite a bit of embarrassment and awkwardness at the beginning.

Word count: Approx 3500

Masterlist

Please read the drabble that sparked the rest of this story (it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense otherwise!)

A/N: Hello my loves! My god was this fun to write! I love some Freddie smut and I hope you enjoy it too! This was inspired by my lovely friend, Holly’s made up title ask, which turned into a drabble and is now followed by this full fic! Enjoy 💖

Fred was rather annoyed with himself. He’d been far too wrapped up in teasing you in your flustered state when he had been standing nearly naked in front of you, and yet he’d not taken a second to actually see if you felt the same way that he did. Albeit, was doing it mostly naked in front of your best friend a good idea? Fred thought, probably not.

But now, only a few hours later, Fred regretted it even more, because his poor roommate, his poor best friend couldn't even look at him without looking as if you were about to keel over in embarrassment.

And while Fred was annoyed with himself that he’d not done anything about months, years even of being completely and utterly in love with you, you on the other hand were reprimanding yourself in the other room over how you had blatantly drooled over the poor boy.

He probably thought you were creepy or weird. Or both. Both were definitely plausible, you thought as you climbed out of the shower, having taken one in the hopes of getting the embarrassing moment off your mind. Unfortunately for you though, it had only given your mind more time to replay and over exaggerate the interaction.

But as you dried yourself off and did your usual bathroom routine, you quickly realised that being so stuck in your own head had led you to a near similar situation that Fred had been in just mere hours ago. You were stuck in the bathroom with nothing but a small bath towel that barely covered you while you had forgotten your clothes. The worst part was you had walked into the bathroom naked while Fred had gone out for a little while and you just hoped to Merlin that he was still out of the apartment so you didn’t have to face him with embarrassment while being nearly naked.

Unlocking the door and opening it by just a slither, enough to see into the main room, you poked your head out for a second to survey and thankfully, to your relief, there was no Fred in sight and you let out the breath you had been holding on to as you pulled the door open fully and stepped out of the bathroom with the towel loosely wrapped around you.

“Alright there, love?” Fred’s voice came from behind you and your movements seized as you froze on the spot, eyes going wide. Shit. “Fred,” You practically squeaked his name out in shock before pausing, half turning towards him. Fred noticed you were still unable to look at him fully, as if meeting his eyes might vaporise you on the spot or turn you into a puddle.

If you hadn’t already felt rather exposed with just a towel on before, you felt as if you were completely naked and you swallowed thickly as he took a step closer to you. It wasn’t even that you didn’t like or want his attention, you craved Fred. You wanted him in every capacity possible, but this was not the way you had spent many nights and lonely showers and hours working imagining how it would go. And quite frankly, you were sure your cheeks were still as hot as they had been earlier that day when you had walked in on your best friend.

“That’s an awfully short towel, love.” Fred smirked and you managed a quick glance at his features before you shyly looked away again and you suddenly felt very aware of where the fabric fell against your skin. Did it hide you well enough? You supposed it was really a bit too late to be wondering that now, though.

“Sorry, I might’ve… Forgotten my clothes.” It came out quieter than you had meant it to and Fred could see how flustered you were. “I don’t mind.” Fred told you with a lopsided grin, using your own words on you. “Are you embarrassed, princess?” He questioned, taking another step closer and reached out, his fingers gently brushing the tip of your chin, lifting just enough to get you to meet his eyes. “There’s no reason to be, I promise.” Fred spoke softly, his grin dampening into a gentler smile, one that was reassuring. “Besides, I quite liked you seeing me earlier.” He added. “Can’t say I hadn’t thought about it before.”

“Thought about what?” You asked, your throat dry as you looked up at him, your eyes fixed on his now that he’d finally managed to get you to look at him. “Me seeing you… Like that?” You asked. “Well, sort of. I think about you a lot, sweetheart.” Fred replied, not really giving you a straight answer, but the answer he did give sent a shock through you, your stomach flipping in the most pleasant way and for a moment you just stared at him. “Do you think about me?” He asked, his fingers gently moving up from your chin, his thumb resting against your cheek, brushing your skin delicately with the pad of his thumb.

Of course you thought about Fred. Sometimes it felt like he was all you thought about. He was impossible not to think about, especially when he was the perfect mixture of charming gentleman and absolute rascal. But you supposed that was what attracted you so much to him, that and his tall stature, the way he looked at you sometimes making you weak at the knees. Merlin, you wanted him to absolutely ruin you. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t ever done anything sexual yourself before, you had, but Fred and George had always had a running joke about your innocence, that you just seemed too pure, too much like a sweet princess with the way you always became so shy and giggly and flustered whenever they teased and joked around with you, especially Fred.

“Mhm.” You could only hum, your eyes looking away from him for a moment as you tried to gather yourself a bit more. “Is that so, princess?” Fred chuckled softly, watching you tug your lip lightly between your teeth and he almost groaned, already very riled up from earlier in the day.

“I do, I think about you all the time, Freddie.” You finally got yourself together, eyes doe like and sweet as you looked up at him. Fred smiled, his thumb gently caressing your cheek as he leaned in a little closer, his heart leaping when you leaned a little into him too, because besides from friendly hugs and leaning on one another, you’d never had much close contact with Fred and he wanted to hold you so badly. “Can I kiss you, love?” Fred asked, speaking so softly that it was barely above a whisper, his words brushing against you as he spoke and you nearly melted, nearly combusted because Fred Weasley had just asked you those words.

“Please, Freddie.” And your words were all he needed to close the gap between you and capture your lips with his in a loving, gentle kiss. He was slow at first, lips indulging in every feeling it sent through him to have your lips moving gently against his. Fred felt you press yourself up against his chest and his heart fluttered, unable to stop himself from smiling into the kiss as he his hands wandered, softly tracing over your skin and resting at your hip as he cradled your head with his other hand.

And as your hands found the nape of his neck, fingers dipping into his thick ginger hair, Fred groaned against you, deepening the kiss, his tongue finding yours. You felt warmth rush through you, the kiss pushing every thought, every lingering worry out of your head. Fred was not overconfident with his kiss, instead, he was gentle but still charming and you could just imagine the smile he was wearing as your lips moved against his, Fred’s tongue gently brushing yours.

Parting, Fred having kissed you breathless, you sighed softly as you pulled away. Your towel though, was forgotten and with your hands having rested over Fred’s shoulders, his chest no longer there to hold it up, the fabric fell into a pile on the floor. You glanced down, for a second to see it below you, shyly looking back up at Fred, who was fixed on you with a stunned look in his eyes. He made it quite clear, just from the way he was looking at you, keeping his eyes on yours that he wouldn’t look at your body unless you wanted him to.

But part of you wanted him to look, you wanted him to see you and your gaze softened from surprise to something almost lustful. “You can look, Freddie.” You whispered the words, Fred taking you permission, his lips parting as he finally looked down to admire you, his eyes wandering your figure as you stood in front of him. “You’re gorgeous, princess.” Fred complimented, his words making you smile shyly as he tentatively reached out for you, giving you ample time to tell him to stop. But you didn’t and you moved forwards into his touch, letting his fingers meet your bare skin, his fingertips gently brushing against your collarbone and Fred’s breath hitched in his throat for a moment as he took you all in, nothing but admiration and pure, sweet love in his eyes.

He looked at you as if you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen, his eyes softened, he looked almost awestruck at the sight of you and his eyes slowly drew across you, unsure of where to look first. “I want you, love.” Fred spoke the words, eyes looking up to yours, waiting for permission. He was well and truly in love, he always had been, but seeing you like this, nude with that sweet, shy smile of his, he felt like he was really seeing you. Vulnerable, beautiful and Fred wanted to know if he could have you for himself like he had always dreamed. “Then take me, Fred.” The words passed your lips, Fred’s admission going straight to your belly, a little shiver of anticipation, of excitement rushed through you.

With your permission, Fred didn’t spare a moment longer, his hands gently smoothing over your skin to grip your hips as he leaned in, his lips meeting yours in a slow, gentle kiss. Fred was in no rush as he kissed you, his fingers trailing upwards, thumbs gently brushing over your hardened nipples and he groaned as you moaned softly into the kiss at his actions.

“Let me take care of you.” He mumbled it softly against your lips, his warm touch gripping your sides and gliding lower until he reached the curve of your ass, squeezing gently. Moving lower still, Fred leaned down a little to pick you up and pull you into his arms, his eyes fixated on you as he carried you carefully to your bedroom and lay you down on the bed.

Beginning to remove his own clothing, Fred caught the way you looked at him the way you had earlier, lost in your own little dreamy haze as your gaze trailed over his bare torso as he let his shirt slip off his arms and fall to the floor. And as he pushed his trousers off, his boxers going with them, Fred was glad he caught the way you gently bit your lip at the sight of him, your reaction going straight to his hardened cock.

“Can I taste you, please princess?” Fred asked, gently pushing your legs upwards. “Please Freddie.” You nodded, lips parted as you let out a little breathy moan as he parted your legs, kneeling down between them. He held your gaze for a moment longer as he dipped low, close to your aching core as he parted your lips with his thumbs, watching as you gasped at his warm, gentle touch.

Swiping his thumb over your clit tentatively, he watched your reaction to the small touch and it made his length twitch as you watched him with pleading eyes. Finally, Fred leaned in, his thumbs exposing your bud for him as he pressed his tongue against you and began to work you up. “Oh fuck, Fred.” You whined out at the contact, your hand reaching down to hold him there, your fingers sliding into his hair as Fred circled your clit, building up his intensity as he played with you.

His gentle movements became a little faster and within moments Fred had you writhing and moaning at his touch. His tongue flicked against you and you shyly cast a glance down to him to see Fred looking up at you with hooded eyes, savouring every second of pleasuring you. “Is it good, princess? Am I making you feel good?” Fred asked, his thumb taking over and circling your clit as he spoke to you, making you whine at the difference in contact. “Freddie, god, you’re so good, please don’t stop.” You whined, too caught up in pleasure to worry about being shy with your words.

Smirking, Fred leaned back in, taking your soft bud between his lips and gently sucking, flicking his tongue over you. Your soft moans, the way you panted when he did something to make your knees quiver, it felt as if Fred could cum just at the sight of you blissed out with pleasure under his touch. Releasing you, he slid his tongue over you and flicked his tongue over your clit relentlessly, watching as your hands gripped the sheets in reaction.

Fred worked you up and up, so high that you lost yourself in the pleasure he was giving you. Looking up to watch you as you climbed, now teetering on the edge of your orgasm, Fred loved the way you looked like this, spread out for him and falling apart from his teasing, from his soft touches.

“Are you going to let go for me, princess?” Fred asked, his hot breath against your aching core before pulling you clit back between his lips and flicking his tongue quickly against you. “Yes Freddie, please.” You whined it out, panting and moaning as he brought you to the edge and saw you over into your euphoria, the orgasm pouring through you, trickling like warm honey through your senses as you came undone beneath his gentle touch. His name was a cry on your lips, eyes teary as the haze clouded over you, every muscle, every sense relaxing as you came down from your climb, Fred gently bringing you back down with soft touches.

It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen, watching you, his best friend orgasm from his touch. It was better than he had dreamed and he hoped as he slowly climbed up the bed, holding himself above you, capturing your lips with his for a slow kiss, that taking you, making you his would be as amazing as he had imagined. Fred couldn’t deny, he’d had vivid dreams about you, waking up in a flustered, panting state with beads of sweat on his forehead, George thinking he’d had a nightmare, when in reality it was the exact opposite. The sound of your moans, fabricated in his mind, he could have only imagined how you sounded when he teased you, but now that Fred had heard you, now that he’d seen the way you crumbled for him, he knew he’d never get enough of you.

“Make me yours, Freddie.” The words were sweet and almost melodic as you hummed them out in your gentle voice. The haze seemed to settle over Fred too, his eyes unable to leave yours, unable to look away, you were just so perfect to him and Fred was unsure he even deserved someone as absolutely wonderful as you, but he was grateful that you wanted him, that you needed him, because you were all he really needed too.

“I’ll make you mine, sweetheart.” He said it lovingly as he pressed hot, open mouthed kisses in a trail against the warmth of your neck. “My princess.” He hummed the words out, heavy in his throat but coming out as a light whisper, one that made you moan his name to him and Fred hoped he could always hear the way you said his name in the heavenly way that you did.

Gently, his length pressed against your core, allowing himself to slide through your folds, pressing against your sensitive clit and you gasped at the contact, lips parted and eyes sliding closed and Fred watched as your lashes fluttered against your skin so beautifully. Guiding himself into your entrance, your moans met the air together in a beautiful symphony, your eyes opening to look up at the man above you as he slowly pushed in until he was in as far as he could go. He met your eyes, his expression swimming with complete awe, the feeling was like no other, no one else felt as perfect as this and Fred swore on the spot that perhaps you were always meant to be.

After a moment, Fred began to move, his thrusts gentle and soft at first while you relaxed around his size. Leaning in, Fred left tender kisses against your skin, worshipping you as he pulled out nearly to the tip and allowed himself to sink back into you slowly, his head tipping back as he let out a low moan at the feeling of your walls fluttering around him. “You’re so perfect, sweetheart.” He said the words only semi coherently as he began to move a little faster his thrusts slowly speeding up. “So perfect, you take me perfectly.” He mumbled, the words falling from his lips, his eyes closing as his hips met yours with a gentle slap of your skin against his, your moans filling his ears.

“Freddie,” You gasped his name out, his eyes opening at your voice to look you in the eyes. “I need you.” The words were desperate, but Fred knew what you needed. “I’m here, princess, I’ve got you.” Fred spoke softly, his hands pressing yours against the mattress, your fingers intertwining as he thrust heavily into you, pulling a whine from you as he positioned himself to best reach the spot that made you gasp. “Oh god, Freddie.” You gasped, closing your eyes for a moment as you basked in the pleasure of his thrusts, gentle but firm as he sped up, dragging moan after moan out of you with each stroke.

“Come on, darling, can you cum for me again?” Fred asked, working you up with his gentle words, contrasting so heavily with the way he was edging you closer, his length stroking you faster towards your release. “Please, yes Freddie.” You were lost in your own haze, barely able to string a sentence together as he worked you closer and closer, his thrusts speeding up more and more.

Fred held in his own orgasm as he drew closer, wanting to see the look of euphoria wash through you again, just once more for him and as he watched you, your hands gripping him tightly your moan higher pitched as you reached your peak and your orgasm rushed through you in a heavy warmth, your walls fluttering around Fred as you arched your back into him. He was sure he’d never see a more beautiful sight than you coming undone beneath him. “That’s it, sweetheart, there you go.” He whispered, your orgasm sending shockwaves through him as it brought Fred his own release, the feeling of you squeezing him, pulsing around his as you moaned his name out, fingers clinging onto him as you came down.

Looking into your eyes as he followed you, he saw the stars in your eyes, you looked at him as if he was everything to you, because to you, he was and for Fred, you were everything to him too. His thrusts stuttered as he came and his head tilted back, letting out low grunts as he worked himself through his orgasm, your gentle touch reaching up to cradle his face as he came down slowly, savouring every feeling, every moment spent with you.

You lay your head on Fred’s chest as you both came down from your orgasms, his chest rising and falling with each breath, his heart beat gentle as he calmed, his soft touch trailed over your delicate skin. “Please stay with me, Freddie.” You broke the silence and Fred clocked the worry in your voice, the worry that told him this all might have been a one time experience. But as he gently rolled over onto his side and reached up, brushing the backs of his fingers against your cheek, Fred smiled sweetly to you. “I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me, sweetheart.” He said, his smile growing as he watched you gave him a shy little giddy grin at his response.

“I love you, my sweet princess.” Fred hummed the words out softly, leaning over to press a gentle kiss to your cheek. “I love you too, Freddie.”

And for once, you were both thankful for it being a laundry day.

Taglist (OPEN):

@kitkatd7​ @paintballkid711​ @thesewaywardskies​ @coldlilheart​ @victorialynn7​ @pandaxnienke​ @megantje123​ @loving-life-my-way​ @chaotic-fae-queen​ @theweasleyslut​ @amourtentiaa​

[foli-vora]

Whiskey drabble

A/N: I upset myself with my tags on @dragcn-queen’s Whiskey post so, naturally, I’m making myself feel worse. Come mourn the life Whiskey DESERVED but never had the chance to experience.

Another note: this is a fucking hot mess and a half but I’m Feeling™️ and need to release so—yeah.

I’m killing myself imagining Whiskey sitting on his porch swing, the breeze cooling the tears tracks on his cheeks as he watches the grass sway in the distance, mourning the fact that he never had the chance to see a little mop of dark curls matching his bouncing through the fields as a childish giggle carries through the wind.

Whiskey sits in the middle of his room, having to fold and put away not only his sweethearts clothing, but his baby’s, too. His fingers run over the soft fabric of the many baby onesies he had once shoved in the basket while his wife giggled behind him. He doesn’t feel the giddiness now.

He cries looking at the immaculately decorated nursery every day, but cries even harder when he makes the drunken mistake of painting over the small wispy clouds and little birds covering the walls one lonely night. What has he done? Forgive me, baby. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me—

He lays in his big king bed, hand resting where she slept, and clenches the cold sheets between tight fingers as his sobs echo through the dark house. It’s too empty. There’s no laughter anymore. No warmth. He throws himself into his job to fight the overwhelming stab of loss.

He doesn’t want it. Therapy doesn’t work. What good is talking going to do? That won’t bring them back. There’s no point. But Champ remains firm—office duties until he sees fit, and strictly no active duty until explicit say so and the go ahead from the highly respected Statesman head doctor—that’s what Whiskey calls him. A head doctor. He stays silent the first few sessions—it won’t help, after all. There’s no point.

It takes so long, he wonders if he’ll ever be active on the field again... but he can feel the difference, can look back and see how his anger, his hurt, his drowning inescapable loss skewed his vision of the world and the people within it. The people doing drugs weren’t the problem—it was the drugs themselves. A new kid starts and he has to play babysitter, despite not being that much older. But he’s nice, this Agent Tequila. Makes a damn good friend. Whiskey laughs again.

Tequila helps him, more than he’ll ever know. The kid’s surprisingly gentle, understanding, as he takes apart the cot and wraps it with protective sheeting. He doesn’t make jokes, doesn’t make faces of judgement at the quiet tears rolling down his friends face. Hell, he cries, too. Ain’t nothing wrong with crying’, he says. He’s a hugger, Whiskey discovers.

It’s been years, and the ache is still there, but at least he can breathe now. He saved the world—not too shabby, if you ask him. A couple of English cats came looking for trouble, but they were alright in the end. ‘Eggsy’. What kind of fucking name is ‘Eggsy’? Those strange Brits across the pond—he’ll never quite understand. Even met Elton fucking John for Christ sake—

“Shit, I’m so sorry—”

He steadies the pretty thing in his arms as she barrels into him, dropping her groceries all over the floor and she spews apologies, dropping to ground and crawling over the dirty sidewalk to gather her bruised apples. She’s lovely.

He doesn’t know when it happens—all he knows is the recognisable feeling of pure love. He hates it. Flees from it. Hides from it. It was a dishonour to his wife, and to his unborn baby. How could he even entertain the idea of a happy ever after when they’re not here to experience it with him? He couldn’t. He won’t.

He goes back to the head doctor. It’s normal to feel this way, he says, but the dishonour to your wife and child would be not living your life.

She really is lovely. Shows up at the same time every Sunday, hands cradling a fresh bunch of wildflowers and face creased by a soft smile. Doesn’t hate the fact that he still goes to the cemetery every week, even after so long. She encourages it, sometimes packs picnics and even talks to his angels in heaven as if they were right there. He cries in the car after buying a ring, even goes and sobs over his wife’s grave, but then the sun shines through the clouds and bathes him in bright warm rays and he takes it as a blessing. Thank you, sweetheart.

The first ultrasound is a wonder. He watches the small area where the technician points to in awe. What a magical thing. He delivers so many kisses to that swollen belly, he worries she’ll get sick of it, but she never does. Always runs her hands through his hair, face soft and smile warm as she watches him.

She’s perfect. A baby girl. So small, but god does she have a voice. She announces her arrival with cries that all but knock him into the wall and he’s pushing past the nurses and doctors to look at her. She stops crying the second she’s in his arms and he knows he’s in trouble. He’d do absolutely anything for her and she already knows it.

He sits on the porch swing, softly rocking, as his fingers delicately fix the blanket around the small body in his arms, wide beautifully dark eyes blinking up at him curiously as he speaks. He tells her about everything while his wife sleeps soundly, heart thundering as a small hand grips tightly at his finger. His late wife, her unborn brother, her mother—talking really does help. Who would’ve thought?

A head bounces through the grass, wild dark curls billowing behind her as she runs, and Whiskey grins, opening his arms to catch the little body running for him with a love filled, “Daddy!” and he’s at peace.

+

Why do I do this to myself? @wyn-dixie I MADE MYSELF FEEL WORSE

[buckyownsmylife]

daddy issues - chapter xvi

The one where Ransom doesn’t feel ready to become a father, but he should have thought about it before sleeping with a complete stranger.

When Ransom’s latest one night stand lets him know that he’s going to become a father, he finds himself looking for the qualities he never believed to have so he can become the parent he never got to witness as a child.

for general warnings and author’s notes, please go to the fic’s masterlist.

A/N for this chapter: once again unedited. Will probably come back and make sure everything makes sense in the future 🔥 one more chapter and then just an epilogue, you guys! If there’s anything you’d like to see in the epilogue, please let me know!

Y/N’s P.O.V.

The drive back home was silent. A lot was going through my head - too much, in fact. My heartbeat was so out of pace, it felt like I had just finished a race. But I hadn’t. Because the race in my mind was only just starting.

At least Ransom seemed as lost in his thoughts as I was, so I didn’t have to feel even guiltier about ignoring him or not giving him the attention he deserved. A part of me still wanted to weigh me down, though - asking me to snap out of my own thoughts to focus on him and try to make him feel better. I could only imagine what was going through his head right now, and it couldn’t be nice.

But I had to focus on myself first if I wanted to have any ability to help him. So that’s what I did. I thought about everything that happened back at his grandfather’s house and how I felt about it. And by the time we walked through the front door and I heard it close behind our backs, I knew what I wanted to do about it.

“Ransom,” I called out for his attention, keeping my eyes on the floor as I heard him hum behind me. “Would you take me to do a paternity test tomorrow?” Silence followed my question, and I held my breath at the lack of any sounds that indicated where he was or what he was doing. Finally, his figure stood before me and he cradled my face so I’d keep my gaze on his.

Ransom’s P.O.V.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I knew that despite the harsh words, it was clear by my soft tone of voice that there wasn’t any anger at her. I was just genuinely confused, not understanding how after everything that had happened this is how she wanted to deal with it.

“I don’t want any doubts living in the back of your head,” she breathed out, clearly nervous and confused. I was nervous and confused too, but not about her, my feelings for her or for the baby that grew in her belly.

“I don’t have any doubts,” I assured her, but she was already shaking her head, trying to pull aways from me. I wasn’t having any of it. Quickly, I seized her wrists and used my grip on them to pull her against my chest, making sure she’d keep looking me in the eye.

“I’m just trying to give you some peace of mind.” Her voice was small when she spoke,  looking up at me from under her eyelashes and my heart clenched at the realization of just how fearful she was.

“There’s no war inside of it.” I was enthusiastic in the way I shook my head, pulling her to me every time she tried to push herself away. “Darling, you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you stay.”

She stopped fighting then, directly staring at me with a vulnerability in her stare I hadn’t seen her sport before - not even in the night she admitted how terrified she was of this pregnancy.

I hated that my family was the one to blame for putting these insecurities on her. But I was here for her, just like she’d been there for me back then. I’d make sure to wipe any hesitancy away from her beautiful, brilliant mind until there was nothing left but the certainty of my love for her.

Because I did love her. And I needed to make her see it.

“I don’t know how you can ever imagine I’d let you go - child or no child,” I began, slowly pulling her towards our bedroom, keeping her eyes on me as I backed through the hallways. “No one has ever defended me before, especially not to my entire family.”

“I don’t think I can ever live without this… this support anymore.” My confession was hard on me because I was exposing one of my deepest fears. What would I ever do without her, should she decide to leave me?

We were in the bedroom now and I held one of her hands against my chest, her palm spread over my heart. I was sure she could feel its beating against it. Her other hand rose up to my cheek, thumb brushing it softly as she assured me, “You won’t have to, honey.”

I lost my breath when I considered what she was really saying, even if it wasn’t explicit yet. This was enough. It would always be enough, just as long as it was the truth.

“I don’t have any reasons to pull away from you, Ransom. Not anymore.” I felt like I could fall to my knees in gratitude and excitement, breathing heavily as I tried to calm down my heart so I could listen to her speak. “Even after how I treated you… Even despite how hard this entire situation is, you’ve never done anything to make me doubt you. I’m not going to push you away anymore. I promise.”

Y/N’s P.O.V.

He seemed paralyzed, but that was okay. I still had a lot to say. “Honestly, honey… I just want to be here for you, whichever way I can. Now that I’ve met your family, I’m impressed how you managed to be as well-resolved as you actually are.”

He snorted, hands still covering each of mine on his chest and cheek. His eyes were glossy but they never strayed from mine. It made my heart ache as I considered just how lonely this man must have felt through most of his life.

“Would you like a hug?” I offered, laughing slightly - but it was a wet sound. I’d started crying sometime in the evening without even realizing, and when Ransom repeated the same broken note, I noticed his own tears had begun to spill.

“Yes,” he whispered, nodding enthusiastically. “Yes, please.” My arms enveloped him immediately, finding some solace in holding this man close to my chest, offer him the support he very clearly craved but had never gotten.

“Ransom, babe,” I called out to him after a few minutes of caressing his soft hair. “Listen to me.” He pulled away from my body just enough to connect our eyes once more, the trail of tears still clear on his cheeks. “It’s not because you’re related that you have to deal with shit like that, okay?”

He nodded, but it was still a bit hesitant, so I rushed to voice everything I had to say. “I’ll be your family now, alright?” I asked, watching his eyes sparkle when he took in my offer. “I mean…” My tone was teasing now, as I glanced at my belly, separating our torsos. “We kinda already are.”

I saw the second that the desire awakened inside of him. It warmed up my body until everything felt scorching hot, fingers itching to take off my dress. “Please, let me kiss you,” he quietly begged, to which I nodded.

“Please, kiss me.” He started by rubbing our noses together, then gently pressing his mouth against mine. Gentle didn’t last long, though. There was a deep hunger in both of our beings, a hunger only the other could sate.

“Let me please you,” came his second request. “I- God, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted you more than I do right now. And believe me, I think about bending you over the nearest furniture and having my way with you all of the fucking time.”

He was panting, fumbling over his own words now and it only added to the fire in my lower stomach, panties drenched by now. “But seeing you mad… telling off my mother… God, that made me so fucking hard,” he admitted, making me inhale sharply.

“Then take me,” came my own plead, keeping my eyes on his so he’d see how badly I wanted him. “Take me, Ransom.” He didn’t need another word. In a simple movement he had me in only panties on his bed, a growl escaping his chest when he saw how drenched my underwear was.

“Jesus, you’re so wet.” I could only whimper in response, whimper that became a whine as he took off that last piece of clothing and spread my legs for his gaze. “’Ve been dying to taste you,’ he confessed just before he leaned over and licked me open, humming in delight against my pussy.

“Delicious.” I lost control of my own reactions, all I knew was that my legs trembled in Ransom’s hold as he ate me out into an incredible orgasm. I couldn’t help but praise him. “You make me feel so good, honey,” and the way his entire being lit up at the recognition only made me wetter for him.

Ransom’s P.O.V.

I shivered when I finally fused us together, hands searching for hers so I could interlock our fingers as I bottomed out. “Is this okay?” It was quiet in the room and yet my whisper almost got lost while I took in the sight underneath me. Her, filled by my cock, panting in desperate need for me.

“Yes, god, babe, please!” She cried out, thrashing underneath me in an effort to make me move and how could a man hold back after that? I tried to keep my thrusts deep and slow but it seemed like she had a different idea.

“Sh…” I tried to calm her down, pressing kisses down her jaw until I could suck a bruise on her neck. “Let me make love to you, sweetheart.” Panting, I could feel the reality I’d been trying to ignore climb up my throat, making me sputter as I tried to push it back down. “Let me… Fuck… Let me…”

Her hand traveled up my back, fingers tangling in my hair. I grounded myself in that feeling as I kept moving, opening my eyes to meet hers. “I am so in love with you,” it escaped me, flowing freely in the room, a sentence I couldn’t take back.

I wouldn’t. Even if I didn’t originally want to say it like this, mixed up with the sexual hormones, allowing her to believe I could be confused about something of this magnitude. I wouldn’t go back on my own words because they were the truth.

I was gentle this time as I fucked her. I had never made love like this before, and it filled places inside of me I didn’t know I could get satisfaction from this sort of connection. But then again… it could just be her.

“Taking me so well…” In the end, after I’d pushed her over that edge again and ran to meet her there, I cradled her to my chest, unbelieving of the fact that this time, we’d truly be lying in this bed together. Not two people sharing a bed but being apart. Truly, together.

If this was a dream, I remembered thinking just before sleep consumed me… Then I don’t want to wake up.

[thisissirius]

for @gracieli and the ladies of the discord *chef’s kiss*

i’ve only known you to keep your word buck/eddie, buck, eddie, chris, hurt/comfort, a little frottage, buck being lonely and eddie seeing and helping

Buck barely has time to sit down and attempt to handle the silence in his apartment when a key jams into the lock of his front door and it swings open.

Eddie comes into the apartment, two bags in hand, and beer in the other. “Get the door?”

Buck stares.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”

When Eddie’s shut the door, Buck finds his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Bringing food,” Eddie says, and Buck hears the duh even if he doesn’t say it. “Not that I’m cooking it. You are.” He flashes a smile.

Buck snorts, moving past his confusion and grabbing for the beer. “Maybe I wanna watch you fail.”

Eddie shrugs. “It’s your apartment. Also possibly your funeral.”

Saluting Eddie with his bottle, he goes to the cutlery drawer and grabs a bottle opener. “Why are you really here?”

There’s a long, drawn out silence where Eddie just stares at him. Buck feels uncomfortable under the scrutiny in ways he hasn’t before. It seems like ever since they came back from Texas, Eddie’s been—Buck doesn’t know how to explain it.

“Chris is at a sleepover,” Eddie says eventually. He makes a face. “You know how I feel about that.”

Buck does. Eddie’s only ever antsy and weird when Chris isn’t around. “Such a drama king,” he says.

“Whatever. We cooking or what?”

“Fine,” Buck says with a sigh, hip checking Eddie out of the way, ducking away from the elbow Eddie aims at his side. “Don’t beat up the person who’s saving you from food poisoning, Diaz.”

Eddie narrows his eyes, but he starts emptying out the bags. Spaghetti. He’s so transparent but Buck hides his smile by taking a pull of beer. Buck’s spaghetti is Christopher’s favourite and Buck’s got no doubts Eddie’s brought enough ingredients for extra portions. Something like happiness blossoms in Buck’s chest and he covers it with a knowing smirk.

“Really?”

“Shut up,” Eddie grouses. “You try telling Chris we had spaghetti and didn’t save him any.”

“No thanks,” Buck says immediately. “I do not court death.”

It makes Eddie laugh, which is Buck’s aim, after all, and he grins his way through the meal prep. _______

Later, stomach full and the happiness a comfortable constant, Buck is stretched out on the couch, another bottle of beer resting against his hip, one arm tucked under his head. He is super conscious of one of his legs resting over Eddie’s lap, Eddie’s fingers circling his ankle.

“I don’t understand why they don’t just talk to each other.”

Eddie gives him a look. “It’s a movie, Buck.”

“So?” Buck watches as neither of the characters communicate. Again. “How hard is it to talk about your feelings?”

There’s a pointed silence.

“Whatever,” Buck grouses. “We have notable trauma, they don’t.”

“Noticeable trauma,” Eddie says, raising an eyebrow.

Buck kicks him with the leg that isn’t held hostage. “Be nice, Eddie, or you can go home.”

“You wouldn’t kick me out,” Eddie says with certainty.

Falling quiet, Buck turns back to the movie, but he’s not really watching it. Eddie’s not wrong. He wouldn’t kick Eddie out. Ever. Even in their worst moments, the only thing he wanted was for Eddie to come back, for them to be them again.

The movie finishes and Buck blinks. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says softly. He removes his hands from Buck’s ankle. Buck can still feel the phantom heat of his fingers. “Come on, time for bed.”

Buck frowns. “I was comfortable.”

“And we can be comfortable upstairs,” Eddie says, once again with the duh unspoken. “Up, Buckley, let’s go.”

Buck feels a little adrift as they walk up to his bedroom. Honestly, he’s been feeling that way most of the night and he doesn’t know how to make sense of what he’s feeling. Leaning against the balcony railing, he watches Eddie root through his drawers, grabbing sleep clothes. “Eddie—“

“Wash up,” Eddie tells him, tossing over the clothes.

Though the fight is on the tip of his tongue, Buck keeps it to himself. He realises he doesn’t want to argue and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He stares at himself in the mirror. The silence that usually crowds him in the evenings he’s alone is absent and there’s comfort in Eddie being a yell away. He relaxes, washing up and getting changed.

When he comes out, Eddie moves past him, a hand brushing his hip and Buck shivers. The touch feels deliberate and Buck’s thrown back over the last couple of hours. Everything Eddie’s done is just what Buck needs. It overwhelms him and he sits on the edge of the bed, not sure what happens next. Will Eddie get blankets and go downstairs? Worse, will he want to share a bed? What if he wants to talk—

“Buck,” Eddie says gently, resting a hand on Buck’s shoulder making him jump. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Buck says, smiling softly. “Sorry.”

Eddie’s hand squeezes before it falls to his side. “Get in the bed.”

“Are you—”

“Come on,” Eddie says, and it could easily be an order, but for the tone. Buck doesn’t like being pushed around and it shows that Eddie knows that; he’s careful, gentle, and Buck nods, climbing into bed.

Buck rolls over, watches Eddie as he shuts off the light and charges his phone. Buck panics for a moment, before seeing his own on the nightstand. His heart picks up a beat, twop, and he’s holding his breath. Maybe if he doesn’t move this won’t stop being a dream. It still feels like one when Eddie reaches out, fingers sliding through the hair that’s soft against Buck’s forehead. “Sleep, Buck.”

Buck doesn’t know if he can.

“You save me from my nightmares,” Eddie says, with a self-deprecating smile.

I’ll save you from yours.

Buck closes his eyes and breathes out.

Buck’s not quite sure what to make of it..

_______

The next morning, Eddie burns breakfast (of course), abandons it (of course), and bundles himself and Buck in the truck to get breakfast—and to pick up Chris.

“Bucky!” Chris pokes his head into the car and grins.

Buck will never not love hanging out with Chris and he leans over the seat to give Chris a high five. “Sleepover okay?”

“Jamie’s got a hamster,” Chris starts.

“No,” Eddie says immediately, buckling his seatbelt.

Chris looks at Buck. Buck looks at Eddie.

“No,” Eddie says again.

Buck smiles at Chris and turns back around. They’ve got this.

_______

Two very full shifts later and Buck is sitting in the locker room, staring at his duffle. He doesn’t know if he’s got the energy to pack the rest of his shit in there and move, let alone drive home. His body aches, bruises starting to blossom from the fall he’d taken on a previous call, and he hisses as he stands.

The prospect of going home alone, tending to his hurts and sleeping in that bed all alone—Buck’s breath hitches and he closes his eyes, forehead pressed to the lockers.

There’s a rap on the glass and Buck whirls around, ready to put up the front, make out he’s okay, and deflates when he sees Eddie. Neither of them says anything for a moment, and then Eddie’s moving into the room, wordlessly packing the rest of Buck’s stuff into his bag. Buck doesn’t know where he gets his energy from. “Eddie.”

“You look like you’re gonna fall over,” Eddie says, frowning.

“Sorry,” Buck starts.

“Why?” Eddie looks up at him, surprised.

Buck sits on the bench again, cradling his ribs. They’re not broken, says Hen and Chim both, but they still hurt like a bitch. “Give me a minute and I’ll be good to go. You should go ome to Chris.”

“That’s not happening,” Eddie says. “I mean alone,” he amends, interpreting Buck’s expression correctly. “You’re coming with me.”

“Eddie—”

“Don’t argue with me.” Eddie straightens up, Buck’s bag on one shoulder, his on the other. “You alright to move?”

Buck nods, gives himself a minute to breathe in and out slowly, then pushes himself to his feet. He winces when his ribs twinge. “You can drop me off, it’s fine.”

Eddie stops them, hand on Buck’s arm. His thumb is resting against Buck’s pulse point and Buck wonders, a touch hysterically, if he can feel it racing. “You’re coming home with me,” he says again, gentler this time. “You’re always allowed to ask me for help.”

Breath catching in his throat, Buck doesn’t know how to answer that. Eddie swipes his thumb once across the skin of Buck’s wrist then lets go.

“I’ll tell Chris not to jump on you,” Eddie tells him as they head out of the station. “He’s still banned from video games, so you’ll have to entertain him some other way.”

“It’s not like we haven’t had to before,” Buck says, falling into the banter with ease. “At least this time it’s a deserved punishment and not his dad being a technophobe.”

Eddie glares at him over the top of the truck. “Hildy was watching me! She sees it all!”

Buck laughs, wincing as he slides into the passenger set, but the pain is worth it. Eddie helps with the seatbelt, which would be humiliating if Buck wasn’t used to this. “Does Chris know I’m coming?”

“Nope,” Eddie says, putting the truck in reverse. “Carla would kill me for one. Secondly, I’d hate to ruin the surprise.”

Eddie’s smile is fond and Buck can’t help but match it, relaxing back against the seat. He can’t wait to walk through that door and let Chris fill all the spaces that have grown in him since the last time. It always feels like coming home. Buck closes his eyes, pushes down the feeling. Chris isn’t his and he should remember that.

“You still with me?”

Buck opens his eyes, head turning to look at Eddie. Eddie spares him a glance, then looks back at the road. “I’m not gonna be good company,” he tries again. If he brings Chris and Eddie down with his mood, he’ll never forgive himself.

“You think I was after the well?” Eddie huffs out a laugh. “Please, Buck, we’ll ply you with painkillers, Chris can talk your ear off about whatever it is you two get excited about, then we’ll go to sleep. It’s not that hard.”

“I could have done that at home.”

“Yes,” Eddie allows, Buck fascinated with how soft his touch when the steering wheel slides through his fingers. Why is everything about Eddie so gentle? “But I’d rather you be somewhere I can keep an eye on you.”

The words signal exasperation, but the tone is fond, the smile on Eddie’s face soft. Buck so often feels like a burden but Eddie’s acting like he isn’t. That this is something he wants to do, help Buck and make him—

“Fuck.”

“Hey,” Eddie says, sounding worried. “Are you crying?”

“No,” Buck bites out, swiping at his face with the hand not pressed to his ribs. “Please keep driving.”

Eddie does, thankfully, and Buck grits his teeth against the urge to keep crying. “I’m sorry.”

It’s Buck’s turn to be confused. “Why?”

“If you’re crying because someone wants to take care of you, I’ve been a shitty best friend.”

_______

The words are still rattling around Buck’s head when it comes time for bed.

Chris is already tucked in, having dragged a story from both Buck and Eddie, and Eddie’s been putting stuff away in the kitchen, talking in low tones to Buck through the door. Buck’s been half paying attention, his mind still on the conversation in the car.

When Eddie steps back into the room, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans, he gives Buck a smile. “Ready for bed?”

“Yeah,” Buck says. “Toss some blankets, yeah?”

“As if,” Eddie says without hesitation. “No way are you taking the couch with those ribs.”

“Eddie,” Buck says. Eddie pauses at whatever he hears in Buck’s tone. Buck’s not sure how he sounds, barely knows how he feels. “What you said in the truck—”

There’s no judgement, no embarrassment. “Yeah?”

Buck opens his mouth, closes it. “You haven’t been a shitty best friend.”

“I have,” Eddie presses. Then, with a sigh, “sometimes.”

“So have I.” Buck groans as he rights himself, grateful when Eddie holds out a hand and takes most of his weight to help him stand. “I don’t know how to accept it. Someone taking care of me.”

Eddie nods. Buck doesn’t know how he always gets it, how he knows Buck so well when Buck barely knows what’s happening inside of his own head. Eddie’s hands are on his hips and he tugs a little, careful so that Buck doesn’t stumble, and drags him into a hug. Buck lets out a shaky breath, turns his face into Eddie’s neck. The angle would be awkward but for his stoop and he lets himself take the comfort Eddie’s offering.

“I know,” Eddie says quietly, a kiss ghosting over Buck’s temple. “You will.”

_______

Over the following two days, Buck’s body mends and he’s able to move without wanting to punch himself in the face. He spends the time dicking around on his phone—having a photo off with Marjan about which one of them is more internet famous—and letting Chris talk him into playing almost his entire catalogue of video games.

Eddie’s a silent presence in the background. He disappears for work, leaving Carla in charge, and she spends most of the time feeding Buck, berating him for not looking after himself, and throwing him knowing looks. Buck doesn’t know what she’s getting at. When Eddie comes home, he manages to put together a good dinner (Buck finds the takeout containers in the trash), settle down with them in front of the TV and throw an arm over Buck’s shoulders, squeeze against him even when there’s space, and on the second night, when they’re an hour into the movie, Buck can feel Eddie’s fingers playing with his hair.

It startles him, but he does his best not to react. Relaxing back against Eddie’s arm, he catches the small quirk of a smile playing at Eddie’s mouth and complains about something in the movie. Chris interjects, Buck only tangentially paying attention, because Eddie’s fingers are scratching lightly at his scalp.

“Gross,” Eddie says, wrinkling his nose. Buck can agree; there’s way too much blood for a movie Chris can watch, but he doesn’t answer. He can feel himself relaxing further, embarrassed when he pushes into Eddie’s fingers. Thankfully, Eddie doesn’t seem to notice. Except then, on the next pass, he scratches a little lighter. The sensation has Buck shivering and he swallows down the noise in his throat.

Reaching over, he rests a hand on Eddie’s leg and squeezes. Eddie looks at him, picking up on Buck’s silent cues, and nods. He keeps his hand in Buck’s hair, but contends himself with running his fingers through it instead of scratching. Buck breathes out, shaky, but doesn’t tense up again.

“Work tomorrow,” Eddie says, his voice pitched low. Chris is still watching the movie, working his way through a packet of candy Buck’s surprised Eddie let him have.

Buck nods. “Can’t wait. I feel like I’ve put on five pounds in two days.”

“Now who’s dramatic.” Eddie shakes his head. “Not that you’re wrong; Carla’s cooking does have that effect. So good.”

“Anyone’s would be,” Buck says, smirking, “compared to yours.”

Eddie glares, but he huffs, looking back at the TV. “Rude.”

“Not wrong,” Buck says lightly, sing-song, watching Chris out of the corner of his eye. Either Chris is doing a very good job of pointedly ignoring them (something he’s practised at), or they’re managing to keep their tone low. When Eddie doesn’t reply, he pouts. “I’m injured.”

“You were,” Eddie corrects, but he’s smiling. “All the rope rescues for you tomorrow.”

Buck pauses. “You’re not going to fight me for them?”

Looking nonchalant, Eddie shrugs. “Consider it a gift to you.”

You’re my gift.

The words get trapped somewhere in Buck’s throat. He can’t stop staring at Eddie. It almost feels like a relief when the movie finishes, and Eddie starts making noises about sleeping. Again, Buck finds himself being tugged in the direction of Eddie’s bed, even when the couch will suffice, but it feels not unlike the tsunami; Buck drowning, being pulled in different directions, but this time Eddie’s there; a guide, an anchor, when Buck feels most adrift.

_______

Days pass into weeks.

Buck’s in his truck, on the way back to his apartment, and he’s startled by the wrongness of it. He can’t remember the last time he spent the night in his own home. Turning into the parking lot, he sits behind the wheel, knuckles white as he grips it, staring at the window of his apartment.

Not that he wants to hang around Eddie like dead weight. He’d dashed out of the locker room, a yell over his shoulder that he was late to pick up Chris. Not that buck expects them to hang out after work or anything, but ever since—well, since Texas, Eddie’s not been far.

Angry at himself, he grabs his duffel from the back seat and heads into the apartment building, fighting the lead weight settling in his stomach. It’s his fucking home! Just because Eddie doesn’t mind him hanging out with him and Chris, Buck needs to get a grip. He’s not part of their family and he needs to stop. Maybe go out, find someone to—

His phone rings shrilly through his thoughts and he grabs it, answering it with a harsh, “What?”

A pause. “Where are you?”

“At my apartment,” Buck snaps. “You remember? That place I live.”

Eddie’s quiet on the other end of the phone and Buck grips the edge of the counter, closing his eyes, opening his mouth to apologise. Eddie talks first, his tone soft. “I remember.”

“I’m sorry,” Buck blurts out. He presses his hand to his eyes. “I think the shift must have got to me. “

“You sure you’re alright?”

No. Buck nods. “Yeah.”

A hum. Eddie’s voice is still quiet when he says, “alright. See you tomorrow.”

When the dial tone rings in his ear, Buck lets the phone slide out of his hands, hitting the counter and sliding away from him. Buck swallows once, twice, feels the burn of tears in his eyes. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He doesn’t realise he’s slid down to the floor until he feels the cold beneath his butt, his head falling back to rest against the island. Time slides away from him and he breathes slowly, trying to focus on the here and now, even if it’s the last place he wants to be.

“Buck?”

Buck’s breathing sounds too loud.

“Head up, Buck, come on.”

Eddie, Buck’s brain helpfully supplies. He blinks, stares up into Eddie’s face.

“There you are,” Eddie says, voice soft. “You with me?”

“Eddie?” Buck says, his voice scratchy.

Eddie nods, his arms on Buck’s. He tugs gently, helping Buck up off the floor. Buck lets himself be led, unsurprised when Eddie pushes him down onto the couch. There’s a glass of water on the coffee table, a blanket against the arm.

Buck stares, wonders if there’s an echo when he says, “Eddie,” again.

“I’m here,” Eddie says, and Buck’s sure this isn’t real, that he’s gone mad. “Not mad,” Eddie says, “just lonely.”

The word catches in Buck’s ribcage, feels like a knife. “I don’t like being alone.”

Eddie sits next to him on the couch, turning sideways, knee pressed to Buck’s thigh. “I know.”

“I hate it,” Buck continues, staring around the room, at the cold whiteness of everything. He’s tried to make it a home, put stuff up, kept some of the drawings Chris does for him, photos hung on the walls. It doesn’t feel like anything. Not the way Eddie’s does when he walks through the door. The smell, the sounds, the comfort of Chris laughing, of Eddie grousing about something.

Buck’s chest feels tight.

“Buck,” Eddie says, his tone hard. “Look at me.”

Buck does.

“That’s it.” Eddie’s tone shifts back into soft and he reaches over, pulls Buck closer to him. Buck tenses up but Eddie doesn’t let go. He keeps talking, the words washing over Buck like a balm. “You never ask for help. I know I don’t either. We’ve both got—what did you call it, notable trauma?”

It’s funny, but Buck doesn’t laugh. He starts to relax, hand fisting in Eddie’s shirt.

“You’re lonely,” Eddie says, not that Buck needs the reminder. “But you’re not alone.”

Buck clenches his eyes shut, letting out a shaky breath.

“You hear me?” Eddie says again, burying his face in Buck’s hair. They shift around a little until it’s comfortable, Buck pressed against Eddie, the two of them stretched out on Buck’s couch.

“Chris,” Buck says, panicked. If Eddie’s here then who’s got Chris?

“He’s with Hen and Karen.” Eddie’s fingers are on the back of Buck’s neck, grounding him. “He’s safe.”

Okay. Chris is safe. Buck’s not alone.

“Eddie,” he says, hating himself for this weakness but unable to keep from saying, “I don’t wanna be alone.”

Eddie sucks in a breath, lets it out. He sounds wrecked. “I know. You’re not, I promise.”

Buck shakes his head. “I am. When you go home. When everyone—I’m alone. Abby left and Ali and I’m alone.” The word spill out of him, water running over him, drowning him, holding him fast. “My parents left me alone. Maddie. You.” Eddie’s breath hitches. “Why doesn’t anyone stay?”

Arms tightening, Eddie drags him up, mouth pressed to his forehead, breath hot against Buck’s face. “Not anymore, you understand me?”

Buck wants to believe it. Eddie’s been here, all this time, taking care of Buck. Dr. Copeland says he can accept it for what it is; Eddie caring. Buck wants to, but he doesn’t know how.

“It’s okay,” Eddie says, watching him carefully.

“What is?”

“That you don’t believe me.” Eddie says it so matter of fact and though Buck wants to deny it, he can’t make himself say it. Eddie’s thumb rubs over his cheek. Is Buck crying again? “I’ll show you.”

Buck doesn’t know what that means. “How?”

“If you don’t wanna be alone,” Eddie starts, cuts himself off. There’s pink on his cheeks, determination in his expression. “My bed is cold without you.”

“Mine is too big,” Buck blurts out.

“Alright,” Eddie says, even though Buck doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to. He curls into Eddie, emotionally wrung out, not sure where they go from here. Have they solved anything? Buck’s still going to be in this cold apartment and Eddie might want him around sometimes, but all the time? Buck doesn’t know if Eddie likes him enough to—

Fingers scratch against his scalp.

Buck lets out a soft noise.

“I wasn’t sure,” Eddie says, words drifting softly into Buck’s ear where Eddie’s lips are pressed. “But you asked me to stop.”

“I didn’t know,” Buck says, shaky, groaning when Eddie’s nails scrape down the nape of his neck. He gets a hand between Eddie’s back and the couch, curls his fingers into the fabric of Eddie’s shirt. A henley. Yellow. Fuck, he looks so good.

Eddie whispers, “I know,” and adjusts his hips, slides further back and oh. Buck rocks his hips up, a little out of it because this is Eddie, and they’re on his couch, and he’s, he’s chasing— “That’s it.”

There’s a counterpoint; Eddie’s fingers in his hair, against his scalp, and his hips, the thick curve of his dick pressed to Buck’s.

“Eddie,” he manages to get out.

“You can have it,” Eddie grits out, dropping his free hand to Buck’s ass and dragging him up. Buck punches out a groan, body quivering as he his orgasm starts to build, pleasure pulsing at the base of his spine. Eddie’s breathing in his ear, there’s the rustle of fabric, and Buck can smell the fading scent of Eddie’s cologne.

“Please,” Buck bites out.

“Take it,” Eddie says, biting at the curve of Buck’s jaw. “You can have whatever want.”

Buck sobs out Eddie’s name as he grinds his hips down, lost in the sensations of Eddie’s hands, his voice, the pleasure cresting up and over, drowning out everything but Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

_______

“You with me?”

Buck hums, craking open an eye. They’re still on the couch, his pants feel gross, but Eddie’s stroking a hand down his back so Buck can deal.

“Buck?”

“Yeah,” Buck says.

Eddie shifts a little, extricating himself enough to grab the water bottle. Buck makes a disgruntled noise, but can’t deny he’s thirsty. When Eddie’s satisfied he’s drunk enough, they settle back, Eddie’s hand drfiting through his hair. “Move in with me.”

Buck’s body tenses. “Eddie—”

“I’m asking,” Eddie says, and when Buck pulls back, he can see the apprehension on Eddie’s face. “Not telling. And no,” he adds, “it’s not pity.”

“I can get over it.”

Eddie doesn’t answer. He gestures for Buck to lie back down and after a momentary hesitation, Buck does, sinking against the lines of Eddie’s body. He’s lulled into comfort by the press of Eddie’s hands against his back and neck, the steady rhythm of Eddie’s chest rising and falling.

“Part of me thinks I’ll never be over Shannon,” Eddie says. Buck hardly dares breathe. “I’ve always thought I wasn’t good enough,” Eddie continues, burying his face in Buck’s hair. “And yet every time I look up, there you are. Still here.”

The words take a moment to resonate; Buck’s broken and splintered, but Eddie is too. Maybe their damaged parts match up, maybe they don’t. Somehow, they fit together anyway, and Eddie’s been here. He’s still here, Chris safe with friends because Buck needs him.

“I’ve never been a priority,” Buck rasps out.

“Yes you have,” Eddie says with a certainty that makes Buck wants to hold on and never let go. “You and Chris? You have to know you’re everything.”

Buck tightens his grip on Eddie. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Eddie huffs a breath. “I know. Neither do I, sometimes, but I’m not letting you go, Buck.”

“Promise?”

Gentle pressure on Buck’s chin tilts his head up and he stares into Eddie’s eyes and Buck’s breath catches in his throat at the expression on Eddie’s face. “You have every part of me that doesn’t belong to Chris.”

When Eddie kisses him, Buck lets himself fall.

[bookishofalder]

Night Changes [Nine]

Summary: Will Poe and the reader be reunited?

Warnings: Angst, character deaths, language, smut. TW-pregnancy, birth, infant, breastfeeding. WC—+10k

A/N-At the end.

“Rey,” At the sound of her name, Rey paused and glanced around to see Leia standing next to the Falcon, waiting. Meeting her kind eyes, she hoped Leia wasn’t going to try and convince her not to go again; she’d already told the wise General that she had to find the Wayfinder, that she needed to complete Luke’s mission and get to Exegol. Finn, Poe, Chewbacca and C3PO were already on board, waiting for her to join them; it was time to leave.

“Leia?” She stepped toward her mentor, who looked around cautiously before lowering her voice to speak to Rey.

“I need to give you something.”

Rey frowned, confused, glancing down to Leia’s empty, “What do you mean?”

Leia sighed, her eyes tired. Rey understood—she felt exhausted too. “I can’t explain it. And you must keep it to yourself until the moment is right—trust me, you’ll know when that is—if you do end up needing to,” Leia took hold of Rey’s hands, squeezing, “I’ll show you, but you must keep it tucked away no matter what.”

Seeing the seriousness in Leia’’s eyes, Rey swallowed and nodded, “Of course. I promise.” She returned the pressure to the General’s hands and watched as she reached up and pressed her fingers gently to Rey’s temple.

In a brief flash, Rey saw enough to understand.

As he was pushed roughly through the doors to an open hangar with Finn and Chewie, Poe couldn’t help but reflect on his life over the past year and a half. He’d had a lot of close calls, even been captured, but this was the first time he felt like he was going to die, as General Hux and a couple of Storm Troopers stood behind them, ready to execute Poe and his friends. He hoped Rey was able to escape, at least.

And Leia could get the news of his death to you. She would make sure you were taken care of for the rest of your life. He had no regrets, no, not with you on some planet far away from all of this and free to raise the baby. He’d done everything he could, fought as hard as possible, but that didn’t mean he was guaranteed to live.

Poe tried to picture what the baby might look like, whether they got your smile, his hair. Pain shot through his broken heart that his child would grow with only pictures of him, no memories. He glanced up at Finn, eager to distract himself; he could hear Hux speaking to the Troopers and ignored them.

“What were you going to tell Rey before?”

Finn hesitated, appearing uncomfortable, “You still on that?”

“Oh,” Poe frowned at him incredulously, “Is this a bad time?” He just wanted to hear Finn admit aloud he had feelings for Rey. He could sense it between them, especially recently, and thought that they made a good pair. In another life he could see himself with them, you at his side, enjoying a late-night dinner, laughing around a table while the kids pretended to be asleep in their bedrooms.

Nodding, Finn gave Poe a wary look, “It sort of is?” Poe scoffed, shaking his head.

“So I tell you my deepest secrets but right before we’re about to die you’re locking down on yours?” Poe hadn’t just told Finn about you; after he’d confessed your existence, he hadn’t been able to stop sharing with his friend, who listened attentively as Poe described his life with you, how he’d love you since he was ten years old.

Finn blanched, and after a pause opened his mouth to respond, only shots went off behind them and they flinched. Poe expected to feel pain, or perhaps nothing if the shot was well placed, only they heard thuds behind them and instead glanced around to find Hux holding a blaster, eyes on the dead Troopers momentarily before he looked up at them.

“I’m the spy.” He claimed, a dark smirk on his twisted face, and Poe felt a rush of confused relief—he and Finn exchanged looks as Chewie groaned.

“What?” He exclaimed at the same moment Finn yelled, “You?” In disbelief.

Hux ignored them, “We don’t have much time, we have to go.” He gestured for them to follow and after a brief pause, they hastened to climb to their feet.

Poe hurried forward and grabbed a few of the fallen Troopers blasters, passing them to Finn and Chewie before taking one for himself. His blood was rushing, the feeling of being alive still—of getting lucky, again—made him feel powerful like you were out there somewhere sending him the strength and good fortune that he needed at every turn.

As they ran behind Hux, Finn touched Poe’s arm. “That was too close—made me realize, do you have a way of her knowing if something happens to you?”

Poe nodded, “Leia will tell her.”

But he sincerely hoped that would never happen, that you wouldn’t be standing in the doorway of some home he’d never know and hear the words that he had died, that he was never coming for you. The idea of you being in that kind of pain was something he couldn’t fully fathom, and it only renewed his determination to get to the Wayfinder and finish this fight once and for all.

11 Months Ago

“Doesn’t matter how many galaxies separate us, I will always be with you, and you with me. I promise.”

Memories of your life with Poe had a way of burrowing into the forefront of your mind when you least expect them; when you let your guard down. The emotional goodbye all those years before, back on Yavin-4 when you were just kids—Poe leaving with Charlie to join the Resistance...it was a lifetime ago. And as much as you believed his words both then and now, it didn’t make the pain any easier to endure as you lay here without him, the Healer and Kes having left you alone with the newborn baby cradled in your arms.

You were surprised when the Healer had passed you the baby—after almost nine hours of labour—to see the tuft of dark curls on their head; Kes had remarked that Poe had come into the world with as much hair, and you’d laughed through your mixed tears of sorrow and joy and love. So they took after their dad—what a beautiful, heartbreaking thought.

Stars, you hoped Poe would meet them before long--before they grew too much. Just seeing the tiny creature, skin-to-skin with you like the Healer recommended, both made your heart feel complete while simultaneously tearing it apart. He should have been here to hold your hand, to cut the cord and press soft kisses to both of your heads and cry tears of joy from it all.

It wasn’t fair. Up until this moment you’d been able to lock back to anger and the bitter feelings over having let Poe send you away because it had been the right choice no matter what way you looked at it. But now, as you lay exhausted and bursting with love for the baby you made with your soulmate, you let some of that anger free through wretched sobs because it wasn’t fair that he had to miss this, that for all you knew he could be...

You stopped yourself from thinking of the worst-case scenario. It wasn’t helpful to imagine what he was doing now, where he was, if he was okay. And you’d promised him you would keep him alive in your mind unless you knew for certain that he wasn’t.

A small whine met your ears and you glanced down at the baby, smiling at their pinched expression as they struggled to adapt to their new surroundings. “It’s okay, little bug. Mama is here, shhh...” You cooed softly, running a lone finger over their hair in a gentle motion. You watched their eyes flutter beneath the lids, enjoying the feel of your touch, and then froze when they opened their eyes for the first time to look up at you blearily.

Stars, they had Poe’s eyes.

Now - 35 ABY - Battle of Exegol

When Temmin died, Poe truly began to lose all hope.

Before watching another friend’s x-wing get shot down, he’d managed to scrape the bottom of the barrel for that hope, for any remaining belief that they could win this fucking fight. That everything he’d ever sacrificed was worth it because now they had arrived and it was time to put an end to it all—but then he was screaming for Snap to watch his six, heard the anguished cry through the comm when he was hit, the searing memory of losing Charlie so many years before in the same way making his stomach churn, and he just felt so...

So fucking hopeless.

Leia was gone. The Resistance was down to pathetic numbers, and he had finally lost all hope.

Shit, if he was being honest with himself he’d been running through these last few days with urgency and adrenaline that prevented him from overthinking the odds, a blissful denial that anything other than winning could occur. When he’d told the remaining fighters of the Resistance that this was their final stand, that help would come, he had meant it as much as he’d hoped it was true.

“Help will come if they know there is hope,” Poe had stared around at his friends, at their doubting expressions, “They will. We have friends out there. The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone. We’re not alone—good people will fight if we lead them.”

In all of the time that had passed between when he’d said goodbye to you to this moment, he’d never once regretted sending you far away from the fight. Even here, with Rebel, after Rebel dying and a fleet of Destroyer’s that would wipe out entire planets unless they bent to the will of the First Order, he felt a sense of peace knowing that you were safely tucked away well beyond the reaches of their tyranny. His child would grow up with a mother who could share stories of Poe’s life, his love for you, for them.

It still stung, though, knowing he would never see you again. That he would die fighting and his last thoughts would be of you, of his little family, and you would have no idea. He hoped when you did find out the Resistance was done, the fight was lost, that you didn’t take it too hard—didn’t blame yourself in any way. He wanted you to be mad at him, not at yourself, not after everything you’d done for him, everything you had sacrificed.

He almost could have laughed, bleak as the outlook now was it shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did that no aid had arrived, that Lando and Chewie flew to the inner core worlds for nothing—clearly, no one was coming. Just like the Battle of Crait, they were alone; only now Leia was gone and Poe was the General, he was the one everyone was screaming for orders from through the comms, he was the one that had to say it aloud.

“My friends,” His voice was scratchy, choked up, as his mind played flashes of his life—of you, of losing Charlie, marrying you, losing Leia. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

He would die taking down as many enemies as he could. He would tell the rest of them to either do the same or flee—he wouldn’t blame them if they fled. Poe could almost imagine himself doing it, but the idea of finding you somewhere out there and saying he’d left at the final hour made bile heave in his stomach. He would never abandon the fight, not when you had wanted to stay as much as you had, but left for the baby.

As he struggled to pull in a breath to speak, he recalled the last time he saw you.

It was late, the base quiet and most of the Rebels sleeping, all except for Poe and you—it was time to say goodbye, under the cover of darkness. He wasn’t allowed to follow you into the hangar because he couldn’t know even the most minute details of how you got off-planet. Still, he would walk you as far as he could, and savour every final second together.

“I changed my mind, I’m not leaving you.” You whispered, halting in the hallway and turning to face Poe. One hand ran absentmindedly over your swollen stomach, the other reached up to grip his forearm. Your lower lip trembled, and he felt every word you wanted to say to convince him you should stay.

Poe took a shuddering breath, “Sweet girl, you aren’t leaving me—stop thinking about it like that. You’re saving our baby, keeping them safe, remember?” He tried to keep the desperate plea minimal in his voice because it had been like this for the last few days. One moment you were reluctantly prepared to leave, the next you were begging to stay. He didn’t know how much more of this torture he could stand before he broke down and let you stay.

Your pretty eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, just like his. You’d each cried more than enough to last a lifetime, and although heat pricked the corners of his eyes now he knew no more tears could come until you were out of sight. He would cry in his bed alone tonight, and probably every night until he saw you again, but right now he needed to show strength.

You stepped into his arms and Poe hugged you close, your body angling your stomach so that it wasn’t pressed between you both. “I don’t...Poe, I don’t think I’m strong enough to do this.”

Poe stared at you in disbelief, “Not strong enough? Are you kidding me?” He brought his hands to cup your cheeks gently, “You are the strongest person I know. What you are about to do for us, for our baby, is the most incredible sacrifice anyone could make. Everything you are doing and have done in your life only proves how amazing and strong you are—no matter what happens, please never forget that, okay?”

You whimpered sadly, nodding your head, and Poe shakily pressed his lips to yours, capturing you for one last kiss. It was soft and for one brief moment, he let himself imagine it was a greeting, though in truth it only made his heart fracture further rather than make him feel any better.

“Whatever happens, Poe, we’ll be okay...so don’t worry about us, focus on yourself,” You reached up and pushed your hands into his curls, savouring them one final time. “Promise me you’ll never stop fighting, flyboy.”

Poe smiled sadly down at you, his eyes drinking in every detail of your beautiful face, “Never, sweetheart, I promise I’ll never stop fighting. And this isn’t goodbye,” He pressed one hand gently against your belly, “It’s just a...see you soon. Once I’m finished blowing shit up in my x-wing.”

You laughed, tears streaming down your face and then pulled Poe against you again, his hand stuck between your bodies as you crushed him in a strong embrace. “I love you, Poe.”

“Oh, sweet girl, I love you too.”

35 ABY - Sorgan

You missed flying, though the place Leia had sent Kes and you to barely had any air traffic, the planet much too out of the way. Still, it had a sky that night or day you’d find yourself gazing into, wishing you could feel that weightlessness that came with blasting off from base, that you would look to your left and see Poe in his ship, the stars stretching beyond.

Poe. Stars, you missed him more and more every day. You had trouble believing it had been over a year, that the baby was now eleven months old and starting to try and walk and they’d never met their father. Though each time this knowledge became too heavy, you reminded yourself of the peaceful life you were living on Sorgan and how that had been the whole point of you leaving the fight—for the baby, for safety.

Sorgan was so far removed that no news reached the planet from the middle and core rims, something you’re sure Leia knew when she decided to send you here. You sometimes felt suffocated, not knowing a single thing about what was happening out there, but then you knew if you did know, it might make it harder to stay. And you couldn’t leave, you knew that for certain the moment you’d laid eyes on your newborn when the Healer had set the baby in your arms, face pinched as shrieks filled the air until they’d calmed, skin to skin with you.

You had gazed at the beautiful baby and you knew that you could never bear to part from them, no matter what you did or didn’t know about the war. Nonetheless, it was perhaps infinitesimally easier to be ignorant and allow yourself to imagine that it was all going fine.

You were living in a small but cozy yurt on the edge of a fishing village. The simple space comprised of the main room that hosted the barebones kitchen with a big table to eat at and a couple of comfortable sitting chairs, and had two rooms, one on either side, for sleeping quarters. The baby was in a crib at the end of your bed, where you were laying now. Very much awake even as they slept soundly.

Or so you thought until you were jerking from your thoughts at their sudden cries. You waited for a minute, the soft cries more whimpers than anything, and hoped the baby would soothe themselves back to sleep. They hiccuped, however, and started to cry again from the jolt. You sighed before sliding out from under the covers and padding softly to their crib.

“Your eyes aren’t even open,” You accused, grinning at the baby with the scrunched face, all the drama of their dad and only eleven months. Carefully lifting them, you tucked the baby against your chest and began to stroll slow circles around the bedroom, swaying as you went. “You know, when your dad finally comes and meets you he’s taking night duty over. I don’t care how many wars he wins.”

The little coo you got in response was enough to tell you Bug was on your side.

Though every day apart from Poe was painful, you did savour the good moments with the little piece of your heart that remained, beating for the baby you held now. And on this peaceful, sleepy planet most days had plenty of good—even if you were sad. Kes was an incredibly positive man, and like his son knew how to read you well, often stepping in to whisk the baby away whenever he sensed your sorrow was too hard to contain. You tried to spend all of the energy you had smiling for Bug because that was the only thing you could really do.

The guilt was heavy. You knew Poe would be devastated if he knew just how much you carried, living so comfortably—if a little rustic—on Sorgan all while he spent every day fighting to stay alive. But it was easier to focus on that guilt, to hate yourself than it was to be afraid of losing him—never seeing him again. Stars, the guilt was practically a salve in comparison to that.

Some days though, it was harder to keep the frame of mind that staying was the only option. As the baby grew, the guilt began to feed a steady flow of ‘what if’s’ into your mind. It was getting harder to ignore the sense of it. When Bug started to mix food into their diet, weaning partially from your breastmilk, you told yourself you could wean them completely, earlier than you planned but then you could hire a ship to take you back to D’Qar...

Only, you didn’t even know if D’Qar was still safe anymore.

It was a circular battle you couldn’t win no matter the choice you made, though you always chose the baby, chose to stay because you promised Poe you would. He’d told you that you were making the greatest sacrifice, and he had been right—he knew he could distract himself with the fight, and that you would only be able to distract yourself so much with raising the baby. He understood you would spend every day apart wishing you could rejoin him.

A soft snore pulled you from your thoughts and you glanced down at the baby to find them fast asleep again. You smiled fondly, that little chunk of your heart giving a happy beat as you settled them back into their crib and ran your fingers gently over their soft cheek.

“Goodnight, Charlie, my sweet girl.” You whispered heart clenching at the sight of her chubby cheeks relaxed in sleep.

Deciding a cool drink was needed, you slipped from the quiet of your room and into the main extension of the yurt you shared with Kes. A single lamp lit the small space dimly, and you helped yourself to a glass of water and took a seat at the table. You weren’t sure how long you were sitting there before Kes appeared and sat down across from you with a knowing smile on his face.

He sat silently for a few minutes as you sipped at your drink, speaking only once you’d finished. “Can’t sleep again?”

You sighed, running your hands through your hair, exhaustion setting deep in your bones.

“I keep having the same dream, Kes. Poe and Bug, back home on Yavin-4. Only, the beach is in colour but they aren’t.” You choked up, glancing toward your room, where you could see the crib through the doorway.

Kes followed your gaze, “Bug will meet him someday. I know it. You need to believe that too, kiddo, and you really need to get some sleep.” He patted your hand gently before standing and you watched him make his way to his room, pulling the curtain across his doorway as he did.

Taking a deep breath, you pressed your palms into your closed eyes, willing your mind to settle so that you could go to bed and get some rest. You just don’t think you could stand to have the dream again—always waking up and wondering, would you ever really get to see Poe again? Would he ever get to meet his little girl?

When you climbed back beneath the cool sheets of your bed, you fell into light sleep, your dreams the same as ever—Poe playing with Charlie on the beach back home on Yavin-4 while you sat on a blanket on the sand watching, laughing as they splashed each other. Your family, together again.

35 ABY - Battle of Exegol

As wretched as it was to think of never seeing you again, this wasn’t the first time he thought he was going to die. At least here, in his x-wing, he could take out as many enemies as he could before going out in a blaze—just like...like Charlie.

“I thought we had a shot. There’s too many of them.” He finished speaking to the remaining fighters in resignation, his eyes heavy—he was tired, so tired. Enough so that when a new, familiar voice came clear over the comms, he sat up straighter before his mind even registered what they were saying.

“Oh, but there’s more of us, Poe. There’s more of us.”

Poe spun his ship around, his heart frozen in his chest, flew up over the wreckage of the one First Order ship they’d so far managed to take out—and there it was.

Lando and Chewie were back; he could see the Falcon, and behind them were thousands and thousands of ships. And still, more coming as he looked, pulling out of light speed to fall in with the Falcon. Poe could hardly believe his eyes, but right before him, he couldn’t doubt for a moment that his friends had come back and they...

They had brought hope.

You sat with your toes in the water, the sun shining on your back warm and comforting. Charlie splashed around happily, her water suit covering her arms and legs, joining her cute straw hat in protecting her from too much sunlight. She kept looking from the water around her chubby legs to the flowing stream behind her-as if dissatisfied with the ankle-deep water you had set her in.

“You can go in the river in a few years,” You cocked a brow at her as she gave you a pouty look. “You’re very cute, but mama says no.”

With a resigned sigh that seemed far too mature for her, she went back to splashing the water and you slid your toes towards her, wriggling them so that she tried to catch hold. When she managed to grab your big toe, you laughed and she giggled brightly, her gleeful peals filling the quiet around you.

It was a beautiful day on Sorgan. They all were, really, even the rainy days, the ones that kept you inside the yurt listening to the rain while Kes tried to teach Charlie how to crawl and you laughed as you watched them. But the sunny days were the best, the ones you could fill with endless activity to distract yourself as much as to tire out the baby. Because when your mind settled, it tended to stray off into dark thoughts.

Maybe Poe was gone.

Maybe he would never come to find you here, your little family would be memories of Poe as you raised his little girl with Kes instead. The weight of that responsibility, of ensuring she had a happy life all while missing a whole section of your heart for the rest of your own was heavy so you tried not to overthink it.

You channelled that energy into Charlie, focused on her and you think you were doing a good job of keeping her safe and content. You showed Charlie pictures of Poe every day, wanting to ensure she knew his face even if she would never get to see it in person. She’d been looking at him since she was just a little bean, and you repeated his name, ‘dada’, every time as well. She wasn’t speaking yet, but it couldn’t hurt to keep the association in her mind when she was ready to start talking.

Charlie stopped splashing and glanced up at you with wide eyes, her expression familiar. “Hungry, Bug?” You reached out for her and lifted her from the water, carefully standing and wading to the grassy spot you’d set your picnic up.

You dried her off first, then let her crawl on the blanket while you dry your feet before following her to sit. She beelined for you as you untied your tunic, lowering one side and easing your breast out, grateful your nanny droid had provided you with a soothing balm for your aching nipples. Breastfeeding was your favourite way to bond with her, but Stars, it came at a cost.

You settled Charlie against you and watched as she closed her eyes, suckling softly. You adjusted the tunic to protect her from the sun and fell into a quiet state as she fed. It was sometime later that the sound of a large ship captured your attention, breaking you from your meditation.

Charlie was asleep against you, her face still pressed to your breast, and didn’t stir as the ship, far in the distance, flew past. You wondered briefly, a jolt of electricity coursing through you wondering if it was Poe come to find you both. But when the ship flew only further away, you pushed the idea from your mind. It was probably a shipment from the core worlds going to the markets. You made a mental note to plan a trip there for the next day—if there were fresh supplies, you might find a treat or two. Get something nice for Kes, perhaps.

Feeling exhaustion hit, you napped with Charlie there on the river's edge. You had nothing to fear on Sorgan, and in fact, many of the neighbours in your village were around, not too close but enough so that if needed they could come and wake you. You kept Charlie protected from the sun but let it shine on you, the brightness no match for the gentle lull of sleep, the soft trickle of the river.

When you woke an hour later, you felt more rested than you had in some time, pausing as you sat up to stretch the kinks from your body. Charlie was wriggling and you knew she probably needed to be changed. “Time to go home?” You asked her with a grin, and she made a sour little face in response that made you laugh. You loved how expressive she was, how even though she wasn’t talking yet she managed to let you know how she felt.

With practiced movements, you packed up the little picnic, hoisted your bag over one shoulder before lifting her to sit against your hip, and made the short walk home. Kes was sitting outside the yurt when you arrived, reading, though he set the book down at the sound of your footsteps and grinned widely when Charlie cooed for him.

“Did you have a nice time, ladies?”

You smiled, “She sure loves the water, I should start taking her in the river, see how she likes floating,” Kes took her from you carefully—Charlie made a face and you both laughed, “Sorry, Kes, I think she needs to be changed.”

“No worries, you relax for a bit and I’ll deal with diaper duty.”

Nodding gratefully, you set your bag down on the chair Kes had vacated and turned to gaze out at the grassy lawn. It was a simple home, certainly not where you would have planned to raise a baby, but it was peaceful. You start to think about the next steps, how long you would stay on Sorgan before leaving. You would go ahead first, find out if it was safe, and then you wanted to return to Yavin-4. Not for a few years, although you’d like to leave before Charlie got too old and she was too attached to this place.

You stepped away from the front of the yurt to stare out over the fields. First towards the villagers as they came in from working for the day in the waters, ready to put their feet up before making dinner, and then you turned toward the river and watched the water for a while, your arms crossed, listening distantly to Charlie and Kes making each other laugh inside.

When a voice broke through your thoughts a short while later, you started in surprise before spinning, recognition of the honey-warm tone slamming into you.

“You dreaming about me, sweet girl?”

“Rey, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you—“

Rey cut Poe off, gripping his arm with a soft smile, “It was Leia, Poe. She found me before we left Ajan Kloss, she put the coordinates in my head, just in case she didn’t make it.”

Poe hugged her quickly, “Still, without you, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to find her here.” He hurried to the ramp, hitting the button to lower it with excitement mounting within him by the second.

“What do you want us to do?” Finn was standing next to Poe as he waited for the ramp to lower onto the grass.

Poe glanced up at his friend, “I have to go alone, can you wait for me here? I’ll come for you—or send for you—if I find them.” He adjusted his jacket as he spoke, nerves slicing his stomach to pieces. He hadn’t felt this close to you in almost a year and a half.

Finn nodded, a small smile on his lips, “We’ll wait. She has to be here, Poe, you’ll find her.” He clapped Poe on the shoulder encouragingly and he swallowed, unable to form a response so he just returned a half-smile and then clambered down the ramp.

Sorgan was a quiet, sleepy planet full of green. If you were here, the idea that you spent all this time in such a place was comforting to Poe—you would have been able to enjoy the land, be outside, not cooped up somewhere.

He was in a small village, and the market that lined the street was bustling with after-work crowds that were in the tens, the people all smiling at one another in a way that revealed how kind of a place it was. He wandered for a few minutes until he spotted a stand that carried medical supplies and approached the vendor, a friendly-looking older woman who grinned at him.

“Hello, stranger. How can I help you?”

Poe held up the photo he had of you, one he’d taken not long after finding out you were pregnant, your hand on your small belly and a big smile on your face. “Have you seen this woman, ma’am?”

“That’s Mrs. Carstairs,” She responded with a small nod. Poe felt his insides inflate, his excitement now ready to burst forth in a shout of glee that he had to bite back. He took a steadying breath, realizing that you had used your mother’s maiden name as your cover.

He grinned, “Yes, (y/n)—“

The woman cut him off, her eyes widening, “Oh now, you must be the husband. Now that I look at you, the baby has your eyes.”

Poe’s stomach turned over at this information. The baby had his eyes? “That’s me, do you know where I can find her, please?” He made to pull out some credits to pass over to the woman for her trouble, only she reached over to take his hand gently and shook her head, smiling.

“No need for that, dear,” She jerked her head in the direction of a nearby road that split off from the village, “Just follow that, about twenty minutes you’ll come across a fishing village. She lives right off that road on the outskirts of the village.”

Saying his thanks quickly, Poe ran faster than he had in his life in the direction she had indicated.

When he finally saw the little yurt along the main road, he breathed a sigh of relief. The sun was lowering in the sky and casting a golden glow over the ponds, fields and the nearby river. It was beautiful, and as he passed the fishing village he smiled at the villagers, who gave him curious looks before returning friendly smiles. He slowed to catch his breath, his eyes moving back to the yurt, now much closer. And then his gaze snapped to a figure standing not far from the door, gazing out in the direction of the river.

It was you.

His heart about ripped out of his chest at the sight of you alive and well. The closer he got he could see how you’d barely changed—your skin had seen more sunlight, your hair was longer, and he could see the soft curves of your figure that motherhood had brought on. He watched you for a moment, standing a few feet back, and he could hear his dad inside the yurt making a baby laugh.

Making his baby laugh.

“You dreaming about me, sweet girl?”

You spun around so fast you were a blur, though Poe didn’t miss the way your hand twitched toward the blaster at your hip before your eyes landed on him. Seeing this only made him grin more broadly, but nerves for the reunion kept him rooted to the spot. What if you were angry with him? The thought hadn’t occurred to him before this, but perhaps you-

“POE!” You cried out, and then you were running forward and jumping into his arms and it was everything he’d dreamed of and more. He caught you and held you close as you both fell to your knees in the grass, and Poe let himself get lost in the moment, sobs pulling from deep within.

He hugged you as tight as he could and then started to pepper your face with kisses, “Oh my sweet girl, I missed you. Stars above, I missed you,” He murmured, his eyes closing as your fingers sunk into his curls and tugged him, your lips crashing to his in a desperate kiss that felt exactly like coming home.

“I was so afraid you wouldn’t be able to find us,” You whimpered after pulling back, your body still pressed against his, “I can’t believe you’re finally here...”

Poe shook his head, “Leia had a backup plan all along. Stars, you are so beautiful,” He swept his fingers over your cheeks, getting a good look at you now and seeing how well cared for you looked; Sorgan had been good to you. “I’m here now. It’s over, we’re safe now.”

You released your hold on his head to run your hands over your face, wiping at your tears, “Poe, the baby’s just inside, I—”

Poe and you both turned your heads at the same time at the sound of Kes coming out the door, his excited shout of glee making you both grin wider. He was holding the baby in his arms, and they looked around at the sound of your laugh, eyes just like Poe’s wide and curious—what a beautiful sight.

For a beat, the baby just stared at him, and then as Kes moved closer, a smile—a little smirk just like yours—appeared.

“Dada!”

Kes froze and glanced down at the baby in surprise, and Poe heard you gasp, one of your hands landing on his arm and squeezing excitedly. “That’s right Charlie, sweet girl, this is your Dada!”

Poe couldn’t stop staring at the baby, who hadn’t looked away from him either even as you spoke to her. She made grabby hands then, reaching for him and he tentatively raised his hands. His dad closed the gap between them and lowered the baby and he took hold of her cautiously, words caught in his throat and his heart beating fast.

She was a solid thing, sturdy in his arms and cooing happily as she gazed up in wonder at Poe. She was stunning, her eyes honey-brown and lined with thick, long lashes just like yours. Her skin was soft, and she was chunky, her baby rolls making him smile wider. After a minute, she spoke again, “Dada!” She raised her little fists towards his scruffy jaw before glancing at you.

Poe followed her gaze, “How does she know me?” He breathed, his heart in his throat.

Your watery smile only grew, “Showed her your picture every day. Wanted her to know her daddy, even if he...he couldn’t be with us,” You shuffled closer, one arm securing itself around Charlie and grasping Kes’ arm. “That was her first word, Poe. She said it just for you.”

Tears stinging at his eyes, Poe sat huddled with his family, clutching the baby closer with one arm, the other around your shoulders. His dad had thrown his arms around both you and Poe and was lamenting about how good it was to see him while Charlie cooed happily in his arms.

The moment was better than he’d ever dreamed.

Poe couldn’t put Charlie down. He carried her around for the rest of the evening, following you into the comfortable yurt you had called home all this time, one hand always on you, keeping you close.

Dad was making dinner and Poe enjoyed the banter you had, the routine of living together clearly having established itself long ago. He felt a jolt of gratitude for his dad dropping everything on Yavin-4 to take care of you and Charlie all this time.

He ate with one hand, relinquishing his hold on you but tugging you into his side before eating, his eyes constantly drinking in every expression on the baby’s face. He hadn’t realized how in love he would be so instantly, and certainly had not expected Charlie to adore him just as much—he’d thought the baby would be shy around him, maybe cry when he held them. But you had ensured she knew his face, his name—just another thing you did for him.

Poe was never going to be able to thank you enough for everything you had done.

“Poe?” Your soft voice broke into his thoughts and he looked around at you. You gave him a tentative sort of look, “Where is BB8?”

His shoulders relaxed automatically, “Oh he’s on the ship I came here in...with my friends,” He grinned and you copied him, your eyes curious, “I’ll go get them tomorrow and you can meet...I have so much to tell you, sweetheart.”

Your expression softened, “We have all the time in the world now.” You reached up and stroked his jaw, the motion so familiar his eyes automatically closed and emotion swelled in his chest. Before he could reply, he felt a second, much smaller hand land on his jaw and begin to copy the movement.

He smiled, looking through his lashes to see Charlie watching you intently as she imitated you, “Clever baby,” He murmured, and Charlie lit up at the sound of his voice. He turned his head and kissed her little hand affectionately.

“She gets her brains from me,” Kes piped up, tossing a wink at you before collecting everyone’s plates. He set them in the large stone sink before glancing at his watch. “You want to put her down for the night in my room?”

As you nodded, your eyes falling from Kes to Charlie, Poe felt a flush begin to creep up his neck at the idea of being alone with you again after so much time. He wanted to hold you close with nothing separating your bodies and curl into your healing warmth. Your hand reached for his, pulling him from his thoughts, and you tipped your head toward the baby in his arms, whose eyes were blinking slowly as exhaustion set in.

“Time for bed, little Bug,” You murmured, leading Poe towards your room. The curtain across the doorway sat open, fluttering slightly in the cool evening air, and the room was dark, illuminated only by the moonlight outside and some of the filtering light from the lamps in the main room of the yurt.

Poe carried Charlie to her crib, pressing his lips gently to her forehead, “Goodnight, Charlie, I love you.” He whispered, smiling to himself when she replied with a sleepy little coo. You took her from Poe then and took a moment to show him how to put the baby down for the night.

His heart was beating wildly in his chest as he watched you soothe Charlie, your fingers brushing delicately over her cheeks until her fluttering lashes settled and a small snore confirmed she was asleep. Poe hadn’t felt so much love in such a long time, he was half convinced he wouldn’t survive all of it thrumming through him now. And Stars, he was fucking proud of you, of how good of a mother you were; you’d done an amazing job raising Charlie so far, and he briefly worried about how he would ever be able to compare to you; if he could be as good of a parent as you were.

Once you had Charlie tucked in, you pushed the crib silently into Kes’ room, then wandered over to an armchair and picked up a blanket. When you turned to look up at Poe, his breath caught at the expression on your face. “Come with me, flyboy.”

Gulping, Poe followed you outside and across the grassy lawn in silence. You led him straight to a secluded spot along the riverbank, the flow of the water the only sound he could hear aside from his heartbeat. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he suddenly felt nervous, alone with you for the first time in over a year—he’d faced down death countless times since, and yet it was this moment that was giving him pause.

He watched as you carefully spread the blanket out on the cool grass, then slipped off your shoes before stepping towards Poe with a soft smile. “Come here,” You whispered, and he closed the gap between you both eagerly. Kicking off his shoes before pulling you against him in a crushing hug, nuzzling his face into your neck, inhaling your familiar scent deeply.

He couldn’t have said who started to cry first, just that the moment he had you tight in his arms, you were both taking shuddering breaths. He let himself sob in a mixture of joy and sadness for everything, one hand cradling your head against his chest as you sniffled. “Sweet girl,” Poe drew back to look down at you after a few minutes, “Maker, I missed you. Every day was...shit, just complete shit without you.” He admitted, eyes closing automatically when you reached up to brush the tears from his face.

“I missed you too, but you’re here now, Poe. You’re here and you’re safe,” You whispered, leaning up on your tiptoes and pressing a gentle kiss to the end of his nose, “You’re safe, baby.”

He kissed you then; harsher than he’d intended, but you met him with equal intensity, your hands sliding into his hair to draw him closer, teeth clashing. The need then, to be with you, became overwhelming—he pushed your pants down frantically, then undid the tie of your wrap tunic and slid it off your shoulders, grunting when he realized you wore no chest band beneath.

You’d started undressing him, but when your hand passed over his length he brushed his fingers against your pebbled nipples in response and you hissed, body jerking away slightly. Poe’s eyes snapped open and he quickly pulled back from kissing you, “Sweetheart, did I hurt you?”

You tugged at his shirt, smiling softly, and he removed it before glancing down your body, his eyes drinking in every glorious curve, the fullness to your breasts. “Breastfeeding is hard on these,” You replied, gesturing toward your somewhat swollen nipples, “You didn’t hurt me, just need to be careful.”

Poe nodded his understanding, surveying your postpartum body with a new wild hunger he’d never before experienced. You were beautiful, always, but something about seeing your shape with its new fullness, your milk-filled breasts and soft stomach—it made him feral. With a groan, he quickly helped you to lay down on the blanket, careful to avoid your chest as he peppered kisses down your warm body, relishing in every square inch of you. “My beautiful love,” He spread your legs apart, his hand trailing down the slit of your wet heat, “Oh sweet girl, so wet for me. You’re a fucking dream.”

As much as he wanted to taste you, lick you until you couldn’t see, the need to be inside of you was too great to allow for any more time apart. Propping himself on one arm, Poe gripped your thigh, lifting it from the ground, and gently rocked his hips forward, groaning as you tightly gripped around his cock, your body needing his just as much.

“Oh fuck, Poe...”

“I know—I’ve got you,” Poe whispered, settling between your thighs, he dropped your leg and lowered his body fully over yours, careful to keep his weight on his arm. He captured your lips against his as he slowly dragged his cock back, then rutted forward, building a slow pace meant to draw out the feeling of bliss for as long as possible. “Missed you—dreamt of you every night, baby, every fucking night.”

You had one hand tangled in Poe’s curls, the other pressed into his lower back and your legs wrapped around his hips. You whimpered, “N-never leaving you again,” The words came out strained, thick with emotion even as you moaned at the feel of him moving within you, “It’s you a-and me, f-forever. Forever.” Your back arched slightly, and Poe groaned at the change in angle, your walls clamping around him harder.

“Fuck,” He felt himself getting close and quickly slid his free hand between his body and yours, slamming into you as he circled your clit tenderly. “Forever, sweet girl, I promise—cum for me, let me feel you—“

“Poe—“ You whined, your eyes fluttering as your pleasure spiked, and he felt your body go rigid beneath him as his hips stuttered—he came with you, spilling himself with a groan as you trembled and moaned, then pressing himself as deep as he could while you both came tumbling back to each other.

When Poe finally collapsed next to you, he slipped out of you carefully before tugging you into his side, pressing his lips to the crown of your head while you both caught your breath. “Still...still got it, flyboy.” You joked, giggling when Poe shifted to look down at you with a smirk.

“I was going to say the same to you.”

“Ah well, it’s busy work running around after a baby, you know. Keeps you fit.” You grinned, snuggling against Poe as the cool night air seemed to seep between you. He reached above his head, grabbing his shirt and tossing it over your upper body to protect you from getting too cold.

Once he was satisfied you were comfortable, he rolled so that he was looking down at you, your head resting on his forearm. “Sweet girl, you—I mean, Charlie is perfect. You kept her safe, raised her, taught her who I was...I can never thank you enough, but I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying.”

“Oh Poe,” You smiled, your eyes glistening as you gazed up at him with a fondness that he felt almost undeserving of, a hand cupping his cheek. “You came back to us, that’s all I could have ever asked for—you’re alive and you’re here.” You choked up, then, and Poe leaned down to press his forehead to yours, cupping your cheek softly with one hand.

You lay together for a short while; until the cold became too much. Curling up together in bed sounded almost too good to be true. “Come on, sweet girl, let’s get some sleep,” He gathered you in his arms, pausing as you grabbed at the clothing he wasn’t going to bother putting on, and carried you into the yurt, the blanket abandoned in the grass outside.

When Poe had his body pressed against yours under the comforter of the bed you’d slept in alone all this time, he kept his arms securely around you and felt peace wash over him, “Going to introduce you to some pretty special friends in the morning, and then we can plan our next steps, my love.”

With a happy little sigh, you tucked your head into his neck and fell asleep promptly, your light snores lulling him until, just at the precipice of sleep, he smiled to himself—he was home.

The first thing you noticed when you woke early the next morning was the bed next to you was empty. Your hands roamed for Poe and when you didn’t find him you sat up quickly, wondering if perhaps you had dreamt of the day prior, of him coming home...

Only, a little giggle from outside your room sounded and you heard Poe proudly declare, “Clever, just like your mama, Charlie girl.”

You hadn’t ever known happiness like this, truly. Your heart was full and repaired and you couldn’t believe how after so much time, so many years of mistakes and pain, you were married to your best friend and he was currently waiting for you to wake up while caring for your baby, the little girl who shared traits of the both of you. This felt like a dream, but it was so raw it couldn’t be anything other than real.

You sprang from bed, throwing on your robe and hurrying out to see Poe holding Charlie as he sat in the armchair, bouncing her on his knee as she giggled for him. When you paused to watch, a smile stretching over your face, he glanced up at you and his own broadened, eyes shining brightly with affection.

“Morning, mama,” His thick morning voice always sent heat through you, and the fact that he was sitting shirtless, his hard muscles flexing as he moved Charlie only doused further fuel on the fire within. He seemed to read that in your expression, his soft eyes darkening somewhat before he sent you a wink that said there’d be time for that again later.

Charlie had looked around to follow Poe’s gaze and she cooed loudly when she saw you, her hands raised towards you. You frowned, “Oh, now you want mama time? Could it be that you’re hungry?” Charlie made grabby hands as Poe laughed and you pulled her from his arms before settling into the chair next to him, easing your robe open enough for her to have access to your chest.

Settling her in for her meals was second nature to you; you knew the way she preferred to lay, how to hold her just right, that she liked to feed quietly in the mornings but at night you were allowed to rub her back and speak soothing words to her. As she began to suckle, you carefully adjusted your breast to make the angle more comfortable, then glanced up remembering that Poe was watching.

The expression on his face was stunning—he was watching you rapturously, as though the sight before him was the most beautiful he’d ever seen. You saw emotion mixed in with the awe and the adoration, and you knew he was feeling grateful he hadn’t missed something as pure as this entirely, that Charlie hadn’t grown too much.

You leaned your head back to rest and smiled at Poe warmly, “She’s on partial foods now, you can feed her yourself a little later, if you want.” You whispered, and his face brightened even more. You felt a bit like those first days after you’d joined him and your brother on D’Qar, the giddy joy of reuniting making the smiles stretch for days.

“I’d love that,” He shuffled his chair closer, resting one hand behind where you were holding Charlie, the other raising to brush over your cheek. “Does it...hurt?”

You shook your head and his look of concern relaxed, “Not really, she’s good about not biting,” Poe cringed at the thought and you giggled, “She’s a good baby. Now, you said you wanted us to meet your friends?”

He nodded, his expression softening sadly, “They’re the reason I was able to make it home to you...I have so much to tell you, but I want you to meet them first.” Poe’s eyes dropped down to watch Charlie again and you let him have a moment, recognizing he had suffered a great deal over the year and a half apart.

You let your eyes wander over his bare torso and noticed now, in the morning light, that he had some new scars, some angrier than the others. The idea of him having been hurt made your stomach sink, and you couldn’t help but lean toward him, capturing his lips against yours when he glanced up. He moaned softly at the tender kiss, petting your hair, and you let yourself sink into the moment, pulling back only when Charlie stirred.

“Where did you leave them?”

Poe gestured toward the main village, “Just outside the village, on our ship. I could go and get them—“

You shook your head, “I think a walk will do us all good. Let’s get dressed, eh Charlie?” You made a face at the baby, who was sleepily peering up at you, happy with her tummy now full, and she smiled at your expression.

Poe insisted on changing Charlie’s diaper and dressing her, so you merely stood by and watched, handing him her daytime outfit and trying not to laugh too hard as he struggled. You could see the joy in his eyes as he attempted to get her arms through the sleeves, his big hands so incredibly gentle as he worked. It took about twice as long as normal, but eventually, Charlie was ready to go and you took her from Poe, strapping her to your chest with a sarong, watching him as he dressed.

You wanted to ask about the new scars. But you were afraid when you did, it would open up the vault he was currently guarding and all of the terrible stories would come tumbling out. Enjoying this peaceful reunion for a little longer wouldn’t hurt anyone, so you resisted the urge and instead popped your head into Kes’s room to let him know where you were going.

“It was hard, not knowing anything,” You admitted quietly as you walked along with Poe, Charlie gazing around happily. The arm draped over your shoulders tightened somewhat at your words. “Leia sure picked a good place for us, though. It’s been quiet, safe.”

You glanced at him, the tension in his jaw confirming something you’d suspected since he’d arrived-after he’d mentioned it was thanks to one of his new friends that he’d been able to find you. Leia was gone, but he didn’t know how to tell you—just as much as you were avoiding asking him for details, he was reluctant to give them.

“Yeah, she knew what she was doing,” He replied softly before his eyes lit up. You followed his gaze and saw a large ship, its ramp lowered, come into view just as a familiar orange and white blur was speeding in your direction.

“Buddy!” You yelled, hurrying forward and dropping to one knee to greet BB8, one arm securing Charlie closer to ensure she didn’t get too jostled from your movements. The droid beeped and whirred excitedly and the baby began to giggle, craning her head to look at BB8. “Charlie, this is BB8, wave hi—“ You laughed as Charlie roughly flopped her chubby arm in the direction of the droid.

You could feel Poe’s hand resting lightly on the crown of your hand, and you looked up at him to speak but before you could, another voice chimed in. “Poe, man, you found them!” A handsome man with enviably smooth skin and a friendly grin was walking towards you with a pretty woman who had sad eyes next to him.

Poe helped you to stand back up, his arm securing around you as he led you forward to meet his friends. “Finn—Rey, meet my better half, (y/n), and my kid, Charlie.”

You saw the pair shoot wide-eyed looks at Poe when he said Charlie’s name, and you realized he must have told them about you, about your brother. The thought warmed your heart even further. You reached out and grasped each of their hands in turn, grinning, “It is really lovely to meet you, thank you for getting Poe back to me and Charlie safely.”

Finn smiled warmly, “Hey, he saved our asses as much as we saved his,” Poe shoved his arm playfully, laughing. Rey was quiet, you noticed, gazing at the baby thoughtfully. You wondered who she had lost.

“Do you want to hold her?” You asked, and Rey met your eyes in surprise, though after a brief pause she smiled nervously and nodded. Her smile lit up her whole face, and you were glad you thought to offer the baby as a way to pull it from her—babies had a way of making the sad a little less daunting.

You lifted Charlie out of the sarong, “Say hi to Auntie Rey, Charlie!” Charlie began to babble incoherently in that cheerful baby talk as she settled against Rey’s hip. She watched her, smiling to herself, before glancing between you and Poe.

“She’s beautiful,” Rey’s hand caught one of Charlie’s, squeezing gently, “Takes after her mama, clearly.” She tacked on, throwing Poe a look that made you laugh out loud.

Finn, you noticed, was watching Rey hold the baby with a quiet expression of adoration that made you smile inwardly. He caught you staring and grinned cheekily. As he began to chide Poe teasingly, a sudden memory came to mind, of the last time you had spoken to your father.

“Just remember, family always comes first—but we can make our own family, sweetie,” Dad squeezed your hand, “Family is what we make it, big or small, blood-related or not. So you make sure to surround yourself with good people, people you love and trust, and you’ll always have a family.”

And as you stood there, gazing at your new friends, the people who had ensured your Poe had come back to you, you realized that you were only adding to your family today. You felt like the luckiest woman in the entire galaxy, your heart was bursting with joy and hope for everything still to come.

Poe pressed a kiss to your temple, and you shot him a smile, knowing he felt it too.

Here, you thought, was where the next chapter of your life began. And you couldn’t be more excited.

A/N—THANK YOU for reading this story, for enjoying this journey with me and loving my characters so much. I’m hopeful you loved this final chapter and can’t wait to hear your thoughts. And of course, we still have the epilogue coming!🤍

Taglist

@mermaidxatxheart @foxilayde @eleinemk @paintballkid711 @mylifeisactuallyamess @20th-centu-fairy-girl @deitysnips @cannedsoupsucks @ubri812 @poedameronloverx @hoeforthefictional @astrological-bitch @itsnottilly @itsdameron @alex-sulli @generousrunawaydonut @wildmoonflower @onlyferorder66 @afootnoteinyourhappiness @asaucecoveredsomething @ladydmalfoy

[mediocre--writing]

hiiiiiii :D

i’m going to give you both a harringrove and a kegboys thing

harringrove: the mindflayer didn’t kill billy and billy spent months recovering. when he was let out he didn’t speak to people. but steve was the only one capable of holding onto the patience enough for billy to eventually start talking to him. billy gets a job at a slow business convenient store/gas station. and steve meets him to have lunch together outside in the back every day.

kegboys: steve had a pine tree at the front of his house with a yellow ribbon for barb. and one year billy cuts it down without knowing about its significance. steve eventually finds out what happened and tommy had to take him to the other room before telling billy what he’d done. they spend the day making steve feel better by getting a brand new tree and retying a ribbon even bigger than before.

oooooh these are both so good.

Harringrove: I think that, especially after Steve's whole fiasco with the Russians, he doesn't mind the quietness that comes with Billy. Doesn't mind waiting for him to speak because Steve himself does't really know what he would even say.

Steve's parents, after his 18th birthday, pretty much never came home. They had like seven other houses elsewhere and Steve was his own functioning adult, so they, frankly, didn't give two shits. So Billy stays with him. Plus, Steve's got no job after the mall burned down and his parents are still paying for the house and everything, it's not like it's much of an issue.

They bond in a silent way. Billy can't talk. Like physically, for the first three-ish months, can't get his voice to come out in any understandable fashion, as having a tentacle forced down his throat pretty much ripped at every bit of skin there.

But they communicate. Steve is used to his lonely life in a mansion and just appreciates another body being there that makes it not so lonely.

They function around each other. Whoever gets up first makes the coffee, whoever goes to sleep last turns the main lights off. Whoever opens the clean dishwasher has to empty it and whoever tracks the most snowy footprints in has to mop next.

The first time Billy really talks to Steve is after a nightmare. But not from Billy (he's become really good at controlling how loud his whimpers and crying can get, even asleep [fuk u neil🖕]). Steve is pretty much screaming bloody murder in his sleep and Billy can barely get up the tall staircase as it is, but mixed with sleep and his rush, he slips a few times trying to get to Steve, thinking something is really wrong.

By the time he bursts into Steve’s room, Steve is sitting straight up in bed staring at the blurry light while trying to catch his breath. Billy cautiously walks up to him, flips on a lamp light so there wouldn’t be any in-the-dark scares for Steve, and sits across from him on the edge of the bed. 

Steve ultimately just collapses into Billy’s chest and sobs and sobs and sobs until he’s got it all out and the only thing that can be heard are Steve’s unsteady breaths and Billy’s reassurances. It’s the softest Steve thinks he’s ever heard Billy speak to anyone. 

Steve starts sleeping in the guest room downstairs with Billy after another incident when he starts screaming occurs because it wears Billy down a lot to battle the stairs (his muscles are worn thin and he has very little strength these days). Steve stirs in his sleep but hasn’t panicked like that since he started cuddling with Billy. 

Joyce eventually pulls some strings and gets Billy a job at Melvald's (small town business start picking up after Starcourt burning down) where he can just sit in a chair at the front and check people out. Occasionally she’ll have him stock small things like keychains or the snacks at checkout. 

Steve visits most days during Billy’s break time. Brings take out from Benny’s or leftovers that Mrs. Henderson insisted on dropping off every other week because the boys “needed good, homemade food that they wouldn’t make for themselves.” 

Billy has never felt more taken care of in his life and enjoys the gentle breeze when he and Steve chat behind Melvald’s and eat, sharing what’s happened during the few hours they’d spent apart or discussing what their weekend plans would be. Maybe what they were hungry for for dinner that night. 

One day, when they’re eating a tuna casserole straight out of the Tupperware Mrs. Henderson had put it in, a stray cat comes and kneads gently at Billy’s thigh, over his jeans, and he puts a bit of the casserole on a napkin for the small kitty. 

It becomes a routine and eventually he brings out a can of cat food from the store to feed the cat when he takes his breaks. They call her Melly (after Melvald’s, of course) and eventually she finds a way to sneak into the Camaro and becomes a full-fledged, sassy, rude house cat that has to sleep in the bed with the boys every night or she will scream her little cat scream and scratch at the door until they let her in. 

Kegboys: (ok I tweaked this just a tad bc I couldn’t find a reason for billy to just chop down a random tree) Steve planted the tree after she’d passed away. He didn’t know how to feel about it. He felt awful, of course. He goaded her into drinking with them just because he wanted Nancy and look where that got him. He basically killed a girl and he lost his girlfriend.

He plants this tree, it’s thin and just taller than he is, but every year, after winter ends and plants bloom again, he ties a beautiful yellow bow around the thickest branch near the trunk. He looks at it every morning through the window, the small pine tree at the end of the driveway. 

Only Tommy was there that night, the night a few weeks after it had all “ended” (the first time) and Steve breaks down. Sobs like he never has before, talking in fragmented sentences about how he’s to blame, he killed Barb out of teenage ignorance and because he wanted to have sex with Nancy Wheeler. What a fuckin’ waste. 

Tommy is actually the one who suggests they plant the tree in the first place, a life now gone for a life yet to live. Steve takes care of that tree like if it died, he would too. 

Steve ties a ribbon on it the first year. Tommy adds a second the next year. 

Nobody else really cares. It’s a tree, not a giant portrait of the girl, for crying out loud. Nobody says anything about the bow that gets put on the tree because nobody would put together that the tree represented Barb, it’s just a tree to everyone else. 

Billy wasn’t around for the beginning. He knew that a girl close to Nancy and Steve had died, sure, but he hadn’t known that it was in Steve’s pool and he never knew about the pine tree that grew at the top of the driveway. 

There was a storm, a big one right at the tail end of summer, one that ripped up plants and trees and shingles off of houses, flooded the ditches and low points in the town. 

Billy takes it upon himself to try and fix the Harrington’s trashed yard once the storms let up. He rakes away all the pine straw that had descended and piles up all the large branches and debris. There’s a tree, the pine tree that usually stands tall at the end of the driveway, that was severed at the base, only a mere three or four feet still protruding from the ground, the rest split and resting, half connected, on the ground. 

Billy breaks off the part that was already off, puts it in the pile with the rest of the debris. 

The stump stays at the end of the driveway and Billy goes inside, walks up to Steve and Tommy in the living room after washing his hands and grabbing some water. Tells them that he straightened up the yard. 

“And that tree at the end was broken, so I picked off the part left hanging and put it on the fire pile. I figure we can find something else to plant in it later this week or--”

He’s cut off by Steve jumping off the couch and running out of the front door. He stands a few feet away from the stump left over and falls, bare knees hitting the still damp and muddy ground as he shows no other reaction. 

Tommy’s right behind him, holds his shoulders from behind as he stares at the tree. Billy, from behind Tommy, doesn’t ask a question but stares confusedly at the boys who seem distraught by the disappearance of a seemingly meaningless tree. 

Gentle coaxing, “C’mon, Steve. It’s alright, it’ll grow back and we can buy more ribbon, I promise, but you have to come inside, you’re all muddy,” from Tommy convinced Steve to come inside. 

With no care for how his mother would react to her perfectly white rug being ruined by the dirt, Steve trudges through and eventually lays on the couch, cradling a pillow to his chest while Tommy promises to make him something warm to drink. 

He beckons Billy into the kitchen with him as he puts the kettle on the burner, enough water for all three of them to have tea, and turns to Billy. 

“Why’s he so upset about a tree?” Billy didn’t mean for it to sound harsh or inconsiderate, he was just curious why Steve seemed so distraught over a pine tree that was nowhere near as tall as the ones that were around the house. 

“Ok, so, you know Barb, the girl that died here?”

“She died here!?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Well nobody talks about it, how was I supposed to know?” 

“You should--Nevermind, anyway, she died here because of the whole other-world-monster-guy and Steve blamed himself for it, for, like, ever,” Tommy rested his elbows on the counter, “So, when he finally told me about it, we wanted to do something for her, like a memorial thing, anyway, we decided on a tree and he always ties the yellow ribbon around it and he takes care of it like it’s a child, but it’s gone so--”

“--He feels like he let her die again. Like it was his fault,” Billy concludes. 

“Yeah,” Tommy assures before turning to the cupboards and pulling down three mugs, pouring the hot water in before placing tea bags in each. 

“I mean, is there anything we can do? I feel awful, but the tree was already snapped, I couldn’t have like mended it or anything. I swear it wasn’t intentional,”

“You wouldn’t have known, it’s not your fault. I think Steve just feel a little out of his own mind at the moment, like he lost the hold he had on her. I really don’t know,”

Billy and Tommy stayed on the couch with Steve that day, they just rested and drank tea, listen to soft music on the radio, and took care of the droopy brunet. 

They didn’t replace the tree. They let the old one stay and made sure to take excellent care of it. They’d tie three ribbons on the tree every year, made sure they were tied tightly, the tree growing faster and more prosperous than before, and Steve was better. 

He realized that sometimes you have to get cut down before you can really unveil your true potential, that a little extra love can do wonders. 

[peggyrose19]

What We’ve Taken

the vibe for this fic, if anyone was wondering

If you read my previous fic (that i posted at 1am because i’m a mess), you will notice the middle of this is eerily identical. That’s because it is! I basically took that idea and added onto both the beginning and ending. Don’t worry if you didn’t read that, it’s all in here!

characters belong to @lumosinlove, and title credit goes to @wonder-womans-ex (thank you darling)

Saint had thought nothing could truly make Luke mad.

It was easy to irritate him, sure. Steal something, tease him or call him ‘Tweedle’, those things annoyed him. But he would snark back and they’d move on with their lives. And his dad, but that didn’t make him mad. That made him sad. It made him frustrated, lonely. Hurt. He only pretended to be mad to mask that pain. That Saint had learned early on in their… whatever their ‘thing’ was. 

But making Luke mad… Saint had never truly seen him mad. Until that night.

He’d taken the necklace as a joke. Because it was valuable, because it was gold and Saint looked good in gold. (Even Luke had admitted it one night, as they lay drunk on the beach staring up at the stars. They didn’t talk about that night though.) But mostly Saint had taken it because he could. Because it had sat there on Luke’s desk, unattended and alone. 

That night Saint entered Luke’s room, through the window as always, and was met with a punch to the face. He had not been expecting that.

“What the fuck,” he finally managed and stared at Luke, glaring furiously back at him. His jaw ached.

“Where is it,” Luke demanded. He didn’t need to say what ‘it’ was, Saint already knew. But Saint being the cocky arrogant bastard he liked to pretend to be asked anyway. 

“I’m sure I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he said as sweetly as he could manage.

The necklace was simple, a thin gold chain, a small metal compass. It wasn’t a true compass, but rather a charm, always pointing north. It meant nothing to Saint, other than it was Luke’s and it was gold. Yet it still seemed to pull him in, had seemed to beckon to him before he’d ever touched it. 

Saint didn’t know what he was expecting from Luke, but he suddenly found himself being pushed backwards until his back hit the wall, and that certainly had not been it. 

With Luke’s hands on his wrists, pinning him to the wall, Saint wasn’t entirely sure what to think. Hazel eyes stared at him, blazing with fury. Something else lay behind the anger though, something Saint couldn’t quite identify. He smirked.

“Well Tweedle, if I’d have known that was all it took to get a rise out of you, I would have stolen it ages ago,” he drawled, fighting the shaking in his voice. He prayed Luke didn’t notice. Goddammit, why did he find this so attractive?

“Don’t you ever touch that again,” Luke snarled in his face, leaning even closer. Saint could feel Luke’s warm breath on his face. He was surprised to find he liked it.

Luke was truly angry, he realized in that moment. He’d noticed before, had certainly noticed when he was pushed against the wall and held there. But Luke’s voice broke at the end and that small crack in his walls sent Saint’s own tumbling down.

“Okay,” he replied simply, and Luke blinked.

“What?”

“Okay,” Saint repeated, smiling faintly. “I won’t touch it.”

“You- you won’t?”

Saint fought another smirk. Oh, it was fun to rile him up.

“Nope. But-” 

Luke groaned. “I should’ve known.”

“Aw don’t be such a downer Tweedle! You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I can guess.”

Saint leaned closer to Luke, their noses nearly touching. He stared into Luke’s face, noting the catch in his breath and the widening of his pupils. Interesting.

“Bet you can’t,” he murmured.

Luke swallowed hard. “You going to tell me then? Or just leave me in suspense.”

“Hmm. I won’t touch it, on one condition.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that.”

For a long moment, Saint could do no more than stare at Luke, watching the warring emotions pass over his face. He knew what he wanted, knew it suddenly and with such clarity, had known for a while and had pushed it down, refusing to acknowledge it. Refusing to give into the tug in his gut. He couldn’t hold out forever.

Saint had never been one to hold back. He’d always taken what he wanted and he usually got away with it. People didn’t see what they didn’t want to, was a lesson he’d learned long ago. And people never saw him, an orphaned runaway, a nobody. His parents never bothered to give a shit about him, why should anyone else? He’d gotten good at hiding the pain, the want, the emotions. Luke had always seemed to be the one person to see through that, even more so than Sirius. And Saint wanted.

“I won’t touch it. So long as you keep touching me,” Saint replied finally, barely above a whisper.

Luke stared at him. Saint fought the urge to look away or close his eyes, crack some stupid joke to ease the tension. He knew it would do no good.

But before the silence could become unbearable, before Saint cracked and said something stupid, Luke did something Saint never expected him to do. He kissed him.

Luke’s lips were chapped, Saint thought deliriously. It was the only thought seeming to pierce his consciousness, along with the realization that Luke’s hair was soft, comforting under his fingers. Saint didn’t know how they’d gotten there but he wasn’t complaining. He just kissed Luke harder, tasting salt on his lips, and the whiskey they’d stolen earlier from the kitchen.

With a gasp, Luke pulled Saint closer, releasing his grip on his wrists. Saint wrapped his free hand around his waist, holding him tight. Luke’s body was familiar to him, as familiar as the back of his hand, but there was an unknown to him, a part yet to be discovered. Saint craved it the way a sailor craved the sea.

“Saint,” Luke breathed into his mouth, not pulling away but pausing his movement.

“Yes Tweedle?” he asked breathlessly, refusing to move even an inch. But Luke pulled away, just enough to look into Saint’s eyes. And Saint, ever helpless to resist Luke Deveaux for long, let him.

But Luke didn’t say anything like Saint expected him to. He just looked at him, studying his face. One hand cradled Saint’s cheek, calloused hands rough against smooth skin. Saint just leaned into him.

When Luke leaned in again, Saint let himself be pushed back against the wall. He let Luke part his lips and lick into his mouth, kissing him sweetly. With a soft care that Saint had never known, didn’t know he craved until that very moment. He let Luke do what he wanted, gave into him wholeheartedly. 

“Hey, Luke,” he whispered some time later, when they had exhausted of kissing, instead lying side by side on Luke’s bed, smoking cigarettes and staring at the ceiling. If Luke noticed Saint had used his real name for once, he didn’t say it. 

“Yeah?” came the reply a moment later, Luke’s voice now heavy with exhaustion.

“Thank you.”

~

Saint didn’t ask about the necklace until days later.

In the days since, he had taken to hanging out in Luke’s room more often, lounging on his bed and borrowing his books, kissing him in the summer heat. Luke would join him sometimes, sweaty from work or hair still wet from the ocean. Saint liked those days best, when he tasted like salt and the outdoors. He liked being there, liked the safety Luke brought.

Saint had given the necklace back that night, slipping the delicate chain from his pocket and fastening it around Luke’s neck with a gentleness that surprised even himself. Luke had kissed him softly in thanks and pulled him onto the bed

They were in a similar position when Saint finally asked the question. He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth.

Luke was quiet for a long time, expression guarded. But he didn’t pull away, instead stayed encircled in Saint’s arms, and that eased the nerves from his heart.

“It was a gift,” he whispered finally. “From my father.”

Understanding dawned on Saint. Of course. His father. The only thing that ever managed to rile Luke up, push him to anger. Pain. 

“It reminds me of him. When he gave it to me, he promised it would always point me towards home. It seems kinda silly now. I mean, it’s not even a working compass. But it reminds me of being a kid, when he was actually my father. Not just a stranger in a prison cell.” 

“That’s why you freaked,” Saint said after a pause. It wasn’t a question, but Luke nodded all the same. “I’m sorry.”

At that Luke looked shocked. Saint frowned.

“What?”

Luke laughed. “You’re sorry? You, Saint, the bastard of Gryffindor, who wouldn’t know manners if they smacked him in the face, are sorry? Are you feeling okay?”

Saint had to laugh at that, although it didn’t stop him from pushing Luke nearly off the bed. He caught him before he could fall completely and rolled them back to the middle of the bed. 

“Yes, you fucker, I’m sorry.” Saint’s voice fell serious again. “I’m sorry. If I had known how much it means to you I wouldn’t have taken it.”

Luke smiled faintly. “Yes you would have. You’ve done it before.”

But Saint shook his head. “No. Not to you.” He meant it, meant it more than he realized until the words had left his mouth. It scared him, just how much he wanted it to be true, how far he found himself willing to go for Luke. 

With a soft exhale, Luke stared up at him. “You amaze me sometimes,” he murmured. Gentle hands found their way into Saint’s hair, and he relished in the comfort it brought. 

“Likewise, Tweedle.” Luke shook his head but he was smiling. The nickname was growing. 

“Hey, Luke?” 

“This feels familiar.”

Saint rolled his eyes. “Just shut up and kiss me, you asshole.”

“I mean, if you insist.” 

Saint leaned down and their lips connected, effectively shutting the both of them up. With a soft sigh, Saint let most of his weight fall onto Luke, pushing them both into the mattress. Their bodies seemed to mold together as they kissed, quiet gasps escaping with each push and pull. It was them, in every sense of the word, and Saint wanted to get lost in it forever. But one thing poked at the back of his mind.

“For what it’s worth,” Saint murmured without pulling away. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

[mar-s-bar-s]

the hermit - a diluc ragnvindr story

(this one-shot is part of a series i am writing)

!explanation below may contain genshin spoilers regarding diluc!

The hermit is a card that represents soul searching. It is the journey one takes to introspect. To think. Meditate. Being alone is an aspect of this card. So it is no surprise I have elected Diluc to represent this card. After losing both family members, even if one of them didn’t die, he left his vision and began his journey. To think. Grieve. Alone. Eventually, he returned, wiser; iron-hard practicality seeping through his bones.

Like the previous story, I believe the reversal of the card applies to Diluc Ragnvindr. He isolated himself in his grief, no one hearing of him for what, three years? Loneliness is also part of this card’s reversal. And it is a very lonely path Diluc treads, a double edged sword he walks on, barely having time to truly feel human. As Mondstadt’s vigilante, he has many enemies waiting for him, and as the Dawn Winery owner and a bartender, he leads a life constantly serving others. It’s a life that truly must be stressful, and here’s where the third aspect of the Hermit, withdrawal, comes in. Diluc has, clearly, withdrawn from the life of an average human, shouldering a heavy burden as he masquerades in public as the handsome bachelor of Mondstadt.

gn!traveler!reader (reader is not aether/lumine, just a traveller from another world) also ur strong because strong reader supremacy + u have a close combat weapon 

warnings: violence, diluc being hurt, there’s a curse word in there but not directed at anyone, very slightly suggestive, also this isn’t proofread properly

series m.list

Diluc’s claymore is heavy in his hands. Tonight’s patrol has been particularly gruelling, enemies present at every turn. Exhaustion seeps through his being, movements less graceful than usual. He swears he can hear the ugly cackle of an abyss mage, yet as he checks the glade he is in, there is nothing there. Surely he’s hearing things? Slowly he creeps towards the centre, his red eyes constantly darting around, his claymore poised and ready to protect Mondstadt. 

It’s eerie, the sudden silence engulfing the small woods in Wolvendom. Too silent. Diluc swears out loud as he realises this was a trap. He hears that godforsaken cackle again as he is suddenly surrounded by abyss mages and hilichurls. The claymore is weighing on him, but he grits his teeth and waits for the mages to materialise in front of him, before instantly lighting his claymore on fire and melting down the first cryo mage’s shield and vaporising the hydro’s. 

The hilichurls are starting to shoot at him and throw slimes, and he is dodging them with difficulty, fatigue slowing him down with every twist he takes through the air. He takes down a hilichurl throwing slimes, then another, but there are so many. He focuses on the mages again, slaying the cryo mage, and trying to kill the hydro one. But there are two pyro mages that constantly shoot flames at him, and he can’t fight fire with fire in this case. He’s struggling to stay up as he kills the hydro abyss mage, finally. 

His muscles scream at him as he parries the hilichurl attacks, when he suddenly hears footsteps coming towards him. As you come into the glade, you take out your weapon, suddenly glad you forgot to do your commissions until now. You immediately focus on Diluc, eyes narrowing as you see how tired and bruised he looks. You quickly slice through two hilichurls whilst guarding Diluc’s back, whirling around and breaking through the pyro shields of the two abyss mages with precision, tearing through them like a whirlwind. Your blade is glinting in the moonlight as it cuts into the abyss mages, swift bladework making quick work of them, before turning and slashing through the rest of the hilichurls as if they were wet parchment.

As you sheath your blade in thin air, you give Diluc a once-over, noting his leg is injured. “You alright there?”

Diluc looks at you with weary, grateful eyes. “Thank you for saving me back there. I might have been fatally wounded had you not arrived.”

“As a friend of yours, it wasn’t a problem to help out,” you give Diluc a small smile. “I’ve finished my commissions, so I’ll help you get to the Dawn Winery.”

Diluc shakes his head. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

He tries to prove he can walk by himself, yet the way he’s hobbling along makes you raise a doubtful brow. He’s been stubborn ever since you met him two years ago after landing in Mondstadt, always refusing help from you and shouldering everything by himself. Right now, you’ve had enough, especially when he’s clearly going to make his leg more injured.

“Diluc,” you take out a bandage  and an ice pack from your travel pack, hurrying after him and gesturing to a tree stump for him to sit down on. Diluc tries to protest but gives in after seeing your face painted with an expression of both annoyance and worry. “Where exactly is it injured?”

Diluc wordlessly points at his ankle, and you gesture to his boot, taking it off carefully, then placing the ice pack on his injury and wrapping the bandage around it tightly. You hand him the boot and stretch whilst he looks on in bewilderment, and then utter surprise as you carefully lift him up. 

“What are you doing?” Diluc’s eyes are wide as he’s scooped up by you in your arms, his arms immediately wrapping around your neck to support himself as you start walking towards Dawn Winery, stepping lightly on the dirt path as you walk towards the general east direction of the Dawn Winery.

“Well,” you begin, shooting him a teasing smirk. “You can’t walk and almost got badly injured, so I think I should help a bit.”

Diluc opens his mouth, likely in protest, but you’re more stubborn than him currently, and he closes his mouth when he sees the steely determination in your eyes. 

The rest of the journey is spent in comfortable silence, you struggling not to cry because holy shit Diluc almost died, and Diluc struggling not to turn as red as his hair due to your extremely close proximity. 

When you finally reach the Dawn Winery, you gently place Diluc into a chair inside and into the care of his maids, promising to get Barbara tomorrow as soon as possible. But as you turn to leave, Diluc grabs your arm.

“Stay here tonight,” he looks at you with a gaze you’ve never seen on him before. “It’s dangerous going back out there tonight.”

You find yourself nodding, before you  lean down and pull him into a tight hug. Diluc tenses up slightly before pulling you onto his lap hugging you back even tighter. Adeline takes her leave, going to prepare a room and gesturing for the other maids to follow.

“I was so afraid you were dead,” you whisper to him, a tear on the verge of spilling. “Please don’t leave me.”

Diluc buries his face into your neck, inhaling your comforting scent. “I won’t leave you, don’t worry.” 

The lamps in the manor cast a warm glow upon the two of you. The fire is flickering warmly, and the comfort of the Dawn Winery gives you the boost of courage to pull back slightly and cradle Diluc’s cheek with your hand. As he looks at you with his lips parted in surprise, you lean in gently and kiss him.

His lips are unsurprisingly warm. Gentle. He kisses you back like a small flame, tentative and curious, but sure of himself. He wants to kiss you back, and he does, his kisses slowly kindling into something more passionate, his hands placed firmly on your hips as he melts into your touches. 

And when you pull back, you want to see this dazed, flushed look on Diluc forever. 

[shadyteacup]

Congrats for 300+!!!💕 You deserve even more <3

And OMG why are your angsts always so good😭 The moment I saw the angst prompt 3 “I thought you were dead! You cant just come back to my life after I’ve finally found someone who can make me as happy as you could!”, Dazai and his 2 years of disappearance came into my mind. Maybe Dazai disappeared for 2 years without telling the reader who was madly in love with him (Dazai too) and just when she got over it and found someone else, he came back to find her as he understood how precious she was to him.

I love torturing myself. And I’m begging you to give me that.

Oh God this is some lovely, torturous and harmful angst... You mustn't beg to be tortured, my child, for here I am, providing you with words that cause pain more effectively than the devil himself.😈

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but like, this hurt to write..

Warnings: angst, slight swearing.

Word count: 1457

Dazai Osamu + “I thought you were dead! You can’t just come back to my life after I’ve finally found someone who can make me as happy as you could!”

The Lone Red Rose

It all began with love. Two lost souls had found solace in each other’s arms. She knew he wasn’t the perfect prince she used to dream about. She knew he had flaws. She knew he had shed blood, both his own, and others’. But she loved him, nonetheless. For she could not live without him.

Or so she believed.

What began with love, turned into disaster. He left, not caring to say goodbye. She cried for him.

She knew he wouldn’t leave her like that. So, she had to assume the worst possible case. He was dead. She convinced herself that. She told herself that the only true love of her life had died, and she didn’t even get to say goodbye, hold him in her arms or share one last kiss.

Oh, how wrong she was. Now she knew that he wasn’t dead. He was very much alive. Only now, he’s dead, to her.

“Hi.”

It was that simple. All it took was a small word to ruin her entire life. She had spent multiple years mourning for him. She had to convince herself to move on. It took her way too long to realise that it's okay to move on. And she did. She had finally found someone who made her smile. Someone who loved to make her laugh. Someone who cherished her the way he used to. Someone who cared, loved and pampered. And she had fallen for him. He was her prince, and she was his queen. They were living the fairy-tale life. He had hinted at marriage too. They were truly meant for each other.

But Dazai Osamu had a reputation of being there at the worst possible time. Here he stood, in your doorway, holding a bouquet of purple hyacinths. He looked so different than she remembered him to be. He had finally revealed his other eye. She knew that it was uninjured, they were lovers once upon a time, after all. The fact that he was showing it to the world meant that he no longer killed.

Everything about Dazai Osamu was symbolic. He was a poet at heart. He never missed an opportunity to use symbolism in his daily life.

“It adds depth to one’s life”, he had said to her, all those years ago.

Dazai Osamu was a dramatic poet who could never make the right decisions. He was an excellent conspirator. None of his plans ever really failed. But when it came to matters of the heart, he was as pathetic as a sandpaper towel. All he ever did was scar, never heal.

Purple hyacinths mean “I’m sorry”. She understood why he chose these particular flowers. What she didn’t understand is why there stood, between a sea of hyacinths, a red rose at the centre. Red roses meant love. That died a long time ago.

She let him in anyways, placing the bouquet on the side table, not bothering to place the flowers in a vase.

“Hi? Are you fucking serious?!”

She shouted at him.

He gulped, taking a seat on one of the chairs and fiddling with his fingers.

“I can explain.”

And he did. He explained it all to her. Every single detail of the entire fiasco was explained to her.

“I had to go into hiding. I couldn’t help it.”

“And you couldn’t tell me?”

“Any contact with you would have put you in danger-“

“Bullshit. You could have sent a message through someone. You could have sent me a letter. Anything that would have told me that you were alright. Any fucking sign would have done the trick. You’re the fucking mafioso, come up with some bloody plan! Anything could have worked, you know that, I know that, so don’t even think about bullshitting your way through this.”

He ran a hand through his messy locks.

“The truth is that I didn’t think of it. I thought that you’d be better off believing that I’m dead.”

She was feeling a hurricane of emotions. How could he just assume that?!

“I think it would have been much better if you would have let me make that decision!”

He rubbed his face tiredly.

“My life is back on track now. I have everything that I lost during those 2 years, and more, now. I’m no longer a criminal, but a detective who works against criminals and the mafia. I have everything I could have wished for. Everything but you.”

He leaned forward to grab the bouquet. Pulling out the rose, he got down on one knee and held it up to her.

“Y/N L/N, will you be mine?”

She stood shocked and aghast.

“Are you being serious right now?”, she asked him in a hushed whisper, her eyes hollow and blank. Her eyes held no shine. They looked like hollow, emotionless pits.

“Absolutely. Be mine again. We can be happy together. United after two years of agony.”

She looked at him incredulously and began giggling. She looked maniacal at the moment. Her eyes were wide, her hands flying upwards as she laughed at him, at the situation. But mostly, she laughed at his audacity.

“Do you really think that after everything you put me through, after all those tears that were shed for nothing, I would accept you?”

She glared down at him, giving him cynical look.

“You didn’t even bother to check up on me. You treated me like shit, Dazai. You used me. You wanted a person to hold at night, and you held onto me. But as soon as things got difficult for you, you left. You didn’t even bother to think about me. Did you ever consider the consequences your disappearance would have on me, huh? You worked for the fucking mafia! I always imagined that you’d been killed or kidnapped. For months, I believed that you were kidnapped, and held onto the twisted hope that you’d have survived the torture and that you’d just stroll through the door. Maybe you’d have some extra bandages, but that’s okay. At least you’re alive. But then more months passed. No sign of you. I had to assume.. I had to...”

She couldn’t help the tears that escaped her.

“I had to tell myself that you had died.”

She didn’t realise when her knees gave away, but she soon felt strong arms wrap around her torso to prevent her from falling.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He whispered in her hair, cradling her in his arms.

“We can figure this out, right? With time, you can accept that I’m back. Maybe we can visit that cake shop that you used to like, or maybe we could go back to that hill to see the stars, or- ”

She pushed him harshly. He stumbled back, widening his eyes at the sudden force.

“I thought you were dead! You can’t just come back to my life after I’ve finally found someone who can make me as happy as you could!”

He just gaped at her.

“You... you found someone?”

She hurriedly wiped her tears from her cheeks. Sniffing, she fished through her pockets for her phone. Pulling it out, she opened her gallery. It was filled with pictures of her and her current lover. She shoved the phone in his face.

“He is smart, handsome, caring, loving, sarcastic, humorous, amazing, gentle and everything that I had ever wanted. He is my everything, and I am his world.”

Dazai’s heart shattered at her words. The pictures were rubbing salt in his wound.

“I love him, Dazai. I love him as much as I used to love you. Hell, I love him more. A lot more than I ever loved you.”

He stumbled back, breathing hard. He had always assumed that she would be waiting for him when he came back. He failed to imagine her with another guy. Of course, she found someone. He had treated her like shit. He had completely taken her emotions for granted. He was only 19 when he had left. Only now was he beginning to understand what it meant to be wise. Back then, he was an emotional wreck. What he did was unforgivable. And yet he hoped to win her over. He had hoped to have her back. But now that was impossible. He had lost her now.

No. He had already lost her two years ago.

Now, all that he could do, was accept defeat and walk away before he hurt her more.

“Forgive me. Goodbye.”

With that, Dazai Osamu disappeared from her life for a second time.

Ahhh... idk abt yall but this physically hurt me... :")