#the difference between five’s name jokes and echos’s I that fives doesn’t understand the jokes-while echo makes them

[cloneshipping7567]

Romantic Confessions Part 6

Part 6/30

5. "Are you really so oblivious?"

Pairing: Fox x Cody (as requested by anon)

Rating/WC: T/ 4006

Warnings: this one is a bit different to the other fics I’ve made so far, this one is more like a few drabbles put together. I hope you like it!

~~~

Cody doesn’t look up as Fox sits next to him, he simply scoots over so his friend has more room.

Cody understands where the rumors that Fox is cold and distant comes from, but it always amuses him how very wrong they are.

Sure, he isn’t throwing his arms over other troopers, isn’t the first to laugh or joke. But he’s never cold, never pushes people away.

Fox is quiet. He observes, takes in everything around him. He’d always rather listen to his brothers joke and talk than join in himself.

That isn’t because he doesn’t like his brothers, though. That’s just how he shows his affection.

Everyone in the commander class understands; Fox has always been like this. That’s even how Fox and Wolffe got their names in the first place; Fox is the type to curl up and sneakily observe, while Wolffe is always howling with laughter and barking out another story.

Cody knows this. He knows Fox. He knows Fox better than anyone else, if he does say so himself.

So Cody doesn’t look up when Fox sits next to him, nursing what is, more than likely, his third or fourth cup of caf of the morning. He doesn’t greet him or try to get him into a conversation. It isn’t necessary, Fox doesn’t need all of that to feel welcome.

Cody sighs and submits the report, checking the time on his datapad. 0800, Coruscant time. He still has half an hour before he really needs to get started with his day.

“Aren’t you on leave?” Fox asks softly, after taking a slow gulp of caf.

Cody smirks and turns to face Fox, letting his datapad rest in his lap. “The 212th is on leave, yes,” he says.

Fox gives him an unimpressed look, and anyone who isn’t Cody would probably take it as a sign Fox was disinterested or even upset. But Cody knows; Fox is amused by Cody’s work ethic. “Did you at least get to sleep more than usual?”

Cody doesn’t need to answer; he just smiles wider, his scar pulling at the eye.

Fox sighs, handing Cody his precious cup of caf.

Cody gasps, eyes going wide as he takes the mug. “Oh, Fox, I had no idea you felt this way about me,” he teases, scarfing down a few swallows before the addict can change his mind and grab it back.

Fox makes a noise halfway between a hiss and a scoff, but his lips twitch in an aborted smile. “Love of my life,” he snarks back.

Cody’s heart swells, but he looks down at the cup before he gives too much away. “I-“

A sleepy Rex drags himself into the room, grunting a quiet hello as he makes a beeline for the caf machine.

Fox pulls away-when had he gotten so close?- and scoots down the couch. He doesn’t say hello.

“Rough night?” Cody asks in his own greeting, drinking the last of the caf and setting the empty mug down.

“The twins won’t leave me alone,” Rex grumbles, punching the on button a little more forcibly than necessary. “We painted our armor sir, look sir, we can refresh your paint for your sir, we can can help with the flimsiwork, come watch us spar sir-when is it your weekend?”

Cody snickers, and Fox is even looking at Rex, indicating he finds the story just as funny. “Oh no, you got full custody, remember? I get visitation rights.”

Rex grunts again, shifting his weight impatiently as the coffee starts to brew. “Deadbeat dad,” he mumbles under his breath.

Cody chuckles, throwing an arm over the back of the couch and therefore over Fox’s shoulders. Fox indicates he enjoys the closeness by not moving. “Echo and Fives are not that bad. I think they’re great.”

“Yeah, because you only work with them on missions,” Rex snarks. He hits the side of the machine in annoyance. “They’re great on missions. Best couple of shinies I’ve ever- why the hell wasn’t the pot already started?” Rex turns his prideful smile back into a scowl when he notices Cody smirking at him. 

Fox’s lips twitch, Cody notices. He might actually smile. “They’re still babies, they’ll grow out of it,” Cody soothes. He sneakily pushes Fox’s coffee mug further out of sight.

Rex shoots him a glare, and Cody’s smile only widens. “I’m never going to sleep again,” he grumbles dramatically.

“I heard it’s best to sleep when the baby sleeps,” Cody suggests, and laughs as a sugar packet hits him in the forehead.

“They never karking sleep,” Rex complains, finally able to pour himself a mug. “They’re too amped up to prove themselves.”

Cody’s smirk fades into a soft smile. “They want you to be proud of them,” Cody says softly. He sneakily shifts his arm so it’s fully over Fox’s shoulder and not the couch. “Take it as a compliment.”

Rex makes a disgusted sound, but his lips are finally twisted up into a smile. “I’m sending them to boarding school, first chance I get.”

Cody’s eyes widen. “ARC training? Really? You think they can handle that?”

Fox has wiggled his way out from under Cody’s arm, stealing his mug back and pouring himself a cup. Cody fights back a sad sigh.

Rex doesn’t respond, a proud grin tugging at his lips as he leaves.

Fox turns to Cody, mug in hand and hips leaning against the counter. “When did you and Rex get divorced?” He asks drily; but Cody hears the humor behind it.

Cody rolls his eyes. “Rishi. We adopted the twins, had a massive argument about how to raise them, and the rest was history.” He stands up himself, stretching his arms above his head and groaning as his aching muscles protest.

Fox stares at him over the lip of the mug for a moment, before clearing his throat to answer. “And by massive argument, you mean-“

“He called dibs,” Cody says, rolling his neck and grinning. “He’s always had more patience for shinies, you know that.”

Fox hums, hiding his face in his caf.

~

When they were cadets, Cody and Fox were the best fighters. Out of all the CC’s, no one could best either one of them in combat.

Wolffe got close a few times, but the only CC able to beat Cody or Fox, was Fox and Cody.

But they aren’t cadets anymore, and clankers don’t follow sparring rules.

To be fair to Cody, he’s kicked countless droids into broken messes. It’s almost his signature move. (It impresses the hell out of the shinies, okay? So he likes to show off, so what?).

He just wasn’t expecting the droid to move when it did, and he didn’t expect the extended arm to slam into his ribs that hard.

“Honestly, sir,” Stitches grumbles, tightening the bandage around Cody’s ribs far more than is strictly necessary. “How many times do I have to tell you not to kick the kriffing droids?”

Cody winces, shooting his medic a pained grin. “Technically, I didn’t actually kick the droid. It got me first.”

Stitches pats the bandages closed with just a tad too much force, making Cody wince again. “Idiot,” he hisses under his breath, before taking a step back. “Take it easy for the next week, use ice if the pain gets unbearable. Nothing more to do for broken ribs.”

Cody nods once, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. “No pain stims?”

Stitches gives Cody an unimpressed look. “Do you promise not to kick any more droids?”

Cody sighs in defeat, and then winces as his ribs hurt. “Probably better to save them for my shinies anyway,” Cody grumbles as he makes his way out of the medbay.

“Sir,” he’s greeted as soon as he’s stepped out the doors. Cody fights back another sigh; duty never stops. “Glad to see you’re okay.”

Cody nods once; he hates being out of armor. He’s just in his lower blacks, having had to remove the top for Stitches to look at. His hands twitch for his bucket, which is with the rest of his kit in his room. “Of course, Waxer. It would take more than a rogue punch to take me out.”

Waxer grins, his own bucket under one arm. He holds out a datapad. “Not according to the casualty reports, sir. Some idiot marked you down before verifying if you were actually dead.”

Cody groans in annoyance, grabbing the datapad and looking it over. “Dammit,” he mumbles, one hand running through his hair. “Who has seen this?”

“It’s already been sent to the top, sir, Coruscant has seen it by now.” Waxer shoots a guilty look at Cody; he probably feels responsible, but the casualty report wouldn’t have fallen to a lieutenant. It would have probably fallen on Rex’s shoulders to double check, or some other captain working the mission.

Cody groans, punching the bridge of his nose. “That’s great,” he grumbles. “Do you have any clue how hard it is to come back from the dead?”

Waxer chokes on a laugh, clearing his throat as he tries to remain professional. “I imagine it would be quite difficult, sir.”

Cody rolls his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face. “You know what? I’ll be dead for a few hours. Maybe I’ll finally get a break.”

Waxer smirks, taking the datapad from Cody. “I’ll inform the general of your untimely demise,” Waxer says, saluting once.

“Great idea Lieutenant, I knew I promoted you for a reason.”

“While you’re dead,” Waxer says, still looking straight ahead. “Might I delegate some of your responsibilities for you? Maybe the general can handle botched reports, for example…”

Cody’s eyes light up, and he pats a hand on Waxer’s shoulder. “Brilliant idea Waxer. Feel free to inform General Kenobi of any flimsiwork I might not get to while I’m still dead. Maybe he’ll shed a tear over his lost commander.”

Waxer snorts once, before stopping in front of Cody’s quarters. “Of course, sir,” he says, giving a quick salute.

Cody opens his door and locks it behind him, sighing heavily. He makes his way to his desk, grabbing his comm before gently lowering himself on his bunk. The pain is intense, sure, but he’s had worse.

A few messages from the general asking about his location, with a follow up of ‘let me know when you’re out of the medbay.’ Well, considering Cody is dead for the next few hours, he chooses to ignore that.

A couple from Rex. One indicating that he’s back on his own ship. Then, ‘lol congrats on being dead enjoy your nap.’

He sends Rex an ‘I will’ and checks the rest of his comms. Mostly a bunch of updates and requests for his advice or presence. All of which will be ignored until after he’s been revived.

He’s about to put his comm down when a new message pings through. He debates ignoring it anyway, but sighs and checks.

It’s from Fox. Shit. He might have read the report. Cody opens it quickly. ‘You better not actually be dead ’ is all it reads.

Cody smiles fondly. It may have read as cold if anyone else had sent the message; but he knows Fox, and he knows how scared he must be to have sent the comm in the first place.

Cody wastes no time, starting a holocall immediately.

Fox picks up just as quick, his eyes frantically searching Cody’s face. He visibly lets out a sigh of relief, before morphing his face back into an impassive one. “You look like shit.”

Cody snorts, and then winces as his ribs protest. “Oh, darling, you have such a way with words,” he retorts.

Fox grunts, taking in Cody’s face. “What happened? You’re reported as killed in action.”

Cody hums softly. “Nah, just got backhanded by a droid in the ribs. See?” He reaches his arm out, allowing the comm to take in more of Cody’s body, including his bandaged chest. “Stitches said I broke half of ‘em on my left side. A new record.”

“You never have been good at accepting second place,” Fox snarks, and his breathing is starting to slow again. “Puncture any lungs?”

“No,” Cody says, chuckling despite himself. “Room for improvement, I suppose.”

“Don’t,” Fox says, looking away after his sudden outburst. He clears his throat, looking back to Cody. “Don’t ever do that again. Don’t get hurt bad enough to show up on the KIA reports.”

Cody quirks a brow. “You really thought I was dead,” Cody says more than asks.

Fox narrows his eyes, shifting in his seat. “The reports aren’t usually wrong.”

Cody hums in agreement, staring at Fox’s face. Knowing the other clone was this worried, was upset, even, makes Cody’s stomach flutter. He knows Fox cares about him—they all care about each other to some degree or another. But this just feels different for some reason.

“I won’t do it again,” he promises softly. Any other day he might have teased a bit longer; but he just wants to let Fox know he’s taking the vulnerability seriously right now.

Fox nods once, taking a deep, steadying breath. He doesn’t end the call, but he doesn’t say anything else either.

Cody smirks, melting back into his normal joking mood with Fox. “I will be dead for the next few hours at least, though. Waxer is bullying Kenobi into undoing the report, and I’m not sure he even knows how.”

Fox laughs at that, almost breathless. “Do the Jedi ever file their own flimsiwork? Or do they pawn it all off on the clones?”

Cody grins, shifting to be a bit more comfortable on his bed. “Kenobi usually does his own, but Rex almost always does Skywalker’s. Honestly, I think he just doesn’t trust Skywalker to do them right.”

Fox hums, leaning back in his desk chair. “I would believe that, Rex’s general is crazy. Did you know he willingly spends time with the Supreme Chancellor?”

Cody lifts a brow. “You don’t like him?”

“He gives me the creeps!” Fox complains, a sly grin in place. “Maybe it’s just because he’s a politician. All the senators suck.”

Cody laughs softly, hissing in a pained breath. “I’ve met a couple. I like Amidala.”

Fox hums, pretending to think about it. “Actually, yeah, I like her. I saved her once from a Hutt, she was very capable. Could have mistaken her for a Jedi, the way she fought.”

Cody grins, eyes dropping in exhaustion. “I believe that,” he mumbles.

There’s silence on the other end, as Fox just stares at him. Cody’s eyes fight valiantly to stay open, but the battle is lost before long.

He’s almost asleep when he hears Fox whisper, “Sleep well, Cody.” He might have even imagined it.

~

Cody smiles fondly as he watches his troopers march off the ship in proper formation for exactly long enough to get off the ramp before booking it as fast as they can into the city.

Coruscant is a giant city - a planet-wide city - full of fun to be had and trouble to get into.

The 212th almost never gets to come here, what with shore leave being so rare and Coruscant usually being so far away from where their last battle was.

But Obi Wan was needed in the council, and it just so happened to line up with the scheduled week’s worth of shore leave the 212th earned. So here they are, more than ready to spend a week’s worth of off-duty time in the city.

As it just so happens, Cody also enjoys spending time on this planet whenever they can. And yes, that may have something to do with a certain member of the Coruscant guard.

“That’s all of them,” his general declares, voice just as amused as Cody feels. “How many do you think we’ll have to bail out of the brig?”

Cody smirks under his bucket. “I’ll bet you a week’s worth of flimsiwork it’s at least 20.”

Kenobi scoffs. “Jedi do not gamble,” he says.

“Two weeks that Wooley is one of them.” Wooley is usually a calm, mild-tempered clone, but Cody knows Ghost Company likes to party on leave. He hopes Kenobi doesn’t know this. 

“You’re on,” Kenobi says, walking off the ship without another word.

Cody shakes his head with a laugh, pulling up his comm. He pings Fox first, letting him know he’s planet side and free for a week. When he gets the coordinates to Fox’s apartment in the upper levels in response, he opens a comm to his entire battalion.

You have a week here to get arrested, don’t pull anything tonight or me and the general are leaving you there until the morning. Have fun, men.

With that done, he stretches himself out and starts the walk to Fox’s apartment. He could catch a speeder, but it’s been ages since he’s been allowed to walk at his own pace instead of march. And he’s been cooped up in that ship for the past two days as they made their way through hyperspace.

Cody loves Coruscant. Growing up on a planet where almost everyone looked exactly the same was tiresome, boring. It almost feels like no two people on Coruscant look the same, even the ones of the same species. They all look so unique.

Cody sighs as he checks his coordinates. He’s been walking for two hours, and he isn’t even halfway there. He grumbles to himself, pulling out his comm. Never mind, he just wants to be there, preferably before Fox gets off shift and worries.

Cody thanks the driver and gets out, making his way to the correct number. He punches in the codes for the door, and makes himself at home.

He sighs sadly at the state of the apartment. It’s dingy, and absolutely tiny, and the air tastes stale in here.

He puts his bucket on the tiny coffee table, and starts piling his armor on the floor in the corner. Down to just his blacks, Cody sits on the very uncomfortable couch and stretches out. He checks the time and sighs. He still has about an hour until Fox is supposed to get off shift.

Want me to get us some food? Your kitchen is depressingly under stocked. He sends comm quickly, looking around the apartment once more.

Aw, babe, were you gonna cook for me? How romantic. That’s not an answer, the asshole.

Cody rolls his eyes, but can’t help the smile from gracing his lips. His stomach warms at the thought of Fox calling him that seriously. He shoves that down, focusing on the pressing issue: what the hell they’re going to eat.

You don’t even have any ration bars, Fox. How are you still alive?

About ten cups of caf a day, and pure spite.

Cody rolls his eyes with a soft chuckle, standing from the couch. You’re worse than Rex, he sends.

I’ll pick something up.

Cody sighs when no other comms come through, and leaves it on the kitchen counter. He makes his way to the fresher, peeling his upper blacks off and leaving them on top of the closed toilet.

It’s been so long since he had time to just take care of himself more than just a quick rinse. He wants to take advantage.

Cody finds Fox’s clippers and gives himself a much overdue haircut. He cleans the hair away and rinses the sink out, before giving himself a proper shave as well. It feels nice going slow, taking his time.

Finally smooth, he shucks his lower blacks as well, and sets a clean towel out for himself. He sets the shower to an almost too hot temperature, and sighs at the water pressure. It’s not any better than on the ship, sadly.

Whatever, a hot shower is a hot shower. And there are no water rations on Coruscant; he can take his time.

And take his time Cody does. He lets the water wash over his sore muscles. He groans as he lets the hot water work him over. It feels so much nicer, just knowing that he doesn’t have to rush, and doesn't have any responsibilities for the next few days.

Eventually he sighs and washes himself, even allowing himself to enjoy the sensation of properly washing his hair.

He groans in self pity as he turns the water off, knowing Fox will probably be getting off shift soon. He gets out of the shower and dries his hair first, walking out of the fresher with the intention of stealing Fox’s blacks.

He's still rubbing the towel through his hair when he hears it.

“Oh, hello there,” Fox purrs, voice half amused and half…something Cody can’t tell.

Cody curses, using the towel to cover himself with warmed cheeks. “Force, Fox, I didn’t know you’d be back so soon!”

Fox is smirking, eyes roving over Cody’s body with dark eyes. He was halfway through getting his armor off, and he continues slowly. “I convinced Thorn to come in half an hour early so I could go,” he says.

Cody groans in humiliation, wrapping the towel fully around his hips. “I’m sorry,” he says, unable to look at Fox anymore.

Fox hums, taking the last of his armor off and stalking closer to Cody. “No need to apologize,” he murmurs, and it just sounds so sensual, so-

No, not while Cody only has a towel in between his groin and Fox. His cheeks warm even more, and he ducks his head. “Fox, I-“

Fox puts a finger under Cody’s chin, lifting gently. Cody is helpless but to allow himself to be moved. He meets Fox’s gaze, his own embarrassed eyes meeting dark, almost hungry ones.

Fox hums once, taking in Cody’s expression. “Why are you embarrassed?” Fox whispers. Cody can feel the other’s breath on his lips, and Cody is really having a hard time remembering how to breathe. “We grew up with communal showers.”

Cody swallows thickly, eyes shifting from Fox’s eyes to his lips and back again. “Because…” he feels his breath shudder as Fox’s thumb rubs against Cody’s jaw. “It’s different. You’re different.”

Fox practically purrs, stepping that much closer. “Why is it different?” He asks. “Why am I different?”

Cody’s eyes flutter, and he fights to keep his breathing under control. “Because you…you never really…I-“ Cody huffs in annoyance. He’s the fucking Marshal Commander of the entire 7th Corps of the GAR. He doesn’t stumble over his words.

And yet.

“You never really seemed as interested,” Cody finally gets out, leaving the as I was implied. It’s not really the answer to Fox’s direct question. 

Cody feels more than hears Fox’s breathy laughter. “Are you really so oblivious?” He murmurs, pinching Cody’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve been in love with you since we were tubies, darling.”

Cody doesn’t swoon. If anyone asked him, he most definitely did not swoon. The Marshal Commander does not swoon.

But hearing it said out loud did, maybe, make his knees feel just a tad weaker. Only a little.

“You-you-why didn’t you say anything?” Cody asks, voice surprisingly husky. “I was flirting with you for so long!”

Fox lets out a long suffering sigh. “And here I thought you understood me,” he teases. “Why did you think I sought you out, and let you be in my space all the time?”

Cody hums in acknowledgment, eyes flitting back to Fox’s lips. “Yeah, okay,” he concedes, flashes of memories where Fox was being perhaps a bit too friendly with Cody flitting through his mind. Dammit.

Fox rolls his eyes, smirk set in place. “Idiot.” He doesn’t let Cody reply, before he connects their lips softly.

Cody may have been an idiot so far, but he isn’t anymore. He keeps one hand holding his towel up while the other wraps around Fox’s shoulder, cupping the back of his neck to keep him where he is. He has a lot of missed kissing opportunities to make up for.

[erodasfishtacos]

The Brits Dilemma

” Prompt: Harry & Y/N go to the Brits. It’s the first time they’ve been away from their baby. Y/N is struggling but doesn’t want to ruin the night for her husband.

Word Count: 1.8 k +

Warnings: Depictions of breastfeeding

+++++++

The award show was going well. It was the first time Y/N had been out in nearly three months besides a few brunch dates and grocery shopping.

Usually, she was pretty confident in what she wore to accompany her husband to all of these flashy events - but not tonight.

Her bump had deflated but she was still attempting to get rid of the stubborn pouch that stayed after the baby had been born. It wasn’t anything out of the norm - just still trying to lose it.

She was breastfeeding and her breasts were much larger than before. They felt heavy and too big for her body. Not to mention, they were constantly swollen and achey. Pads were a must so she doesn’t leak through the tight satin black dress.

The dress was a beautiful custom design by Gucci that complimented Harry’s sharp suit but nothing felt right. It was digging into her sides and made it hard for her to sit on her chair.

The Brits were held in the O2 Arena which wasn’t very far from their London home but she felt like she was lightyears away from her baby. Even though she knew Sasha was in good hands with Anne.

Y/N was so proud of Harry for being up for five - yes, five different awards. It was a record for him and she didn’t want to let him down by complaining. It was his night. He’s been such a devote father - he deserved a break too.

So she swallowed down the anxiety she was feeling about being away from their little newborn for the night along with her worries about her changing body.

There was milling about between the tables before the show got started. Harry had people coming up him constantly - congratulating him on the album, the nominations, the baby.

Married life and fatherhood suited him well. A dazzling wedding band on his left ring finger, a necklace with an S for his daughter, along with her name freshly inked on right above his butterfly tattoo.

The open jacket he wore with is his barely buttoned dress shirt displayed it proudly. It was beautiful, done delicately in a timeless cursive. The font match his wife name that was tattooed on his hand.

He couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t excited to have a night out with his wife. He had Jeff booked a hotel for the night to have some alone time with you while his mum got to enjoy a night with her only grandchild.

Y/N was counting down the hours up until tomorrow when she could go home to see her baby. She should really tell Harry that she wants to go home and not out to a club and the hotel.

But the it just slowly starts to deteriorate further when a bald, plump business exec comes to greet the two of you. He gives his warm wishes about the birth of your child before smiling at Y/N and stating, “The baby weight will come off soon enough.”

Her throat closes up a bit and she self-consciously tries to push her chair closer to the table. It was the last thing that she needed to hear. Confirming all of her worst insecurities.

Harry glares at the man before turning to his wife, “Hey, you look s’perfect, my love. I’m so bloody lucky you’re mine.”

He’s truly trying his hardest to bring a smile to her face but he notices it’s never quite meeting her eyes. 

It get even worse when Harry gets his first award, male solo artist of the year. 

As she’s standing and clapping for him - she realizes she’s beginning to leak through her nipple inserts.

Y/N excuses herself in the middle of his acceptance speech to rush through the string of tables - out into the corridor. The last thing she wanted to do was for it to show up on a very expensive dress.

The echo of his voice can still be heard, “Love to thank my beautiful wife who makes writing sappy love songs easy and was the main inspiration for my recent album. She also just gave birth to our beautiful baby.....”

She feels awful when she tunes him out, finding the bathroom and hurriedly rushing in. There’s a gorgeous woman standing at the sink, washing their hands. 

Fucking Taylor Swift.

Any other time it’d be awkward and uncomfortable - running into an ex who wrote multiple songs about her husband.

But she couldn’t careless right now, “Hi, erm, this is really weird but could you unzip my dress? I’m leaking and - shit that was way too much information.”

But Taylor smiles kindly, “No! It’s okay, totally. No worries. Congratulations on your baby - you look so hot tonight.”

Y/N laughs and thanks her for unzipping the dress before going into a stall and locking the door. She slides her bra straps off her shoulders and disposes of the soaked pad in the sanitary bin.

Luckily, she has a clean burp rag that she gently swipes at her breast - wincing as it brushes against her swollen nipples. Even the soft fabric felt too rough on them.

It’s a minute or two before the bathroom door swings open, “Y/N? Lovie? Are you in ‘ere?”

She feels guilt at the panic in his voice. Managing to croak out, “I’m in here,” before leaning forward to unlock the door.

Harry waste no time in sliding into the stall before latching the lock again. Taking in the sight of his wife in front of him.

“I-I started leaking, M’sorry,” Y/N whispers, she has no reason to feel embarrassed but she is. “I missed your speech.”

“None of that, baby. I’ll give more speeches for you to hear - I only care that you’re okay. I’m sorry y’leakin, lemme help you, pet.”

In true Harry fashion, he takes the rag and turns on the sink - running it under warm water before carefully cleaning his wife up.

“Are they botherin’ you? They look irritated and super swollen, darling,” Harry frowns, a very gentle thumb coming to brush against her nipple. Then cupping her swollen breast in his hand, thumb rubbing at the pink skin.

“Just a little bit,” She lies, they’re absolutely on fire with chafing and skin irritation from the bra she’s wearing. She never thought she’d miss her nursing bras and sports bras this much.

He nods and helps place new inserts in her bra. Who’d think this is what Harry would be doing between accepting awards. Everyone unassuming in the arena.

**

Harry has been four for four thus far into the ceremony. They’d only had him go up and give two acceptance speeches. His hand firmly planted on his wife’s thigh throughout. 

When he went up for his second award, the camera zooms in and the crowd coos are he plants a kiss on his wife’s lips before pulling her into a hug - whispering something into her ear the audience can’t hear.

He was much more focused on his wife. He could read her fairly well - he’d like to think. Enough to know she’s having much fun. But he didn’t want to bring it up and make her feel bad.

Harry sees the way she keeps adjusting her bra, fidgets with his rings when his hands in his lap, and not even really looking up while one of her favorite artist - Dua Lipa -performs.

Y/N loved a good party before the baby. So Harry was hoping going to the Brits afterparty would make her feel better and then going back to their hotel room for a some alone time.

**

Y/N has been increasingly quiet when they’re exiting the arena after the final award artist of the year - which Harry had also won.

He was on cloud nine and admittedly a little distracted as he joked and laughed with a small group of friends on the way out. 

“Alright, should we all just pile into a cab for the ride to the party?” Nick Grimshaw asks everyone.

Everyone is in agreement - including Harry -as he calls to order one - standing in the blocked off area away from fans and paparazzi.

Y/N wants to tell him she wants to go home to Sasha but when she hears him say, “Can’t wait to get to Exhibit - haven’t been there in forever. One of my favorite clubs.”

She bites her tongue. Harry is enjoying his night out - why can’t she?

In the taxi, she’s sat on Harry’s lap as they make their way to the club. His one hand is on her inner thigh and the other is on her waist holding her steady.

In the morning, she’ll blame her post-partum hormones and anxiety. But she doesn’t even realizing her eyes are filling with tears and when she blinks they spill down her face.

She wouldn’t feel as embarrassed if she wasn’t in the car full of literal celebrities who are filled with adrenaline and excitement. Chattering and drinking from little liquor bottles they’d snuck in their jackets and clutches.

“Y/N, are you alright?” Rita Ora asks from her seat - noticing the streaks ruining your makeup.

She nods pathetically, wiping at her eyes but Harry is turning her to face him. His bright green eyes filled with concern as he studies her face.

The previously very obnoxiously loud cab becomes silent as they try to give the couple a semblance of non-existent privacy.

“What’s happening, dove? Are you hurting?” Harry panics, coming to wipe the smeared makeup away.

“I don’t want to go to the club,” Y/N sniffles, squeezing her eyes shut at how embarrassed she is of her behavior. She would usually never act this way - especially in public. And Harry knows that so it makes him even more concerned.

“That’s okay, pet. We can go have a night in, when the cab stops - we can uber back to the hotel,” Harry soothes, surprised when that brings on fresh tears.

“N-no, I want to go home. I miss the baby, I want to- need to see our baby. I-I can’t do this. My anxiety is through the roof, Harry. What if she can’t sleep? Or isn’t taking the bottle?”

“Baby, breathe, breathe. We can go home. I miss the bub terribly too. Have been worried about her all night.”

Harry tugs his wife into his chest further - tucking her head into his neck as he shoots his friends grateful looks. They all nod, sympathetic and understanding - despite them not having kids of their own.

**

“I ruined your night,” Y/N says softly in the back of the uber home. “I leaked during the show; cried in front of all your friends.”

Harry takes her chin gentle but firm until she meets his gaze, “You didn’t ruin anything f’me. All I care about is you and the baby - not some stupid award ceremony or party.”

He continues on, “You just gave us Sasha three months ago - y’bloody amazing. Best mum, best wife. Sexiest too - know you don’t think that right now but your body literally grew my baby. I get a hard-on everytime I see you.”

They both laugh, Y/N leaning forward to capture her husbands lips in a meaningful kiss of gratitude and thanks.

**

Anne smiles kindly when the two of them arrive home. A very fussy, red-faced swaddled baby coddled in her arms. 

“She hasn’t settled for quite a while now - she missed her parents very much,” Harry’s mum tells them, transferring her into her father’s arms. He’s automatically rocking and running his thumb over her cheek.

“Ooh, we missed you. Was Nana nice to you?” Harry coos. Sasha has already quieted and is blinking tearfully up at her smiling father.

“Such a good girl, best girl,” Y/N sighs, leaning in to kiss her downy hair. Harry’s hand coming to wrap around his wife’s waist as they peer down at their perfect little daughter.

Anne smiles at his son and daughter-in-law fawning over their little creation with so much love and adoration.

After a minute of chatting -Harry’s mum makes her way up to the guest room after a long night with a miserable baby. They make their way to their room where Y/N strips out of her tight dress and awful bra. 

She sits against the headboard in just a pair of soft cotton panties. Harry is gently shushing her and humming a melody as his wife gets situated. He knew she was anxious to feed the baby.

“That’s it my sweet thing. Y’missed us, hm? We missed you too, bub. Nana said y’wouldn’t take the bottle. Only want your mumma, hmm?” Harry coos, kissing her chubby cheeks.

He’s then giving Y/N the baby, who ferociously latching within seconds and begins eating like she’d been starved for the last week. Making weak little rumbles as she does so.

They both giggle fondly, Y/Ns fingers come to touch her fluttering cheek - memorizing her over and over again.

Harry gets onto the bed and settles next to the both of them. Watching his baby feed in amazement at what his wife was capable of. He smears a few kisses against her bare shoulder - hand on his baby’s back.

How strong she was - as he knew it had to be at least a little bit painful with how irritated her nipples had been. He can tell when she winces every once in a while.

He plants a few more kisses to her warm skin - noticing her eyes getting a bit droopy as Sasha feeds at a slow, suckling pace.

“If I’m being honest, being with you - watching you feed our baby...I’d rather be here than at any club.” 

Y/N snorts, rolling her eyes, “Sure.”

Her husband frowns, “M’serious, this is all I need, baby.”

“I love you, congratulation on all your Brits,” Y/N murmurs, pecking at his lips.

“I love you too. I meant it, during my speeches. I wouldn’t have been able to write those songs if you hadn’t inspired me. You’ll and the bab will always be the best muse.”

[happytroopers]

crosshairs fic idea: reader is gossiping with coworkers (maybe medics idk) about who the most attractive clone is and reader mentions crosshair and he somehow finds out and teases her

Teasing // Crosshair x reader

“It’s definitely Captain Rex. ” Tula, a Rodian nurse from the 212th, stated decidedly. You giggled into the shitty GAR rationed caf.

“That’s just cause your into blondes.” You teased, content with the rounds of chuckles at the mess hall table as Tula’s teal cheeks blushed blue.

“I still don’t know why we’re having this conversation, they’re clones, they all look the same! Thats like the whole thing.” Rys groaned uncomfortably, the only man at the table of civilian enlistments. It was rare for some many of your friends to be in the same place at the same time- but medical staff and engineering alike, every six months after your first deployment civilian enlistments were shipped back to Coruscant for a week long training refresher.

“You can’t say that, it’s rude!” Tula slapped his arm, eyebrow ridges furrowing over her galaxy eyes. He held his hands up in surrender.

“Yeah Rys, we won’t assume you’re any less straight if you admit that Wolffe is clearly the most attractive.” Raina grinned, her peach colored lekku twitching at the thought of the commander. You considered the idea but shook your head as other names got thrown around.

Kix, Fives, Bly, Keeli, Cody, and a couple other names you didn’t quite recognize the names of were tossed around the table. Haircuts, scars, tattoos, personality all became deciding factors as you at your dinner, occasionally chiming in to tease your friends.

“Ok then, who do you think the hottest soldier is?” An engineer from some outer moon data post asked after you teased her for her choice- Tup, a younger soldier in the 501st that you hadn’t met since your transfer to Clone Force 99.

You held your hands up, ready to evade the question. But Raina interjected, a challenging look on her face. You’d gone through academy with the peachy colored twi-lek and her sharp tongue was almost faster than her flying. You knew that look, and it didn’t bode well.

“If you don’t answer, I’ll tell every trooper I see all week that you said it was them.” She threatened with a smirk that said she already knew she had won. The smirk grew to a grin when you let out a defeated sigh.

“Well, in my own personal opinion, that Crosshair is the most attractive man we work with.” You admitted quietly. An honest answer on your part, you did think he was attractive even if you’d never say it to his face. Immediately, several pairs of disbelieving eyes landed on you.

“What? He doesn’t even count!” Rys pointed an finger at you to emphasize his point, “he doesn’t even look like the other clones!”

You shrugged as Tula slapped the back of his head again, her voice scolding as she hissed, “You can’t say that either!”

Then she looked at you, “Really though? He’s meaner than a burned gundark.”

“He’s scary.” Raina nodded.

“He’s an ass.” Another one of the 212th enlistments echoed from down the table. You’d forgotten that a few of the units they were assigned to probably had worked with Clone Force 99 at some point. Nevertheless, suddenly, you felt a need to defend the sniper who had finally become what you’d consider a friend.

“Ok, so it takes a while to get to know him, but...” you started, thinking of all the amazing qualities no one else saw because they weren’t with him all the time, “he’s loyal to a fault, really funny, always pulls me out of sticky situations and usually manages to keep me out of them to begin with, once you get to know him and how he is, you see how much he cares about his-“

“Ok, sure,” Raina cut you off, clearly not believing the cold eyed sniper could care about anything or anyone. She paused to pitch her voice up, flutter her eyelashes, and clasp her hands beside her face like a cartoon princess, “we don’t know him like you do~”

She interrupted herself with a snicker before she continued in her normal voice, “and all that bantha crap, but this is about attractiveness. What makes him hot? And don’t give me any of this, personality is all I look at shit.”

“And if I tell you, you’ll leave me alone?” You asked, though it was more of a demand. Tula nodded, she had always been a little boy crazy, and was dying to hear the scoop. You sighed again, hoping your cheeks weren’t too flushed, “fine, He’s very unique looking, in all the best ways. He’s very tall and lean, but crazy built. I’m into the silver hair, and believe it or not, under the armor that man has the best ass you’ll ever see.”

Tula was leaning on the table, giggling wildly at the juicier bits of you description. Raina had leaned back in her seat, and rolled her eyes, “To each their own, I suppose.”

Fortunately for you, the conversation switched to complaining about to the soldiers that were in charge of your training. There was a rumor the Fox used “civilian training” as punishment for his men when they earned a reprimand. It made sense, all the Coruscant guardsmen that were tasked with running drills with you weren’t exactly thrilled to be there. As if any of you were either.

“Yeah, I definitely don’t understand that attitude. We get it, you don’t want to be here, neither do we, but we are so let’s just get it over with- with out the..... are you even listening?” You were in the middle of your tangent when it was clear none of your group was listening to you. Instead there were all staring over your head with varying looks of slight fear, curiosity, and overall disdain. Tula was the one who attempted to subtly point behind you. At first you feared it was one of the troopers in charge of your training, so you quickly turned around with a forced apologetic look on your face.

To your surprise, you found Crosshair. Helmet free, as usual he had a toothpick between his teeth as he gave your group an appraising sweep. He had the same look on his face that he did when he was sizing up ‘the regs’- until he got to you. It took a year for him to stop looking at you that way, but his slight sneer eased out to neutral-which when it came to the sniper, it might as well have been an ear to ear grin.

“Crosshair! What are you doing here?” You asked, turning around in your seat. In addition to his sudden appearance, just his president was slightly confusing. Typically, Hunter would come himself, or send Tech- all to avoid a potential fight. Your training mates looked slightly bewildered at the amicable exchange.

“Springing you. We’ve got an assignment.” He shrugged after plucking the toothpick from between his lips. Like a true creature of habit, he started twirling the stick between his fingers. You quirked an eyebrow motioning to the other civilians.

“You can’t ‘spring me’, it’s GAR regulation for me to do this training refresher.” You reminded him, he rolled his eyes- but you weren’t sure if his disdain was for your use of air quotes or just disdain for GAR regulation in general. With any member of the Bad Batch, it was usually general disrespect for the rules. You gave him a look before continuing, “I still have three more days.”

“Is it really training? You could run circles around anyone here, especially them.” He drawled as he nodded his head over his shoulders at the table of red painted troopers who were eyeing him in distrust. Your eyes went a little wide, was that a compliment? And then you ducked your head at the offended glares of your table. In an effort to prevent a fight, you stood quickly before letting him lead you off.

“They’re aren’t gonna let me leave, Crosshair.” You reminded him, looking up to meet his eyes. He smirked a bit, setting his eyes forward.

“How are they gonna stop us?” He challenged, dropping his smile to glare at a passing trooper.

“Well, ion cannons come to mind.” You mused before clearing your throat, “You guys could always go with me, you went on plenty of missions before you got stuck with me. It be like the good ole days.”

He didn’t laugh at your joking tone, but shook his head, “You’re one of us, you stay with us”

You were stunned to silence for a second, despite your friendship he’s never referred you you as ‘one of them’. Heat rose to your cheeks as you exited the corridor into a lift, so Crosshair diffused the tension.

“Mission takes precedence over regulations. When have we been know to follow the rules, anyways.” He mused, swiping his ID card so the lift would let you out in the hangar. He relaxed a bit when you snorted a laugh before he continued on, “Besides, how can pull you out of sticky situation if you’re on a different planet?”

You froze in your spot, stomach dropping and cheeks flaring with red hot embarrassment; you had forgotten the cardinal rule of working with Crosshair.

If you didn’t have eyes on Crosshair, Crosshair definitely had eyes on you. And in this case, apparently ears as well.

“Ok, look-“ you started, hoping to ease your embarrassment, but all of the excuses you could come up with fell flat before they made it out of your mouth. Fortunately, the lift door slid open, allowing you to escape before you could further your embarrassment.

Crosshair actually chuckled out loud, long legs easily traipsing past you as he headed towards the Havoc Marauder. Momentarily, he twisted around to walk backwards, pointing his toothpick towards you, “Don’t worry, your ass is almost as good as mine.”

[justauthoring]

Treasure Hunt

Prompt: My treasure to find. A/N: I just watched Goblet of Fire and couldn’t help myself.

Pairing: Cedric Diggory x Reader Word Count: 3,003 Please don’t plagiarize my work!

You were smitten the first second you saw him.

Stood between Hermione and Ginny, your attention had almost instantly been taken by the boy when you saw his charming smile and twinkling lights. Something in your chest had tightened and you felt your cheeks warm, almost on instinct, heart fluttering as he shook hands with Mr. Weasley and his father introduced him as Cedric.

Cedric...

You felt a slight pinch in your side and glancing to your left with a light hiss, your wide eyes found Hermione’s all too knowing ones. She was grinning ear from ear at you, and both embarrassed and appalled at the thought of being caught all but ogling the boy, you turn to Ginny, only to find the almost exact same shit-eating grin on her face.

“Oh, bugger off,” you laugh, shaking your head at the two girls as you quickly move to catch up with the rest. But Hermione and Ginny are right on their tail, and they have no attention of letting this go.

“You totally like him,” Hermione whispers, thankfully so only you and Ginny can hear her. A quick glance at her from the corner of your eye, you can tell she’s laughing and even wiggling her brows a little at you, almost suggestive that makes your cheeks burn even harder then they had before.

“Totally,” Ginny nods, grinning, “though, I can’t blame you. He is...” She doesn’t finish her sentence, but it’s pretty obvious what they mean.

Anxious and determined to get away from their teasing’s, you shoot them a half-hearted glare over your shoulder, picking up the speed in your step so you’re up in the front with the Weasley twins. You were relieved to find out Hermione and Ginny had decided to let it go, for now, but of course, being farther up in the front also meant you were just directly behind Cedric.

And you’re not even really sure what’s wrong with you. You’ve never reacted to some stupid attractive boy before, but for some reason, your heart was hammering madly against your chest. All else seemed to drown to the back of your mind, gaze stuck on the back of Cedric at he laughed along with something his father had said.

He was completely oblivious to you.

Just as you were completely oblivious to the tree root you happen to trip over seconds later. A small yelp leaves your lips as you feel yourself falling forward, mentally prepping yourself for the thud and pain when you hit the ground. However, you never do, and instead, you fall into a pair of arms. You blink, dazed and confused, until you flicker your gaze up to meet Cedric’s own.

Well, he was definitely noticing you now. Maybe just not in the way you wanted.

Your cheeks warmed in embarrassment but Cedric simply just smiled down at you, helping you to your feet. The Weasley twins passed you along the way, and you heard them call out some joke about something being on your mind but you didn’t really have the heart to listen to them. Not with Cedric so close and smiling at you with those warm eyes of his and...

and honestly, what was wrong you? You’d met this boy not five minutes ago.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you breathe, pulling at your shirt to straighten it as you nervously blink up at the much taller boy. “I... I just... just didn’t see the root.”

“Probably not,” he grinned, “especially when you were too busy staring at me.”

He noticed that?

“Pretty hard not to,” Cedric snorted.

You hadn’t even known you’d said that aloud.

Placing a hand to your cheeks, you groan out in embarrassment.

Cedric lets out a laugh. “It’s fine,” he whispers, lowering his voice so you’re the only one who can hear him. He leans closer to him, still holding gently to your arm like he had to catch you, and your breath hitches when he presses his lips directly next to your ear. “I definitely didn’t mind.”

Then he pulls back with a wink, moving to catch up with his father.

You’re stunned still for a moment before Ron and Harry catch up, and the former bumps into you. “What’s up with you?”

They both stare at you, but you don’t reply. A small smile curls onto your lips, eyes stuck on that of Cedric.

-

Later, after the game has finished, Cedric asks if you’d like to hang back with him, explore the grounds a bit more. You’re almost too quick to comply, telling Hermione to let Mr. Weasley know that you’re safe and with him, before rushing off to catch up with him.

Of course, not without Hermione sending a sly wink your way and a call of ‘good luck!’

You spend the entire evening with him, learning more about him. Finding out he went to Hogwarts as well was a surprised to you, and you wonder why you’d never heard of him before; especially because from the look of it, it seemed he was quite popular at the school. You blame on always being so focused in your books and studies.

Yeah, it had to be that.

“You know, I noticed you.”

The statement surprises you. With a blink, lips parting, you glance to your right, looking up at Cedric as he keeps his gaze lower, on his feet. You’re not sure what to say.

“Always with your head in a book,” he laughs lightly, meeting your eyes with a fond look. It catches you by surprise and your cheeks warm lightly in response, stomach fluttering in response. “The only ones who could ever get you to look up were the Weasley Twins. 

With a light, nervous laugh, you shrug; “that’s just because they’re too annoying to ignore.”

“Still,” Cedric laughs, “didn’t make me any less jealous.”

Jealous?

Eyes widening, you turn to Cedric, lips parting to say something but you’re interrupted by the sound of some sort of explosion. It rocks the floor beneath your feet, toppling you over slightly that you fall against Cedric who doesn’t hesitate to help steady you. Frowning, you glance around, eyes widening when you notice fire erupting from somewhere to your left.

It’s then the screaming starts and mass chaos follows. People run madly, without purpose or care for anyone else. Cedric pulls you closer against himself when someone nearly barrels into you and knocks you off your feet.

“What’s happening?” You whisper, turning to Cedric with panicked eyes. 

“We’re under attack,” he mumbles, glancing around, shaking his head. “We’ve got to back to my father or Mr. Weasley. Now.”

He pulls you with him, and you don’t fight his grip, quick to keep up with his pace. You try not to focus too much on the screaming and panic the surrounds you, knowing that it’ll only scared you more; more then it already has. 

Cedric keeps a tight hold of your hand the entire time, not willing to lose you in the crowd. You don’t mind, even if pinches slightly. You don’t want to lose him either.

You catch sight of red and a bout of relief floods you when you find Fred and George. They catch sight of you two, and thus, you also find Ginny and Mr. Weasley. You move to ask where Harry, Hermione and Ron are but suddenly, Fred is grabbing you and pulling you out of Cedric’s grip and between them, urging you to follow them back to the port-key.

“But, wait--” When you turn to find Cedric, he’s already turning back, sending you one last look before rushing off.

Most likely to find his father, still, you can’t help but worry.

-

When you return to Hogwarts for the next year, you don’t expect anything to come out of it.

While you enjoyed that day with Cedric, despite the way it had ended, you didn’t really expect anything to change. You expected life to go back to normal. But from the minute classes started, you found out that in fact was not the case. Cedric seemed to be everywhere you looked. Everywhere.

And it only took him a matter of days before he approached you.

“I’m surprised you even noticed me.” 

He says it with a teasing voice and a bright, grinning smile as he glances down at you. It causes you to roll your eyes lightly, shaking your head as you snort, closing the book in your lap to place your attention fully on him. Cedric takes this as an invitation to sit next to you on the bench, and with a soft blush adorning your cheeks, you let your eyes wander aimlessly across the courtyard.

“It’s hard not to,” you tease lightly, smirking over at him. “You’re everywhere I look now.”

“I told you,” Cedric shrugs, “you were always too busy reading to notice me. We’ve always had classes together.” With that, he reaches forward, snatching the book from your lap to which you react with a soft gasp, shaking your head as he inspects it closely. Brows furrowing, he turns back to you; “a muggle book?”

“They’re a lot more interesting then you’d think,” you huff, snatching the book back and quickly shoving it into your book bag. “Thank you very much.”

Cedric laughs, “i’m only teasing you, you know.”

Meeting his eyes, you smile lightly. “I know,” you nod, voice soft. 

Silence echoes for a moment. Cedric’s shoulder softly touches your own, and you can’t help the way your heart beats erratically against your chest. It’s a comfortable silence, not at all awkward, but you can’t help the way you instinctively react to him being so close.

It’s honestly, unfair.

“I’m going to put my name in .”

And then the silence is interrupted and your heart starts pounding for an entirely different reason.

Turning to look at Cedric, your eyes widen. “What?” You ask softly, voice a whisper.

He meets your gaze with a gentle frown. He knew you’d be concerned, it’s why he had to tell you. “I know it’s dangerous, but...” and then he trails and even though you don’t know him all that well, even though you’ve only really started talking and being friends, you understand what he means. “But i’m going to.”

True to his word, the very next week, you watch as Cedric drops his name into the Goblet of Fire. He’s surrounded by his friends, as they all celebrate with him, their laughter echoing amongst the room. You’re too busy trying to pull a old Fred off of an old George to be able to celebrate with Cedric, even though you do feel his eyes wander on your back.

But you’re sure, even if you could, you don’t know how much you’d be celebrating.

And when his name is pulled, and the chaos of Harry also being chosen has dissipated, you make it your goal to avoid Cedric best you can. Part of you knows you’re being selfish and silly. That you were acting irrationally, but you really did care about Cedric and you were scared to get closer to him knowing what kind of game he was throwing himself into. People died in these tournaments, and stupidly, you thought maybe if you distanced yourself from him, the worry would lessen.

That wasn’t the case at all. In fact, you only worried more but just from the sideline. From a distance. Cedric had tried to approach you a few times leading up to the games, but you’d promptly rushed off the other direction any time he had. You ignored him in class and stuck by your few friends, busying yourself with him.

Then, the first challenge came about. Watching Cedric all but battle a dragon and nearly die more then once made you realize, avoiding him was pointless. You wouldn’t stop worrying no matter what, and you certainly didn’t want to witness his hurt expression any time you walked away from him one more time. It was already breaking your heart.

You found him easily enough after his challenge. Fleur was up next and then Harry, but you found yourself unable to stick around and watch.

You needed to find Cedric.

He was just finishing being patched up and healed from the fight when you came into the tent, the nurse leaving just as you entered. His eyes had snapped up in surprise at the sound of a visitor, but widened even further when he saw the visitor was in fact you.

A bundle of nerves flooded your entire being. You hesitantly stepped into the tent, wringing your hands nervously before yourself, as you slowly made your way over to him. You wordlessly took a seat next to him, and for a moment, silence hung in the air.

Then, you spoke. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Cedric nodded. “I wasn’t sure you cared all that much anymore.”

His words stung, but you couldn’t blame him for saying them either. “I’m sorry,” you whisper after a moment, finally glancing over to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry for ignoring you. I just... I just couldn’t bear the thought of these challenges taking you away from me, and I didn’t want to ruin your excitement about them either. So I just sort of...--”

“Pretended I didn’t exist?”

“Yeah,” you cringe, “i’m sorry...”

“It’s fine,” Cedric assures and you ease, shoulders falling when you notice a smile curling onto his lips. Your lips part however when he slips his hand into your own, the act intimate and gentle as he squeezes. He doesn’t tear his gaze away from you. “I don’t plan on going anywhere, Y/N. I promise.”

Smiling softly, you squeeze his hand in return; “yeah?”

He nods, without hesitation. “Yeah.”

-

Cedric had asked you to be his date to the Yule Ball. When he had, you felt as if your legs would give out from beneath you.

But now, wrapped up in arms, swaying softly to the tune of the music, you’re so glad you said yes. Even if, in the moment, there had been no doubt that you would, you’d been afraid you wouldn’t be able to force the words out. To physically say yes, you were so star-struck. Yet, you had, and you couldn’t be more happy.

When you lean back to glance up at Cedric, you’re all smiles and twinkling eyes. You realize then, that you’re one of the last two pairs still there and dancing, a lot having gone off to bed. How the time had escaped you, you’re not even sure.

You’d been so round up by Cedric.

Your eyes flutter in response as he uses one hand to brush back a strand of curled hair out of your face, leaning into his touch. The silence that echoes around you is completely comfortable, there’s no need to speak you find. Your actions and gazes are enough to tell each other how the other feels. You hold tight to Cedric, wishing this moment would never end.

When he presses his lips against your own, you’re stunned at first. It takes you about a minute to snap out of your revere and return the kiss. But when you do, it’s full of passion. You curl into him, pressing yourself firmly against him as everything in the background seems to fade to nothingness and all you can focus on is him, is him being so close, is him finally kissing you like you’ve wanted him to since you first saw him.

You pull back breathless, and Cedric settles for letting his forehead rest against your own.

“I’ve been waiting to do that for years.”

-

You wake with a startling gasp. Water spills from your lips as you choke and gasp, trying to find the air you so desperately need. 

Once you do, it’s then you notice the arms holding you. You’re pressed firm against a chest, with a towel wrapped around you to keep you warm. It helps, even though your body shakes lightly in response, and instinctively, you cuddle into the warmth, confused.

Bewildered even.

You catch sight of the lake, and then you remember.

Turning to the right, a smile curls onto your lips as you find Cedric’s gaze. He’s smile at you, solely on you, despite those of his friends and more that cheer around him. A quick glance around tells you what you need to do, and your smile brightens when you realize he’d been the first one up.

He’d won the second challenge.

“It’s all thanks to you.” Cedric grins.

You’d said that aloud too, huh?

“I’m not sure I did all that much,” you shrug, shaking your head. “I was just asleep, really.”

Holding you close and firm, Cedric shakes his head. “You gave me the push I needed.” He whispers, so only that you can hear him. “You’re my treasure. You always have been.”

Your heart flutters again, pounding erratically against your chest. But you don’t shy away, not this time. No, instead, you lean forward, pressing your lips against his own, as cheers erupt madly around you all in response.

They fade with Viktor Krum emerges from the water. But you don’t mind. You’re only focused on Cedric, like you’ve always been.

-

He’d promised...

He’d said...

His fathers screams echo in the back of your mind. The chaos that ensues around is distant, as if somewhere entirely else. All you can see, all you can focus on... as usual, is Cedric. But this time, it’s his laying, lifeless, and limp body that you can’t tear your gaze away from.

He’s... He’s dead.

I’m not going anywhere.

He turns blurry as your eyes water. You curl into yourself, frozen where you’re stood, heart wrenching, body shaking, desperately trying to force yourself to move, to get to him, But you can’t. You just can’t. It feels as if you’re stuck in place, frozen solid.

He can’t... Cedric can’t be dead.

But he is. He is dead.

He’s gone...

-

Let me know what you thought?

[peakywitch]

Tommy X reader with Prompt no.24 please❤️❤️❤️

Charlie, Mommy and Daddy - Tommy Shelby

Hi beautiful! sorry for keeping you waiting, life is crazy. 

words: 3.5k WOW

warnings: usual, bad language, mentions of dead people and war, angst and fights. 

PART TWO COMING SOON DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF LOVE GOT!!

masterlist

prompt: 24 “Pack your shit and leave. Get the fuck out of my sight!”

As the last days of October approached, Y/N already knew that Tommy's birthday was near. He had never revealed the date, so a few years ago Y/N started celebrating it one of the many days that were after the twentieth. First, it was the 21st, the next year the 22nd, and so on.

He always smiled at the vanilla and chocolate cake that she baked especially for him.

"Did I guess right?" she always asked, with a tired smile, her hair with a little flour and Charlie in her arms.

"Flavor? Yes. The date? Maybe." He answered, with a mischievous and funny smile.

That October 25, 1925, was like any other. While Tommy was in Watery Lane dealing with legal problems, Y/N and Charlie were trying to finish baking a cake.

"Why do we cook?" Charlie asked, as he walked and stumbled through the kitchen.

"Because today... might be daddy's birthday, Charlie." Y/N smiled, as she finished transferring the yellow mixture to a baking dish.

"How many years is daddy turning?" The woman could hear the question even over the creaking noise of the oven door opening.

"Five hundred." Y/N joked, leaving the tray in the oven and closing the door.

Charlie exploded into euphoric laughter.

After a few minutes, the boy asked a question:

“Is mummy going to congratulate daddy for his birthday? Is she coming back?”

The question left his lips so careless, he never understood. But what could someone expect from a four-year-old? But, although he didn´t understand the subject, Tommy actually never told him. “She went away.” He said whenever Charlie asked. He also never answered the “when is she coming back” question.

 “I think you should ask that to your father, Charles.” She answered slightly, he then bolted out into the garden to kick off wilted autumn leaves and on the ground.

While cleaning everything they used to cook, Y/N doubted that Thomas’s birthday was today, but she was sure he was turning 35. The age difference tormented them a bit, but for only seven years. Although in the past it had been the subject of discussion and disagreements, both were clear that one knew more than the other about certain things. Y/N didn't understand anything about politics or horses, and Tommy had no idea how he should act in situations of extreme emotional sensitivity. But they tried, Y/N tried to pet the horses and Tommy wiped her tears with a white handkerchief that had her name embroidered on it but was always in his pocket.

The half-hour of baking went by quickly, Y/N could only think about whether or not today was Tommy's birthday, she was hoping she could find out.

“Is this how it will be? Will I come to my house and watch you cook while my son plays outside?" asked a smile at the door.

The voice took her by surprise, forcing the girl to drop a spoon mixing chocolate. It fell to the floor, staining the white marble brown. It could have been worse, Tommy thought seeing the mess he caused in an instant, it could have been blood.

"Tommy!" she smiled, then hugged him tightly. "Happy possible birthday, possible birthday boy." She said in his ear, as she stroked his nape with her flour-stained hand.

He thanked her and kissed her forehead.

"So… I guessed right?" she laughed, Tommy could only keep his smile on his face, looking into her eyes “Oh come on. Tell me yes once, or at least tell me that I did well one of these last times. "

"Maybe." He said softly, after clearing his throat. He pulled away from her, leaned against the wall, and stroked his lip with a cigarette that he pulled from a metal box once his back was against the wall.

"I'll put salt in your coffee." She laughed as she cleaned up the mess.

"I don't drink coffee, Y/N." he smoked.

"Then... I'll move all the whiskey bottles around for you and hide them." She backed off, rinsing off the dropped spoon.

"I have them locked up and you know it." He reminded her.

Both looks smiled.

…

When the clock struck midnight, Charlie had been asleep for four hours. Tommy and Y/N had been talking about life in his office. Thomas had a glass of Irish in his hand and Y/N had a cup of tea.

The fire was loud, but the photo of Grace kept in Thomas's left desk drawer screamed in Y/N's mind. Charlie's questions echoed too, and that made the poor woman bite her lip with fervor.

"Y/N" Tommy clarified his voice "would you be so kind as to explain to me that you are so stressed out?" he asked, finishing his drink in one gulp.

"Charlie should know."

Without warning or a proper introduction, Y/N spat out what was so killing her. Although she told her husband a lot, she did not tell him about those times he murmured her name in his dreams. Neither of her constant demand to be like her. Because she felt like he was never going to love her the way he loved Grace. She wasn't asking him to love her more than Charlie, she would never ask that. But she felt like she could never fill Grace's place.

"The what?" he asked, lighting a cigarette and settling into the single chair.

“About Grace, Tom. Don't play games with me." She replied, setting the cup of tea on the small glass table that was holding the bottle of whiskey.

"I already told him, a month ago." He said as if nothing.

Tommy had that talent. He spoke of love, death, and war as if they were as simple as numbers. Two plus two is four, you love, you die and people kill. There was never a sugar coating with others. But with Grace's death, it was never like that. Maybe it never would be, but he had to be an adult and explain the truth to his child in a simple way.

“You told him she's gone, he thinks he's in America, Tommy. I think you should…” she continued, insisting softly in her voice.

"Are you telling me how to raise my son, Y/N?" he asked, after taking the cigarette from his lips and pointing at her.

Y/N didn't speak, but pressed her lips tighter, trying not to blurt out a mention about all those times Charlie called her Mom when he was really tired.

She looked at the gold band on her ring finger, her chest sank. She swallowed hard, forgetting how to breathe and starting to breathe rapidly.

"Because if there's one of the two of us who can give a talk about parenting…" Tommy started, stubbing out his cigarette as he tossed it into the fire. "It's me."

"It's me." Y/N laughed, mimicking him. The comments, the stories, the complaints, and the sadness would not be tolerated anymore. "You never..." she began, trying to be as cordial as possible, it was late.

"Here we fuckin' go," Tommy complained, blinking slowly but not moving. He remained static, imposingly static.

“Yes, here we fuckin’ go, you bloody idiot. I know Charlie more than you do; I saw him more than you in these last four years. " Y/N got up from the comfortable sofa, starting to walk through her husband's private office. "Besides…!" the words hurt when leaving, everything she wanted to talk to him and never could, was coming out in the worst way, between screams and tears “Besides, I don't know what the hell to say when he asks me if I'm his mother! Because...!" the words suddenly stopped, they just didn't come out anymore.

Tommy was staring at her frowning; anger ran through his body.

“If you know him better than I do, why don't you tell him in a way that doesn't hurt, eh? Tell him about your bloody God and the angels, why don't you bring her flowers with him too?!"

The questions shot out of him after he jumped up like a bullet from his chair.

"Take him and tell him, tell him the story because I can't! Because I don't want to be the one to tell him that Grace is dead and that she won't be back!” she screamed back at him.

Both faces were transformed, Tommy had never looked so helpless and Y/N at first couldn't understand why Tommy couldn't do it until she had an epiphany.

"Oh my god..." Y/N whispered, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes were brimming with tears, her nose was turning red "You still... you still love her."

Thomas's face remained the same as before, did not change with the passing of seconds.

Everything was starting to make sense.

She suspected it, but now she was sure that that woman was still in his heart. She denied every thought and sent it to the back of her mind, ignoring the pain and anger. But she didn't realize it, until today.

“That's why you don't want to have any more children…” she whispered “You are not afraid to die and leave your children alone, Shelby. You don't want anything that isn't hers…” The realization broke her heart, her tears had a life of their own, they all went at different rates falling down her face “My God, what an idiot I was! At what point did I think you loved me!?" she screamed.

Then nothing.

There was only silence. On both sides. One could only hear the fire, like a few minutes ago.

"Why are you with me?" she asked, her heart ready to break again “Do I have her eyes? Do I have the same perfume?" she began to question, as she tapped him lightly on the shoulders and tried to keep her gaze on his blue eyes.

"Do I have her hands? Or what the fuck is it? I kiss just like her, huh? What the hell of her do you see in me?" she asked even more hysterical, her heart wouldn't stop beating and breaking every second, with every word.

Then, with only a few words everything went to hell:

“Mommy? Why are you hitting Daddy?”

Both adults looked at the little boy, standing on the door on his sleeping clothes. His hair was messy and had the cutest sleepy face ever. It melted Y/N’s heart, but Tommy didn’t care about no one else.

“I’ll be up in a minute, Charlie, go to bed.” She murmured while getting closer to the kid “Everything is fine, don’t worry…” she kissed his forehead and he disappeared, so she closed the door.

Y/N turned around and saw Tommy making a phone call, balancing the tube between his ear and shoulder while he served more Irish on his glass.

“Yes, yes please…okay, right now. Carnaby Street, the second house on your left. Yes… thank you.” He hung up and drank more.

“Tommy…” Y/N mumbled while trying to get closer to him.

He ignored her, walking towards a bookshelf across the room. He opened a book while being watched over by his wife.

“Please, I’m sorry. I…” she was about to burst down into tears, she was feeling helpless.

Tommy took a couple of papers from inside the book and left them on the black desk.

“Twenty pounds. Grab ‘em, pack your shit, and go.” He coldly commanded.

“Wha…what?”

Suddenly there was no more air in the room, it was also getting tinnier and tinnier. Her feelings were strangling her soul, she would fall defenseless on the floor at any given time.

“We need to be alone.” He said, and there it was again. He was being artistically careless as always.

“I don’t need to be away from you, I want to be with you and…”

“A car will be here in ten minutes, pack your things.”

He lit a cigar and sat on his black chair, then proceeded to do some paperwork.

“Tommy…” she cried softly, he was breaking her heart into a million pieces. “You are breaking my heart, please…”

“Nine minutes.” He muttered, without even looking at her.

How could he not care about here? The question was on her mind when she left him alone in his office, the doubt and the pain only grew bigger and bigger as she walked up the stairs to their room.

She opened the door, and everything came back to her.

The feelings she had ten years ago, seeing him date other women while she waited patiently for him to notice her, comforting him all those long nights after the war where he would just cry silently, him exchanging her arms for Grace’s and replacing her in every aspect with the Irish woman… Every single moment washed over her. Like an abnormal gigantic wave, it shook her. She suddenly became lost, she forgot where her dresses were, where her shoes were, and where the man she always loved was. But most importantly, she wondered if there ever was any love in him for her.

“Mommy?” a soft voice asked, and she came back to reality.

There, in the massive bed, was a little body wearing white pyjamas, hugging a stuffed bunny.

He looked sad and tired, just as she did.

“Hey” she susurrated while getting closer to him. She sited on the bed by his side and hugged him. “Charlie…” she whispered while caressing his hair “I have to leave, but we’ll see each other, alright?” Y/N tried to contain her tears, but they were being obedient to her heart.

“No!” he cried, hugging her as tightly as he could “Don’t leave me!”

The little boy was a mess, he was hugging her desperately while crying. She wrapped her arms around him, and another wave washed over her, but this time it was guilt and sorrow.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie…” she started to repeat his name quickly, trying to get the kid to look at her “Charlie…look…look at me, Charlie.”

His blue eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were trembling, there was no way Y/N would leave the kid alone here. Charlie was her son, either Tommy liked it or not.

“Grab your coat, you are coming with me. We are going a few days with Auntie Esme, okay?” she cleaned his tears with her thumb and the little kid did the same with hers.

“Don’t cry, mommy.” She smiled with an expression of sadness, then kissed his forehead.

“Don’t forget Mr. Whiskers, he has to come with us so he doesn’t feel lonely without you.”

“Okay…” he whispered and then left.

She started to pack everything she could, which in five minutes it means: two blouses, one pair of pants, a few undergarments, and three dresses. She also took a few things for Charlie. Everything was in the brown leather handbag that had her initials.

“I’m ready.” Said Charlie, while appearing on the doorway with Mr. Whiskers on his left hand and his book Y/N read for him every night.

“Alright, are you ready to have a fun week with your cousins?” she asked while closing her bag, trying to cheer the little boy.

“Yes!” he said, with a smile.

She took her bag and walked to the door, she was now by his side. She saw the room one last time, she knew that was the last time she would leave it with it being “their” room. Because she knew this was the end, it was now Tommy’s room, as it always was.

Tommy’s room. Tommy’s house. Tommy’s kitchen. Everything belonged to him, even she did.

“There’s a car waiting for you, Ms. Shelby.” Said Frances, with a polite smile.

“Thank you, Frances…” she said, and turned around, closing the door. “Let’s go, Charlie.”

She lifted the kid and left him on her hip, while he gripped into her trying not to fall.

“We are going to Auntie Esme’s, we will have lots of fun and…”

She said a lot of things trying to cheer him up, but she was trying to convince herself she wouldn’t cry more that one night for that man.

She walked down the stairs lost in the sorrow, trying to hold everything in place. The kid, the bag, the feelings. She tried to get to the door before Thomas acknowledgement, but he was there, looking at her as if she was just a stranger. But Y/N knew that look on his face. That’s the way he looked at Sabini, that was the way he looked at Kimber before he shot him dead. He was looking at her as if she was his enemy, one who he had to erase.

“Where the fuck do you think you are going with Charlie, eh?” he asked, abruptly and aggressively.

“He´s coming with me.” She said, trying to sound secure and big.

“He’s staying here, this is his house.” He fired back “And I’m his father.”

“But I’m his home.” She fought, Charlie’s face was buried on her neck, he was so confused. “And you are never there for him at night when he cries, neither in the morning when he wants to have breakfast. You are only there to punish him, or to tell him to fuck off because you are working. And he needs time and someone, not a shit tone of money and a massive castle.”

“He’s not your son.”

“Yes, I am.” He cried on her ear, wetting her neck. “You are my mommy.” He kept on crying, he was nervous and scared. He was never in their fights.

“Move countries, I don’t give a fuck anymore. Get the fuck out of my sight, Y/N. Both of you.” He sounded like a mad dog, but at the same time like a lost one. He began to walk away, but froze when he heard:

“Goodbye, Mr. Shelby.”

He couldn’t move, he stood right there. Y/N shut the door slightly and walked straight into the car. She saluted the chauffer and gave him John and Esme’s address.

Ten minutes into the drive, Charlie began to miss Tommy.

“We will have fun, okay? We will play with their dogs, and we will eat freshly picked eggs. We can also go to the lake and do picnics with auntie Esme, how does that sound?” he nodded.

PERMANENT TAGLIST: open

@a-golden-sunflower-vol-6

@fifty-shadesof-tommyshelby 

@stydia-4-ever

[soulwillower]

tozier • stanley uris

(stan x tozier!reader smut)

requested: okay so once regular requests open, here’s my idea. so the reader and richie are siblings and they absolutely hate each other and to get under his sisters skin, he fucks her best friend. so in sheer anger she decides to fuck all of his

warnings: semi-public sex, oral (fem receiving), stan teasing the reader a lot, some dirty talk? i think thats it. also a tiiiiny bit of exhibitionism i guess at the end. very unedited

part 6 of the tozier series [  i  ii iii  iv v ]

(losers and reader are 20+ and in college in this)

4.1k words

♡

the door opened and closed downstairs as you towel dry your hair, the fog of the scorching shower you'd just endured fogging your mirrors. you frown as you wipe a line through the mirror and your eyes stare back at you for a split moment before the fog reclaims the image and you sigh.

pulling yourself together, you unlock the door and start to walk towards your room on the other side of the house. as you pad towards your room, a throat clears and you jump a bit, eyes landing on stan from where he stands at the bottom of the stairs. he's grinning, "hey, y/n." he says gently, eyes staying on your face. your face goes warm, "hi, stan. um - richie's- i don't know where richie is," you start, looking around.

richie rounds the corner as if he's been summoned, brushing his teeth as he itches his side. you hiss, "stan's here. why didn't you tell me he was coming over?"

it's quiet enough that the boy down the stairs can't hear you and richie narrows his eyes with a smirk.

"calm down, it's just stan. he's the only one here for dinner tonight. the others won't be here 'till sometime after. why d'you ask?" he asks, his mouth covered in spit and toothpaste. you wrinkle your nose at his poor hygiene but gesture to your frame, wet and covered with only your towel.

richie fixes you with an eye roll, "believe me, nobody is interested in you like that. especially stan. you're just self obsessed, y/n, it's embarrassing for you. not everyone wants to fuck you. i'm pretty sure nobody does." he says with a slight glare. "just because you're into my best friend doesn't mean he's into you."

you shove richie immediately, your eyes catching a glimpse of light brown curls as they zip around the balcony, disappearing. you wish he hadn't heard that. “fuck you, richie. why do you try to embarrass me? i hate you.” 

a moment later, your mom is calling your names. "richie, y/n! stan's here for dinner!"

you're furious and the look you send richie as you turn to escape to your room burns through his skull. you're flustered as you get ready for dinner, pulling on your clothes with bright red cheeks. your mind goes to the party you'd all gone to the other week - the night that you and bill had hooked up.

you can't believe you've almost done it. you've slept with five of richie's best friends, and he doesn't even know yet. the boy downstairs comes to your mind and you sigh, thinking back to when he'd teased you at the party, when you'd sat on his lap to the quarry the other day, when he'd slid his foot against your leg under the table the the other night while you were all eating....

the butterflies in your stomach won't go away. plus, it's stan - and for some reason that seems different than the rest of them....

you find your way to the dining room, eyes meeting stan's. he grins from where he's sat, playing with the bottle of beer in front of him, your father having offered him a modelo. "hi, y/n." he says in greeting, giving you a smirk. you smile back, "hi, stan."

"that skirt looks great." he says, "kind of too bad you changed." 

 and you clear your throat just as your dad and richie walk into the room, hands full of plates of food. you're red, hoping they hadn't heard. what the hell has gotten into stan? 

after that, dinner went by without much issue besides you and richie getting into a fight until your father forced you two to calm down.

now, the losers are over and bev is insisting someone go get ice cream from the store so you can all watch a movie with sundaes. "stan the man, you should go." mike says with a grin, causing stan to flip him off with a bored face. your eyes catch on his hands and you can't help but let your mind wander...

"why?" stan asks. eddie shrugs, "you do drive the fastest."

the others laugh and you smile at the ground a bit in amusement. "fine. i get to pick the flavors, though."

the protests from the others echo in the room and you roll your eyes, "just promise to get vanilla?" you ask, and stan looks at you. "what, you're a vanilla girl?" he asks. the others are buzzing in the background about their favorite flavors, but the intense look on stan's face makes you grin. "n-no, promise i'm not a vanilla girl." you say, lifting a brow. he's smirking full-on. "i just know eddie is." you add, and stan laughs. his smile gives you butterflies and eddie nods, "uh, yeah, it's objectively the best flavor, because then you can-"

he's ranting now, and stan shakes his head with an eye roll as he stands up and flips his keys around his fingers. "i'll be back quick."

"why don't you take your little girlfriend with you?" richie teases, gesturing to you. you throw him a glare. "fuck off, richie. y/n, get over here." stan says, nodding his head and gesturing for you to follow him out the door. it's so quickly that stan agrees to have you come along that some of the others share a look, making your stomach burn. he gives one more pissed off look to richie before he leaves the room, and so you awkwardly follow him out to richie's car.

it's a quick drive to the store. finally, you’re back in richie's car with several different ice creams in your hands. you and stan mostly joke the whole time, until you slide into his car again and fall into a moment of silence.

"it's always been funny to see richie say all this bullshit about you in front of me." stan breaks the silence, and you look at him in surprise. he shrugs, eyes still on the road. "not funny that he's an asshole, but it's just amusing. that he thinks i'm not attracted to you."

your stomach drops just as fast as your jaw does at stan's words. "oh, y-you..." you try to act casual. "what?" you ask then, trying to understand what he means. he laughs a bit, jaw tilting back and glinting in the afternoon light. "c'mon, y/n. look at yourself." is all he says, shaking his head as his eyes drag up your figure before returning to the road.

you stare at him, butterflies fluttering in your stomach and your thighs clenching.

"i know you like me, remember? since what, fifth grade?" he says with a cheeky grin, eyebrows lifting in a tease. you let out a breath, the butterflies thumping in your chest. "god, stan. that's not funny."

"why?" he asks, his voice deep as he sets the car towards your house again, the ice cream at your feet. "that joke is so old." you whisper, looking at stan. he raises his brows, "is it?"

"yes." you say firmly, but you feel your resolve breaking. he hums, shaking his head but not speaking.

it's quiet besides the song playing on the radio quietly - every little bit hurts by brenda holloway - and you pretend not to feel your heart flutter in affection as you hear stan sing along under his breath. 

he's driving with one hand on the wheel, one down on the shift. "you know, you don't need to have your hand there. this isn't a manual." you say, changing the subject and gesturing to his stray hand. 

he laughs and it ignites something very deep inside of you. "i'm so used to shifting gears. force of habit, i guess."

"richie's an idiot, he can't even drive manual." you say, shaking your head.

"yeah, but sometimes there's benefits to richie being incapable of driving anything but automatic." he says, his hand falling softly to hold onto your bare thigh. you grip the side of the car door tighter, unable to take his teasing anymore.

stan's pulling into your driveway, and so you turn to him. "why are you teasing me? did someone tell you something?" you ask. what if one of the losers squealed and told him that you fucked them all? he sighs, putting the car in park and looking at your eyes. 

"what? i'm not joking around. you just look so hot in that skirt." he admits with a light laugh and red cheeks.”if i’m making you uncomfortable, i’m sorry. i didn’t mean to at all, i just really want you.” 

it’s honest and bold, just the way stan usually is, and you swallow thickly. he really wants you? "prove it, then." you say, eyes locking with his, his hand squeezing your bare thigh.

two minutes later, you're laying down in the backseat as it’s parked in your driveway, stan on top of you sucking the skin on your neck.

“you want to do this right now? even though we could get caught?” you say breathlessly, hands tangled in his hair. "when else?" he says, staring at your lips. your stomach drops a bit, but you don't let it bother you too much as you have stan between your legs in the backseat.

"then let's go, uris." you say, pulling him down by the neck in desperation. he smirks into the kiss, kissing you so deeply you see stars.

"you think it'd be hot if i fuck you in his car, huh?" he whispers quietly in your ear. your eyes roll back as his fingers rub tight, teasing circles over your core, a fire slowly being lit. you only whimper a bit, biting your lip. "y-yes. we don't have time, th-though-" you gasp then, as he slips a finger into you.

he still watches you intently, listening as if nothing was abnormal as he pumps his finger, curling it and making you whimper as you try to spit out your words. it makes you turn bright red. "the ice cream- it'll melt, they'll know." you say through a moan, eyes shutting as he pumps his finger in and out of you teasingly.

"richie says it...t-tastes different after-" you moan, "-after it's been too melted."

"he's full of shit." stan pulls back, finger still teasing you. your chest raises and falls quickly, feeling flustered and desperate. stan smirks, "plus, i want to taste you first."

your throat gets dry. "p-please." you say, cheeks feeling hot with need. the windows are starting to fog up in the car he's parked on your driveway as he slowly slides the underwear down from your legs, kissing the skin as he goes. you're breathing shakily and then he's bringing his eyes up to you before lifting up your skirt and bringing his head under, your eyes rolling back to stare up at the lights in the back of the car that richie and bev had strung up one night.

you gasp in pleasure as you feel stan's tongue dart out and lick a bold, flat stripe up your heat. "fuck," you whisper, your hands moving from gripping the seat you've laid on to pulling up your skirt to lace your fingers through his hair. he swirls his tongue around your clit and you tense, the feeling of pleasure unlike anything you've felt before.

you wonder if it's because you could get caught by richie at any moment, or because it's in richie's car, or just because it's stan.

his hands snake up to hold your waist as he starts to move his tongue, holding you down so you can’t buck your hips, his thumbs rubbing the skin that's revealed between your top and your skirt.

“stan.” you whimper, back arching and yelping as he slips a finger inside you. he hums around your clit and your toes curl, gasping and whining as he pumps into you and curls his finger. his name falls from your lips like a prayer and you can almost feel his smirk against you as his tongue starts to work circles. 

his hand still presses against you as you buck your hips, your legs wrapping over his shoulders. he pulls away slightly, lips glistening as he smirks up at you. “you're perfect, y/n.” he mutters, making you moan, legs squeezing around his head. he smirks at you, finger coming up to rub at your clit slowly as he brings his tongue to thrust into you.

you squeeze his hair lightly as you whimper, the feeling euphoric as your toes curl. his name falls from your lips every few seconds as he ruthlessly eats you out, the coil in your stomach about to release. “stan, please, i’m gonna cum.” you mutter, eyes closed and chest rising and falling.

“not yet.” he says, jaw set as he pulls back, meeting your eyes. you whimper at the loss of stimulation, looking at him in shock. his hand comes up to grip your jaw softly, and he kisses you sweetly. "i want you to forget about everything and everyone besides me." he whispers against your lips.

chills run down your spine - does he know about the others? there's no way stan knows.

you nod, biting your lip as you watch him move back down between your legs, this time slipping two fingers into you and rubbing your clit with his thumb. "how's that feel?" he mutters, and you feel like you're on fire. "fuck- stan, so good. feels s'good." you mutter. he hums, sinking back down to suck and toy with your clit, fingers curling expertly and making your stomach tense as you try not to cum.

"stan, please, please, please-" you start to beg, arm coming to your forehead as you shake. he hums against your clit and you moan loudly - loud enough that if someone were passing by the car they'd certainly know - and clench around his fingers. "no need to beg, y/n." he says cockily, eyes glinting with pride. "cum for me."

you're shaking and moaning his name as you finally hit your high, the best orgasm you think you've ever had. your breathing stutters as he laps you up with his tongue gently, other hand soothing your hair. your eyes are pressed shut as you clench through your high. "fuck, stan." you whimper.

he's pulling himself to sit up and bringing his fingers to his mouth to clean them off, looking at you with an almost questioning look. it makes you feel like putty. 

"i think you need to get eaten out more often, babylove." is all he says before he opens the door, adjusting his pants, slipping your underwear into his pocket, and grabbing the ice cream. "or at least by someone who knows what they're doing."

you're speechless as you gather yourself, smoothing your hair and sliding from the back of the car on shaky legs. stan turns to walk towards the front door but you shove him quickly against the hood, kissing him deeply. you taste yourself faintly on his soft lips, and his free hand comes to grip you, squeezing your ass as he kisses you back. you pull back, "give me my underwear." you order. he shrugs, "you’ll be fine without them, won't you tozier?"

your jaw drops. "it's like you want richie to find out." you say, giving him a slight glare despite the intense butterflies in your gut. he grins at you, pecking your nose. "so what if he does? doesn't change the fact that i'd do it again."

and then he's pulling you by the hand gently towards the house and you're stumbling behind him with red cheeks and jello legs.

jesus christ, that just happened.

"goddamn, what made you take so long?" richie mutters as you and stan walk back into the room, stan’s hand leaving the small of your back after pinching your ass slightly. you clear your throat. "the self check out line was so long." you respond.  

"whatever. i'm hungry. where's the ice cream?" richie asks, the others in the room all looking at you. stan moves to sit next to bill on the couch.

"it's in the freezer. it softened up on the way back." stan says, seemingly disinterested. his passiveness makes your throat dry. why was that so hot?

"it's a three minute drive." richie says, sitting back down. you follow suit, sitting on the floor and grabbing a blanket, wary of the fact that you're sitting with 7 people who, if looking, might catch that you're not wearing your underwear. that stan has your underwear. 

"okay. guess we just hit a road bump." stan says, picking his nails. bev snorts at that, and ben's grinning. you huff a laugh, too. it's funny when stan's rude to richie.

"bet y/n's just happy she got to spend time with you. she was probably drooling over you the whole time, huh?" he says as if you're not there.

"richie, what's your problem?" you spit. he looks at you, "so defensive." he laughs. bev rolls her eyes, "you're the one who's always teasing her, richie. ease up."

"what, are you two girlfriends now?" richie says, still on his cocky attitude. you glare.

"no, we're not. but we did fuck." bev says casually, staring at richie with a serious look. richie rolls his eyes, "okay, don't joke about fucking my sister. off-limits."

"what?!" you yelp, standing up quickly, adjusting your skirt with a red face. thank god it's not too short. stan smirks as he sees you adjust your skirt, but all richie's friends are staring at him and you. "you have to be kidding, richie. you are such a fucking hypocrite."

he rolls his eyes, "cecily and you aren't even that close anymore!" he defends. "yes, because of you!" you yell. “it’s too late, anyways. i think we’re even.” you add with a grin.

“just get over it. and stop trying to say you fucked my friend, it sounds desperate. as if any of them would settle for you." richie snarls, smirking as if he's proud of what he'd said. 

it makes you smirk, shaking your head. if only he knew.

"richie, i don't think she's joking." ben speaks up. everyone's eyes turn to ben, and your heart pounds as you bite your lip. you look at each of the others quickly - ben's gnawing on his lip and looking at richie uncertainly, mike is staring at the ground in thought, eddie's staring at his lap with an amused smirk, bev is smirking between the two boys with her eyebrows raised, and bill is looking at ben with a small look of realization.

your eyes land on stan, who's staring back at you intently, a suggestive look on his face as he tugs a small part of your underwear from his front pocket as he thumbs it with his finger. you send him an intent look back, trying to beg him not to do it.

when you look at richie, he's shocked, mouth agape. "what?" richie says quietly. 

"you fucked my best friend. it was only fair." you say with a shrug, smiling at him. he looks like he might punch you.

you stifle a laugh, trying to keep a straight face but failing. richie looks furious as he walks up to you, the two of you standing in the middle of the make-shift circle the losers formed in the living room. he’s breathing heavy, face red. you don't think he’s ever looked so furious in his whole life. 

"which one?" he says through a clenched jaw, looking quickly over each of their faces, all of them smirking back slightly. you can’t help your own smirk or the shrug. 

"all of them."

part VII coming soon

tag list:  @gabiatthedisco @blisshemmings @stenbrozier  @sft-core @clownsloveyou  @moon-shine-baby @daughter-of-the-stars11 @trashedfortozier @oceandog13 @kait16xo @upamongthestarss @fiantomartell @beverlyparkerr @beauregard-s @diorbubs @leighjaenikhowell  @cowbellies @deepestofwaters @melinda-weasley  @ruefulposts

© all content belongs to soulwillower 2020. do not modify, repost, or redistribute

[nugnthopkns]

dance me to the end of love (iii)

word count: 4.3k

warnings: fem!oc, cursing, potential percy jackson & the olympians spoilers, alcohol consumption, motion sickness and vomiting

series masterpost: here

a/n: this took me a hot sec to finish but here it is! there's a dumb little latin joke in here but that's just because i'm a nerd lmao

Ryan is certainly giving Bette a run for her money in the best friend department.

Magdalene has no intentions of usurping her best friend, but Ryan is quickly becoming the person she talks to most frequently. It started on social media but quickly moved to regular texting, both of them being twenty-five and capable of communicating through more normal channels. The text thread between them isn’t indicative of their newfound friendship – it looks like they’ve been friends since high school. At any given moment at least three conversations are going on, and Magdalene regularly sends him random updates throughout the day. Ryan likes hearing about any interesting artefacts she encounters at work so she keeps mental notes to tell him during their frequent phone calls.

Despite talking to him almost constantly, Magdalene hasn’t seen Ryan since they grabbed lunch at Barn Owl nearly two weeks ago. The lake house trip is a couple days out, and she’s been busy trying to get all her ducks in a row. At work, the current project is coming to an end and Magdalene will be sad to see it go – it’s the first thing she’s been on from start to finish. She’s got a neighbour coming to spend time with Caligula while she’s away so he doesn’t get too upset. Though the days are passing by in a haze as she tries to get ready, Magdalene is excited to get away for a little bit. It’s been a few years since she’s left Denver for more than a night, electing to skip on Bette’s previous vacation invites, and it will be nice to slow down. Life is moving at a comfortable pace, but having some time to pause and breathe will keep Magdalene from feeling too overwhelmed.

Halfway through her last day of work, Magdalene gets a text from Ryan that makes her nearly double over in laughter.

Julius Caesar walks into a bar and says to the bartender “I’ll have a Martinus please!” The bartender replies “Don’t you mean a Martini?” Caesar shakes his head and says “If I wanted double I would have said so.”

It takes her a minute to catch her breath, which piques June’s curiosity. Magdalene recites the joke and her boss rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but does let out a chuckle.

June didn’t think it was funny, but I did. Thank you for making today infinitely better. You riding with us tomorrow?

Magdalene tucks her phone back into her purse, determined to remain focused for the last few hours, and misses the reply telling her that Ryan won’t be riding with Bette, Tyson, and herself, but rather with Cale and his girlfriend to leave enough space for all the gear getting brought. She doesn’t see it until she’s walking across the parking lot to her car and it fills her with a sadness that doesn’t make much sense. He’ll be there for the entire week, so does it matter that he’ll be in a different car for the four hour drive? Magdalene has a sinking suspicion about why she’s upset, but she pushes it down. There’s no space in your life for a relationship right now, she reminds herself as she unlocks the door to her apartment. Caligula is waiting patiently at the door and distracts her thoughts from the handsome man with the kind smile that’s been all she can think about recently.

The cat is incredibly perceptive and knows the regular routine is going to change, making him particularly clingy. He follows Magdalene as she finishes packing, meowing and begging for pets, and she considers bailing on her friends. Caligula has mild separation anxiety and Magdalene doesn’t go away often partly because of it – though another reason is her homebody nature. Only the thought of seeing Ryan keeps her from hanging all her clothes back up.

“Don’t worry little boots,” she coos, “I won’t be gone long. Maria is going to check on you while I’m away, and I’ll be home before you know it.”

It seems ridiculous to speak to her pet as though it’s a child, but Magdalene knows Caligula comprehends what she’s saying. He’s always been smart, and the two of them share a bond that’s hard to explain. She picks him up, puts him in the pocket of her hoodie, and they spend the rest of the night packing and dancing along to the radio.

☼☼☼☼

Bette forgot to mention that the road to the lake house is winding, and Magdalene spends the entire ride with her head between her knees. Motion sickness is something that unfortunately plagues her during journeys longer than a couple of hours and she wishes she would have thought to take anti-nausea medication before leaving the house. Tyson tries to crack a joke about her being a bad passenger, but his girlfriend swats his arm and passes her friend a water bottle with a concerned smile. The two of them speak in hushed tones, almost certainly for Magdalene's benefit, and she does her best not to throw up on the floor of Tyson’s car. After what feels like two decades the vehicle rolls to a stop at the end of a gravel path.

“Mags, we’re here,” Bette says softly, praying that her friend will begin to feel better after stretching her legs and feeling firm ground underneath her.

There’s an unintelligible groan from Magdalene, but she rises out of the car and stumbles into the house. Tyson and Bette insist that she rest and they’ll handle the unloading of the car, so she crawls into one of the empty beds and falls asleep as soon as her head touches the pillow. It’s a dreamless slumber, one fuelled by the pure exhaustion of battling illness while travelling, and when she awakes hours later Magdalene feels oddly refreshed. Her energy level is still relatively low, but she knows that intaking food won’t be an issue.

Padding down the stairs as quiet as possible in an effort to not break the peaceful atmosphere, Magdalene is met with a quiet house. She’s utterly confused – she didn’t sleep long enough to miss dinner and judging by the way the sun is low in the final car full of people should be arriving any minute. For a moment she thinks the group left her in the mountains alone, but then the sound of a trunk closing breaks the silence.

“I fucking told you bro, you should have let me drive!”

Ryan’s voice echoes in Magdalene's ears and her heart skips a beat. She didn’t realize how much she had missed him or how excited she is to see him. Despite everything inside of her saying she should run into his arms Magdalene stays put in the kitchen, running the tap to get a glass of water. She focuses on the mountain on the other end of the lake, framing the setting sun and creating a postcard ready photo. The camera app on her phone is open and angles for the best shot are found. Ryan tumbles through the door a second later, arms filled to the brim with luggage and bags of food.

He drops them the second he sees her, running up behind her and lifting her off the ground. “Mags! Cale almost hit a deer!”

The shock of Ryan’s onslaught of affection catches her off guard, and Magdalene shakes her hand, forcing the picture to turn out as nothing but a blur.

“No hello?” She laughs as Ryan lets her feet touch down on the wooden floor. “It’s the least you could give me after destroying my chance of getting a National Geographic worthy picture.”

He smiles but doesn’t let his hands drop from their perch on her waist. “There’s six more days for you to nail it. I’ll even help if you ask.”

Other bodies enter the house then, causing Magdalene to slink away from Ryan’s touch even though it was the last thing she wanted to do. They’re simply friends, and she doesn’t want Bette to get any ideas. The last thing Magdalene needs on her plate right now is her best friend forcing her to paint a custom denim jacket with Ryan’s number across the back. “I can’t believe you almost hit a deer,” Tyson sighs in disbelief.

“It wasn’t even close,” Cale grumbles, picking up his bags and stomping off to find a place to claim as his own the next couple of days. A petite redhead follows after him, giving a small wave to those in the kitchen before scurrying away. When she asks, Ryan tells Magdalene the girl’s name is Livy, and that she’s Cale’s girlfriend from back home.

Everyone shrugs at his moodiness and disperses. Bette and Tyson stay in the kitchen to make dinner, Ryan goes to claim the final room, and Magdalene slips outside to sit on the patio furniture. The sun has dropped drastically in the past five minutes, causing the air to chill. She wraps her arms tighter around her legs and watches a pair of birds fly over the lake below. It’s so peaceful, a complete one-eighty from the insanity of her life in Denver, and Magdalene thinks about never leaving. She knows it’s impossible, but as she closes her eyes and listens to the quiet laughter of her friends inside the idea seems like a pretty good one.

The sliding door creaks open and Ryan goes through as quietly as possible. He tosses a sweater in Magdalene’s direction as he walks over, plopping down beside her on the small couch.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, slipping the fabric over her head. “I didn’t realize how cold it had actually gotten.”

He smiles in response and shuffles his body a little closer to create extra warmth. Magdalene leans into him, trying to appear casual even though her heart is beating rapidly, and pulls on the strings of the sweater Ryan gave her.

“So, are you excited for this week?”

It’s more awkward than she thought it would be – seeing him in person again, especially since they’ve been texting almost constantly, and the words kind of stick in her throat.

“Honestly? Now that I’m here I am, but I was a little leery about taking time off,” Ryan explains, detailing how he’s trying to improve some aspects of his two-way play and is worried his progress will plateau. Magdalene understands and shares her own worries about taking time off work even if her boss encouraged it.

After catching up quickly and running out of things to say, the pair of them sit in silence watching the sun set until they’re called inside for dinner. It’s nice to just exist, especially with Ryan beside her, and Magdalene feels her heart sink as they separate and he goes to make sure Cale isn’t actually mad at him.

☼☼☼☼

It storms the first two days at the lake house, forcing everyone to stay inside. Tyson complains about how he has less time to drive the boat that came with the property but the others take it in stride. Magdalene spends most of the time reading for pleasure, something she hasn’t been able to do much of the past few years, and Ryan joins her for large chunks of the time. It turns out that he too is an avid reader, and the two of them discuss their favourite novels and series while the other four play board games.

“So you’re telling me you wish Annabeth would have joined the Hunters of Artemis?” Magdalene shrieks in shock, almost knocking the wine out of her glass as her arms flail in disbelief.

“I think it made sense for her to,” Ryan defends.

“But she’s perfect for Percy!”

He sticks to his guns. “I’m not saying she isn’t. I just think that at the time the offer was presented it was the most logical choice. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about what would have happened if she did.”

She ducks her head in defeat because she had imagined it, on many occasions in fact. When reading the series for the first time in middle school Magdalene had desperately hoped Annabeth would choose the Hunters over Camp Half-Blood, gaining the family she herself never was privy to. They return to reading quietly beside each other, occasionally knocking elbows when trying to turn a page.

Tuesday brings sunshine and clear skies, which means Tyson is trying to corral everyone into the boat as soon as they’re up. Magdalene tries her hardest to get out of it but her pleas fall on deaf ears.

“You’ll be fine, stop being such a wimp,” Cale jests. She knows that he’s just anxious to soak up some sun, but the words hurt more than Magdalene would have liked them to.

Livy swats her boyfriend across the chest. “Enough! If she doesn’t want to come she doesn’t have to.” The smaller girl sends her a kind smile before speaking low enough that only Magdalene can hear her. “I know your book is just getting good and you look like the kind of person who needs alone time to function properly. Enjoy yourself.”

Seemingly excused from the day’s festivities, Magdalene gives a sheepish wave before climbing the small hill to the house. Ryan meets her halfway and is appalled when he hears of her plans.

“Nope, I don’t think so. You’re not leaving me alone to be the ultimate third wheel!”

He has her off the ground and over his shoulder in a millisecond, jogging lightly to catch up with the rest of the group. Magdalene’s laugh bounces off the tree lined shore, and she’s too busy having fun shrieking at Ryan to complain about being forced to spend all day on a boat away from her book. Tyson peels away from the dock before she can regret tagging along, and Bette tugs Magdalene to the bow.

The two girls chat quietly, giggling and sipping on the mimosas they made earlier. Magdalene isn’t a huge day drinker, but Bette makes sure there’s more orange juice than champagne to make her feel less guilty. Livy joins them a while later after becoming sick of the boys and their shenanigans. It’s nice to hang out with a group of girls that aren’t competing for the top spot in a class, Magdalene decides, and she revels in the stories they tell of going to hockey games and babysitting the children of players so they can catch a break. Twinges of jealousy creep up at the wonderful family dynamic the Avalanche seem to have, but she stomachs them. She reminds herself that other people deserve to have support systems and excuses herself from the conversation.

Magdalene slides into the free space beside Ryan, and without thinking he wraps an arm around her shoulder. It feels so natural that she wonders if it’s how he greets all his friends, but the looks of shock and Tyson and Cale’s faces say otherwise. After a bit more cruising they find a small bay to anchor in for a while. The sun had climbed to the middle of the sky and is unbearably warm, leaving everyone no choice but to jump into the water to cool off. Magdalene does her best to float peacefully a short distance away from the group but is somehow brought into a splashing war because the teams aren’t equal.

Eventually the constant barrage of water chills her to the bone, and Magdalene swims back to the boat. She watches from the sidelines and cheers for her old teammates with a towel wrapped snugly around her. Ryan breaks from the group too, insisting it isn’t fair to have teams on unequal strength. Once dry, he picks up the baseball cap he brought and places it delicately on Magdalene’s head.

“Your cheeks are starting to go pink and I don’t want you to burn,” he explains, passing her a bottle of sunscreen as well.

“Thanks Ry.”

They muse about the idyllic beauty of the scene in front of them until everyone rejoins them. For reasons unbeknownst to Magdalene Tyson is in a rush to get back to the house, which leads to him driving very fast and a little erratically. The contents of her stomach threaten to come up but she holds them down, tightening her grip on the leather seat. A wave crests and Tyson hits it head on, causing the boat to lurch and rock. Magdalene knows it’s going to happen before it does and leans over the side to save a mess from being created. All the alcohol and food she’d consumed throughout the day is no longer in her body, and heat creeps up the back of her neck. She’s embarrassed – what twenty-five year old gets sea sick?

“Are you okay?” Ryan asked, not bothering to hide the concern in his voice.

She tries to smile but it comes out more like a grimace. “I just, uh, get motion sick really easily.” Bette passes her a water bottle and she drinks it quickly, eager to get the taste out of her mouth.

Ryan lets Magdalene curl into his side the rest of the way home, and rubs comforting circles on her back to ease her discomfort, doing his best to ignore the stares from his friends.

☼☼☼☼

The trip comes to an end much more quickly than Magdalene would have liked. Tomorrow morning they’ll pack up and drive back to Denver, returning to their normal hectic schedules. Cale and Livy are heading back to Alberta for the rest of the summer, and Bette and Tyson will be going for a visit as well. She’s heard Ryan mention going home in passing, which most likely means he doesn’t have plans to stay. Magdalene will be all alone in Colorado, but she’s used to it. The only issue being friends with professional athletes is that they leave. She’s been dealing with the loss since Bette and Tyson got together years ago – having them around as her support system most of the year and then them disappearing for a couple of months.

Not wanting to think about how soon she’ll be alone, Magdalene heads outside and starts a campfire. It’s a skill she picked up as a kid and it has come in handy over the years. The newspaper crinkles under the flame from the lighter, and soon the kindling is burning well. Everyone else is still inside, cleaning up from dinner and preparing for one last night in paradise. She places a few blocks of wood in the fire pit once there’s a good enough flame and curls up in a chair, lost in thought about what comes next. There’s rustling from somewhere behind her but she pays it no mind, assuming it’s a small animal wandering through the forest.

“Can I offer you some company?” a voice says softly, waiting for a response. The movement wasn’t a raccoon but in fact Ryan, and Magdalene gestures at the chair beside her with a smile.

He passes her a glass of white wine, which she takes with an appreciative hum. They sit in silence for a moment, admiring the beauty of the setting sun. “I’m going to miss it,” Ryan sighs, leaning back in his chair and extending his legs.

She nods. “Me too. It’s so quiet up here. Denver gets too loud sometimes.”

“Tell me about it. I’m not just going to miss the lake though, it’s also lounging around and not having to worry about hockey. And you.”

The ending comes out rushed, and Magdalene isn’t sure she heard him correctly. “Me?”

Ryan looks at her like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Yes you. Why wouldn’t I? You’re funny, smart, and catch all of my West Wing references. There’s no one who gets me quite like you, even back home.”

It takes her by surprise. They’ve only known each other for a few months, and only really started associating after the party at Bette and Tyson’s. There has to be somebody who knows him better than she does. When she voices her opinion Ryan just scoffs, saying that people treat him as one-dimensional because he plays hockey. Somehow the conversation shifts to Magdalene, and when she lets it slip she gets lonely in Denver without her friends, Ryan asks the question she’s been dreading.

“So why don’t you get a boyfriend?”

“I can’t just get a boyfriend because my friends are gone,” she laughs, but there’s an edge to it, like she’s unsure of where this will go and how to question the follow ups.

He rolls his eyes. “I know that, but like, I don’t know, wouldn’t it be nice to not be alone all the time?”

It would be, Magdalene thinks, but she just shrugs. “I guess I’m not looking for a relationship right now. I just finished school and for the first time in a long time I can focus on myself.” She leaves out the part where Ryan gives her butterflies and that if he asked she’d probably jump headfirst into a relationship with him.

The topic is dropped then because Tyson comes out of the house screaming about the night is going to be wild because it’s their last together for a while. Magdalene and Ryan share a look of mild panic, but both of them are itching to have fun with friends so they raise their glasses in salute before finishing them in one gulp.

Magdalene drinks more than she should and wakes in the morning with a killer hangover. It seems that no one else is better off though, all stumbling around looking for Advil and coffee like it’s going to be their last meal. Packing up takes a bit longer than expected, but they’re still out before the official checkout time. There’s a bit of discourse on who Magdalene will travel home with. Bette wants her in Tyson’s car, no doubt to talk about how close her and Ryan seem to be, but Cale offers to bring her with them. His reasoning is that Ryan is driving him and Livy directly to the airport, and having the front seat could be good for her motion sickness. It’s ultimately Magdalene’s choice and the idea of having more time with Ryan before he leaves is too enticing to pass up. She bids her other friends goodbye, promising to come over for dinner before they fly out, and climbs into the cab of Cale’s truck.

Once again she’s a less than ideal passenger, but this time it’s because she sleeps the entire way back to Denver. The drinking took it out of her and coupled with the queasiness in her stomach from the winding roads sleep is the only thing that makes sense. So much for extra time with Ryan she thinks as she wakes up in the airport parking lot.

“Sleeping beauty has risen!” Ryan chuckles, “Why don’t you get out and stretch your legs for a sec? We have the parking spot for another fifteen minutes.”

Magdalene does as suggested because truthfully her joints are a little stiff, and finds Cale and Livy grabbing their bags from the back. She hugs them goodbye and wishes them safe travels, which Cale returns with a warning not to get into too much trouble before heading for the entrance. Once both of them are safely inside the confines of the airport, Ryan and Magdalene get back in the vehicle and finish the last leg of the trip.

She directs Ryan to her apartment complex, and he mentions that he’s never been in this area of the city. “That’s because you have no need to be around a bunch of university kids,” she laughs. Once they pull into the parking lot, he offers to help her take up her bag. It’s only a small suitcase Magdalene could definitely handle herself, but she wants him to come up, to prolong her time with him.

Magdalene’s keys jingle in the lock as the door opens. Ryan follows her in and shuts the door carefully, not wanting to disrupt the aura of peace that permeates the space. From what he can tell, the average size apartment is the perfect reflection of Magdalene – packed full of books and plants and feels very put together despite the owner being only twenty-five. After their shoes find a home on the boot rack and the coats they brought for the drive home are hung in the closet she leads Ryan into the living room. There’s a soft purring by his feet, and Ryan looks down to see an animal. He never pegged Magdalene as someone to keep pets.

“Who’s this?” he asks, bending down to pet the small white cat.

“That’s Caligula.”

A puzzled look graces Ryan’s features. “Who?”

“Caligula,” Madalene giggles. “You can call him little boots if you’d like. He’ll respond.” She picks up the animal when it comes to her and scratches gently behind its ear.

“Why would you name your cat something dumb like Caligula, and why does it respond to little boots?”

It’s then the woman realizes that not everyone understands the reference. “Caligula was the third emperor of Rome,” she explains, “But his real name was Gaius. He gained the nickname Caligula as a child and it just stuck. It translates to little boots in Latin.”

Ryan is in awe of Magdalene for what feels like the millionth time. Of course someone as smart as her would have a crazy name for a pet and have the knowledge to back it up. He feels his chest tighten with affection but he wills it away. She isn’t looking for anything right now, he reminds himself. Magdalene’s self-professed inability to reciprocate his feelings is frustrating, but Ryan knows he’d wait forever for her.

☼☼☼☼

additional notes: catch some extra content here!

taglist: @scrunchmakar @marcoscandellas @toplinetommy @ricohenrique @lovethepreds @cutiesara23 @hockeyallthetime @stlbluesbrat21 (add yourself to the taglist!)

[talkfastromance4]

when i’m dreaming--calum hood oneshot

yeah so i’m going through something so this is very, very self-indulgent. 

word count: 2.3k

warnings: drinking linked a little with coping, going through a depressive low, best friend!calum

feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

***

Calum notices something is wrong the minute she steps outside. He was about to take a drink of his white claw, but his eyes went to her nails when she pulled Crystal in for a hug. She typically paints them to match her mood and today they’re opalescent pink, barely noticeable but still there. In plain sight but still visible while she secretly wants to be invisible.

She smiles and cracks jokes with everyone she says hello to then when she steps in front of Calum, he sees the sadness in her eyes. They’ve been best friends for awhile now, they’ve shared secrets, stories of first loves and heartaches, their fears, their wildest dreams. But there was always something she kept hidden, tucked away in a box welded shut.

“Hey bud,” she sighs.

“Hey short stuff,” he grins playfully pulling her in for a hug. Her arms wrap around him and he makes sure to give her an extra tight squeeze.

“I’m not that short,” she grumbles in his chest.

“You’re shorter than me,” he reminds rubbing her shoulder with his thumb. Although her arms are loose around him he can feel the tension in her shoulders that she’s carrying.

“Stop hogging her! I haven’t seen her in weeks!” Ashton exclaims and Calum pulls away.

He knows it was too soon to break the hug but to keep up with her own façade he doubts anyone else sees, he does it.

“Hey, you’re the one who disappeared into the desert for all those weeks,” she jokes rising on her toes to loop her arms around Ashton’s neck.

He gives her a big bear hug that lifts her a few inches off the ground, Calum sees her nails digging into her arm as she squeezes him.

“Had to recenter myself, you should try it sometime,” Ashton teases right back. As if she was shocked, she removes herself from the hug then accepts a bottle of Mike’s from Luke.

“I can take something stronger than this, Hemmings,” she takes a large chug regardless.

“Yeah? Like tequila? I got some limes,” he jerks his thumb behind him towards the drink table.

“I said stronger not deadly. You know I can’t handle tequila,” she scrunches her nose.

Everyone else laughs but alarms are going off in Calum’s head.

“Yeah, the floor of my Tesla doesn’t like tequila either,” Michael chimes in with a tray of shots.

“I told you to pull over,” she shrugs lifting up a shot. She takes a whiff and nods in approval at his selected alcohol choice.

“I was going 75 on the freeway!”

“And that’s why I threw up. Ready?” she lifts her glass.

Calum meets her eyes as over the hands of their friends as Ashton gives an impromptu speech about friendship and long rides. He wasn’t really paying attention because when their eyes locked, he saw the panic, he saw the fear of whatever was going on in her head.

**

The next time he sees her is at the movies. Her eyes are darker along with her nails that are now a hunter’s green; camouflaged but still visible. While they’re waiting in line for snacks, he lifts her hand in his and runs his thumb over the color.

“This is a pretty color, I’ve never seen it on you before,” he says.

“Yeah, um…wanted to try something different,” she shrugs. “Do you want the blue icee?”

“Is that even a question?” he raises a brow, and she laughs.

Once they’re settled in the seats the previews start. Calum opens up the bags of sweet and sour treats while she opens the boxes of milk duds. The large bowl of popcorn (with extra butter) is settled between them, long red straws sticking out of their frozen drinks.

Throughout the whole movie, it’s an action romantic comedy, Calum keeps glancing at her. He watches her fingers disappear in the popcorn bowl, her hunter’s green nails appearing black in the dark theater. Calum’s seen enough movies to know this moment is foreshadowing the darkness she’s slipping into. He’s preparing himself for the fall but he’s not entirely sure she is.

**

Two weeks have gone by and he hasn’t seen her since the movie. Their schedules didn’t align so he decided to surprise her with takeout from her favorite Asian restaurant and chocolate cake from her favorite bakery.

When he opens the door, he hears Friends playing on her tv and he finds her horizontal on the couch. The hood of her sweatshirt is over her head, her arms wrapped around her torso, her black nails clutching the fabric.

Calum braces himself for what he’s walking into, sets the food on her counter and crouches in front of her. He pulls her hoodie back a little so he can see her face a bit better, her eyes are distant and staring off behind him.

“Hey,” he says softly then touches her hand. It’s very cold. “Y/N.”

Upon hearing her name does she finally look at him. Her eyes have filled and spilled with her tears in a matter of seconds. He links her fingers through his.

“Hi,” she mouths, her voice barely registering.

“Is this about…him?” he asks delicately.

About a year ago he chipped away at the welding on the box. He knows it involves a guy. He knows it’s about bad timing. He knows it’s about deep emotions.

She nods and the tears erupt more. She buries her face in her hands then adds another layer by hiding in the pillow.

“Nope, nope, hey,” he tugs on her arms. She’s pliant and allows him to drag her in a sitting position. He takes the place where her head was then brings her onto his lap. “I’ve got you, I’m right here.” He murmurs and pulls her hoodie down so he can rub at her hair.

She sobs loudly into his neck. Calum holds her as tight as he can, murmuring comforting words in her ear. Her sobs would subside, but he wouldn’t let go until she did. She’s very good at keeping her emotions at bay and even better at keeping people further away from her harbor. She doesn’t ask for help often, she doesn’t open up too much and when she does it’s always the footnoted version.

Three episodes of Friends later, her hold lessens, she gives a big sniff and peels herself away from Calum. He uses the sleeves of his shirt to wipe at her tears and nose.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, and she shakes her head. “I brought food. I’ll heat it up for you.”

She nods and falls back onto the couch. He rubs her knee then heads into the kitchen. When the food is prepared on plates he brings it to her and she takes it, scarfing down the first few bites heartily.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she finally speaks when her plate is empty.

“I know,” he nods looking over at her until she meets his brown eyes. “It’s okay.”

Calum ends up staying the night, his mind reeling from what the history is with this mystery guy. His thoughts get away from him as he stares at the ceiling above the couch. Was he some celebrity that kept her under the radar and broke her heart repeatedly? A Prince from some far-off country that got her hopes up and crushed them again and again?

He’s tossing and turning until he hears the shower turn on. Sad songs play over and over on her speakers, her voice singing along with the yearning words. Ghostin’ by Ariana and When the Party’s Over by Billie replay one after another.

She’s really hurting.

Calum bounds off the couch and opens the bathroom door.

“Y/N?” he makes sure his voice is a little louder than the music.

A sniff. “Yeah?” her voice is thick.

“Just want you to know I’m here,” he shuts the door and sits next to the shower.

His heart aches when he hears her crying again, the vocals echo and bounce off the tiles. Her sadness fills the room just as it’s filled in the hidden box of the guy who’s making her feel this way.

Four more repeats go by and the shower is finally shut off. Calum scrambles off the floor, sees her tug the towel from the door of the shower. Her shadow figure wraps it around herself and she opens the door. Her skin is red from the hot water, as are her eyes and cheeks from crying more tears. He grabs another towel and helps dry her hair while she stands there avoiding her reflection in the mirror.

“It’s been five years, why do I still feel like this?” she asks quietly.

“It hurts the most when it meant something.”

He left the bathroom after he dried and brushed her hair then waited for her in her bedroom. There’s pictures on her desk from high school. Her and some guy at prom. Her and the same guy a little bit older posing in a selfie on a couch, drunken smiles on their faces. Her and the same guy a little older again posed outside.

This must be from that box. She’s cracked it open and Calum is staring at some of the pieces that have broken her wholly.

“His name’s Henry,” she explains suddenly behind him.

Calum turns to her voice. The drastic change from the happy girl in the photos to the sad girl before him startles him. He remains silent to let her speak or to go into silence again. She moves onto her bed, sitting in the center and tucks her legs against her chest.

“We never dated. But we were always…together. Together in the physical sense for four years,” she continues. Calum joins her cautiously on the bed and listens. “Back and forth always. After every relationship we fell back into each other. He’s the longest relationship I’ve had, and it wasn’t even a real one.

“We cared about each other, and…I think he loved me. Time wasn’t on our side. It was too much or too little, I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Just when I think I’ve let go; I dream of him. Then he’s on my mind for days. And now this time…” she shakes her head and Calum pulls her against him. “I went on socials and I found out that he um…he’s a dad now. And I feel so stupid because that could have been me if we kept what we had. I feel stupid because a part of me wanted it to be me.”

Calum doesn’t fully understand the ins and outs of their relationship, but four years of physical affection and a rock to lean on, that’s a lot of history. He also doesn’t fully understand how this guy didn’t make it official with Y/N. She’s the perfect best friend with a big heart.

Calum wishes he knew her in school because he would have been the one to take her to prom. He would have been the one take her to movies and dinners and surprise her with flowers. He would have made it official rather than keep her guessing.

“I’m really going through it and I don’t know how to get out,” she whispers sadly.

“I think…” Calum heaves a big sigh and kisses her wet head. “I think you’re just cracking the surface of breaking free. I can tell he meant a lot to you and you meant a lot to him. Even if he never said it, you’ll always be a part of him just like he’ll be a part of you. Someone that important won’t just poof away.”

“But I want him to, it hurts.”

“I know it does, sweetheart. I’ll help you in any way I can, okay?”

“You’re so understanding and you’re so good, but I don’t want to cry over another guy when you’re here.”

“That’s what best friends do.”

She turns her head and gazes up at him. He notices the storm in her eyes aren’t as dark, her lips are chapped from the cracking of memories she spilled out.

“Calum, you’re more than my best friend.”

He hears a deeper truth in her statement, and it causes his breathing to quicken. The subtle yet very noticeable flick of her eyes to his lips causes him to react. He gives her a quick peck, but that smallest touch sent an enormous shock through his system.

They settle against her pillows, the kiss wasn’t awkward, but it filled them both with questions. Questions that will be answered at a different time because right now he wants to hear this most vulnerable part of her life. She takes his hand in hers first and plays with his fingers while she talks.

He makes comments and asks questions to try and understand a bit more. Calum kisses her head when her voice starts to shake. Hours go by and the sky starts to lighten, birds are awakening.

“Hey,” she says right as he’s about to fall asleep. They talked all night, but she quieted down about twenty minutes.

“Hm?” he opens his eyes.

“We match.”

He looks down at their intertwined fingers when she taps on his nail. His polish is chipped away from chewing on a hangnail then smiles at the black color. He lifts their hands and kisses their knuckles.

“I feel what you feel.”

“What exactly do you feel?”

“I felt you slipping. I can sense your emotions when no one else can, and I guess I painted my nails subconsciously because I didn’t want you to be alone in the dark,” he explains. She’s quiet for a moment and he thinks she really fell asleep this time.

“Thank you. I don’t think I’ll be this bad again.”

“If you are, I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”

“Cal?”

“Hmm?” he sighs. It’s getting harder to keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t want her to stop talking. He doesn’t want her out of his arms.

“When I’m dreaming tonight it will be of you.”

**

Taglist: @calpalirwin @myloverboyash @loveroflrh @cxddlyash @princesslrh @spicylftv @notinthesameguey @itjustkindahappenedreally @calumance @thew0rldneedsmcreycghurt @sarcastically-defensive17 @another-lonely-heart @devilatmydoor @thatscooibaby @suchalonelysunflower @dead-and-golden @mymindwide @blackbutterfliescal @redrattlers @karajaynetoday @quasighost @i-like-5sos @creampiecashton @calpops​ @littledrummeraussie​ @sexgodashton​ @f-mu​

[shatouto]

more raised-sith anakin whump and jedi obi-wan comfort, co-written with @obiwanobi ! (also available on ao3) pls check out the rest of the series if you haven’t (it won’t make a lot of sense otherwise)

content note: non-graphic depiction of violence; mention of past sidious-style abuse; just please proceed with care

a little more

Anakin shivers alone in the nightly winds.

He counted exactly five sunsets and sunrises since the meditation incident. Obi-Wan never brought it up again, and acted like nothing happened. He still smiled and joked with such kind eyes; still asked Anakin about his progress on the newest cleaning droid in their quarters and offered to read to him before bed. Even Ahsoka never brought it up, even though Anakin was sure the Jedi would tell his apprentice about his major offense.

He couldn’t eat. He could hardly sleep. His stomach churned every time Obi-Wan said a gentle thing to him, in that usual melodic lilt of his. His breath halted every time Obi-Wan passed him by and pat his shoulder or brushed his hand. His Master had made him wait before, but never for this long without reminding him of his misdeed. But waiting time was meant to make the punishment more excruciating, so perhaps this is the point all along - that he suffers before he gets what he deserves. Or maybe the smiles are only a beautiful facade before the Jedi discards him for good. Because, let’s be frank: what worth does he have here?

The sky is a lightless inky ocean with not even a speck of starlight to speak of. Anakin turns his gaze one more time towards the lights of the Jedi dormitories. This is what he has to do, to be able to stay, he reasons. This is the only way.

He makes his way down.

The Lower Levels of Coruscant are singularly illuminated by artificial light, if they are illuminated at all. Here where celestial lights never reach, every grease-streaked face is tinted in the neon magenta and cyan of gaudy store signs, or the sickly green of long battery life storm lanterns. The alleys are perpetually murky, a certain stickiness that holds the sole of your shoes whenever you peel your feet from the ground. A cacophony of howling fight dogs echoes from afar, and the light above him flickers. Anakin doesn’t even need to glance around.

Here, there is no shortage of fists itching to throw a punch.

It takes little more than a shove and a cuss, to get himself thrown to the ground. Anakin springs back up onto his feet with ease; by then, several people, of various species and stature, have gathered around him. Some of them reeks of booze, others of blood. From there on, it’s easy.

His knuckles collide with a jaw. Bone cracks under his metallic fist. Force-blinds are no match for him; he has taken down dozens on his own when he was but a whelp under Master Sidious’s tutelage, thirteen years of age or so. That’s not to say they don’t land a good blow here and there, but a few bruises on the face are hardly more than a tickle compared to the burn scars that litter his body. When a sudden blast rings in the relative silence and misses him by a hair, Anakin grins. He whips around and uses the Force to simultaneously yank the blaster from the shooter’s hand and fling the marksman across the street. He opens fire.

Some of them fall, some of them run. Some of them remain, and then run when they see him toss the blaster away in favor of meeting them hand to hand. The more they come at him, shoot at him, the more his blood infuses with thrill. He feels renewed in misery, in the knowledge that this show of abandon will surely earn him the punishment he deserves, where all else failed. His metal fingers are capable of cutting skin, breaking bones, if he so wants, and he does. There’s blood on his hands, warm, soaking the sleeves of his too-soft robes. There has always been blood on his hand; a little more doesn’t make any difference.

When he’s done, Anakin thinks, he’ll be back in the Jedi’s quarters and kneel at the door to his bedroom. He’ll wait there, ready, so that when the sun rises, the Jedi will come and see what he has done. This is not something the Jedi can ignore in favor of delaying his punishment. He smiles and shivers at the same time at just the thought of it.

“Anakin, what are you doing?”

Obi-Wan’s startled voice runs him through like a spear. Anakin stops dead in his movements, wide-eyed. Obi-Wan? Here?

His pause promptly earns him a blaster shot to the shoulder. He snaps his head back towards the bastard who shot him, hand thrusted out in a Force-push. The shooter flies through the air and slams against a store sign. Another blaster fires.

Obi-Wan deflects it away from Anakin.

Anakin doesn’t know what’s happening anymore.

He staggers back and back away. This isn’t right. The Jedi should be asleep. He’s not meant to be in this nest of rats and vipers; not meant to know anything of this, to see Anakin in this state—just, just observe the aftermath and dispense his justice. Only the aftermath. Only when Anakin is ready.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Anakin says, his center lowered, his stance battle-ready. The scums around him scurry like cockroaches under the light of a lightsaber, even as Obi-Wan thumbs it off and clips it to his belt. “You should be in bed, not here.”

“The same could be said to you,” Obi-Wan says. Neon lights flicker on his face, his furrowed brows and tight lips, and there’s no light that’s ever been so dull, duller than the spark of dismay in his eyes that Anakin doesn’t want to acknowledge. “I would much prefer you to come back...”

“I have to be here.”

Obi-Wan is unflinching. He crosses his arms not only in a refusal to engage, but also in clear disapproval. “May I ask why?”

It’s the disapproval that makes Anakin’s heart drop.

“No,” he grits, breaths stuttering. He closes and opens his hand and warm sticky blood seeps into the cracks of his palm. If there is some semblance of a reflexive surface here, Anakin would look right into it, so desperate he is to see what color his eyes are. How does he look like to Obi-Wan right now? Does he deserve a punishment yet? Does he deserve anything?

Because if not, if he doesn’t, if he has no worth and Obi-Wan grows tired of him, he’ll be on his own again, facing the fact that he has lost everything and everyone and has nowhere to go and nothing to be. Hells, Anakin knows he shouldn’t be like this. He should be stronger than this. He shouldn’t be so weak as to fear losing any one man, let alone one Jedi, one stupid Jedi; he shouldn’t care; why does he care so much; he hates it, he hates it.

“Why are you here?” Anakin backs away, towards the source of sound - there’s a gambling den nearby, where he could conceivably squirrel himself away. “What are you trying to do?”

Obi-Wan only raises his hands, palm forward. “To get you home. Anakin, you have...”

“Bantha shit,” Anakin spits. They’ve gathered yet again a sizable amount of curious onlookers. “What do you want, Jedi?”

“Anakin, please, calm down—”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Anakin roars, even though that is exactly what he has been seeking. Direct orders, uncomplicated. But not like this. Not with this benevolence. “If you’re not going to answer me then don’t fucking tell me what to do!” He steps back and back, and the only thing the Jedi does is match every backward step of his with one step forward of the exact same length. “Fuck you and your nice little lies; never say one straightforward thing, ever, because you’re too good for it, what a good Jedi. Just say you want to drag me back by the scruff and punish the nine hells out of me.” He gives a teeth-gritted grin. “Say it! I know you want to say it!”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even deign to look taken aback. He says nothing, does nothing, just stands there in that damned little display of harmlessness, so patient, so calm, like he’d be ready to ask for a cup of tea and sip it slowly while watching Anakin any moment now. So that’s how it is, huh?

The bystanders scatter in shrieks when one of them is suddenly lifted in the air, scrabbling at their neck with strangled noises. Anakin’s eyes are not even on them; he glares at the Jedi as his fingers curl. “Say it.”

Obi-Wan finally moves. He stands between the hapless stranger and Anakin. His eyes harden, the shadows on his face sharpen, and his voice turns steel-cold. “No.” He takes Anakin wrist in a vise-tight grip. “Let them go. Stop this, now.”

Finally.

Anakin lets go. Not just of the person, but of everything. He drops to his knees with his wrist still in Obi-Wan’s hand, and when it’s released, his arm swings down limply, colliding with his thigh in a dull slap. His head hangs as his eyes squeeze shut. He tucks his tongue back and tries not to wonder what it’ll be this time - lightning or lightsaber burn, electro-whip lashes or an invisible hand around his neck, water running over his face or the cold hard curved confines of the Sphere...

But nothing comes.

“Anakin.”

Obi-Wan’s voice has always been very soft for someone so capable at fighting; even so, this is probably the gentlest tone he’s used yet.

“Anakin,” he says again, and the name feels safe in his mouth.

Anakin won’t be fooled. His Master liked to lull him into a sense of safety during his lessons, coaxing him to let down his guard just to strike harder after and make sport of his tattered body. He should know better. He should…

“Anakin, please, look at me.”

Obi-Wan’s voice is worth a little more pain.

He opens his eyes to find Obi-Wan’s. The Jedi is crouched before him, close enough to touch if he wanted to. But he doesn’t. Anakin can’t decipher the look on his face or even the hand hanging in the air between them that doesn’t have a lightsaber in it ready to strike him or lightning to burn him.

“That’s it,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Anakin doesn’t dare to breathe too hard.

Obi-Wan’s brows knit together. “I could not understand why you would leave in the midst of a night to do this. Where have I wronged you?” He sighs again into silence. “You scared me, Anakin.”

A punishable offense. So here’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, listing his sins before punishing him, ordering him to keep his eyes open in wait of the punishment to come. Anakin stares at him, eyes stinging, waiting. But instead of the burning of a blade on his back or a slow Force-choke around his neck, calloused fingers find his wrist. They move lightly above his skin, cautious, taking their time as if to unravel the tension under his flesh, wrapping around his hand. Anakin braces himself for the twist, for the sudden deceit and pain. Instead, Obi-Wan's thumb starts rubbing slow circles on the back of his hand.

“May I take care of you, then?” Obi-Wan asks, and something in his voice breaks a bit. “You’re hurt, dear one.”

These last words are like a saber to his heart. Anakin never thought Obi-Wan could be this cruel.

“Don’t,” he chokes out his last defiance, as his fists start trembling, “don’t call me that.” He bows his head deeply and shuts his eyes and goes as still and silent as possible. His insides are curling in on themselves, yet he doesn’t dare move. He’s nearly holding his breath, as the air moves around him. Fabric rustles, and he can feel arms drawing around him, and This is it he thinks, this is it, the pain will come and he will finally be released—

Obi-Wan pulls him to his chest.

This is not right. This is not real. This can’t be true. Nobody could be this gentle; nobody could forgive just like that, not with the insults and insolence and innumerable unpunished offenses old and new. Anakin does not get touched like this. He should not. His shoulders are squared stiff and his muscles constrict so hard that he starts shaking. He can barely breathe, because every breath knives into his tightened throat. His nose stings and his eyes burn and he gasps for air, only to take in a sharp sob.

“Please don’t… Please don’t do this to me.” Anakin gulps, clutching his own torso, fearful of the sudden warmth and tenderness. “Just—just punish me, I deserve it, please punish m—” He nearly bites his tongue trying to suppress the next sob. Tears always angered his Master. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I beg of you, please stop making me wait, Master, I’m sorry, please, just…”

Obi-Wan pulls back only to take Anakin’s face in his hands. Thumbs wipe over his cheekbones. “I’m not your Master,” he hushes, brushing hair back from Anakin’s forehead. “I’m not going to punish you, Anakin.”

And then Obi-Wan does the unthinkable: he lowers his outermost mental shields. He lets Anakin in, on his own. His concern scatters across the expanse of his psyche like gemstones, like blinking stars. His words are as true as the moon. I would like to bring you home. I would like to keep you safe. Obi-Wan’s hand cradles the base of his skull. Lips press into his hair. I would like to see you smile.

Anakin’s mouth falls open in a wail. He smushes his face against the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck and soaks his robes with tears. He cries his throat raw and parched, cries until his jaws tremble, his teeth clatter, his head goes light. He lets go of his own flanks and bunches his fists into Obi-Wan’s robes instead. Obi-Wan’s arms are wrapped firmly around him like a promise.

Anakin hiccups one last time, and sags.

—

Ahsoka paces near the Temple’s gate. The Temple Guards glance at her every once in a while, and she’s a little bit annoyed, maybe, but that’s nothing compared to the worry brewing in her chest right now. Dawn is peeking at the horizon, and her Master is nowhere to be found.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” she mutters to herself, flooding her and Obi-Wan’s bond with the rightful amount of indignation. You should’ve taken me with you, Master!

She’s surprised to feel Obi-Wan’s response immediately. A brief sense of reassurance, and a nearness - he’s approaching. His presence is too mired in concerns for her to make out the exact message, but she gets the sentiment. Her worries go through and mirror his own. They’re probably worrying about the same thing, then.

Ahsoka knows Obi-Wan is back before he’s even within sight. Yet the sight of him still suffuses her with equal parts relief and amazement. In the light of dawn, her Master marches into the Jedi Temple, a gentle silhouette against the rosy sky. Limp in his arms, head pillowed on his shoulder, is Anakin No-Name, formerly known as Darth Vader, currently unconscious.

“Let them both in.” Ahsoka tells the Temple Guards, showing them her datapad. “Words from Master Yoda.”

Obi-Wan looks at her gently, mouthing a soft thank. Her steps fall beside his, and for a while there are only the sounds of their footsteps echoing in the great hall.

“Master.” Her eyes flick to Anakin, noting his red, puffy eyes in stark contrast with his ashen face and… are those dried tears? There is blood on the ex-Sith’s robes and on her Master’s and she sort of really wants to know which is whose. “Is he alright?”

“More or less,” Obi-Wan answers. Ahsoka frowns at him, yet he seems too deep in thoughts to notice that. She sets a hand on his arm.

“Master, the Council has…”

“I know, young one.” Obi-Wan pauses when Anakin chuffs, shuffling his arm to rearrange the ex-Sith in a more comfortable position, and continues on his way. “I would prefer you to go back to sleep. This is my responsibility to bear.”

[ot3]

i watched red vs blue: zero with my dear friends today and i was asked to “post” my “thoughts” on the subject. Please do not click this readmore unless, for some reason, you want to read three thousand words on the subject of red vs blue: zero critical analysis. i highly doubt that’s the reason anyone is following me, but hey. 

anyway. here you have it. 

Here are my opinions on RVB0 as someone who has quite literally no nostalgia for any older RVB content. I’ve seen seasons 1-13 once and bits and pieces of it more than once here and there, but I only saw it for the first time within the past couple of months. I’ve literally never seen any other RT/AH content. I can name a few people who worked on OG Red vs. Blue but other than Mounty Oum I have NO idea who is responsible for what, really, or what anything else they’ve ever worked on is, or whether or not they’re awful people. I know even less about the people making RVB0 - All I know is that the main writer is named Torrian but I honestly don’t even know if that’s a first name, a last name, or a moniker. All this to say; nothing about my criticism is rooted in any perceived slight against the franchise or branding by the new staff members, because I don’t know or care about any of it. In fact, I’m going to try and avoid any direct comparison between RVB0 and earlier seasons of RVB as a means of critique until the very end, where I’ll look at that relationship specifically.

So here is my opinion of RVB0 as it stands right now:

1. The Writing

Everything about RVB0 feels as if it was written by a first-time writer who hasn’t learned to kill his darlings. The narrative is both simultaneously far too full, leaving very little breathing room for character interaction, and oddly sparse, with a story that lacks any meaningful takeaway, interesting ideas, or genuine emotional connection. It also feels like it’s for a very much younger audience - I don’t mean this as a negative at all. I love tv for kids. I watch more TV for kids than I do for adults, mostly, but I think it’s important to address this because a lot of the time ‘this is for kids’ is used to act like you’re not allowed to critique a narrative thoroughly. It definitely changes the way you critique it, but the critique can still be in good faith.  I watched the entirety of RVB0 only after it was finished, in one sitting, and I was giving it my full attention, essentially like it was a movie. I’m going to assume it was much better to watch in chunks, because as it stood, there was literally no time built into the narrative to process the events that had just transpired, or try and predict what events might be coming in the future. When there’s no time to think about the narrative as you’re watching it, the narrative ends up as being something that happens to the audience, not something they engage with. It’s like the difference between taking notes during a lecture or just sitting and listening. If you’re making no attempt to actively process what’s happening, it doesn’t stick in your mind well. I found myself struggling to recall the events and explanations that had immediately transpired because as soon as one thing had happened, another thing was already happening, and it was like a mental juggling act to try and figure out which information was important enough to dwell on in the time we were given to dwell on it.

Which brings me to another point - pacing. Every event in the show, whether a character moment, a plot moment, or a fight scene, felt like it was supposed to land with almost the exact same amount of emotional weight. It all felt like The Most Important Thing that had Yet Happened. And I understand that this is done as an attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a rather short runtime, but it fundamentally fails. When everything is the most important thing happening, it all fades into static. That’s what most of 0’s narrative was to me: static. It’s only been a few hours since I watched it but I had to go step by step and type out all of the story beats I could remember and run it by my friends who are much more enthusiastic RVB fans than I am to make sure I hadn’t missed or forgotten anything. I hadn’t, apparently, but the fact that my takeaway from the show was pretty accurate and also disappointingly lackluster says a lot. Strangely enough, the most interesting thing the show alluded to - a holo echo, or whatever the term they used was - was one of the things least extrapolated upon in the show’s incredibly bulky exposition. Benefit of the doubt says that’s something they’ll explore in future seasons (are they getting more? Is that planned? I just realized I don’t actually know.)

And bulky it was! I have quite honestly never seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of “show, don’t tell.” There was not a single ounce of subtlety or implication involved in the storytelling of RVB0. Something was either told to you explicitly, or almost entirely absent from the narrative. Essentially zilch in between. We are told the dynamic the characters have with each other, and their personality pros and cons are listed for us conveniently by Carolina. The plot develops in exposition dumps. This is partially due to the series’ short runtime, but is also very much a result of how that runtime was then used by the writers. They sacrificed a massive chunk of their show for the sake of cramming in a ton of fight scenes, and if they wanted to keep all of those fight scenes, it would have been necessary to pare down their story and characters proportionally in comparison, but they didn’t do that either. They wanted to have it both ways and there simply wasn’t enough time for it. 

The story itself is… uninteresting. It plays out more like the flimsy premise of a video game quest rather than a piece of media to be meaningfully engaged with. RVB0 is I think something I would be pitched by a guy who thinks the MCU and BNHA are the best storytelling to come out of the past decade. It is nothing but tropes. And I hate having to use this as an insult! I love tropes. The worst thing about RVB0 is that nothing it does is wholly unforgivable in its own right. Hunter x Hunter, a phenomenal shonen, is notoriously filled with pages upon pages of detailed exposition and explanations of things, and I absolutely love it. Leverage, my favorite TV show of all time, is literally nothing but a five man band who has to learn to work as a team while seemingly systematically hitting a checklist of every relevant trope in the book. Pacific Rim is an incredibly straightforward good guys vs giant monsters blockbuster to show off some cool fight scenes such as a big robot cutting an alien in half with a giant sword, and it’s some of the most fun I ever have watching a movie. Something being derivative, clunky, poorly executed in some specific areas, narratively weak, or any single one of these flaws, is perfectly fine assuming it’s done with the intention and care that’s necessary to make the good parts shine more. I’ll forgive literally any crime a piece of media commits as long as it’s interesting and/or enjoyable to consume. RVB0 is not that. I’m not sure what the main point of RVB0 was supposed to be, because it seemingly succeeds at nothing. It has absolutely nothing new or innovative to justify its lack of concern for traditional storytelling conventions. Based solely on the amount of screentime things were given, I’d be inclined to say the narrative existed mostly to give flimsy pretense for the fight scenes, but that’s an entire other can of worms.

2. The Visuals + Fights

I have no qualms with things that are all style and no substance. Sometimes you just want to see pretty colors moving on the screen for a while or watch some cool bad guys and monsters or whatever get punched. RVB0 was not this either. The show fundamentally lacked a coherent aesthetic vision. Much of the show had a rather generic sci-fi feel to it with the biggest standouts to this being the very noir looking cityscape, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like something from a batman game, or the temple, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like a world of warcraft raid. They were obviously attempting to get variety in their environment design, which I appreciate, but they did this without having a coherent enough visual language to feel like it was all part of the same world. In general, there was also just a lack of visual clarity or strong shots. The value range in any given scene was poor, the compositions and framing were functional at best, and the character animation was unpleasantly exaggerated. It just doesn’t really look that good beyond fancy rendering techniques.

The fight scenes are their entire own beast. Since ‘FIGHT SCENE’ is the largest single category of scenes in the show, they definitely feel worth looking at with a genuine critical eye. Or, at least, I’d like to, but honestly half the time I found myself almost unable to look at them. The camera is rarely still long enough to really enjoy what you’re watching - tracking the motion of the character AND the camera at such constant breakneck high speeds left little time to appreciate any nuances that might have been present in the choreography or character animation. I tried, believe me, I really did, but the fight scenes leave one with the same sort of dizzy convoluted spectacle as a Michael Bay transformers movie. They also really lacked the impact fight scenes are supposed to have.

It’s hard to have a good, memorable fight scene without it doing one of three things: 1. Showing off innovative or creative fighting styles and choreography 2. Making use of the fight’s setting or environment in an engaging and visually interesting way or 3. Further exploring a character’s personality or actions by the way they fight. It’s also hard to do one of these things on its own without at least touching a bit on the other two. For the most part, I find RVB0’s fight scenes fail to do this. Other than rather surface level insubstantial factors, there was little to visually distinguish any of RVB0’s fight scenes from each other. Not only did I find a lot of them difficult to watch and unappealing, I found them all difficult to watch and unappealing in an almost identical way. They felt incredibly interchangeable and very generic. If you could take a fight scene and change the location it was set and also change which characters were participating and have very little change, it’s probably not a good fight scene. 

I think “generic” is really just the defining word of RVB0 and I think that’s also why it falls short in the humor department  as well.

3. The Comedy

Funny shit is hard to write and humor is also incredibly subjective but I definitely got almost no laughs out of RVB0. I think a total of three. By far the best joke was Carolina having a cast on top of her armor, which, I must stress, is an incredibly funny gag and I love it. But overall I think the humor fell short because it felt like it was tacked on more than a natural and intentional part of this world and these characters. A lot of the jokes felt like they were just thrown in wherever they’d fit, without any build up to punchlines and with little regard for what sort of joke each character would make. Like, there was some, obviously Raymond’s sense of humor had the most character to it, but the character-oriented humor still felt very weak. When focusing on character-driven humor, there’s a LOT you can establish about characters based on what sort of jokes they choose to make, who they’re picking as the punchlines of these jokes, and who their in-universe audience for the jokes is. In RVB0, the jokes all felt very immersion-breaking and self aware, directed wholly towards the audience rather than occurring as a natural result of interplay between the characters. This is partially due to how lackluster the character writing was overall, and the previously stated tight timing, but also definitely due to a lack of a real understanding about what makes a joke land. 

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

All together, each individual component of RVB0 feels like it was conjured up independently, without any concern to how it interacted with the larger product they were creating. And I think this is really where it all falls apart. RVB0 feels criminally generic in a way reminiscent of mass-market media which at least has the luxury of attributing these flaws, this complete and total watering down of anything unique, to heavy oversight and large teams with competing visions. But I don’t think that’s the case for RVB0. I don’t know much about what the pipeline is like for this show, but I feel like the fundamental problem it suffers from is a lack of heart.

In comparison to Red vs. Blue

Let's face it. This is a terrible successor to Red vs. Blue. I wouldn’t care if NONE of the old characters were in it - that’s not my problem. I haven’t seen past season 13 because from what I heard the show already jumped the shark a bit and then some. That’s not what makes it a poor follow up. What makes it a bad successor is that it fundamentally lacks any of the aspects of the OG RVB that made it unique or appealing at all. I find myself wondering what Torrian is trying to say with RVB0 and quite literally the only answer I find myself falling back onto is that he isn’t trying to say anything at all. Regardless of what you feel about the original RVB, it undeniably had things to say. The opening “why are we here” speech does an excellent job at establishing that this is a show intended to poke fun at the misery of bureaucracy and subservience to nonsensical systems, not just in the context of military life, but in a very broad-strokes way almost any middle-class worker can relate to. At the end of the day, fiction is at its best when it resonates with some aspect of its audience’s life. I know instantly which parts of the original Red vs Blue I’m supposed to relate to. I can’t say anything even close to that about 0.

RVB is an absurdist parody that heavily satirizes aspects of the military and life as a low-on-the-food-chain worker in general that almost it’s entire target audience will be familiar with. The most significant draw of the show to me was how the dialogue felt like listening to my friends bicker with each other in our group chats. It required no effort for me to connect with and although the narrative never outright looked to the camera and explained ‘we are critiquing the military’s stupid red tape and self-fullfilling eternal conflict’ they didn’t need to, because the writing trusted itself and its audience enough to believe this could be conveyed. It is, in a way, the complete antithesis to the badass superhero macho military man protagonist that we all know so well. RVB was saying something, and it was saying it in a rather novel format.

Nothing about RVB0 is novel. Nothing about RVB0 says anything. Nothing about it compels me to relate to any of these characters or their situations. RVB0 doesn’t feel like absurdism, or satire. RVB0 feels like it is, completely uncritically, the exact media that RVB itself was riffing off of. Both RVB0 and RVB when you watch them give you the feeling that what you’re seeing here is kids on a playground larping with toy soldiers. It’s all ridiculous and over the top cliche stupid garbage where each side is trying to one-up the other. The critical difference is, in RVB, we’re supposed to look at this and laugh at how ridiculous this is. In RVB0 we’re supposed to unironically think this is all pretty badass. 

The PFL arc of the original RVB existed to show us that setting up an elite team of supersoldiers with special powers was something done in bad faith, with poor outcomes, that left everyone involved either cruel, damaged, or dead. It was a bad thing. And what we’re seeing in RVB0 is the same premise, except, this time it’s good. We’re supposed to root for this format. RVB0 feels much more like a demo reel, cutscenes from a video game that doesn’t exist, or a shonen anime fanboy’s journal scribbling than it feels like a piece of media with any objective value in any area.  In every area that RVB was anti-establishment, RVB0 is pure undiluted establishment through and through.  

[swtltlmrvlgrl]

Is it Real? (End)

Chapter Summary:  "The end."

Pairing:  Steve Rogers x Reader

Warning/s:  Break up; Heartache

Number of Words: 1,567

Y/N = Your Name

Part 1 - Part 2- Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 (End)

Tom leads the way and you follow suit - making sure there's enough distance between you two. He walks through the streets, into the park and stands in front of a bench - the same bench where you sat down with Steve and admitted that you still loved Tom. He turns to you, motions his hands and points at the bench, as if telling you to sit down.

“You really like being in control, don’t you?” Tom was taken aback by your comment.

“Y/N.” He responds as calmly as possible. “I just want to talk.”

“I think we’re way past the talking stage, Tom. Or do I have to remind you that it’s been five years since you left me with just a note.” You rebut.

“Please.” Tom reaches out for your hand, but you quickly take it away. He sighs in defeat and puts his hand in his pocket, shuffles his hand a little and slowly slides it up. By the time his hands were fully out of his pocket, you can see sandwiched between his thumb and his index finger, a small object.

A ring.

He raises it up at the same level as your chest, like he’s handing it to you… like he’s waiting for you to take it.

Is that small object supposed to make me shut up?

Am I supposed to forgive him because of this?

You can feel the anger that you’ve been trying to suppress all these years, boiling at the pits of your stomach. The heat from your stomach rushes through your veins and into your hands. One moment your arm is resting at your side, and then the next moment you feel the palm of your hand burn from the collision with Tom’s cheeks. You slapped him, and truth be told, it felt good.

The silence after the slap dragged on for what felt like a long time. Tom slowly puts down his ring-bearing hand on his side.

“I was planning to propose to you.” He breaks the silence. “I came to the restaurant early, an hour early actually, and you know me, Y/N, I’m never late...and then I - “ He clears his throat. “I started thinking about the future with you and then I suddenly felt unready, I felt scared. I wanted to run away.”

“And you did.” You cut him off.

“And I did.” He echoes your comment. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. I hope you understand.”

“Understand.” You repeat Tom’s last word, leaving a bitter taste on your mouth. “For five freaking years, Tom. I’ve been trying to understand you. I’ve been trying to defend you.” Your voice is louder and clearer now. “But did you even stop to think -” You pause for a moment. ”Did you even stop and try to understand me?” You scoff and point your finger and push it in his chest, you push as hard as you could to make him feel this pain, the pain. “Why am I even asking? Of course, you didn’t. Because if you did, we wouldn't need to have this conversation now, won’t we?”

Tom holds your hand and tries to calm you down. “Listen. Listen to me, Y/N. The fact that you’re affected by this, the fact that you’re still hurt, right now. That means you still have feelings for me. Maybe… you still love me. Maybe … we can try again.”

You raise your eyebrows, shake your head in disagreement and pull your hand away in disgust. “Do you even hear what you’re saying?” You respond, exasperated. “But you know what, okay. I’ll make this clear for you. The reason I’m hurt right now is not because of you.” Tears start to fall, and you take a deep breath. You’ve been depriving yourself of this confession. Being left behind by Tom is painful, but admitting the truth is worse.

“It’s because of me, because I chose you over me. Everyday I was scared too, Tom. I was insecure that I was not good enough for you, or if I’m good enough now, what about the future, will I still be good enough? That’s why I listened to you. I followed you. I tried to be the best version of a girlfriend for you. Heck! I was even ready to leave my best friend for you.” You wipe away the tears from your eyes. “And I was stupid, I was so stupid to think that even if I was scared of the future, I will always have you with me. But joke’s on me.” You stand up straight and move closer to him, making sure that he’ll hear every single word that you’ll say “One time, Tom. ONE TIME.” Your voice is loud and steady, confident and powerful. “You got scared one time and that’s all it took for you to leave me.” You put emphasis on the last two words, to rub it on Tom’s face for the hundredth time.

Silence.

You can hear the loud beating of your own heart. Breathing becomes difficult. You sit down and rest your elbows on your thighs as you try to take slow, steady and deep breaths.

Tom is standing like a statue, probably surprised by your burst of anger. You never had this kind of fight when the two of you were together. He had never seen you this angry before, whenever you had misunderstandings you would always talk it out. Whenever you felt like you did something wrong you would apologize immediately. Whenever he does something wrong, you will always make him understand how he hurt you.

The two of you dealt with your issues diplomatically, calmly.

But was it really the two of you dealing with the issues, or was it just you?

Tom sits down at the bench beside you and starts speaking. “When I thought of building this future with you, my mind just went blank and I wasn’t used to that. You know me, Y/N. I know you do. I always have plans. I have visions.” Tom’s voice was shaking, you can tell that he’s on the verge of crying. “At that time, they all just disappeared, I didn’t know what to do and it terrified the shit out of me.”

“Maybe the reason you didn’t see it, is because we weren’t supposed to have it. That future isn’t supposed to exist.” You answer him with conviction, and finality.

“Please don’t do this Y/N.” Tom moves closer to you. “I only did that because I thought I was doing what’s best for us.”

You look at Tom, straight into his eyes. There was something shining from his eyes but you did not feel the need to wipe it away. You did not feel the need to hug him, to protect him… to love him. “That's the point isn’t it, Tom. You always make it seem like you’re always doing what’s best for us. But it always has been about what’s best for you , what’s convenient for you.”

You stand and position yourself in front Tom. “This time I’m doing what’s best for me. And right now, the best for me is not having you in my life.”

“Y/N. Please.” Tom reaches for your hand in desperation, and for the last time, you pull your hand away.

“This is the end.”

You turn your back on him and walk away.

This is the end.

-----

So this is what freedom feels like. The shackles that you’ve been dragging for the past few years, preventing you from moving forward are now gone. Your steps feel lighter, as if you’re flying.

You see Steve, across the street, standing in front of the apartment building. You don’t even know why but your legs start moving as you run towards him, as fast as you can.

You’re happy, joyful, and free and you want to celebrate every moment of it with Steve.

Steve’s sees you and opens his arms wide.You jump at him and he catches you, causing the two of you to giggle.

“Someone’s feeling giddy today.” Steve says.

You laugh. “I’m just happy to see you.”

Steve pulls his head back to look at you. “You were?” You can see his eyebrows rising to taunt you. You lightly punch his chest in retaliation and the two of you start giggling again.

kThe two of you allowed that moment to linger for a few more moments, you and Steve just looking at each other’s eyes, with pure joy and happiness evident in each other’s eyes. Just being together, feeling each other’s warmth.”

“Were you waiting for someone?” You ask, almost a whisper, while still looking at his blue eyes.

You notice Steve’s smile growing bigger. The way he looks at you feels warmer and kinder and … full of love. It’s the same blue eyes that you’ve known for years, but it feels different. It made the butterflies in your stomach flutter. He caresses your cheeks and tucks away the stray hairs behind your ear.

“I was waiting for you.”

The way Steve says those words as if he’s been wanting to say those all his life, and you felt it. The butterflies in your stomach flutter more aggressively. And it’s not just the butterflies, your heart is beating fast too. You know what Steve is saying and he doesn’t need to say anything more.

“Thank you for waiting.”

E n d

A/N: Aaaaaaaah! I am so happy that I was able to finally, FINALLY, finish this fic. I started writing this fic 3 years ago. I abandoned it for a loooong time and now I've finished it. I know that it might have inconsistencies here and there but this fic really witnessed A LOT of things that I went through irl and aaaaaa I'm just really really happy that I was able to finish ;> I was actually thinking if I should end with an epilogue or something, but I really like ending my stories with beginnings. ( I don't know if anybody ever noticed that but yep fun fact!)

FEEDBACKS IS ALWAYS APPRECIATED! Don't forget to leave a comment about what you feel about this series!!

[tooruluv]

Tobio Kageyama x F!Reader ( part 5 )

❝ goodbyes hurt when the story is not finished, but the book is closed. tell me, have we started a new one? ❞

description: it had been years since you and kageyama broke up. it had been years since the two of you left each other, hatred brewing. fate works in funny ways, you thought, as you caught his eye across the café. love works in funny ways, you thought, as you woke up in his bed the next morning, his fiance calling his phone.

genre: forbidden love, cheating, ex lovers, (all characters are aged up)

word count: 2,101

warnings/notes: hey guys! i made a twitter :) it’s @ tooruluvv if any of you want more updates or just joke about my stories/characters! anyway, i hope you all enjoy this one <3

tag list: @kara-grayson04​​​​ @sadhwstudent​​​​ @unlikelytigerqueen​​​ @kageyamavibes​​​ @monviemoo​​ @tazzi-baby​​ @1800xibal​​ @osterfield-hollandwriter​​ @amirahroronoa​​ @lozzybowe​​ @stinkybitch1919​ @sillykittt​ @pinknugget​

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Hana opened the door, greeting you with a fake smile plastered on her face. Suddenly, Kageyama’s penthouse was Kageyama and Hana’s. You tried not to think about the fact you were here no more than a day ago.

You tried not to think of the fact her fiancé, the man she loved, had been inside of you on the couch, against that wall, in the bed she would lay down in later.

“Oh my god, it’s been so long!” Hana spoke as she opened the door to let you in. “How did you find me? Actually, don’t answer that. How have you been?”

You were going to be nice. You were going to pretend to put a smile on your face and pretend that nothing happened. Instead, as soon as you walked through the door, you turned on your heels.

“Let’s not fake this. How are you and Kageyama?” Your words were venom.

Hana froze. She avoided your eyes. “I… um.. I was going to tell you. I was.”

“But you didn’t.” You scoffed. “So, were you going to tell me before or after you got married?”

This would be a fair fight, you thought. You could punch her perfect face and break her nose, easy. She was around the same height as you, too, maybe a little taller. But you were definitely angrier. You could beat her ass.

“I was going to tell you when it all happened. But then I thought it would have been awful, so I waited. And then, I just kept waiting. And then it just seemed way too late.” She didn’t blink, hugging herself as if that would make you feel something for her.

“You’re my best friend. He’s my ex. Even a text would’ve been nice.”

It was at that moment that the man of the hour decided to walk through the door. The second Tobio Kageyama entered, he froze. His gym bag fell out of his hand. “What’s… what’s going on here?” He asked, nervousness basically sweating off of him.

“Nothing!” Hana sent him a smile. You watched her. “Look who’s back! I was just inviting her to stay with us and help me with the wedding details!”

You raised a brow, looking around to try to figure out where the fuck that came from. Kageyama’s eyes found yours, and you didn’t know what to say.

“Right?” Hana turned to you, arm now linked with her fiancé’s. A protective gesture.

“Yeah. Yeah.” You lied, staring directly at Hana. “She was just asking me to stay in the guest room until I get my own place. Help prep for the wedding.”

Hana transferred from the states in grade school. The two of you sat next to each other in class and you knew immediately that you would end up becoming best friends.

She was the only American in your school, and you were intrigued to say the least. She spoke fluent English and Japanese, had blonde hair and blue eyes, didn’t really understand Japanese customs. You were the first one who helped her out.

“You can call me Hana.” She told you when you introduced yourself.

With a smile on your face and a pack of gummy bears in your hand, you let her call you by your first name too.

You called Oikawa almost immediately. Hana told you to get your things from the hotel you were staying at, smiling the entire time as though you were simply best friends and everything was okay.

“What the fuck?” Oikawa growled over the phone. “Beat her ass. Seriously. I condone and will bail you out of jail.”

“I don’t know what happened.” You swiped your keycard. “I want to figure out what the fuck happened while I was gone that made them think getting together was a good idea. If helping with the wedding solved that unsolved mystery…then so be it.”

“You’re seriously going to go through with that whole fake story?”

“It hurts.” You shoved your extras into your suitcase. “And it sucks. And I would love to beat her ass. But I’m just going to go through the motions and hoping for the best. It isn’t like I haven’t done worse.”

“I fully believe that her going behind your back and marrying your ex-boyfriend that you clearly are not over trumps you sleeping with him one time.”

“Your logic is flawed.”

“And so is yours.” You heard movement from behind him. “Hey, I got to go. But let me know what brilliant story she concocts.”

The wind had picked up outside, rain pouring and clouds dark. They were still at practice, slaving away in hopes to go to nationals.

You waited by the lockers. Kageyama promised to meet you right after practice to start the weekend, and you agreed wholeheartedly. You forgot that he liked to spend a lot of extra time after.

Their captain, Daichi if you remembered correctly, was the first to leave. He caught your eye as you sat on the floor.

“You might want to go interrupt him and tell him to clean up.” He sent you a smile. “You know how he is.”

“You’re not wrong.” You chuckled. “Are you sure it’s alright that I interrupt?”

“Practice is over. Besides, I will never be the one to tell you to stop them from overworking.”

You thanked him and he waved you goodbye, heading out into the worst of the storm. You headed to the gym, hoping to get your boyfriend to leave practice early and come with you to watch a movie at yours. The sound of volleyballs hitting the court floors echoed from outside.

“Babe.” You called as you entered. You distracted them for sure, the ball instantly hitting the floor by Kageyama’s feet.

“Oh, hey.” He walked towards you. Hinata stayed behind, picking up the ball where it laid. “Hey. I promise we were only going to stay a little longer.”

“I know.” You reached for his hands. He let you hold them, despite the little ginger giggling behind you both. “It’s just storming pretty bad outside. I didn’t want to get caught up in it.”

“Okay. What if you wait for just a couple more sets and we can go?”

“Kags…”

“Please.” He linked his pinky with yours. “Just a couple more. And then you can pick the movie.”

This was different. New. He was asking you (no, he was begging you) for something. You weren’t used to him like that.

“Just a couple more. I want to see the quick attack in action.” You looked over Kageyama’s shoulder to his shorter friend. “Hi, Hinata!”

Hinata waved at you, blush spreading across his face. “Just watch us! You’ll love it.”

So you did. You watched Kageyama set the ball, Hinata spike it in a split second. If you blinked, you would’ve missed it. You were at a loss for words.

Living up to his promise, he only did it around five or six more times. That’s all it took, really, to improve even a little bit. It wasn’t long before the gym was clean and you were saying goodbye to Hinata.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to walk you?”

“He doesn’t need to be walked.” Kageyama muttered at the same time Hinata exclaimed, “No! Really, I like to bike in the rain!”

Kageyama took your hand in his under the umbrella as you walked away. He knew that he was in love with you. He was vulnerable around you, he loved your affection and praise, and he loved the way you looked as the moon reflected off of your cheek.

“You guys are amazing.” You told him. Another praise to go straight to his heart. “You have been practicing so hard, I really hope to see you do that move at a game soon. What do you call it again?”

“A quick attack.”

“The quick attack.” You repeated. “It’s amazing. I’m extremely proud.”

He had to hold back a smile. “T-T-Thank you.”

The last conversation you had with Hana was a little over two years ago. You had kept in contact for the most part. She gushed over Tsukishima a majority of the time, and you told her about the amazing places you went.

Speaking of Kei Tsukishima, where the fuck was he in all of this? What happened between them?

You thought about calling or texting the tall blonde, but you didn’t have anyway to contact him. Maybe you could call Hinata and ask. Or force it out of Kageyama.

Your bedroom (or rather, the guest bedroom you are staying in) was pretty messy, your things everywhere yet nowhere at once. You didn’t plan on staying very long, so you did your best to keep things in your suitcase or near it. Like a vacation, you thought. Like a very sucky, sucky vacation.

It was ridiculous.

The bedroom was huge, and you had glass windows on two entire walls (with curtains installed for privacy). The view was insane. The dark wood flooring contrasted with the white and modern feel of the room. It was gorgeous. It was ridiculous.

A hand grasped your wrist. You were spun around, face to face with the man of the house. If he seen you ogling the room, he said nothing.

It’s dead silent. His eyes gazed into yours. You stared back, just as silent, terrified.

It’s been almost too long, standing too close, for one of you not to say something. So, you started, “Kags..”

He had to close his eyes after you said his nickname. You didn’t expect your voice to sound so small.

“Promise me that you won’t tell her.” His voice broke at the end of his plea.

The image of Hana, his beautiful bride, played on his mind. How happy she would be, how happy he will be. He couldn’t imagine the idea of getting back together with you, breaking all of the promises that have yet to be fulfilled.

He couldn’t break Hana’s heart like you did his.

You swallow hard because you knew what he was thinking. It didn’t take much explaining to know. It sent a pain to your chest to know that after all of these years, and while he knew you better than anyone else, he still didn’t know you at all.

You would never be that heartless.

“You must think very low of me to think I would do something like that.” You told him, looking to the floor. “I would never. I won’t.”

Kageyama registered your words into his head and it took him a few seconds to believe you.

When he finally does, he nodded slowly. More to himself than anything. And turned to leave, dropping your wrists.

You wanted to call after him, to stop him and tell him right then and there that you were sorry. You wanted the never ending apologies to come, get some closure. But when he’s almost out of the door, he’s the one to halt and start speaking.

“Just. Stay the fuck away from me and my fiancé.” He didn’t want you here. He didn’t want you.

You couldn’t breathe. You waited as you felt the unbearable heat in uour cheeks and the burning in your throat. You stood there, staring blankly at the door where the love of your life just walked out of. You tried as hard as you could to not cry, or scream.

[basically-i-write-shit]

“I haven’t seen (her/him/them) smile like that in ages.”

The first time Reki hears this specific phrase is at one of Miya’s legal skate matches. He and Langa had to sneak out of school to go see it, but they’d promised Miya and, honestly, school is boring anyway. It had felt like a spy movie trying to sneak off of school grounds. One short train ride later finds them in the stands of an indoor arena, waiting patiently for Miya’s race to begin, chatting idly. 

“So these jumps in snowboarding, are they-” 

“See, I told you we were late!” A familiar voice cuts Reki off, and he turns his head in the direction he’d heard it, gasping when he sees two of the last people he’d expected to see at a middle school skateboard race. 

“We aren’t late, look at the board dimwit! Chinen is next,” 

“We should’ve been here for the first race, it’s only polite! Miya probably thinks we didn’t come now.” 

“Well whose fault is it that the server you scheduled to come in for the time you’d be gone didn’t show?” 

“Not mine!” 

“Oh rea-” 

“Uh, Joe...Cherry...people’re looking.” 

Joe and Cherry seem to finally remember they’re in public at Reki’s quiet whisper, and they pause their search for an open seat in the bleachers. “Ah. Reki. Langa.” 

“What a coincidence.” Joe says, his cheeks dusted a light pink. He slips into the spot next to Reki. “Might as well sit here, eh, Kaoru?” 

Cherry grumbles, sitting delicately next to Joe, arms crossed over his chest. “I suppose. Aren’t you boys supposed to be in school right now?” 

“Half day,” Langa and Reki reply immediately, like they’d rehearsed. They both know that Joe and Cherry, of all people, know better; they also know neither of them could care less.  

“Sure, sure. Hey look- Miya’s match is starting.” They turn to look at the arena once more when Joe points, and he’s right; Miya is lining up at the start with two other boys his age. The timer counts down and the race begins. 

Watching Miya skate outside of S is interesting. Maybe it’s because there’s no sudden turns or extreme jumps, but he just seems so...bored. He easily overtakes the two boys and laps them once before he slows down, seemingly to allow the other boys to catch up so the race doesn’t end too quickly. Reki is amazed by some of the tricks he’s able to pull off, but he’s always impressed by Miya’s ability. By time the final lap comes around, Miya looks resigned to once again being the clear winner, and he looks resolutely to the stands only to catch sight of the strange quartet that is his friend group. 

A bright smile slips onto Miya’s face, and he looks like he forgets he’s skating a minute because one of the other boys passes him, and that finally snaps him out of it. He speeds up and is just barely able to pass the other boy before he meets the finish line. The arena is full of cheers, but Reki and Langa holler loud enough they hear their voices echoing even as the cheers die down. The next race is beginning, but the race they came to see is over and so they hop up and make their way down to the hallway just outside the main part of the arena to wait for Miya. As they wait, they see an older looking couple waiting by the doors as well. Reki doesn’t mean to evesdrop, really, but he can’t really help it- they're not even two meters away. 

“I’m glad we made it just in time. I feel horrible we have to leave so quickly after the race, though.” 

“Oh, he understands, dear. At least we’re always here for what counts.” 

“I wonder if he looks for us in the stands, before each match. Lord knows he doesn’t have the time to look while he’s skating. What if he doesn’t even know we’re here until he comes out?” 

“You worry too much. Didn’t you see him earlier? I don’t think I’ve seen our Miya smile like that in ages! He definitely saw us.” 

Those are Miya’s parents? 

Just then, Miya comes out and immediately locks eyes with Reki. He grins, running up to the group, and is immediately met with pats on the back from Reki and a noogie from Joe, Cherry and Langa choosing to more politely congratulate him for his win. Reki watches Miya’s parents as their faces morph into shock, and he feels bad kind of. Miya’s father’s phone rings before they can call Miya’s name, and they’re rushing down the hall before Reki can tell Miya they’re waiting for him. 

-

The second time Reki hears it, he’s at Langa’s place. They’d gone back to Langa’s after school because it was quieter, and they needed to actually do homework because they were both kind of sucking in Japanese lit; they blame it on skipping class to see Miya’s match, even though they were both doing bad before.

Sure, going to S later was also a benefit of hangingout after school, but it was mostly studying. 

Mostly. 

Langa’s mother, at some point, had come home from work and started on dinner but she was so quiet that neither of them had heard her over the low music they were playing while they did (or, more realistically, attempted) their work. She was so quiet, in fact, that she genuinely scares Reki when she knocks and enters Langa’s bedroom- he isn’t able to hide the shriek that slips from his mouth, nor can he hide the fact that he’s so scared he falls straight off of Langa’s bed and onto the floor. There’s a moment of shocked silence before Langa bursts out laughing, falling onto his back on the bed as he hides his face behind his textbook. Reki’s cheeks burn, and he takes the first thing he can find from Langa’s floor, an abandoned house slipper, and throws it at his friend. He misses and the slipper falls pathetically between the mattress and the wall. 

“Hey! It’s not funny!” Reki whines. “Mrs. Hasegawa, I’m sorry, but you scared the crap outta me! We didn’t hear you come in!” 

Mrs. Hasegawa isn’t laughing at him, but she does have a smile on her face as she replies, “Sorry Reki-kun! I’m glad you two weren’t doing anything I didn’t want to see, if you didn’t hear me then. I just wanted to let you boys know dinner’s ready. I assume you’re staying?” 

Reki decidedly ignores the flush that climbs up his neck and ears at the suggestive comment. “Y- Yes please, Mrs. Hasegawa. Thank you.” 

“Just come out whenever you’re ready, boys.” Mrs. Hasegawa smiles once more as she ducks out of Langa’s bedroom, and Reki turns to Langa who’s calmed down slightly, but still allows chuckles to shake his shoulders. 

“You’re the worst.” 

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect that reaction. You’re really easy to scare, aren’t you?” Langa asks, still laughing. Reki rolls his eyes. 

“Whatever. I’m hungry, are we gonna eat or not?” 

“I’m almost done with this section, and I want to write what I have before I forget. You can go sit with my mom, I’ll be out in five minutes tops.” 

“As long as I’m allowed to start eating without you, otherwise I’ll just sit and wait.” 

“Go and eat while it’s warm, but I can’t tell you it’ll be good. Dad was always the cook.” Langa says, not looking up from his notebook, and Reki nods as he climbs off the floor. 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He calls over his shoulder, making his way to the door. It feels nice that Langa is slowly relaxing around him enough to talk about his dad, even if it’s just in offhanded comments like that. He’s never lost someone, himself, but he’s sure it’s hard to do. 

Mrs. Hasegawa is setting up three plates at the small kitchen table when Reki enters the main part of the apartment, and she smiles at him. 

“I know you two usually eat in Langa’s room when you’re over, but this is a little messy so I’d rather you eat in the kitchen. Sorry the table’s so small...” 

“Oh, it’s no problem, I don’t mind! I usually eat at the table with my family, so it’s not too different to me, really.” Reki rubs at the back of his neck, smiling shyly at Langa’s mother. They haven’t really interacted much, and he’s always felt kinda awkward meeting friends’ parents. But it’s alright. Langa’s mom is cool. She lets her kid sneak out well past midnight and doesn’t ask about it, and always sends Langa to school with cool snacks in his bag. “So, uh-  what’s for dinner, Mrs. Hasegawa?” 

“Nanako’s fine,” She says, smiling, and Reki returns it. “It’s probably underwhelming, Langa still prefers american food over anything, so it’s just alfredo. It’s kinda hard to find here, but I should’ve figured that, haha!” 

“Oh, I had that at Jo- at a friend’s place once! Langa said we could start eating, by the way, he’s just finishing a section on our homework.” 

“Hopefully not copying off of you,” Nanako says, and Reki can’t tell if she’s joking or not. She laughs, and Reki laughs along as they sit down, her on one of the wooden chairs and Reki on the fold-out chair Nanako pulled out for him. She sighs as she scoops some of the pasta on the three plates evenly, handing Reki a fork. “I never did say thank you for becoming friends with him. So, thank you, Reki.” 

Reki blushes and he sputters, looking at her. “Wh- What?” 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Langa happy. Since Oliver, he’s been...well, he hasn’t been himself. There were a few months where I wasn’t, either, before I realized I needed to take care of the both of us." Nanako says, her eyes sad as she looks at the pictureof Oliver they keep near the table. She turns back toReki. "And what happened, just now, I- Reki, I haven’t seen Langa smile like that in ages. Probably even before his dad died. So- thank you. You’re so important to him, and I thank the heavens every day for the change you brought to his life.” 

And then there’s tears in Nanako’s eyes, and Reki can’t breathe, and he searches for something to say but he can’t come up with anything, and he’s about to just up and hug her when a hand falls on Reki’s shoulder. 

“Did you make my mom cry for scaring you, Reki?” 

“Sh- Shut up, bro, I did not!” 

-

The third, and most unexpected, time Reki hears that specific phrase is actually at S. or, contextually, in Joe’s restaurant after S. The high of his near-win against Adam is beginning to wear off, and so while he waits for Langa to come back from dropping Miya off at home with the dope sketch bike he allows himself to lay his head on the table and close his eyes. His back and upper arms where he’d been dragged against the cliff are beginning to ache, and he’s sure he’s all scraped up, and he thanks the gods that the adrenaline at least carried him out of Crazy Rock and through a very carb-heavy late night snack. 

Joe is a bit tipsy, stumbling around as he works to clean up the mess they’d made; he’d been making conversation with Cherry through the open door of the kitchen, but Cherry’s responses had slowly begun to slow and slur until they just finally stopped, the pain killers he’s on knocking him out, leaving Reki and Cherry in similar positions next to one another at the table. Reki feels at peace with the gentle sound of Joe washing dishes and occasionally cursing when he drops one too hard in the sink. So at peace that he actually does drift off, until he feels a hand petting his head gently, and Langa’s voice returns to his ears. 

“..t home okay?” 

“Yeah. I stayed and made sure he made it through his window alright.” 

“Ah, I remember when Kaoru and I had to sneak out,” Joe sighs fondly. Reki keeps his eyes closed, suddenly exhausted. It doesn’t seem like they’re leaving just yet; Langa will shake him awake when it’s time. “It’s been a while since we’ve had to do that, though. Sometimes I wish we could go back to those days.” 

“Do you?” Reki can practically hear the way Langa cocks his head as he asks his question. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t want to be seventeen or making the same mistakes we did back then, but I do kind of miss the excitement that comes with sneaking out. Trying not to wake the parents, hiding the scrapes and bruises we got the night before.” 

“Yeah, I’m not sure how Reki manages to lie to his mom about half of the injuries he gets,” Langa says, huffing out a laugh. Reki hides his face in his arm, smiling. It’s a bitch lying his way out of things sometimes. “Luckily most of his injuries from tonight are under his shirt, but still...” 

Joe whistles. “Yeah, that looked like it’s gonna hurt later. You’ll make sure he cleans everything up when you get him home, and maybe do a concussion check before you let him go to sleep.” 

“Of course.” 

“Good, good...” Joe says, and then there’s a few seconds of silence before he lets out a sigh. “...God, that was a great fuckin’ race, though.” 

Langa chuckles. “Yeah.” 

“The kid scared me a bit, but that call with the wheels was a good one. Never in my years skating at S would I have thought to check the weather before a beef.” 

“Reki’s so smart. He knows so much about skating, and whenever I ask he somehow finds a new thing to tell me about. He’s amazing.” 

Reki fights the urge to groan, his face wrinkling against his sleeve. He wants to deny it, to whine and push Langa’s hand away in faux annoyance, but he just continues to pretend to sleep. 

“Reki’s a good kid. And he managed to humiliate Adam tonight, on top of almost winning against him, so I think that’s a win in itself.” Joe says, only sounding a little jealous that it wasn’t him that got to embarrass his childhood friend. “God, that was hilarious.” 

“It was.” There’s a smile in Langa’s voice, too. Reki smiles. He’d spent so long worrying that Langa would prefer Adam over him for nothing. 

“He fell off his board- ha, the asshole was covered in mud! Did you see him?” Reki peers his eyes open and sees Joe, his face flushed from alcohol, his hair pushed back with a headband, grinning up at the ceiling. “Ka- Kaoru, you should’ve seen him- I haven’t- I haven’t...I haven’t seen him smile like that in ages. Adam fucked him up, when we were younger, y’know...” 

Joe trails off, before he looks down and sees Reki’s now open eyes. He smiles. 

“Hey, speedster. How ya doin’?” 

Reki lifts his head and yawns, Langa’s hand falling from his hair. “’m fine, thanks Joe. Talkin’ about the race?” 

“Yeah. You did great out there, kid. Now you two should get home and rest; I’m gonna finish cleaning up and do the same. Get Kaoru back to his place.” 

Reki, still half-asleep, nods and allows Langa to herd him out the door. There’s a deep ache in his back and arms, a headache throbbing in his temples, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He settles in behind Langa and leans his heavy head against his friend’s shoulder. 

"Hey Langa?"

"Hm?"

"...thanks for sticking around. I've got some cool friends."

There's a pause as Langa turns to look over at his shoulder at Reki. There's a crooked smile on his face and his eyebrows are raised. "I'm glad to have you as a friend too Reki. What brought that on?"

"Nothing. Just wanted to tell ya."

[honeypiehotchner]

i knew you (Bucky Barnes soulmate AU) -- part three

Okay so...I’m impatient. I know I said tomorrow. But it’s technically tomorrow in like twenty minutes here. Close enough xx.

Also! This part might be a little disappointing/fluffy but I really wanted to speed through this and get to Civil War. Bucky going under the radar for two years is important for the reader as well, so apologies if it feels like I’m just dragging this out! They’ll meet face-to-face again real soon

The Winter Soldier sits calmly while the technician works on his metal arm. Natasha Romanoff had thrown something at him and caused it to malfunction.

His jaw clenches. Memories flash behind his eyes. Zola. The fall. Steve. Cryofreeze.

Almost on a reflex, the Soldier rips his arm out of the technician’s grip. He slams his metal arm into the man’s chest, sending him flying backwards. In a flash, guns are cocked and aimed for the Soldier’s head, but he doesn’t move.

Chest heaving, he remembers.

Steve.

You.

A deep ache settles in his chest.

Oh, God. It was you.

Alexander Pierce steps in and the guns lower. The Soldier’s eyes stay on the ground, but that isn’t what he sees.

What he sees is you.

Vaguely, he hears Pierce asking for a mission report. But there isn’t one to give. Everyone he was supposed to eliminate got away. And two of those people were...friends.

But you...you were more than that. He doesn’t know how, but he knows.

A harsh slap turns the Soldier’s head to the side. It barely hurts, but it’s enough to get him talking.

Confusion covers him. “That man on the bridge.” A pause. “Who was he?”

Unamused, Pierce replies. “You met him earlier this week on another assignment.”

The Soldier’s eyebrows furrow. “The woman he was holding. She was crying. I knew her.”

Pierce looks around. A silent order. Find out who that was. And get rid of her. He pulls a chair over and sits down, getting eye level with the Soldier.

“Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century.”

The Soldier focuses. Tries to remember. What he has done. What he is trained to do. But every time, he sees your face. Your tears. Your pain. Why are you in pain?

“And I need you to do it one more time,” Pierce says firmly. “Society’s at a tipping point between order and chaos. And tomorrow morning, we’re gonna give it a push. But if you don’t do your part, I can’t do mine. And HYDRA can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.”

The Soldier tries to understand. But all he can see is you. All he can hear is you, screaming at him, struggling against the man’s grip. You were trying to get to him, and he has no idea why. But he knows that he knew you. He knows that you meant something much more.

“But I knew them,” he says, his face scrunching, his mind fighting against itself.

Pierce remains unamused, standing to his feet. “Prep him.”

The ache grows in the Soldier’s chest, knowing what’s about to happen. He doesn’t want to forget you again.

But he has no choice.

Hands push him back, another feeds him a rubber mouthpiece. Metal locks him into place.

The last thing he thinks of before it begins...is you. He watches your face disappear, but at least, he thinks, at least you aren’t in any pain.

The Soldier’s screams echo in the distance as Alexander Pierce gives orders, steam practically coming out of his ears. “Find out who that woman was and get rid. Of her. We cannot risk this again.”

+++

“Oh thank God.” Your best friend tackles you in a hug the moment you enter the safehouse. It’s in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, but somehow it feels like home when you have your best friend with you.

“I’m okay,” you say first, wrapping your arms around her just as tight. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run off like that.”

“Damn right you shouldn’t have,” she chuckles. “But I forgive you.”

You smile into her shoulder, closing your eyes. But when you do, you see Bucky. No-- you see The Winter Soldier.

Your eyes pop open silently, but the hitch in your breath isn’t missed by your best friend. You’re not scared of The Winter Soldier. You should be. He tried to kill Steve. And Nat. And Sam. And probably did kill others, maybe even innocents.

Yet, as he had a gun raised earlier, you were running right to him. Like you’ve lost your mind.

“Hey, what happened?”

“Long story,” you say, pulling back from the hug. “Did you grab the letter? And the sketches?”

“That’s the first thing I packed.”

You smile sadly, whispering, “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “Go shower. Try to relax.”

“Try. Right,” you chuckle.

You do end up showering. A hot stream of water on your aching muscles sounded too good to pass up. Whatever that episode of pain was really took a toll on your body, but you remember seizing up, tensing so badly that you couldn’t move. That’s bound to make anyone’s muscles ache.

Thankfully, most of what your best friend packed for you is your comfy clothes. T-shirts, sweatpants, hoodies. A giant hoodie and pair of sweatpants is the best feeling after a long day -- and your day has certainly been long.

Two agents stay inside the house with you at all times, one at the front door and one at the back. The other two circle the perimeter. And you swear you hear a helicopter fly over every few minutes, like it’s keeping watch from above, too. Which wouldn’t surprise you.

“I don’t know whether to feel very important or very imprisoned,” your best friend jokes later when you’re both on the couch.

You scoff, shaking your head. “Probably both.”

Silence hangs around you.

“Did you see him?” She asks quietly.

Slowly, you nod. “Yeah.” Then you shake your head. “But it wasn’t him.”

“What?”

“They did something to him. Brainwashed him, programmed him like a damn--” You stop yourself before you can get too angry. “He looked right at me. And hesitated. Like he recognized me.” You shake your head. “I don’t know, maybe I’m being stupid.”

“You’re not,” she says. “He’s your soulmate, babe.”

“But he didn’t even know me.”

“Babe,” your best friend turns her body to face yours. “This is...a unique situation. I’ll give you that. But just because it’s a little different than from what others have experienced doesn’t mean it’s not real. He recognized you. A little. He wouldn’t have hesitated if he didn’t. Not from what you’re telling me.”

“But he still tried to shoot.”

“Because they did something to his mind, like you said,” she replies, firm but gentle. “It wasn’t him doing that.”

You nod slowly. “It was The Winter Soldier.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what they call him. The Winter Soldier.” You shake your head. “I kept having dreams of him and it was snowing and-- I don’t know why that didn’t click until now.”

“It’s a lot to process,” she shrugs. “I don’t really know how you’re awake right now. I’d be sleeping just to escape it all.”

“That sounds nice,” you admit. “I’d see him again.”

You let a few beats of silence pass before you speak again.

“I can’t stop thinking about...how I just knew it was him. Somehow. I mean, I didn’t know that The Winter Soldier was him, I just knew he was there somewhere.”

“And he was,” she says softly. “I still think you’re crazy as shit for running right into that fight.”

“Me too,” you chuckle. “I’m not afraid of him.”

“Why would you be?” She shrugs. “Your souls have been apart for almost a century. Regardless of what’s happened to him, his soul is still the same.”

“Yeah,” you smile, thinking of the footage in the museum. He looks so much different there with the shorter haircut. But then again, that was seventy years ago. Maybe more.

But his soul is still the same. Deep down, he’s still your Bucky. You just hope he isn’t too far gone to remember that.

+++

Much can happen in twenty-four hours. Much more than you like.

In twenty-four hours time, Steve, Natasha, Sam, Nick, and Maria stopped whatever HYDRA was planning. SHIELD fell and HYDRA fell with it. A team of five agents were gunned down just outside the safe house. You later learned they were sent by SHIELD to kill you, and possibly your best friend had she gotten in the way. Steve was found broken, bloody, and bruised on the riverbank.

And you lost Bucky.

“I don’t know where he went,” Steve says, speaking more than he should with his busted lip. Even in a hospital bed, Steve is still attempting to make things right.

“It doesn’t matter,” you tell him firmly, trying to convince yourself that that’s true. “You did the best you could.”

He cracks a small smile. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes. “Steve, you’re in the hospital right now. You, a super soldier, are in the hospital. Obviously what happened was out of your control.”

He turns his head to look away from you. “He recognized me,” he says slowly. “And he said your name.”

Your eyes fall to your hands. Fidgeting with your fingers, picking at your nails. A nervous habit you should probably break before it starts. “Is that all he said?”

“Yeah,” Steve says softly. “The helicarrier collapsed right after and I went down. But he drug me out of the river.”

“He’s still in there,” you murmur, sure of yourself. “He has to be.”

“He wouldn’t have drug me out if he wasn’t in there somewhere,” Steve agrees, turning his head to look back at you. “We’ll find him.”

You smile sadly. “I know you will.” Exhaling, you add, “I can still feel him. Not as troubled. So he must not be the Soldier anymore.” You pause, the thought almost making you grin. “I might be feeling Bucky for the first time.”

Steve smiles, too. “Then that’s all the hope we need.” His eyes shift over your shoulder and he chuckles. “Those two are cozy.”

You turn to see your best friend and Sam standing a little too close, smiling a little too hard. She laughs and reaches out to touch his arm, and you know she’s done for.

“Looks like you guys are gonna be stuck with the both of us,” you tease. “What’s next, anyway?”

“Well, first off, I wanna get out of this bed.”

“You can’t,” you laugh. “Not right now.”

“I know.” Steve groans. “But I’ve got Natasha pulling some strings for me. I’m gonna find Bucky.”

“Nat, huh?” You ask, teasing. “How long has that been going on?”

“It hasn’t,” Steve replies firmly, which only tells you that it has. “Anyway, I’m gonna find my best friend. And he’s gonna meet his girl.”

You can’t help the butterflies that erupt in your chest. Being Bucky’s girl is the only thing you ever want to be in this life.

“Well, if you need help,” you take a deep breath. “You know where to find me.” You give him a sad smile, standing to your feet. You glance back at your best friend and Sam, and you laugh. “Although, I don’t think it’ll be hard to reach us.”

Steve cranes his neck to see the pair hugging with your best friend’s arms around Sam’s neck. “No, I think we’ll be in touch.”

[epiphany-of-a-madwoman]

The Last Dragon | The Witcher

Chapter 16 | Steel for Humans

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x Targaryen!OC

Summary: Visenya Targaryen is the eldest and only surviving child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. When Robert Baratheon’s rebellion was won, instead of being slaughtered by the Mountain like her mother and siblings, she was saved by Ned Stark and taken as his ward. Years later, after she’s killed at the Red Wedding, she wakes up outside Blaviken. Now she finds her destiny intertwined with the White Wolf on her quest to go back home.

Warnings: Skeevy bandits being Skeevy bandits

Word Count: 7.5k

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He's looking at her again. 

She can feel it; a shiver up her spine, the prickling feeling in the back of her mind to be alert for something, all telltale signs of his eyes on her. Every time she turns to meet his gaze, to try and decipher the whys and what's in his eyes, he looks away. And in the midst of all of her uncertainty, she's sure of at least one thing, he's still reeling from her confession, despite it being weeks since her name, her real name slipped from her lips. He doesn't say that he's still trying to piece together the puzzle, but he doesn't need to. She can see it in the way he carries himself around her, his lingering eyes and stumbling words. 

More than a few times he's called her Jane, instinctively, if she were to have to guess. And each time she just simply raises a brow at him before he swiftly corrects himself, eyes wild and uncertain, unable to directly look into hers. She never gets mad or annoyed, the exact opposite, in fact. She's never seen this side of Geralt that resembles a fumbling boy who still isn't a man yet; all rosy cheeks and shy conversation. Normally Geralt is so put together, constantly in control of the situation, and yet, something as simple as a name change is all it takes to throw him off. 

Another thing she's certain of is just how much she enjoys the way he says her name, the smooth Valyrian name effortlessly slipping past his lips. It's like a symphony, a sound not even the most renowned of bards could replicate. But she'd never tell him that. 

She continues staring at her face in the old mirror, dust and cracks speckling across her reflection. But she looks past it, staring at her eyes that are like liquid gold, and her fair skin, nearly glowing in the dim light. She frowns, lines appearing around her mouth - lines that weren't always there. Under her eyes are small wrinkles, hidden by the dark circles from countless sleepless nights in the least ideal spots, but she can pick them out a mile away.

She's older, that much is obvious, but how much older is not.

She used to count each day, the wall near the bed in her old room in Blaviken covered in small little lines meant to represent every time she fell asleep. She stopped keeping track after the town burned to the ground. At first, it was too painful to think of anything beyond the basic necessities of her survival. But then time drifted away, things grew easier the longer she spent with Jaskier. She smiled more, laughed more, and felt lighter than she had in a long time. And now she finds herself in an odd position, unsure of how much older she is. 

"Geralt." She doesn't remove her eyes from her reflection. He grunts, a sign that he's listening. Always a man of few words. 

"How long has it been since Blaviken?" She hears a sharp intake of breath before it's released back into the air. It's silent a moment longer.

"You don't know?" Geralt asks, skepticism and disbelief abundant in his voice. 

"No." She reaches a hand up, tracing the new scars that mare her face, they're faint, nothing more than a whisper on her face. To everyone else, they're only visible in the flicker of a candle at the right angle, but she's always aware of them.

"Fifteen years." 

Her hand drops, limp at her side. She turns a flurry of hair and wind, facing Geralt with an odd expression on her face. She can't discern how to feel with that revelation. How is one supposed to react upon figuring out the fifteen years have passed, and they don't even know it? She wants to protest, to scream that he's lying to her, and demand that he tell her the truth, the real truth and not some practical joke. But the longer she thinks on it, her eyes resting on Geralt's stone face, the more it makes sense. 

She thinks back to Winterfell, trying to remember the smells of her previous home. To remember how everything felt under her fingertips - whether it be in the warm castle or the icy cold. She tries to recall how everyone looked the last time she saw them, tried to visualize their exact heights in comparison to hers, to recall small imperfections that made them not smooth porcelain dolls. Only then, when she focuses so hard on doing just that, does she realize she can't even remember their faces. She can see their general shapes, her mind recognizing them as either Jon, Robb, or anyone else important enough to remember. But when she tries to zoom in and make their faces clearer, they're nothing but humanoid-like blurs. 

Her face twitches, in discomfort or shock, she's not sure. 

"Huh." It's the only thing she manages to say, unable to force her mind to think of another response or to form the words with her mouth. She's utterly frozen in place. 

She almost allows her mind to wander, thinking of what may have happened to the rest of the Stark children. Would they have found peace and safety, or would they have blown away like leaves in the wind, desolated by monsters and grief? But she banishes the thoughts before they could form. What would be the point? All it would do is pull her into another bout of melancholy, the same suffering she was drowning in whilst hiding away in Blaviken. So she does what she's best at; she takes all unpleasant thoughts and ghosts and locks them into a little box in the back of her mind. Leaving it to collect dust until it's long forgotten. 

"You didn't know that?" Geralt asks, breaking his statue-like posture to step closer to Visenya. She doesn't answer, she simply shakes her head, her breathing shaky and unsteady. 

'Fifteen years.'

The number echoes in her mind, it's on repeat and she finds herself unable to escape it. He's silent, Geralt is always silent. But she welcomes it, more so now than ever. 

Her fingers begin to count down as she counts up, the numbers hardly above the breaths she takes. She looks down at the ground, counting the grain in the wooden floors. 

"21, 22, 23, 24…" 

She pauses, finishing the math in her mind. She opens her mouth, cautiously.

"Thirty-five… I'm thirty-five years old now." It makes sense, her face appears much older than when she first arrived, the lines and crow's feet not just a result of poor living conditions and battle scars. 

"Is that a bad thing?" Geralt asks. Visenya looks up at him. His facial expression remains much the same as before, but his eyes glow with a hint of curiosity. Not that he would ever admit to it if she ever called him out on it. 

"No, I just-- never thought I'd make it this far," Visenya says, a sardonic grin pulling at her lips that looks more like a grimace than anything. 

"With the life, you've had--" Geralt starts, his voice low and raspy, but Visenya cuts him off with a bout of laughter that sounds more like knives than bells. He closes his mouth, simply raising a brow at Visenya. 

"You have no idea, Geralt of Rivia." She shakes her head, the grin-grimace hybrid still on her face, yet her eyes tell a different story. They're despondent and regretful, and Geralt can't understand why.

"Then perhaps you should tell me." Suddenly Visenya is no longer laughing. She stares at Geralt with a type of intensity he's never seen in her eyes before. And before he can bring himself to get used to it, to allow himself to sink in the new atmosphere that surrounds them, she dissolves it, eyes turning warm and mischievous once more.

"Give it another fifteen years, and maybe then," she says, feather-light laughter following her words. She turns once more, hair whipping behind her as she continues to stare at her reflection. Her hair is longer, reaching a few inches below her breasts. Her roots are slightly grown out, allowing a little bit of shining silver to peek through the mud brown. She still can't decide if she wants to continue dying it or not. But she tucks that thought away, not wanting to unpack everything that comes with those thoughts. Not after she just packed away unpleasant thoughts that are of a similar vein. 

"Plus, I've told you more things than I've told anyone else, and still I feel as though I know nothing of you," Visenya says, turning around once more, moving away from the dingy mirror. This causes Geralt to laugh - it's rough and dark, the complete opposite of Visenya's. It causes shivers to rush up her spine and a fluttering sensation to form in her stomach. 

She passes by him, a hand ghosting over his shoulder. She exits the room and Geralt swiftly follows. His footsteps are much heavier than hers; she's like a soft summer breeze while he's the terrifying winter winds that threaten to blow everything down. 

They walk the length of the hall, down the winding staircase, and out of the inn where Roach is patiently waiting for them. Throughout their small journey, they maintained not only the same distance between one another but the same space. 

She only pauses upon reaching Roach, a hand resting on the mare's side as she gently pets her. Visenya looks at Geralt, who now stands precisely two paces away from her - one pace closer than he had been five seconds ago. 

"Fair is fair," she says, raising her brows. A grumble of a laugh escapes his mouth, so quiet it could almost be mistaken for the world itself shaking. His laughter causes his eyes to close for a brief second before he opens them once more.

"I can't argue with that. In exchange for what you've told me, I'll tell you about my first hunt. Does that sound like a fair bargain?" he asks, a certain lightness in his eyes that quickly disappears in the time it takes for her to blink and open her eyes again. She holds a hand out, and he places his own in it. They shake their hands, two times to be exact. 

"Sounds like a deal to me."

oOo

"I'd only just left Kaer Morhen, a new Witcher who was naive enough to think I could save the world. I came across a gang of men who were about to rape a young girl, a few of them holding back the girl's father." Geralt says, his voice quiet and somber, but she could hear each word perfectly. They're both riding on Roach, with Visenya in front and Geralt's arms slung loosely around her as he holds Roach's reins. The mare doesn't need much guidance though, she just follows the winding road ahead of them, and neither Geralt nor Visenya corrects her. 

"And then what happened," Visenya asks, resisting the urge to turn around and look at Geralt. He's so good at obscuring any emotion or feelings when he speaks, often opting to talk with a monotonous voice. While hilarious when dealing witty one-liners, it makes it near impossible to discern how he feels. His eyes on the other hand are a completely different story. 

To most, they may seem as empty and dead as a poorly done painting, but Visenya can read him like an open book - spotting small flickers of different emotions. After all, Visenya often employs the same tactic to appear as cold and unfeeling as possible, it's only natural she sees through when others try to do it to her.  

"I killed them, the bald man with the rotted teeth and all his friends. The girl's father fled right after--" Geralt says.

"And the girl?" Visenya says, unable to stop herself from interrupting him. When he promised her a tale of his first hunt, this isn't exactly what she expected, yet she finds herself enthralled none-the-less. A part of her wonders how different her history might've been if Geralt lived in Westeros. What would be different, if anything at all. She knows with complete certainty that the Geralt she knows would have no problem defeating the Mountain. But if Geralt lived in Westeros instead of here, he wouldn't be a Witcher. Which means he'd have none of the capabilities that make him superior to mortals. So her train of thought is moot and pointless. 

But she can't help the twitch of a smirk on her lips as she imagines Geralt slicing the Mountain's head off his body; the cut clean and precise. And instead of a girl about to be raped by a slimy bandit, she sees the Mountain looming over her mother, and Geralt saving her just in time. 

"What happened to the girl?" This time she doesn't fight the urge to turn and look at Geralt. She turns her head just enough to see the right side of his face. His eyes are far away, recalling memories that are probably lifetimes away. The mid-day sunlight aggressively shines onto his face, but it's deceiving in its harshness for it provides no warmth. The air is cold and icy, freezing dead leaves and small twigs into timeless statues that will melt when summer comes again. 

"She was covered in the bald man's blood, but unharmed, not that you'd know that with how she reacted. When I approached her, she screamed, vomited, and then passed out," Geralt says. His tone remains even, not portraying any feelings. 

She turns her head to face the road once more, her lips pursing in concentration. 

Would her mother have reacted the same if Geralt swept into her chamber like an angel of death, white hair his halo, and the blade strapped to his back his judgment? Or would she have thanked him, tears streaming down her face as she held her screaming children? 

"And how did that make you feel?" she asks, not daring to turn and look at him once more. She fears if he takes one look at her eyes, he'll see all the thoughts furiously swimming in the flames that dance in them. She can feel him shrug more than see it, the movement of his shoulders causing his arm to brush against her back. 

"Like shit," he simply replies. Visenya scoffs, a grin pulling at the corner of her lips. 

She opens her mouth, a witty quip on the tip of her tongue when she's cut off by a scream. It comes from her right, in the forest, but not so deeply hidden that the dying trees and frostbitten leaves muffle the noises. Her posture turns stiff like a board, the hairs on her body standing up straight. 

"Did you--" she begins, only to be cut off by another scream, this one more guttural than the last, yet not beast-like in nature. Visenya turns, catching Geralt's eyes. He nods, acknowledging that the shouts aren't just in her head, the manifestation of deeply hidden thoughts resurfacing. He hears it too. 

Without allowing a moment of hesitation or for her mind to catch up with her actions, she jumps off of Roach, unsheathing her blade. The dragon hilt is cold as ice, but soothing to the heat slowly rising in Visenya. 

A loud thud follows only a moment later, signaling that Geralt is following her lead. She'd feel touched by his lack of protest when it comes to her charging headfirst into the unknown, but the situation is far too dangerous for any distractions, even if only for a brief second. 

Blood rushing and heart pounding, she turns to ice as another scream echoes in their ears. It's closer this time, sounding as if someone is shouting while choking on their blood. Visenya's pace quickens, her heart racing faster as adrenaline floods her body in preparation for the potential fight that seems more likely than not as each second passes. The grip on her sword tightens as she clenches her jaw. Dozens of battle maneuvers and tactics fly through her mind, all the years of training; both in Winterfell and with Geralt blaring in her mind. 

Another scream, this one deeper than the previous. Visenya picks up her pace again, eager for this confrontation to be over before it even begins. She glances behind and Geralt is right behind her, sword unsheathed and face battle-hardened. 

For the fifth time, another scream rips through the trees, but now that they're closer, Visenya hears the rustling of what sounds like people running. The muffled noise of jeers and mocking voices trickle into her ears.

People, they're dealing with people, and not literal monsters. Though most times, people can be the worst type of monster there is.

With a deep breath that she quickly releases, Visenya reaches a handout, pushing away the branches that separate her and Geralt from the apparent attackers. 

'The blood of the dragon is not afraid.'

The phrase enters her mind without thought. But instead of banishing it away, she embraces it. She imagines Queen Visenya beside her, a stern expression on her beautiful face, lips curling into a snarl that would perfectly mimic Vhaegar. 

When she opens her eyes, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. A group of six or so humans wielding various types of weapons that were dripping with blood stand in the small clearing. The source of the screams quickly became clear; a small family of elves with blood dripping from various wounds. A male elf lays on his stomach, unmoving; meanwhile, a woman cowers in a corner, pressing her body against a tree, three children with her. The smallest of the three were huddled on either side of her as she attempted to soothe them, tears streaming down her bloodied face. Meanwhile, the oldest, only looking to be seven at the most, stands in front of her, the branch from a tree between his unsteady hands. He holds it as if it's a blade, determined to protect what remains of his family. 

The humans are bandits and not very successful ones; with worn mismatched leather armor and blades that look seconds away from rusting. But they wear sneers on the face, showing rotted teeth and foul words. They snap their attention toward Visenya who enters first and watch her for a moment as she watches them, taking in the scene before her.

She expected the worst, but nothing could've prepared her for this. It's too familiar, too close to home. She feels her vision go red, blood pumping in her veins, and skin nearly burning.

"Look at this boys, no need to find a nearby brothel. Looks like our entertainment found us," one of the men says, a twisted smirk curling on his cracked and bleeding lips. Visenya's face contorts into a look of disgust. The other men around them laugh, cackles that sound more like screams than sounds of delight. 

Visenya tightens her grip on the hilt of her sword, teeth grinding as she clenches her jaw tighter. She takes a single step forward. 

"Pretty thing you are, and you look like a fighter. Good, I like it when they fight," the man continues, undisturbed or intimidated by Visenya.

"And I like it when bastards like you are six feet under. Lucky for me you will be, soon," Visenya says, her voice gravelly and harsh like a growl. She smiles, her mouth looking more like the snarl of a wolf that's moments away from attacking. 

The man doesn't falter, instead, he barks out a laugh, pointing his finger at Visenya as he does. 

"Funny," he says. He nods his head at a few of the men, turning his attention back to the elf and her children. "But be a dear and be quiet. I have some business to attend to." He lifts his blade and begins approaching the woman. The child holds his stick up high, about to try and defend his mother when the bandit just shoves him aside, knocking the kid on the ground. A loud crack resounds in the clearing as his small head collides with a protruding rock. 

The elven woman screams, crawling to try and get as far away as possible, clutching her kids tighter against her. Tears stream down her face as vigorous as a waterfall. Dread fills Visenya, all her thoughts consumed by panic. 

"No!" Visenya screams. She moves to charge him, but a grimy hand holds onto her, keeping her from running. She turns towards the man, and wildly swings her blade. It misses, but in dodging it, he loses enough of his footing that he lets go of her.  

He goes to grab her again, but before he can try, a blade slices into his neck, causing blood to gush out of the wound before he drops to the ground. Visenya doesn't have to look to know it's Geralt, but she does anyway. A deep scowl is set on his face, eyes blazing in a way that's eerily similar to Visenya's. He growls, eyes assessing the scene before them. He glances at Visenya, then moves his eyes to the leader. Visenya nods, understanding the nonverbal cue. 

Save the girl.

"A fucking Witcher!" The man spits out. He spits turning away from the elf, no longer able to ignore the threat right in front of him. "Just kill them both, I hear Witchers make good coin."

Then everything descends into chaos. The rest of the bandits charge Visenya and Geralt, but she pays them no mind. She nimbly dodges each one of their attacks, leaving them to Geralt. Her eyes stay on the leader, who's eyes rest solely on her as well. He grabs a second blade from the ground, ripping it from the hands of the dead elf. He strides towards her and she meets him halfway in a clash of blades and fury. 

Their blades meet in a cross, the clang of metal ringing in her ears. She scowls as he snarls, spittle flying into her face. 

She jumps back and pivots to his side. His gaze follows her, body turning as she does. Like a butcher cutting a pig, he hacks down at her. She parries it with her blade, pushing it away as if it's nothing more than an annoyance. His second one comes down a moment later and she dodges to the other side, the blade slicing through empty air. A third swing, his other hand comes down, this time towards her face. She crouches low to the ground as she brings her blade up to block the hit, using her lower position to steady her body as she pushes against him, both hands holding onto the hilt. 

He presses down and she pushes upward, arms shaking from the exertion.  She screams, the sound eerily similar to the roar of a dragon, moments before it decimates its enemies with its fiery wrath. With a burst of power, she shoots up, causing him to stumble back. 

Right and left, she slashes her blade at him. His leather armor takes the brunt of the first hit, but the second one manages to piece into flesh. She snarls as he screeches in pain. Clammy hands begin to shakily smack against his belt, desperately looking for a blade to try and stick her with, but she doesn't give him the chance. 

She kicks him in the abdomen. The force of it slamming his already weak body against a tree. There's a loud crack as his body makes contact, another howl of pain escaping his mouth. 

"Stupid bit--" 

Her blade stabs into his neck, stopping him mid-sentence. Blood pours out of his mouth, a gurgling sound replacing his scratchy voice. 

"Fuck you," Visenya says. She then spits at him, the saliva landing on his chest and disappearing into the blood. 

She sighs, the sounds of fighting die down, and she turns around. Geralt is standing in the center of the clearing, blood speckling his armor and dripping off his blades, but luckily none of the blood is his. Her tense shoulder loosens slightly, the adrenaline leaving with the threats. She tosses her blade to the side, making a mental note to clean it later. 

Turning to her right, she sees the elven woman with her children still cowering in the corner, all three of her children around her, the eldest of them knocked out cold. Now that no threats are looming over them, Visenya allows herself a moment to inspect the three of them. 

The mother looks to be middle age, with wheat blonde hair and pallid skin, her bones protruding in a way that the bones of someone well-nourished wouldn't. Her eyes are down and as large as a doe, the sparkle in them enhanced by salty tears. 

The small girl looks nearly identical to her, her wheat hair in a messy braid that's falling apart. She clutches her mother's hand tighter, moving further into her the longer Visenya looks at her. The other boy is the complete opposite, with dark disheveled hair and blue eyes. His face is blotchy and wet from tears, but he doesn't seem to fully understand why. Staring at Visenya with blank curiosity rather than fear.

"Are you hurt?" Visenya asks, making a conscious effort to make her voice as light and harmless as possible. She takes a step forward, a branch breaking under her foot. The woman gasps, pressing herself further against the tree. 

Visenya stops, holding her arms up, a nonverbal sign that she means peace. The woman doesn't relax, not that Visenya expects her to.

"You--you--you," the woman stutters, tears still streaming down her face, but not as frantically as they were moments ago. 

"Saved you, yes," Visenya says, taking another step forward. The woman doesn't cower, but her fear doesn't lessen. 

"I don't have coin," she says, her voice wavering in between her sobs. Visenya shrugs, a small smile curling on her lips.

"And I have more than enough," Visenya says. The woman continues to stare at her, not uttering a single word. It's like they're frozen in place, only the tears running down her cheeks and their shaking forms giving away that they're in fact real. Visenya feels her stomach twist itself into knots. 

She should grab her blade and leave the clearing behind, get back on Roach with Geralt and ride off to the next destination. At the very least her conscience would be eased by the fact that they kept these band of idiots from hurting the woman and her children. 

And yet…

A voice whispers in her ear to not, that she'd never stop thinking about this moment, wondering what became of them. Did they save them from these bandits only to get robbed and left for dead by the next group of pricks with pointy swords? She couldn't live with it, she realizes. Not if she doesn't do everything in her power to ensure they arrive home safely and alive… wherever home is. A sigh escapes her mouth, so quiet it could be mistaken for the wind. 

"You have no reason to trust me, I get that, but at the very least I saved you from those pricks, so I can't be that bad, right?" Visenya asks, voice rougher and blunter than she intended for it to be. Internally she winces as the woman cowers for a brief second, but then slowly she nods her head.

"Right. Your son is injured, how serious, I'm not sure. I don't know, maybe you have some training in the art of healing, but if you're not, at the very least, I'm no stranger to minor injuries. I can help him," Visenya continues. The elven woman doesn't cower anymore, her rapid tears dwindling to a light drizzle rather than a heavy pour. She nods once more, and Visenya finds herself sighing in relief. 

Without wasting another moment she takes a step forward, turning towards the child on the ground. She crouches beside him, his mother moving to be on his other side. Her shining eyes are sharp, watching Visenya with the likeness of a hawk watching its prey. 

He looks to be a mixture of his mother and presumably his father. His hair is a dirty blonde, freckles dotting his tan skin. He's not nearly as frail as his other siblings, similar to how Jon, Robb, and Theon looked when they first started training in Winterfell. But he seems to have much less meat on his bones. 

Visenya places her warm hands on his face, lifting his head and moving a hand to gently cradle his head. There's a large bruise blossoming on the right side of his forehead, but there's no blood or any other signs of injury. She places a hand on his heart, feeling it beat against her hand, then slides it to the side of his neck, feeling a pulse there as well. 

"He didn't get hit with a weapon," the woman says, whether convincing herself of his safety or trying to feed Visenya information she isn't sure. Or it could be a mixture of both. 

"No, but he took a hard fall, I've seen men twice his size get knocked on their heads and never get back up, and if they do, they're never the same. There's bleeding, but that doesn't mean he's completely safe," Visenya says, removing her hands from his body. 

"Is there anything to be done?" she asks, picking his up and gently cradling his head in her lap. 

"Other than wait and see when he wakes? No. As I said, I'm no healer, but I have a tea that can help ease his pain. He'll have a bad headache and sore body, that much is certain," Visenay says. She looks over at the two other children; a girl and a boy. They're young, that for certain, younger than the boy on the ground. 

"How much?" the woman asks, not removing her eyes from her son. Visenya's brows furrow in confusion.

"How much what?"

"How much will I owe you for the herbs?" the woman asks again, looking Visenya directly in the eyes. Her tears are dry, but her eyes still shine from the residual dampness. 

"Nothing. He needs it now more than I do. I can buy more when I reach the next town," Visenya says, keeping her face as pleasant as possible. The woman purses her lips, clearly in thought. Silence washes over them until it's broken by the woman. 

"Thank you. Not many humans would show kindness to elves, much less two so well trained in fighting." 

Visenya snorts, a smirk appearing on her face. 

"One human and a mutant, actually. But you're welcome. What good is all the fighting talent in the world if you don't use it well," Visenya says, slowly standing from the ground? The woman's eyes follow her form as she stands to her full height. "Our horse is near the road. We can take you wherever home is, and make sure you get there safe."

The woman nods, adjusting her son in her arms so that he is lying across her lap. With Visenya's help, she stands from the ground, holding her son's bridal style. Her two other children stay close, hiding a bit behind her, each one with a hand attached to her dress. Visenya turns, eager to leave the clearing and forget any of this happened, but the woman stopped her. 

"I've already lost Aldon, my husband. I could not lose my son too, I truly appreciate what you have and are doing for us."

"I wouldn't speak so soon," Geralt's gravelly voice enters the conversation. They both turn to see him kneeling beside the body, two fingers against his neck. "He's fading, but he hasn't died yet." 

Visenya strides towards Geralt, the woman, still holding her son, hot on her trail while her two children stay in place, silently watching with wide eyes. Visenya sits beside Geralt as the woman nearly collapses on the other side of Aldon's body. She takes a hold of his hand, her grip so tight her fingers begin to turn white.

"Can we save him?" Visenya asks. Geralt grunts, gesturing with his head in the direction behind them. She nods, knowing what he's saying without having to physically say it. She stands and runs the way they came in. Her feet are heavy, beating into the soil and breaking any twigs or crunchy leaves. The world is a blur around her, wind rushing against her skin. They can save him, but only if Visenya can get the supplies back to Geralt in time. 

Either by sheer dumb luck, or the gods truly have shown them favor, Roach is right where they left him. Visenya releases a heavy sigh as she beelines straight for her pack that hangs off of Roach. 

"Good horse. I'm going to give you so many apples once we reach civilization," Visenya breathes out, untying her pack from his saddle. He neighs, happily it would seem. She smiles, patting his side a few times before turning and rushing into the forest once more. 

Everyone is in the exact spots as when she left. Geralt is leaning over Aldon with his wife sitting on the other side of his body. She clutches his hand in hers, knuckles turning white from the tightness of her grip. Her lips are quivering with large eyes, her body shaking every few minutes, the stark contrast of Geralt. With thin lips, hard eyes, and unwavering hands as he cleans the wound to the best of his ability; he's the epitome of stone. Visenya runs towards them, tossing the bag at Geralt once she crosses halfway through the clearing. He catches it in his hand, flipping it open and rummaging through it. He pulls out various bottles; some with powders, liquids, herbs: both brushed and whole, and bandages. 

Visenya slows her pace, moving around Aldon to sit beside his wife. She glances at Visenya for a moment before looking back at her husband. She;'s breathing heavily, the sharp intakes of breath sporadic. A hiccup escapes her mouth every few seconds, eyes on her husband, waiting and hoping for any signs of recovering. Hand on the grass, it moves over until it brushes against her free hand. She doesn't look away from her husband, but she takes Visenya's hand, her cold body instantly feeling warmer from Visenya's proximity. It provides comfort, a sense of reassurance that Geralt knows what he's doing. That her husband will make it out of the mess, and this day won't become a travesty that's burned in her mind. 

Geralt works quickly, each minute passing in a blur. He tears strips of bandages off with his teeth, the tearing sound from it enough to keep Visenya from getting lost in her thoughts. He wipes away the blood with a cloth, pouring a liquid that smells suspiciously like alcohol over the wound. It hisses upon contact but the noise swiftly dissipates. He then grabs one of the vials that contain a thick liquid. It's amber, with various herbs and other ingredients slightly discoloring it. He packs it into the wound, laying down multiple thick layers of the poultice. He then lifts the torso of the man just enough to wrap his torso in bandages. With her only free hand, Visenya helps him keep the body off the ground, mutely watching Geralt work. 

Finally, Geralt sighs, removing his hands from the body, the two of them gently lowering him to once again lay on the ground. Blood is no longer gushing from the wound on the side of his body, unable to seep through the dense layers above it. 

"They were pricks, but luckily they weren't skilled pricks. He would've bled out, but it wasn't a fatal blow. When he wakes he'll be weak, but alive," Geralt mutters. Visenya sighs, eyes moving to the elven woman. She removes her hand from Visenya's grip, moving her child off of her lap. Visenya immediately places hands on the small boy, taking him from his mother and cradling him. The woman cries out in relief, hovering over Aldon's body and placing a hand on his cheek. 

She looks down at the boy in her arms, noticing the way his eyes twitch under his lids. He's dreaming, it seems. And from the small grin on his face, it's a good one. A soft smile forms on Visenya's face, wide eyes watching the boy, her breathing matching his. A familiar tingling sensation runs up her spine. She glances up, seeing Geralt's gaze firmly on her. She smiles, and he returns it. They've done it, managed to save an innocent family, keeping them from being torn apart by stick bastards with pointy sticks. It's...nice.

"We probably shouldn't move him too much in fear of disturbing his wounds. How far are you from here?" Visenya asks, turning her attention back to the woman. She lifts her head, eyes moving from her husband to Visenya. They're wet with tears again, but not tears of sorrow or fear. This time they're from an overwhelming feeling of joy and hope she didn't have moments ago.

"It's a short distance, we live just on the outskirts of Brunwich," she says. Visenya nods, opening her mouth but Geralt speaks before her.

"We just left," Geralt says.

"And we can turn back around," Visenya interjects, looking at Geralt with a stony expression; lips in a firm line and eyes daring him to contradict her. She clutches the child closer to her, not willing to let them go just yet. They need to be safe and back home, and Visenya needs to see it with her own eyes. Otherwise, her consciousness will never be sated. And Geralt gleans this, causing a sigh to leave his lips, not bothering to start an argument he knows he wouldn't win. 

"We can," he concedes, voice lacking any form of enthusiasm or conviction in his words.

"Excellent." Visenya returns her attention to the woman. "Since his injuries are the most delicate, your husband can ride on Roach, and you can ride with him. I can hold your son, but would your two other children be okay to walk? I'm not sure they'd fit on Roach." 

"They won't. We should camp here for the day until he's conscious and well enough to ride," Geralt says. Visenya nods and looks at the woman for confirmation, who nods as well. 

"In that case, I will get Roach," Visenya says. She begins to adjust the boy in her lap to give him back to his mother, but she stands from the ground. 

"I'll come with you," she says. Visenya nods, standing from the ground as well. She walks around Aldon, to stand beside Geralt. She gestures with her chin down at the child. Geralt opens his arms, reluctantly. She places the boy in his arms, and turns, dusting off any dirt that clings to her armor. Visenya nods at her and the two of them exit the clearing. 

The air around them is quiet. They neither speak nor acknowledge each other. Occasionally Visenya glances at her out of the corner of her eyes, and she catches the woman doing the same thing. It's almost like two wolves dancing around each other, trying to figure out how to approach the other. It isn't hostile, neither of them having any obvious tension. It's just….silent. 

The woods are as gloomy as before; a cold chill sweeping through the air with dead trees and crunching leaves in shades of brown coloring their world. Yet everything somehow feels lighter, less dull, and grey. Visenya feels weightless, the adrenaline from the battle still lingering in her veins and the rush from saving innocent lives giving a small skip in her step. 

"I am Amaria," the woman -- Amaria says, making the first move. Visenya nods, continuing to look straight ahead. 

"I am Amaria," the woman, Amaria, says. Her voice is louder than she's heard it, yet the only other times she spoke was during great distress. There's a melodic tone to it, each word slightly flowing together like the lyrics of a song. Visenya nods her head, staring straight ahead. 

"Visenya." Leaves crunch under her boots, matching the pace of her heart, and the distant song that lingers in the back of her mind. It's been too long since she's heard music - and not just the drunken yodeling of tavern goers. She misses music and singing that are enjoyable to listen to. She misses the small tunes and fumbling lyrics that Jaskier always sang throughout the days. Everything is too silent now, and she finds herself trying to fill the silence the way he did. 

"That's a beautiful name," Amaria remarks, stepping over an overly large root. Visenya smiles, glancing over at her. She's only the second person to call her Visenya. It's relieving...finally able to take ownership of her own name once again. 

"Thank you, it's a family name." Amaria nods, falling silent once more, and unlike moments prior, this silence is not an easy one. Nerves fill Visenya, the uncertainty of what to say - if she should say anything at all overwhelming. She mulls over it for another moment, before just opening her mouth and hoping to not offend. 

"What are your children named?" Visenya asks. 

"Rohir is my oldest at seven, he's the one you helped. Then there's Elana, she's only four and my youngest is Vyron, he's only two," Amaria says, a wide smile appearing on her face as she thinks about her children. Visenya watches her with keen eyes, a pang of envy stabbing into her, a piece of her longing to know the feeling of having a family that's all your own. 

"They're beautiful," Visenya says, tightly nodding her head. She drums her fingers against the side of her leg. 

"Do you have any?" Amaria asks. She's seemingly unaware or unconcerned by the awkward air that surrounds Visenya. But it's nothing new, she's never been the best with people. Constantly being around such loud people like Jaskier, or quiet and reclusive people like Geralt, she never notices. But now, walking in the forest alone with Amaria, she can't help but notice how extremely difficult something as simple as conversation is. 

"No," Visenya says, crouching to avoid smacking into a low hanging group of branches. Amaria nods, and then sighs. Her face scrunches into discomfort; pursuing her lips with eyes that are narrowed slightly. 

"Sorry, I should not have asked. I'm sure Witcher mutations make conceiving a child near impossible," she says, her voice sympathetic and apologetic. Absentmindedly Visenya nods, only a moment later, fully processing the words. 

"Wait what?" Visenya stops in her tracks, turning to face Amaria. Her mouth is agape and eyes wide, ashen brows furrow in confusion with lines on her forehead. She continues a few steps before realizing Visenya is no longer walking with her. She stops as well, turning around and facing Visenya.

"You and the Witcher. Aren't you two..." Amaria trails off. Visenya's cheeks are bombarded with heat that makes her skin bright red. There's a funny feeling in her stomach, tingles rushing up her spine. The thought of her and Geralt together isn't unpleasant, and that's the worst part. She almost enjoys the idea. But she quickly sweeps that away, her and Geralt having children would be disastrous, not that he probably could. 

"Geralt and I are not...together," Visenya says, tone more frantic than she intended. 

"Oh, I just thought maybe…"

"Well, you thought wrong," Visenya says, the words harsher than she intended for it to be. She releases a sigh of frustration, watching Amaria jump, slowly taking one step back from Visenya. Quickly, she crumbles back into the scared rabbit she was when Visenya first saw her. The familiar look in her eyes quickly snaps Visenya out of her frustration. Guild replaces her bubbling temper, immediately dousing out any annoyance in her voice. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be so harsh," Visenya says. Amaria nods, frown curling into a small smile. "Please, forgive me."

"You are forgiven. I should not have made such assumptions," Amaria says. She steps closer towards Visenya, a non-verbal sign that she doesn't hold any fear for her. Visenya smiles at her, and the two of them continue walking once more. Silence cloaking them in its aura for the rest of their walk, neither speaking even upon reaching Roach and bringing his back to Geralt and her family. 

oOo

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[squishymochisoo]

expiration date || lee felix (ft. lee minho)

genre: angst, fluff, college au

pairing: lee felix x reader, lee minho x reader 

words: 5.1 k

synopsis: it’s been years since you fell in love with minho, who seems to have never liked you back. when felix enters your life along with several other new friends. maybe finally you would be able to move on from minho. maybe love did have an expiration date.

||

unrequited love

it’s normal for most of us to experience unrequited love.

the pining from afar, the small smiles and little laughs you let out when you see the other.

sometimes it was painful to watch the other, knowing that they would never be the other’s special person

sometimes it made you happy, seeing the other so happy.

sometimes it made you smile when you notice the little things the other did.

sometimes you stare at the ceiling when you’re in your bed, tears following your thoughts and only one question filling your head,

‘why did i have to fall in love with my friend?’

 ||

 “jisung why is it so cold – it’s only november” you shivered as you wrapped your arms around yourself.

“blame global warming i guess” jisung snorted beside you.

“i don’t know why a part of me thought that you would be kind enough to give me your jacket” jisung raised his eyebrows at your statement.

“and freeze? yea no thanks. i’d like to stay warm” jisung smiled sinisterly why waving his sweater paws at you. you scoffed and rolled your eyes

“what a best friend you are” your playful glare was interrupted by a figure walking towards the both of you.

 “y/n what are you doing? i told you to cover up!” minho nagged. you shrug your shoulders not knowing what to reply. you felt another chill pass through you, making you shiver once more.

“here put this on” minho handed to you his jacket, motioning for you to put it on. you felt your cheeks heat up, not from the cold but from minho handing to you his jacket.

you had been friends with minho for many years. at the age of 13, just 2 years after you met him, you couldn’t stop your heart from pounding really hard whenever he did something for you. it may have been a just a friendly gesture, but it made your heart jump every time. you knew it was a stupid crush that had to go away, especially when you knew that minho would not feel the same way about you. but every time you stopped yourself from blushing or giggling, every time you manage to forget his smile, he enters your life once more with an even brighter smile. making you fall for him over and over again. it was a cycle that never ended.  

 even now at the age of 21, why did you find it so hard to let go of him?

 even when he dated or mentioned another name with a smile on his face, you couldn’t help but smile looking at him happy, even when you heart was aching at the thought of him and his significant other.

 “y/n i need your help” minho ran up to you as you were walking home from school that day.

“i just don’t understand why she’s mad at me?” minho whined to you.

“just talk it out and pay more attention to her. maybe she just needs comfort and you weren’t there” you stated blankly while your mind in a frenzy. minho’s face lit up at your advice.

“thanks y/n! you’re such a great friend!” and with that he disappeared.

“yea.. i’m such a great friend” you muttered under your breath.

 it was normal that minho came to you for relationship advice, stating that jisung lacked the social skills to come up with decent advices regarding people. because of jisung’s lacking ability to give advices, you were stuck with the job. making you hear about minho and his significant other regularly over the years.

every time he came up to you, a part of you wanted to give a shitty advice. a part of you thought about giving an advice that could break them up because your heart couldn’t suffer anymore. and every time the devil stood on your shoulder telling to you put a crack in their relationship, you couldn’t.

you didn’t know why.

you’d witness the couple back together again the next day and your heart would ache once more.

why didn’t you put your happiness before you? why was it that you’d rather live with a broken heart than seeing someone you liked – no—loved in pain? somehow you figured it would be worth it in the end. a part of you thought that maybe, just maybe, minho would notice the way you liked him, and he would notice how you were there for him every time.

you knew it would never happen, but still a small part of you couldn’t help but wish and long for it.

it wasn’t like the two of you were best friends that shared secrets with each other. truthfully, the only reason why the both of you still talked was because of jisung.  

 ||

 “hey seungmin” you waved at the boy behind the counter of the convenience store. you placed your bag beside his and joined him.

the pay here wasn’t so great but it was hard to find another place that allowed you to work late into the night since you had classes in the morning. seungmin attended the same university as you and was also doing journalism. the both of you hit it off perfectly especially since you just met him last week. it wasn’t long until jisung entered the store, calling out for you.

“y/n! where art thou romeo” you held the urge to throw something at your embarrassing friend. when his eyes met yours, he ran towards the counter calling out your name once more. you could hear seungmin trying to stifle a laugh looking at jisung.

“look at the roomates wanted poster i made!” jisung shoved the poster into your face.

“i think i should majored in digital and visual arts instead of music.” jisung continued to boast. you stared at the poster which looked like jisung used clip art images from microsoft powerpoint and used a rainbow effect on wordart for the word ‘roommate’. it was definitely … eye catching.

 “wait! you printed it out? like a stack of those?” jisung nodded proudly holding a very thick stack of paper.

“why would you?? people find roomates online now! what happened to trying to save the earth?” you nagged as you saw the waste of paper.

“we could just pass it out in campus, that way we get to see them in real life. if they aren’t worthy, they don’t get the poster!” jisung retorted. you looked blankly at jisung not knowing what to reply with.

 “you guys are looking for roomates? my friends were just looking for a place to rent.” seungmin pointed out.

“i could let them know and pass them your number if you would like”

“as long as they’re not murderers, we would appreciate you telling them” you joked.

“just let me when they would like to look at the apartment if they are interested!”

 ||

 that’s how you found yourself a few days later, in your apartment with hyunjin and jeongin, who were also first years at the uni you were going to. oddly enough, the four of you hit if off very well. although the apartment was huge enough to house four adults, it was cheap to afford. well, it was cheap because it required so many touch ups and had to be refurbished before the four of you could call it home.

the four of you spend the week before school painting and moving furniture around. seungmin joining you most times to help you. even sometimes minho would come around, doing all the stupid things he usually did to make you feel nervous.

 |

 “okay finally we’re done!” you heard jeongin yell from the other room as he finished up painting the last empty patch on the wall. you laughed as you heard cheers echo all throughout the house.

“please please please! let’s go out for lunch! i don’t think i can take it anymore if i inhale more paint!” hyunjin shouted dramatically.

that’s how you found yourself being squeezed in between jisung and seungmin while hyunjin and jeongin sat on the opposite side of the table in the diner. jisung was busy discussing a with jeongin about what it would be to fall in love with a tree. both you and seungmin were just staring at the pair, silently judging them in your heads. hyunjin lifted up his head to face all of you from his phone.

“guys, is it okay if our friend joins us for lunch?” hyunjin looked at you and jisung, who agreed because the pair of you decided two days after meeting the trio that whoever they were friends with, were immediately their friends. hyunjin nodded excitedly before texting on his phone once more before putting it down, joining jeongin’s and jisung’s conversation about plants.

 ||

 “—like a plant fetish?” hyunjin replied. somehow both you and seungmin ended up joining the conversation.

“no that doesn’t make sense! falling in love with a plant is different from having a plant fetish!” you exclaimed. all five of you were so into the conversation that all of you didn’t realize the figure that stood at the end of the table listening in on the conversation.

“but you could have a plant fetish and fall in love with a plant at the same time” a deep voice stated from your right, scaring the five of you. you jumped back upon hearing hyunjin shriek in surprise.

“shut up hyunjin” seungmin kicked hyunjin from underneath the table. you stifled a laugh as you looked at the blonde boy who had a big smile on his face.

“hey! i’m felix. you must be y/n and jisung?” felix glanced at the both of you.

“nice to meet you! have a seat” you gestured towards the empty seat beside jeongin.

it was not a surprise to you when you found out that you and jisung fit right into their group of friends. it was as if the both of you just belonged there, sitting with the other four boys laughing and talking.

that was how your friendship with the four boys began to grow.

 ||

 before you realized it, the first week of school started. you spent the whole week before hanging out with the boys. sometimes watching movies in your apartment. sometimes walking around the park. there was a day where all six of you lied down in the living room not doing anything. and somehow it was still one of the best days of your life.

 message from felixie

felixie: you going with the others after class?

you: nope! minho said he needed to meet me so i’ll be walking back with him ^^

felixie: oh… okay then have fun! ~~

 you sighed as you tucked your phone back into your pocket. you continued to wait on the bench just outside one of the buildings in campus, staring at the students flocking into a lecture room. you glanced at the other bench to see a couple together typing on their laptops while the chatted. the smile on their face so bright, showing everyone how happy they were together.

you glanced at your phone as you count the minutes. you gave minho another text as you continued to stare at the sky watching the clouds. soon minutes turned to an hour and you were left with no response from minho.

you sighed. it wasn’t the first time anyways. you were stupid enough to think that he would show up. you dragged your feet across campus to find minho talking with his friends and a girl around his arm.

you didn’t know what to feel. sad? because he ditched you? or relieved? that you didn’t have to hear him talk about whoever that girl was. did you feel betrayed, that he would just ditch you? or angry that you were so unimportant to him, that he forgot about you?

you trudged towards your apartment so in thought that you didn’t realize you were just standing outside an ice-cream parlour. you wanted to enter the shop, hoping that ice cream would lighten your mood. but when your eyes shifted, looking in the shop all you could see was the couples inside enjoying themselves, hearing them laugh together, all of them looked so happy. you were surprised when you felt a shadow stop beside you, sheltering you from the sun’s glare. looking up you saw felix. he looked confused at first before offering a small smile and grabbed your arm and dragged you into the parlour.

felix actually saw you left campus without minho. he was confused as to why you were alone, when you mentioned walking home with minho, who he has only met twice briefly. felix followed you quietly behind you as you trudged your way home. when felix saw you looking into the shop sadly, something in him broke when he saw your sad face.

felix sat you down and motioned you to wait as he ran towards the counter. he came back with two cones.

“here!” felix thrusted the ice cream in your direction “ your favourite right? lime sherbet?” felix questioned. he remembered you mentioning in passing that hyunjin finished up the lime sherbet that you bought a few days back. you stared at the ice cream in his hand and him. how had he remembered such a small detail about you? he’s only known you for about a week, but it feels like he knows more about you than minho.

‘minho’ your thoughts came back to him.

stupid brain why did you have to think about him

 felix sighed softly as he realized the downcast on your face. felix place his cone into the same hand he was using to hold yours. he grabbed your palm with his free hands and pressed your cone into your hands.

“stop thinking so hard” felix smiled at you before patting the back of your hand. you nodded, staring at him. the two of you spent hours there, filled with laughter and smiles from a certain sunshine. you couldn’t deny that talking and laughing with felix, eased the pain and the doubt you had in your head and heart.

“y/n, i thought you were supposed to be going home with minho” felix gently brought up the topic.

“oh, uhh, he forgot we were meeting i guess,” you managed to get out, you tried not to let your true emotions show. but somehow felix caught on to it. felix’s smile dropped a split second, when he had to see you upset once more, before his smile grew on his face once more.

“well, i think that’s a good thing.” your eyes widened at his statement.

“because if not i wouldn’t be having such a good time with you” you let out a laugh watching his eyes crinkle.

 ||

 you sat on the bench once more staring at your palm as you watched the rain droplets fall onto your palm. you were supposed to be meeting minho once more. but as you sat there in the rain. you knew he wasn’t coming. you were upset and angry. the both of you agreed on meeting today so he could pass to you what he wanted to a few weeks ago.

you stared at the droplets on your hand, only to find that the rain had stopped. you looked up, a part of you hoping to see minho, but you were surprised to see felix.

“y/n… what are you doing out in the rain…” felix let out softly, sheltering you with his umbrella.

“minho” you mumbled softly as you leaned a little into felix for warmth. felix wrapped his arms around your shoulder pulling you up, as if asking you to stand up.

“c’mon let’s go dry you off and get you coffee.”

minho ditching you seemed more frequent in the few weeks. you somehow knew he wasn’t going to show up but somehow you always waited for him. and most of the times felix came to your rescue.

you usually went home with the other boys so whenever you weren’t around, jisung would mention you waiting for minho. after the ice cream incident, felix always waited until he was sure you met up with minho before leaving. after it happened a few times, he just didn’t trust minho anymore. why would you still show up and wait for over an hour when you knew he wasn’t going to appear?

but a apart of felix was relieved that minho didn’t show up. every chance minho ditched you, was a chance for felix to hang out with you.

you were grateful to felix. even when you were upset or angry, he managed to get a laugh out of you. the two of you becoming close was inevitable.

 ||

 it was only a week later when you were dragged aside from your lunch table with the other four boys. you tried to pull your arm away from the other, whose gripped only tightened on yours. you hissed loudly as you felt pain erupt from your arm. you glared at the person.

“minho! what are you doing?” you hissed louder.

“i could ask you the same thing” minho looked at you with pointed look. minho took your silence as confusion.

“why are you hanging out with those boys so much?” minho questioned pointed to the table to were sitting at.

“where’s jisung? why isn’t he eating with you?” minho questioned further.

“you can’t stay with them when jisung is not there. it’s not safe. you shouldn’t be so open with them, you just met them last month. what if they’re bad news?” minho kept asking and nagging. you felt a slight anger travelling through you. you were wondering what gave him the right to say those things about your friends. you wanted to retort back about how they were more present in your life than he was. that they probably knew more about you than he did. that they cared more about you than he did. but before you could even say anything – he replied.

“look – i just don’t want you to get hurt. i care about you okay?” your heart softened a little. your head telling you to stop forgiving him, to storm away and to give a cold shoulder. but somehow, you found yourself giving the man in front of you a small smile. a smile that meant forgiveness.

why did you just give in? why did you just forgive him? why did you forgive him for what he said? why did you forgive him for what he had done?

 ||

 three months later, everything was still the same. your friendship with the boys grew deeper. you hung out more with felix than the rest. it was as if the both of you had a connection, that neither could explain. you knew when felix needed someone to lean on and felix you when you needed cheering up.

“here, you can come here and cry your heart out, if i’m not there okay?” felix showed you the rooftop on one of the campus’ buildings.

that’s how that rooftop became your spot with felix. a place to go when you needed comfort. a place to go when you needed to relax. and a place to go to hide from everyone else other than felix. some nights you and felix would just lay and stare at the clouds and stars. you lie in silence. but the silence was never deafening, it was comforting.

 ||

 it was your birthday that day. a special day for you. you felt like your birthday was the one true day that you had to be happy. the five boys had wished you exactly at midnight, which was not a surprise to you.

you were happily skipping only to hear your name being mentioned in a conversation. to walked softly towards the voices, only to find minho with his friends, chan and changbin.

“hey isn’t it y/n’s birthday today? i heard jisung shouting at hyunjin about plans they had for tonight” changbin mentioned as the two sat behind the building, lighting a cigarette.

“why should i care? it’s just their birthday.” minho laughed as he took a drag. you swallowed wanting to step away.

“who’s y/n?” you heard chan ask.

“oh just some friend of minho that is in love with him. don’t even know why they still follow you around.”

“oh the one he kept complaining about?” chan added. you watched as minho continue to smoke as he heard he friends insulting you further.

was he not even going to defend you?

your jaw trembled as you tried to hold in your tears, your legs taking you away from them. you hurried moved your hand into your bag, finding your phone and pressing on jisung’s contact number.

 “hey y/n!” jisung’s cheeriness echoed through the phone. you could hear the ruckus in the background and managed to make out the voices of seungmin and jeongin.

“hey.. do you think we could postpone the party later?” you feigned a small laugh, hoping that it would help to stop the tears from arriving.

“what why? we already booked the place though”

“i’m just tired… it’s fine you just go and have fun there okay?” upon hearing your tone, jisung decided not to press on.

 you hung up with a sigh as you glanced at the dark sky. why did it have to rain every time you felt this way.

you found yourself walking towards the rooftop you spent most of time on these days. you laid down staring at the sky for what felt like hours. the thoughts running in your head making you more confused the more you tried to piece them together.

you were trying to understand your feelings as your brain replayed the scene you saw just now repeatedly.

 you felt angry. you felt betrayed. you felt sad.

 you swore to yourself that minho wasn’t worth it. he wasn’t worth your time. why would he pretend to be your friend for so long? why did he talked bad about behind your back? why didn’t he correct his friends? did he know all this time that you were in love with him?

with these questions you had, you found more tears staining your cheeks. a blurry sight of a hand holding a can of drink came into your line of vision. you sniffled as you quickly wiped away the tears from your eyes, staring at felix.

“hey i was worried when i got a call from jisung that you weren’t going to the party.” he handed you a muffin. you glanced at it, confounded.

“oh.. i was from the bakery. you mentioned that you liked it a while back but couldn’t go there regularly because it was too far away.” felix scratched the back of his neck nervously under your stare. you felt more than touched. the bakery was about 45 mins away from campus. did he really travel that far just to buy a muffin you loved?

you felt more tears run down your face.

“why? oh my god, do you hate this muffin? did i remember what you said wrongly.” felix exclaimed worriedly as he grabbed your cheeks gently. you shook you head.

“just touched” you mumbled. felix smiled before moving his fingers across your cheeks to wipe away the tears. you felt your heart beating faster. honestly, it has been happening for the past few weeks. sometimes you’d find yourself being shy and blushing around felix. some nights you would fall asleep thinking about him. some days just staring at the texts he leaves you.

a part of you knew better than to assume that his kind deeds were advances.

 ‘he loved skinship, this was normal for him. he did this to all his friends.’ you thought

 it was as if felix could read your mind or feel your doubts. felix shifted closer towards you, his hands still on your cheeks.

“i like you y/n. i really really really like you. seeing you cry, seeing you upset, breaks my heart. every time i see you this way, all i want to do is kiss you and cuddle you to tell you that i’m here, that i want to be by your side. to let you lean on my shoulder.” your eyes shifted, feeling a little shy from the sudden confession. felix let out a small smile before planting a kiss on your cheek.

“here’s a preview” he let out a deep giggle that had you blushing harder.

“i like you too felix” you whispered as you leaned into his embrace.

 “i know” he smiled cheekily before felix grabbed your hand pulling you up. “c’mon let’s get dinner”

 ||

 you thought that it would be awkward between the both of you and your other friends. but nothing really felt that different. during lunch, the six of you still do stupid things together. you still had stupid conversations together. the only thing that changed was that felix would hold your hand under the table during lunch. or that you would cuddle during movie nights at your apartment with the others. felix loved flirting with you and every time he did, jisung and hyunjin would gag loudly causing you to laugh and kiss felix on the cheek. only aggravating jisung and hyunjin more since they had to watch the pda all the time.

jeongin and seungmin weren’t even surprised when you first told them about the two of you getting together. it was as if they already knew it was going to happen.

your week had just changed and took a 180 turn. you finally realized what it felt to be so happy. it was as if a weight had been lifted off your shoulder. if you and felix were hard to separate before you dated, now the both of you were inseparable.

 minho spend days watching the two of you as you held hands walking from lectures to lectures. he saw how you kissed felix goodbye. he saw how your face would light up when you catch felix waiting for you outside the lecture room.

“what” he grumbled as changbin passed him a cigarette which he declined.

“why are you so pissed off these days.” chan mentioned staring at minho

“yea crankypants what’s up”

minho’s eyes followed your figure as you hugged felix.

“oh y/n and their boyfriend?” changbin stated causing a growl to erupt from minho.

“he’s nice, he’s from australia too. talked to him a while ago. he’s funny too” minho’s blood boiled as chan complimented felix.

 what did he have that minho didn’t? if anything felix was just average looking compared to him. he knew you for a much longer time than felix did.

only at this moment did he realize how much his heart beat faster at the thought of you.

 ||

  minho ran towards campus the next day. after his classes he ran to the flower shop just around the corner and ran back looking for you. minho’s eyes landed on jisung and his friends. he rushed towards them panting.

“w-where’s y/n” minho managed to get out. jeongin glanced at minho wearily.

“they’re at the library studying while waiting for lix to get out of class” minho was about to leave just as he heard jeongin’s reply, only to be stopped by jisung’s arm grabbing minho’s. minho tried to yank his arm away, only to have jisung clamp his fingers tighter into his flesh.

“what jisung” minho voiced out crankily. jisung clenched his jaw in anger and looked into minho’s eyes, a glint of irritation seen in his eyes.

“don’t tell me that you were going to –” jisung glanced and gestured with his head towards the flower’s in minho’s hands. hyunjin finally understood the situation.

“dude, what the fuck. you can’t do that” hyunjin gasped, narrowing his eyes. minho was furious at hyunjin’s response.

“who are you to decide what i do or don’t do? i’ve known y/n longer, i think i know better and i know that y/n deserves better.” jisung breathed in deeply.

“and you haven’t been there at night when y/n cried. you weren’t there for y/n when y/n cried because you kept ditching them. you weren’t there for y/n when y/n needed a shoulder to lean on. you weren’t there for y/n when your friends talked crap about them. you didn’t even defend y/n when your friends talked crap about y/n on their birthday. who are you to know what y/n deserves? if anything you don’t deserve y/n. “ minho didn’t realize you heard what his friends said about you. it wasn’t that he agreed with them, he just didn’t bother to correct them.

“they liked you for so long. do you even know how hard it was for me, minho? to watch my best friend like someone so much that they didn’t even prioritize their own happiness? y/n was always putting you first. always solving your relationship problems, always there for you when you weren’t for y/n. and finally y/n gets to have the happy story and gets to have the happy ending. a happy story that they deserve. why can’t you just let y/n be happy? do you think about anyone else for a second?” jisung paused.

“you can’t have everything you want minho” jisung let out a sigh glaring at minho.

“don’t confuse y/n. especially when they’re already so happy with felix” jisung stated blankly before dragging hyunjin and jeongin away from minho.

minho didn’t realize that all these time, he should’ve realized how important you were to him. how you were right there in front of him and he couldn’t even give you the love you deserved. minho didn’t have excuses. he knew he was in the wrong. he hurt you and he stopped you from your happiness. he couldn’t give you the happiness you experienced with felix. and he was going to accept that someday.

his heart still ached as he saw you during lunch with felix. his heart ached as he saw you holding hands. his heart ached when he saw you laughing, the smile never leaving your face when you with felix.

that’s when minho realized that love did have an expiration date.

someday he was going to be able to accept that y/n doesn’t smile at him like that anymore. that y/n can’t even look him in the eye. that y/n doesn’t even need minho in their life. minho needed y/n and he was going to accept it someday that he had to learn how to live without y/n in his life.

 y/n’s love for him expired.

but minho still had a long way to go before his love for y/n expired.

someday, he would accept that y/n didn’t need him to be happy.

||

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