#the longer i stay up the worst the feeling of being watched becomes

[chiistarri]

call me a fnaf protag the way i struggle at night ✊️

[mischievousmoony]

𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐

⟢ poly!marauders x reader ⊹ 1.5k ⟢ your boys all have their own way of kissing you goodbye in the morning (ft. how each of the boys take their coffee)  ⟢ warnings/tags: reader wears makeup, fluff

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Monday mornings are the worst. The adjustment from carefree weekends to the beginning of a long work week is never easy, but at least you have your boyfriends to ease the blow. 

You’ve always been an early riser. Not because you are particularly a morning person, but because you need ample time to adjust from your deep sleep state to full alertness. 

Although, you’re never the first to rise; that’s always James. As soon as the sun is up, it seems that so is he. Sometimes, he even beats the sun to it. 

He does have the earliest start time out of all of you— him being a professional rugby player who’s due at practice as early as seven in the morning— but even if he didn't, you’re sure he would be up anyway. His morning regimen is even longer than yours, but aside from that, he is a true morning person. 

He's good at keeping quiet, though. At least until the rest of the house is awake. You don’t even hear him pad into the kitchen as you’re stuck in a trance-like state, watching your drip coffee maker slowly fill the glass jug with the steamy, black beverage. It’s been five minutes and the steady drip of coffee is hypnotizing to your sleepy mind. 

It’s only when James’ arms snake around your waist that you notice his presence; and you’re not startled at all as James nuzzles his nose into the side of your neck. You’ve come to expect him around this time, it being nearly time for him to leave for the day. 

“G’morning, love,” he murmurs into your skin, pressing a tender kiss there. 

Your hands slip away from the granite countertop where they were waiting and come to rest over his hands that join over your stomach. 

“Good morning, Jamie,” you whisper softly, letting your eyes flutter closed as you feel his warmth behind you. 

The two of you stay like that for a few minutes while you let the coffee machine finish its task. James has always been the touchiest of all the boys, and it almost seems like he can’t start his day properly without a lasting embrace before he leaves. 

When the coffee machine fizzles to a stop, James begins to ease away from you with a sigh, kissing your cheek on his departure. 

“Smells good,” James comments, rummaging through the cabinets to retrieve his travel mug and a porcelain one for you. 

You watch fondly as he pours your coffee first and fixes it the way you like it. He slides the mug down the counter and you gingerly take it into your hands. It’s still too hot to drink but the warm porcelain is always a treat for your skin. 

James prepares his own cup next, complete with milk and plenty of sugar. He has always liked the sweeter things in life, although he doesn’t always indulge himself. But his coffee is the one thing he’ll never skimp sugar on. 

With his coffee in one hand, he takes you by your waist in his other, pulling you a step closer to him. 

“I better go,” he says, a small pout displayed on his lips at the thought of leaving you. 

You nod understandingly and tilt your head up, giving him the access he needs to press his lips to yours. His goodbye kisses are always tender and lingering, him taking his time to savor the moment.

When he does finally pull away, he gives your waist a warning squeeze before the feeling of his lips on yours becomes a memory. Before he completely withdraws, he brushes your noses together, mumbling, “Miss you already.” 

“See you soon,” you reassure him. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says, eyes twinkling with warmth as he makes his departure. 

A content sigh leaves your lips as you pull a mug that matches your own from the cabinet. After filling it to the brim with black coffee, you take it and yours to the table. 

You take a sip of your coffee as you settle into your chair, humming happily and thinking of James fondly for making you the perfect cup. 

It’s only a few minutes later when Remus joins you, settling into the seat next to you. 

“Good morning, darling.”

“Morning, Rem,” you say, smiling happily as you watch him take his seat.

Remus returns your smile, taking the mug from the table with gratitude as he thanks you before taking a long sip of the dark beverage. 

Remus always likes to spend a little time with you in the morning before he leaves for work, which sparked this tradition of enjoying your coffee together. Sometimes you have a conversation, but Mondays mornings are usually spent in a comfortable silence. Still, Remus makes his presence known with a hand on your thigh under the table, tracing circles into your skin with his thumb. 

When you and Remus finish your coffees, you take the mugs to be rinsed in the sink. At the same time, Sirius bounds into the kitchen with purpose— always the last to rise even though he has to be the second out the door. 

“Good morning, my loves,” he says, his voice ringing out with the exuberance of midday, despite the early hour.

You and Remus greet him as he beelines for the coffee pot. His own travel mug is swiftly retrieved and he doesn’t waste any time before pouring the last of the coffee into his cup. 

Every morning, Sirius always tries a sip of the coffee the way Remus likes it as if one day his perspective will be changed. But it always ends with him wrinkling his nose and curbing the bitterness with more milk than there was originally coffee in his cup. 

He takes another sip and hums, “Much better.” 

Remus chuckles at Sirius’ antics, never understanding why he doesn’t just make the coffee he likes in the first place. His laughter draws Sirius’ attention, and you watch as he approaches Remus with haste. 

Sirius rounds the table to settle behind his boyfriend, wrapping his arms around his shoulders as he bends down and begins leaving sloppy kisses to his neck and jawline. 

“Something funny?” he asks between kisses. 

"No," Remus denies, turning his head to catch one of Sirius' kisses with his lips. "Course not," he adds, his words slightly mumbled before Sirius moves a hand to the back of his head, deepening the kiss.

You lean against the sink, watching the interaction between your boyfriends adoringly. Sirius' eyes flutter open, feeling your eyes on them. He smirks into the kiss with Remus as your eyes meet, savoring the moment for a little longer before he breaks it.

After he ruffles Remus' hair in parting, he saunters over to your with a hungry look in his eyes. His hands come down on your sides firmly when he reaches you, pulling you in until you're standing hip to hip. Sirius is touchy too, but in a different way than James.

"Thanks for brewing the coffee, beautiful," he says coolly, a certain level of charm always present in his voice as if he's still trying to impress you after all this time.

He expresses his gratitude by capturing your lips in an intimate kiss. His hands slide around your body, settling on your lower back for leverage as he pushes you impossibly closer. Sirius' mouth moves against yours hungrily, his hands roaming your body still, traveling lower.

You're breathless when he pulls away. "It's seven in the morning," you comment, winded.

Sirius smirks and presses a final peck to your puffy lips.

“A bit past, actually. Which means I’m late,” he says, feigning concern as he glances at the clock over the stove.

He pats your backside before slinking away, retrieving his coffee and wasting no time to make his exit.

“I love you both!” he calls as he makes his way out of the kitchen, and you and Remus shout your affections back in response as he disappears from view.

The remaining two of you slip back into your own morning routines, finishing getting ready for the work day.

Remus leaves before you too, but first he settles against the edge your vanity to watch you put the finishing touches on your makeup.

When you put your tube of mascara down, Remus gently takes your hand and lifts it to his mouth. He presses a sweet kiss to your knuckles.

“I’ll see you tonight, dove,” he remarks, bending down to kiss the top of your head. He places your hand in your lap to opt for cradling the side of your head, stroking your hair fondly.

“Bye,” you whisper, looking up at him with equal affection.

His face hovers near yours. “I love you,” he says in between pressing kisses to each of your cheeks.

“I love you too.”

With that Remus presses a final peck to your lips and leaves for work.

You’re not too far behind him, locking up the house a mere ten minutes later.

When you arrive at work, beaming and energized, one of your coworkers makes their usual comments.

���You’re awfully cheery. You do know today’s Monday?”

But how could you not be, with the ghost of your boyfriends’ recent affections lingering on your lips.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

[star-girl69]

Better Than Revenge

Clarisse La Rue x Fem!AphroditeCabin!Reader

—-

sypnosis: more jealous clarisse and this time she gets to be insane about it (I Can See You coded tbh)

a/n: soft clarisse MOVE OVER insane clarisse hiiiiiii ….anyways i hope you all enjoy!!

Better Then Revenge - Taylor Swift

warnings: possessive clarisse pleek i want you i need you, violence, swearing, punching lol, men, allusions to sex and this is just pretty suggestive, tell me if i missed anything!!

—-

The anniversary of Mr. D being sentenced to a life at Camp Half Blood has become his birthday over the years.

Of course, his children use that as an excuse to throw a rowdy party disguised as a simple bonfire.

Chiron turns a blind eye, as long as everyone swears to not give him any alcohol, and there’s still a modicum of responsibility among the camp population.

It’s one of the highlights of the summer, the heat from the fire, the dark night lit only by Selene, where it feels like you can do anything and get away with it.

It’s your first with Clarisse, and by the way she’s looking at you right now, you’re probably not gonna last more than an hour before you get dragged somewhere to make out. Which is not what you want.

You’re already in your outfit, the jean shorts you know she likes, the low-cut top you know she likes, leaning over in front of the mirror as you do your lipstick.

“Do you have something you want to say?”

Clarisse usually sits with you as you get ready for something, since you shamelessly take longer than her. She always calls you her prettiest girl, then expects you not to live up to it?

She doesn’t rush you. She’s never impatient. She just likes watching you, and it’s fun to put on a show.

She always looks at you, but something about the look in her eyes tonight is especially… feral.

“What’d you mean?” she says, smirking and leaning back on her elbows.

The Aphrodite cabin is a particular swirl of activity, but your little corner is just you and her. She refused to wear anything but her camp t-shirt and a pair of jeans, of course, but she looks good in anything.

“You’re looking at me like you want to pounce.”

“Took you this long to pick up on that?”

You laugh, bending over to grab a jewelry box that lives at the foot of your floor length mirror.

“Baby, let’s just stay back,” she groans.

“This is our first time going together, though. I want to go.”

“And I want to kiss you until we both pass out.”

“Oh, how romantic,” you whisper, holding earrings up to your ear. The dangly pearls look best. Some sort of dangerous thought slithers into your mind, and you turn around to face her with a slow smile.

“Oh, Gods. What?”

“If you can go an entire hour without kissing me…”

She looks up at you like you’ve just called her the worst warrior at camp.

“Then we’ll leave as soon as the hours up, and do whatever you want. But if you can’t, then we get to stay until I say so.”

She smirks. The only thing she loves more than you is competition, a challenge. You watch her eyes light up.

“I can do an hour.”

“Oh, really?”

“I have amazing self-control, actually.”

“Oh, really?” you repeat, drawing out the word.

“Really,” she says, rolling her eyes and mocking you.

She’s sitting on the edge of your bed, leaning back on her palms now, watching you as you step forward.

“Really,” she says again.

But her smile fades as you place your hands on her shoulders, her hands coming to your waist as you place yourself right down on her lap. She lies down and let’s you straddle her, tracing her lips with your pointer finger.

It’s so startlingly silent and tense, she can hear your breath, you can hear hers.

You squeeze her face in your hands. “Well, time to go!” you announce, climbing off of her.

“You’re a demon,” she hisses. “A witch.”

“I’m a daughter of Aphrodite,” you roll your eyes. “I prefer to be called a seductress.”

—-

The party is already buzzing when you get there, night just falling and the fire blazing high.

You wave to a few of your friends, dragging Clarisse by the hand as you lead her to the best group of chairs and benches, not too close and not too far from the fire. All of the camp counselors and the people around your age are there, drinking punch and talking amongst themselves.

You greet your half sister and head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, Phoebe, with a kiss and a hug.

“You look so pretty, Y/N,” she smiles. “I love the pearls.”

“Thank you,” you gush. You look up to Phoebe more than you would like to admit. One day you hope to take her position, and it wouldn’t hurt to make a good impression now. “You look gorgeous.”

Clarisse’s hand falls from yours and she pushes you forward to the empty seat next to Phoebe.

You look behind you. She gives you a look that says “Are you dumb? Talk to her.”

You’re always so close to Clarisse, but she goes and sits nexts to a few of her siblings on top of a picnic table 5 feet away.

You hum and start talking to Phoebe about a few of the new arrivals about camp- you both agree one of the new boys is a son of Aphrodite, before Phoebe looks past you and cringes.

“One of the other new kids is staring at you.”

You risk a small glance.

There’s nothing special about him. Pale skin, brown hair and brown eyes. He’s not your type, to say the least, especially when you steal a look at Clarisse and find she’s already looking at you-

You stomach flips.

She taps her wrist as if there was a watch there.

“Almost halfway,” she mouths, smiling brightly.

You look pointedly back at Phoebe.

“He’s eh,” you shrug.

“If he doesn’t stop staring at us I’m gonna go insane.”

“Is he really staring?” you ask.

“Yeah. I think he thinks he’s flirting, or something? I don’t know.”

You shrug. He probably knows you’re dating Clarisse, and if he doesn’t, he probably will soon.

She bumps your shoulder.

“Any updates with Clarisse?”

You smile, playing with your fingers.

“No, not really. We’re still happy. Actually, we’re having a contest right now. If she can resist kiss me for an hour, then we’ll leave. But if she can’t, then we get to stay at the party all night.”

“Ooh, that’s evil,” she teases.

“I know, I’m having so much fun.”

You both laugh, and Phoebe opens her mouth just to close it. She fakes dropping something to lean closer to you.

“He’s coming over here.”

“Oh, Gods,” you mutter.

“Hey, ladies,” he says. His voice is deep and scratchy, like he just smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. “How y’all doin’ tonight? Enjoying the party?”

You have to stifle a laugh. Phoebe was one of the cabin leaders who helped organize the party.

“Havin’ fun,” you smile awkwardly. He stares so intensely into your eyes you have to breathe out not to laugh.

“Good, good. Either of you know where the punch station is?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, it’s right by the Apollo cabin,” Phoebe points.

He follows her finger. “Great, thanks.”

He looks at you and winks. “See you around.”

Both you and Phoebe dissolve into a fit of giggles.

—-

You make your way over to Clarisse after a second, sitting down next to her on the table. You hug your knees to your chest from where they sit on the actual bench.

“‘M cold,” you moan, rubbing your knees.

Her siblings, Carrie and Nelson are now distracted by Phoebe’s animated talking, leaving the two of you.

She wraps her arm around your shoulder, letting you lean against her.

“You wore those shorts,” she says.

“For you.”

“Oh, you’re so mean.”

“Before the challenge. And I think you mean ‘thanks for trying to make me happy, Y/N.’”

Clarisse laughs.

“Okay, pretty thing,” she mutters. “That’s what I meant.”

“Right,” you mutter, pushing yourself further against her. It’s better here, closer to the fire, but there’s still this chill in your bones.

“Stop being so close to me,” Clar mutters.

You turn to her.

“What did you just say to me?”

“It’s almost irresistible to kiss you,” she whispers. “I’m not allowed to kiss your forehead, am I?”

You put your face into her warm neck.

“Is that kissing me?” you whisper, your lips brushing her skin.

“Shut up,” she mumbles, pushing you away from her. “You’re not distracting me. I’m not losing this. One hour, then we’re going back to my cabin and staying there for a long time.”

You smile, lifting your face up from her neck to stare in her eyes. She smiles softly back at you.

“Did you see me turn around and bend over to fix my shoes?”

Her eyes blaze.

“Should have guessed that was on purpose. What’d you call yourself? A seductress? I agree.”

You smile, wrapping your arms around yourself, deciding you’ll be nice and give her a few minutes reprieve. Ares kids are always so warm, and even just being pressed slightly against her is nice.

Someone places a jacket over your shoulders. You smile, turning to Clarisse, not remembering if she had a jacket on. Did she bring one for you?

“Clar, I-”

She’s not looking at you at all. She’s staring off towards the fire, holding your hand, and you know she didn’t just give you this jacket.

Harry walks around the table, smiling.

“Looks better on you then it did me,” he says, awkwardly. “You looked cold, so…” he laughs.

Clarisse finally realizes that he’s talking to the two of you, or well, you.

“Huh?” she says, giving him a bored look. Immediately slipping back into her mean girl persona, even though she was just blushing with your face in her neck five seconds ago.

She looks at you at the corner of her eye.

You’re sitting there, frozen with his jacket over your shoulders.

“Uh…” you say, stupidly, because your mind is literally empty. What are you even supposed to do in this situation?

Clarisse grabs at the black jacket.

“She looked cold,” he says.

She finally realizes what happened.

“So, you’re hitting on my girlfriend? Right next to me?”

His smile falls. “Y-your friend, yeah-”

She rips the jacket off of you and throws it at him.

“Girlfriend,” she hisses.

“It’s not my fault,” he says, scrambling to catch his jacket, getting defensive now. He knows he fucked up, his pride is hurt. “You weren’t even touching, and she was, like, shivering-”

She stands up, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt.

“Hey, hey, Clarisse,” her sister Carrie says. “What’s going on?”

Clarisse glares at him. He starts sputtering incoherently.

Carrie raises an eyebrow towards you.

“He gave me his jacket,” you mumble, still feeling a little dazed. “Clar, c’mon, let him go.”

Carrie takes a step back. “Oh, ‘kay. I don’t care if she beats him up then,” she laughs.

“It looked like they were friends!” Harry shouts, pushing Clarisse back.

She punches him in the face.

“Clarisse!” you yell, jumping down from the table. “Don’t you dare!” you grab her arm, she’s fuming, rearing to punch him again.

A crowd has formed around you.

Harry groans and holds his bleeding nose.

“You fucking bitch,” he mutters.

“Clarisse. Clarisse, please, let’s go. Let’s just go.”

“You weren’t even that hot anyway,” he hisses.

“Don’t fucking talk about her!” she yells, jumping forward to punch him again-

“Clarisse!” you shout, not wanting her to get in trouble but you’re a second too late. Her fist flies into his cheek, but he’s prepared this time, so he takes it and counters with his own punch.

Your heart squeezes, but she blocks it, and both of their respective siblings finally jump in to hold them back.

“Oh, Gods,” you mumble, staring at his blood on the ground. At least it’s not hers. “Carrie!” you shout, giving her a pleasing look, and she nods.

“C’mon, Clarisse,” she says. “You’re very strong and tough, stop beating up the twig whose got no chance.”

It takes three of her siblings to corner her against the picnic bench.

“Giving her your fucking jacket, I should kill you!” she shouts, thrashing against her siblings hold. “She’s mine, dumbass, we’re always around each other, did you not notice?!”

“Clarisse- stop!” Carrie grunts, putting everything she has into holding her back.

“Go fuck yourself,” he groans, finally having enough common sense to cup his nose and walk away, the groups of people parting for him.

You stand there, shocked. Phoebe comes next to you.

“Oh, I love this night,” she sighs. You shoot her an unimpressed look.

After he’s gone, her siblings let a fighting Clarisse out of their holds, and she scans the crowd, but Harry really has disappeared. Her eyes find yours immediately.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, marching towards you and immediately pressing her lips against yours.

Pride is her fatal flaw. And when her ego is wounded, especially when it comes to you, she feels an inherent need to try and get it back.

She can’t beat up Harry, but showing everyone you’re hers is what you guessed she would do next.

She grabs you by the neck, the other arm wrapping around your waist, bringing you two closer together. You’re touching everywhere, kissing her is like touching her electric spear, and she finally pulls away slowly.

She can’t say that she loves you, so she just kisses your temple instead, wrapping her arm back around your shoulder.

As much as you hate violence, that was the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.

—-

Clarisse drags you off to her cabin.

“Oh, fuck,” she mumbles, opening the door.

“What?” you whisper, squeezing her hand.

“The contest. We should have stayed-”

You snort. “Who gives a fuck about the contest? I’ve been swayed. Let’s go make out.”

She seems a little shocked, extremely excited, and starts ushering you towards the ladder of the loft.

“Well, who am I to deny you,” she says, holding your ass as you ascend.

“Also, stop punching people.”

“That’s where I deny you.”

You make it to the top, her hands on your waist as she follows you. She’s always touching you, like she’s addicted to you. You pretend, but you’re so in love with her you genuinely think you’re gonna fall over just thinking about her sometimes.

“Clarisse, seriously. You’re gonna get in trouble one day, and-”

She spins you around and throws you back on your bed. You yelp as she climbs on top of you.

“No. Kiss now, lecture later.”

You protest, but she shuts you up by smashing her lips into yours. It’s rough, you did tease her all night, all teeth and the sounds of your roaring heartbeats.

She starts kissing down your neck, your dig your hands into your curls.

“‘She’s mine’?” you say after a second, referencing her anger-haze of a rant.

“Yes,” she says. Softly, but not sheepishly. She says it confident and proud. “You are.”

“I am,” you mutter back, having a feeling she’s gonna leave hickey’s all over you.

You do your best to flip her over, but she’s all muscle and it’s hard, so she ends up grabbing your hips and helping you.

“What?” she gasps, confused at the change of position. Not that she’s complaining, though.

“You did lose the challenge,” you tease.

She doesn’t like to admit she lost.

You hover your lips right above hers.

“Say it.”

Her fingers dig into your hips.

“I lost,” she grits. “You won.”

“I did,” you mumble, lips grazing yours, but you’re getting bored and you want to kiss her just as bad.

And you do, your hands on her face, her fingers starting to slip under your shirt. She mumbles against your lips.

“Fuck, this is so much better than revenge.”

—-

(i’m actually the funniest person alive if you couldn’t tell)

—-

clarisse: oh, so you think i cant take care of my girlfriend? because we’re not close enough? because you think she’s cold? well guess what. now i’m never letting her out of my sight again, fuckfaces

y/n: FUCK YES i mean noooooooo noooooo that’s horrible omggg

—-

taglist:

@lvrue @t-wylia @laughingcheese037 @kroumi @urdeadpoet @colezb @rey26 @harmzilla @elliewilliamsbae @amberfreemansburntface @kyuupidwrites @neverwaakeme-up @shark1008 @liballer @heyimadison @nvirskies @pnsteblnme

@jazhandzzz @urbisexualfriend

[leahwllmsn]

next to you

leah williamson x reader

Just when you start to patch things up with your ex, an accident happens.

; angst, mentions of car accident & injuries

“Keira?”

“y/n.”

You become more alert when Keira speaks. She sounds like she has been crying, her voice is hoarse and you can tell the urgency behind it despite having only heard one word.

You’re scared to ask, but you brace yourself and hope that it’s nothing bad. “What’s wrong?”

It takes a few seconds for Keira to answer, all you can hear is her heavy breathing.

“It’s Leah.”

And you really wish Keira had stayed silent just a bit longer.

“What—Leah? What happened?”

Keira lets out a shaky exhale and you want to cry at the thought that something bad has happened to Leah.

“Just… meet me here, it’s uhm—I forgot the name of the hospital—”

“Hospital?” you immediately stand up, your hands going to the nearest wall to steady yourself. You hear commotion on the other end of the call and your heart starts to beat erratically in your chest.

What is happening?

“Keira?” you’re on the verge of tears. You two were fine last night. Leah was perfectly fine. “Keira, please say something.”

“y/n? I’ll text you in a bit. The doctors are here. I have to go.”

Keira’s voice is a faint sound that you can’t concentrate on anymore. The only thought going through your head is that something has happened to your…Leah and you have to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

—

The moment you read Keira’s texts, you hurriedly leave your apartment, all the while trying to reply to Keira as best as you can with shaking hands.

You don’t ask Keira anything else, just a simple ‘where are you’, and once Keira answered, you don’t hesitate to run all the way there because thank god, it’s only two blocks away from your place and you wonder just how long you spend going about your day thinking that everything is fine when Leah is fighting for her life a few blocks away—

No. You quickly rid yourself of the thoughts. Leah is fine.

You’ll show up at the hospital lobby, ask for a ‘Leah Williamson’ and they’ll tell you which room she’s in and you’ll see her there, sitting on the hospital bed, maybe a few bandages on her smooth skin, yet her dazzling smile plasters her face.

You’ll then chastise her for being so clumsy and reckless and you’ll give her a hug—because you spent the whole day together but not once were you brave enough to give Leah a big, tight hug when you knew she was expecting it as you parted ways at the end of the night

(You don’t want to think about the possibility of Leah not being able to hug you back.)

Yeah. Everything is going to be okay.

But once you arrive at the hospital and you ask the nurses for a ‘Leah Williamson’ and they tell you she is in the ICU, you feel the scenario you were watching in your head disappear just like that.

Leah isn’t fine. It’s not going to be okay. It’s far from that if Leah is in the intensive care unit and you feel dread taking over you, making every step towards Leah a grueling task.

You spot Keira first. She’s on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite to the doors where Leah is. Her face is pale, hugging her knees tightly as she rocks herself back and forth. You’ve never seen her like this. Keira is always full of composure, never wearing her heart on her sleeves.

But now you can see that Keira is afraid. She looks terrified and worst of all, Keira looks hopeless.

You force yourself to stay calm and not jump to conclusions. So what if Leah is placed in the ICU? So what if Keira’s face is so panic-stricken and pale and her eyes puffy from all the crying? It could all mean nothing.

For all you knew, Leah is seconds away from getting discharged and then you can have lunch together at this new restaurant that you want to bring Leah to because you know Leah will love it.

But then Keira looks up, her eyes meeting yours, it’s finally sinking in that it may be more serious than what you let yourself to believe.

The next thing you know, Keira is hugging you, sobbing silently into your chest. “She won’t wake up, y/n.”

No.

“I was supposed to pick her up, but she said she’d call an uber instead. I don’t know what happened, y/n, I really don’t. I got a phone call saying she was in a car accident—” you can feel Keira hugging you tighter. Or maybe it’s you who did, you don’t know anymore.

“I got here as soon as I could. She was already in the operating room when I got here, and uhm, she has injuries to her head and chest. I overheard them saying that she was bleeding from her chest when they brought her in. And I had to go earlier because the doctors went out. They said they had to stop the surgery because they said she needs time to recuperate or something, I don’t remember. I don’t really want to know the specifics. I just understood that they stopped the surgery in order to prevent her from bleeding to death on the operating table—”

You grimace and take a sharp intake of breath. It’s getting harder to listen to what Keira is saying.

And it seems like Keira understands how overwhelmed you are because she loosens her grip on you and steps back. “Sorry. That was too blunt,” she wipes away her tears and looks at you apologetically. “I also didn’t mean to bombard you with everything. I know it must be hard hearing all this.”

“It’s okay,” your voice is barely a whisper. You’re afraid you’ll burst into tears. “I need to know.”

Keira takes a deep breath before continuing. “They’re keeping her in the ICU for 24 hours. If she lives—if she’s stable enough, basically, they’ll operate on her again.”

“If she lives?”

Keira merely shrugs in response and you feel your eyes brimming with hot tears. You can’t lose Leah. Not like this.

“Can I—” you clear your throat. “Can I see her?”

“You can, but just… Brace yourself, I guess. She’s connected to a bunch of machines, and she has a ventilator on to help her breathe. It’s not a pretty sight.”

You nod slowly, trying to understand the severity of it all. “I just want to hold her hand. I can do that, right?”

“Yeah, you can,” Keira flashes you a smile. You can see the tears welling in her eyes. “Hold her hand as tight as you can, will you? Maybe she’ll come back to you.”

You blink away your own tears at that. How you wish that’s possible.

With one last look at Keira, you push the doors open.

The first thing you take a note of is, apart from the beeping and the hum of the machines, it’s eerily quiet. You walk slowly, not daring to lift your head up. Maybe you shouldn’t be here. Even Keira waited outside, that must be an indicator of how horrible being in this room must be.

But you decide that you should stop being a coward. Leah needs you. You aren’t going to run away again. So stopping at the foot of the hospital bed, you slowly lift your head up.

It doesn’t sink in at first. The figure on the bed looks so much like Leah, but she also doesn’t. You almost don’t recognize her with the tubes connected to her body and the bandages on her head. There were cuts as well as patches of purple and blue bruises all over her pale skin. One particular cut stood out, it’s on her left cheekbone and you’re sure Leah will complain about it if she’s awake.

You understand why Keira seems like she doesn’t want to step in the room.

You make your way to the side of the bed. You sit down on the chair and for a few seconds, you stay still. Everything is finally sinking in.

Leah is here in front of you, but at the same time, she’s not.

Leah is dying and you can’t do anything but sit next to her and hold her hand and wish that she will wake up. You try your best to ingrain to your memory what it feels like to have Leah’s hand in your grip.

And finally, a tear escapes your eyes. You blame it on the fact that Leah would always squeeze your hand back but this time it stays there, limpless.

“I know we just saw each other yesterday, but I miss you,” you chuckle through your tears that are now freely flowing down your cheeks. “I miss you, and your damn smile, and your stupid sarcastic remarks.”

You grip Leah’s hand tighter.

“You’ll come back to me right, Leah? You have to.” you hope Leah is able to hear you. “I have so many stories to tell you, yesterday wasn’t enough for me. Did you know that I went back to London a few months ago? I didn’t tell you, obviously. We hadn’t talked in so long.

“Beth told me that you were scheduled to have a Ted Talk. You were brilliant. I mean, I’ve always known that, but seeing you up there in front of thousands of people… you were so eloquent and so damn brilliant. I could tell that your smile wasn’t as bright as before though. I blamed myself for taking your happiness away from you.”

You keep your gaze on the blonde’s face. Despite everything, Leah is still the most gorgeous person you have ever seen. “I’ll do anything to get you smiling again, you know that right? I’ll do anything, Lee, even if it means switching places with you. I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

—

two years ago

“y/n!” Leah shouted, not caring about all the heads that turned in her direction.

You stood still. From across the street, Leah could see you wiping away the tears that were flowing down your face. Leah wanted nothing more than to be the one doing that, to hug you close and tell you that everything will be okay.

But the moment Leah stepped forward, you quickly turned around to make your way back inside the building.

“y/n!” Leah shouted once more, though this time it sounded more like a plea.

Leah stepped into the street, but she had to immediately step back because of the cars that rushed by her. Her eyes darted around until they landed on the intersection and she ran towards it.

Leah repeatedly pushed the button on the traffic light pole, hoping it will allow her to cross faster, all the while keeping her eyes on the spot where you stood earlier.

At the back of her mind, she knew that she was too late. She knew you were already inside your friend’s apartment, somewhere Leah couldn’t get into because she didn’t have the access keys. But Leah wasn’t the type to give up that easily, so she had to try to do something.

Once the light changed and the cars stopped moving, Leah sprinted across the street, bumping into people and muttering rushed apologies.

She arrived at where you stood. She tried to catch her breath as she stared into the doors of the building that was tightly closed. From the window on the door, she could see mailboxes and an elevator that would take her to where you were.

But Leah couldn’t do anything but stand there helplessly. It killed her and she didn’t know that it could hurt this much to know that she was too late. She knew you wouldn’t want to see her anymore—you made that clear enough when you told her you were leaving the country to play football in Paris. You made it clear that you wanted to start fresh and that meant leaving Leah behind.

Leah placed her forehead on the door, letting out a heavy sigh and tried her best to not let anymore tears fall.

“y/n…” she muttered. “Why?” Leah knew you couldn’t hear her but she couldn’t help it; she let out everything she was feeling, including the tears that she tried so hard to suppress. “I love you. I’ll give up anything for you. Isn’t that enough?”

Leah wiped away her tears and walked away from the doors. She took a deep breath. She had to calm down, she had to if she wanted to think of ways to get you back.

But with every thought of you and every flash of your smile and your eyes and your laugh in her mind, Leah’s breath started getting heavier and heavier until she couldn’t handle it anymore and she let out a scream.

“Why?!” Leah looked up at the building. She screamed as loud as she could, hoping that you could hear her. “I hate you, y/n! I fucking hate you!”

Leah sobbed, clutching her chest. It hurt. It felt like there was a knife through her heart and that no matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t able to pull it out.

“I hate you… I hate you. I hate you.” Leah dropped to her knees, unable to stop crying. She knew no matter how much she said it, she would never mean those words.

Leah contemplated sitting there, in front of the apartment doors, waiting for you, because you had to come out sooner or later. But she decided against it. She already looked pathetic enough, and she wasn’t going to wait until someone finally recognized her and took pictures of her in her most pitiful state.

She was Leah Williamson and Leah Williamson didn’t cry on the side of the street, hair in a mess, eyes all puffy.

So Leah stood up and swallowed all her tears instead of letting them fall freely.

Leah was good at everything, she captained her country to the Euros championship, for fuck’s sake. Leah knew all the right things to say and she knew what shouldn’t be said out loud. Leah knew a lot of things and she had everything one would want in life.

She had the perfect house growing up. She had the best family, the perfect support system. And with her newfound fame, anything she wanted, she’d get and anything she got bored of, she could just throw without a second thought. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t have.

But walking back to her car that day, Leah felt like knowing the answers to everything and being able to have anything she wanted was useless. All the fame and fortune couldn’t get you back into her arms.

—

“Hey, have you eaten?”

Your head shoots up at the voice. You don’t realize you’ve fallen asleep.

“Yeah,” you reply, voice groggy from sleep. “I went to the cafeteria an hour ago.”

Keira smiles at you. You notice how she keeps on averting her eyes away from the hospital bed.

“Georgia’s here,” Keira informs you. “She was so confident about wanting to see Leah but I think the reality finally caught up to her.”

You lift an eyebrow in question.

“She’s outside, too scared of setting foot in the ICU,” Keira elaborates.

“You seem to be scared too earlier.”

“Yeah,” Keira trails off, standing next to you. Her eyes still aren’t landing on Leah’s figure. “I just feel so helpless. I hate feeling helpless.”

“Me too,” you sigh. “I’d like to think that me being here helps though.”

Keira hums. “I bet she appreciates it. She never would admit it, but she missed you a lot.”

“I missed her too.”

“Are you staying here tonight?” Keira asks.

“If that’s okay with you.”

“Of course,” Keira nods. You see the pain in her face when she finally does look at Leah. “I can’t stay in this room for too long. It feels suffocating. I don’t know how you do it.”

You shrug. “I want to spend every second with her. It does feel suffocating but it’s better than not being with her at all.”

Keira places a hand on your shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Thank you. I’m sorry I can’t be here accompanying her too. I feel like I’m such a bad friend.”

“You’re not,” you immediately shake your head, your hand going to touch Keira’s. “Leah would understand.”

Keira’s eyes are shining with unshed tears, the sight amplifies the pain in your chest.

“I better go check on G.”

“Is she okay?”

Keira gives a small laugh. “She’s okay, just scared. Who isn’t though?”

“Yeah, I get it. It’s crazy to think that we might lose her,” your voice cracking as you voice your biggest fear out loud. “Do you… do you think she’ll make it?”

Keira stays quiet. You don’t think she’s going to answer until she lets out the biggest sigh. “I’d like to think so.”

“But?”

“Hm?”

“I just feel like there’s a ‘but’ somewhere in your sentence.”

Keira doesn’t answer this time, instead she averts her gaze away. You see her trying not to cry and you feel bad for bringing the topic up.

After a beat, you feel Keira squeeze your shoulder one more time before walking towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Once the door closes, you look back at Leah. “Are you ready for tomorrow, Lee?” You lean forward and brush strands of blonde hair away from Leah’s face. “You’re going to be strong for me, aren’t you?”

You take Leah’s limp hand in yours and kiss the back of it softly. “Maybe I should ask the nurses where I’ll be sleeping tonight. Although, I think I’m good here too. It’s just a bit cold. I’m sure you’re loving it though. Your apartment always felt like the north pole.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? When you wake up… I’ll go wherever you go. I’d move back to London. We can travel the world together, just us two. How does that sound?”

Although there’s no answer and all you can hear is the beeping sound of the heart monitor, you feel hope blooming in your chest.

“We can go to Nashville, see that country music festival you’ve always wanted to go to. Even though you know how much I dislike country music, I’d suffer through it for you. Or… we can just stay at your apartment, here in London. I missed that place. We had so many good memories there. God, I’m so talkative today. Are you tired of hearing me speak? Maybe I should let you get some rest.”

You feel your heart getting lighter. You’re actually optimistic about things. It feels good to have hope.

“Goodnight, my Leah. I love you. I’ll see you real soon.”

—

three years ago

“Have you ever thought about what you would name your child?”

You looked away from the TV and to the blonde next to you. “That’s a random question.”

Leah shrugged, her hands finding yours, your intertwined hands resting between you on the sofa. “I’m just wondering. I think I want to name them after me.”

“Narcissistic much?” you teased, causing Leah to flick your forehead.

“Or Amanda,” Leah continued. “After mum.”

“Amanda is nice,” you nodded your head in thought. “I think I’d like to name mine Lily.”

“You’re naming your child after your cat?”

“After the flower, dummy,” you rolled your eyes. “You know they’re my favourite flowers.”

“What if you have a son instead of a daughter? Will you name it Streaky?”

You let go of Leah’s hand and gave the blonde’s shoulder a weak shove. “You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not!” you heard Leah’s soft laughs, and the next thing you knew Leah was scooting closer, placing her arms around you. You felt a kiss on the side of your head and you immediately sighed in content.

“Streaky is cute though,” you pretended to be in thought, not really thinking of naming your son after your second cat.

“We are not naming our son Streaky,” Leah argued. “I was only joking!”

You raised an eyebrow at that. “Our son?”

“Mhmm.”

You looked at Leah. She had her attention back to the TV, some Netflix show was on, you couldn’t remember what you were watching anymore.

“Do you think our children will look like us?”

“Can we back up a second, babe,” you laughed. Your heart was doing somersaults. You two had never talked about kids before. “Our children?”

You saw the smirk on Leah’s face as she turned back to you. “Well we are together, aren’t we? Are you thinking of having children with other people, darling? I’m hurt.”

You shook your head at her ridiculousness. Ridiculous that she was able to talk about a serious topic with such ease and so full of confidence as if having children with you was something that was definitely going to happen.

You fell more in love with her if that was even possible. “I love you, Lee.”

“Amanda and Lily are cute names, aren’t they?”

“I just know they’re going to be stubborn and cocky, with egos as high as the Eiffel Tower. Just like their mother.”

Leah pulled away from the hug, her brows knitted. “Excuse me?”

“I’m kidding,” you grinned at the blonde before peppering kisses all over her face. “Even if I wasn’t, I would still love those parts of you.”

“Whatever.” Leah was trying her best to look annoyed but you could see the small smile on her lips.

“Are you getting tired of me already?” you pouted.

Leah immediately dropped her act and kissed away your pout. “No. Never.”

“Even if I just called you stubborn and cocky?”

“Yes,” Leah rolled her eyes. “As long as you don’t mind that about me.”

“I find it kinda hot actually.”

Leah pinched your nose at your statement, causing you to laugh. “What? I’m just telling the truth.”

Leah shook her head fondly at you. “I bet Amanda and Lily will have a thousand guys or girls lining up after them if they take after their mother’s flirting skills.”

“Oh, thank you,” you beamed at Leah. “I do have excellent flirting skills.”

“I was talking about me actually. Did you forget who made you blush 24/7?”

“Wipe that smug grin off your face, Williamsom.”

Leah hummed, placing a chaste kiss on your lips. “I’m so in love with you, y/n l/n.”

You couldn’t help the smile on your lips as you melted into the kiss and into Leah’s embrace. “Me too.”

“I can’t wait to meet Amanda and Lily Cathrine.”

You laughed at that. “Cathrine? We are not naming our daughter after you.”

“Pleaseee?”

You sighed, never able to say no when Leah gave you her puppy dog eyes. “Then it’s fair if Amanda has my middle name.”

Leah grinned at you. “You got yourself a deal, my love.”

—

Hour 1

You don’t notice when Keira and Georgia arrive. They are sitting next to you in the waiting room, you’re sure they’ve said something to you, but for now, you don't feel like talking to anyone.

You just need some time to regroup, to convince yourself that Leah will be fine and that the worry in your heart should calm down.

You will talk to Keira and Georgia later, you make a promise to yourself that you will.

Just not right now.

(Right now, you’re afraid that you’re actually going to lose Leah.)

Hour 2

“Georgia, stop fidgeting.”

“How can I? When we don’t know if she’ll make it.”

“Don’t say that. She will. Weren’t you the one who said that she’s strong? Of course she’ll make it.”

“She is. She’s strong. I’m just… I’m scared, Kei.”

“Yeah, well, so am I.”

Hour 4

“What’s taking them so long?”

“It’s only been 3 hours.”

You look up at the restless blonde. Georgia has been walking back and forth for the past hour, while Keira is sitting next to you, her knees bouncing up and down.

You haven’t uttered a single thing. The whole time you have just been watching them silently.

It’s sad, you think. They are so used to being a trio that without Leah, it all feels incomplete.

Georgia would say a thousand words per minute about what might happen and Keira would reassure her that everything would be fine. Then within the same hour, it would be Keira who was stressing out over Leah and Georgia was there to calm her down.

It’s another sad thing, you think. Despite it all, they have each other to lean on. You have no one.

The only person you wanted is lying in an operating bed as doctors try to keep her alive.

Hour 6

Returning from the bathroom, you see two men in scrubs having a conversation with Keira and Georgia.

“We’ve done everything we can,” you can hear one of them say. “Now we just have to wait for her to wake up.”

“When will she wake up?” It’s Georgia who asks.

You’re now standing next to her, your thoughts running everywhere now that you know the surgery is over.

“We cannot say,” the other doctor answers. “She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”

You tune out everything after that. You can faintly hear Keira asking more detailed questions about the recovery period, but how could you think about the recovery when Leah hasn’t even woken up? Who knows if she will even wake up.

At that thought, you immediately snap your head towards the two doctors and ask something that you aren’t sure you want the answer to. “Is there a possibility that she won’t ever wake up?”

It’s a long ten seconds before you have your answer.

You feel like you shouldn’t have asked.

“I’m afraid that the possibility is always there.”

Hour 7

There isn’t a lot of difference with Leah’s appearance since the last time you saw her this morning. Still beautiful, you’d argue. But aside from that, everything is still the same—Leah still has that cut on her left cheekbone, she still has that bandage on her head and her hand is still not squeezing your hand back.

The room is still cold and the sound of the machines is still the one accompanying you instead of Leah’s laughs.

“Since you just got out of surgery,” you speak, already used to not getting a reply. “You probably still want to rest some more, huh? You did a good job back there, love, you deserve to rest. But not for too long, okay? I’d miss you too much.

“I’ll be here when you wake up, Leah. Then you can tell me what you’ve been dreaming of all this time. I hope it’s nice, wherever you are.”

“Please wake up.”

Hour 10

“You can wake up anytime soon, Lee. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll follow you wherever you go, so you don’t have to be afraid of losing me anymore. As long as I have a say in it, you won’t lose me.”

Hour 12

“You should go home, mate,” Georgia says, her voice etched with worry. “Get freshen up.”

“Yeah,” Keira agrees. “We’ll stay here with her.”

“I’m good.”

You give them a tight-lipped smile and focus your attention back to Leah. There is no way that you’re leaving her.

“I’ll go with you,” Georgia offers. “Your place is near, right? It’ll be quick, it won’t even be an hour.”

“No thanks. I’m good right here.”

Hour 14

It seems like Georgia and Keira have very good persuading skills because the next thing you know, you’ve relented to go home—just to quickly shower and get a set of fresh clothes since you’re not sure how long you’re going to stay at the hospital.

You’re back at the hospital exactly half an hour later, your backpack over your shoulders and a fresh bouquet of roses in one hand.

You smile at the flowers you’re holding. You’re sure Leah will love it.

“Where’s Georgia?” you ask upon entering the room and seeing that Keira is alone.

You set your bag down and place the flowers on the table next to Leah. You bend down and place a kiss on Leah’s forehead.

“She went to get some food at the cafeteria,” Keira answers. “You should get something to eat too.”

You’re about to argue and say that you’re not hungry when your stomach betrays you and lets out a growl.

Keira laughs at you and you only smile sheepishly before stepping out of the room.

It’s easy to spot Georgia. She’s the only person who took up a table for six people all to herself.

“Hey,” you sit down in front of her. “What are you eating?”

“I have no idea..”

You give her a chuckle. “You don’t know what you ordered?”

Georgia shrugs, shoving her plate of food towards you. “It’s good though. We can share.”

You two eat in silence before a thought pops into your head and you look at her questioningly. “By the way, where is Amanda? Does she know what’s happened to Leah?”

“Yeah,” Georgia answers, mouth full of food. “She was visiting Jacob in Australia. They’re on the flight here.”

You hesitate for a few seconds before you decide to ask what’s on your mind. “Does Amanda hate me?”

Georgia raises her eyebrows at that. “You did break her daughter’s heart, mate.”

“I know,” you sigh. The answer is obvious but it still manages to leave an ache in your chest. Amanda was once the closest thing you had to a mother. “I hope she doesn’t hate me too much.”

You hope Leah will wake up so you can make up for everything you did wrong.

Hour 17

Leah still hasn’t woken up.

You would be lying if you say you aren’t losing hope.

Hour 20

“Is it naive of me to still have this hope in my chest when hours had passed and there are still no signs of you waking up? I’m not stupid for waiting, right Lee? You know that I’ll wait for you forever, but please don’t take too long. It’ll hurt too much.”

Hour 23

Georgia and Keira decide to go home and promise to return in a few hours.

You don’t mind being alone with Leah—you would take any chance to be with her. But the silence is getting too loud and you feel like screaming.

Because why is Leah still unconscious? It has almost been a day, it doesn’t make sense to you that she isn’t awake yet.

Your head is throbbing. You can’t get an inch of sleep. How can you when the love of your life isn't waking up?

“The sun is shining so brightly, I wish you could see this. It’s nice and warm. Wake up, love.���

Hour 25

You don’t want to cry. You’re afraid that crying means you’re giving up on Leah and you will never do that.

Leah is going to be alright so there is no need for you to be sad and cry.

But Leah is still lying there unconscious and all the scenarios of her not waking up came rushing in, and it becomes really hard for you to hold in your cry.

So you let out a sob. It’s quiet at first. But the pain in your chest keeps on multiplying as each second passes and the thought of having to live without Leah’s smile is getting more and more vivid.

“Leah… I’m begging you. I’ll do anything. Why won’t you wake up? Is it better over there? That’s why you don’t want to come back here? To come back to me?”

It hurts. Everything hurts. You don’t want anything else, you just want your Leah back.

“I love you,” your vision is blurry with tears. Your cry is getting louder and louder but you don’t care. You wish it’s loud enough to wake Leah up. “I love you. Isn’t that enough? Please wake up. Lee… Why won’t you fucking wake up?”

Then it happens. It’s a whisper you would miss if your crying hasn’t stopped.

“Why… are you crying?”

You turn to the source of the voice.

“Leah?”

“I love… you too. Stop… crying.”

And you can’t describe what you’re feeling when you finally feel Leah squeeze your hand again.

(You can’t stop crying, even when Georgia and Keira finally return to find their best friend awake.

You can’t stop crying because you don’t want to go through this again and the thought of it being over is filling your body with relief and you don't know what to do but to cry.

Most of all, you can’t stop crying because Leah’s smile is the most precious thing in the world and you’re glad that you’re ble to see it again.)

—

a few days ago

You greeted Leah with a shy “hello” and a tiny wave. You still couldn’t believe that Leah actually agreed to meet up with you—a part of you still felt that you didn’t deserve this chance.

“So where are we going?” Leah spoke in an indifferent manner, which you expected. It would take some time to knock her walls back down but you were willing to be patient, however long it would take.

“The arcade,” you answered, gesturing for Leah to follow you.

Leah looked confused. “The arcade?”

(You started to walk side by side and you almost forgot that you weren't supposed to reach out and intertwine your hands).

“Yeah,” you smiled at her. You hoped Leah couldn’t tell how nervous you were. “We never ended up going,” you saw Leah’s features relaxed slightly as she realized what you meant. “You remember right? That time when I went to the arcade with Guro and you got jealous.”

Leah rolled her eyes, the scowl on her face made you smile wider. “I wasn’t jealous.”

“Sure you weren’t.”

“Do they have food at the arcade?”

You gave a small laugh at the change in subject. Leah always turned moody everytime you brought up your friendship with the Chelsea player. Mostly because she didn’t like that you were fraternizing with the enemy—her words. You loved provoking her every time.

“Yes, they do have some plain toast with butter for you. I checked.”

“I’m just hungry,” Leah replied back, her tone annoyed. “I haven’t had breakfast.”

“They have food,” you reassured her. “And tea.”

“Cool.”

Despite the short responses, Leah’s voice didn’t hold as much bitterness as you were expecting and you were grateful for that.

You walked in silence, you came up with some jokes every now and then, trying to get more smiles out of the blonde.

It wasn’t until your tenth attempt that Leah let out a short laugh.

You wore a proud smile the rest of the way.

—

“You know, you haven’t apologized for stealing my breakfast.”

Leah stopped walking and stared at you confused. “What?”

“When we first met,” you clarified. “You stole my breakfast.”

“I didn’t do such thing.” Leah rolled her eyes.

“You did.”

“Well, I don’t exactly remember something that happened decades ago now do I?” Leah scowled at you, forever annoyed whenever you brought it up. You continued walking side by side, no particular direction in mind. “But I always let you take my breakfast!”

“But I never really did fancy your plain food, Lee,” you smiled fondly at the memory. “Anyway, back to what I was saying, you haven’t apologized.”

“Even though I didn’t do anything wrong, I apologized to you every time you brought up this argument just to annoy me.”

“You didn’t.”

“Mate, I did.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Whatever! I always let you take my breakfast! Which went on for years, if I may add.”

“So?” Leah rolled her eyes again and you laughed. “Your eyes will fall off if you keep on rolling them at me.”

“It’s because you’re annoying.”

“But you’re smiling so I must be doing something right.”

It was funny how Leah immediately dropped her smile. “I wasn’t smiling.”

“You were.”

“No. Just spasms.”

You chuckled at Leah’s response. After hours spent at the arcade, you felt that Leah had started to loosen up. You could see it with the way Leah wasn’t acting like standing next to you was the worst thing in the world anymore. Leah started to talk more too, you didn’t have to start the conversation to get the blonde to say something, and you were glad because you really wanted to hear Leah speak—you badly missed the sound of her voice.

“Where are we going next?”

You tilted your head in thought. You didn’t know—your plan had only consisted of going to the arcade. You figured Leah would get tired of you by then and you would just head back, but Leah was still here, not looking like she wanted to leave.

You racked your brain of where you could take her next and when a thought came up you grinned. “I know a place.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see.”

“Why don’t you just tell me?” Leah sounded impatient.

“You’re no fun,” you pouted. “The place reminds me of you, that’s all I’m saying.”

—

“Why does a florist remind you of me?”

“Because you smelled like roses,” you answered, picking up a single red rose. “You still do.”

“That’s ridiculous. I do not.”

You grinned up at her. “I was trying to be romantic.”

Leah scoffed, looking away. You smiled to yourself when you could see the faint blush on Leah’s cheeks.

“Flowers are very symbolic,” you continued. “You can express a lot of things with them. Sometimes you don’t even have to say anything because the flowers can speak for you. I think that’s amazing.” You looked at the colorful display of flowers in front of you. “This place reminds me of you because every time I come here, I think of everything I wanted to say to you but couldn’t.”

You could feel Leah’s gaze on you so you looked back and met Leah’s eyes. “Stop looking at me and look at the flowers. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.” Leah still hadn’t looked away so you were the first to break your eye contact. Leah’s gaze made you nervous.

“These are white tulips,” you pointed at the white flowers in a clear vase. “They can be used to seek forgiveness. I think about you a lot whenever I see one. These too,” you walked across the store to where a bouquet of purple flowers lay. “Purple hyacinth… ‘I’m sorry’, ‘please forgive me’...” you trailed off.

After a beat, you turned to Leah who was still staring at you intently.

“I’ve always thought of sending you some flowers, but I never had the courage to do it. I think a part of me is scared that you’ll end up throwing it away,” you took a deep breath and smiled. “I’ll do it today. I hope that’s okay with you.”

Leah didn’t reply, instead she took the single rose from your hand and brought it up to her nose, taking in its scent. “I love flowers,” she said, returning the rose to you. “And just so you know, if you did send me flowers, I don’t think I have it in me to throw them away.”

—

“Why red roses?”

“Aren’t they your favourite? I know you love white roses too, but I think the red ones are more fitting here.”

“How so?”

“Sometimes people have different interpretations of what a flower symbolizes, or their meaning might change over time… but this one stayed consistent. Everyone knows what red roses symbolize.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything, Lee. I told you how symbolic flowers are, didn’t I? I’ll let them speak for me.”

When you saw the small smile on Leah’s lips, you knew that everything would be okay.

You couldn’t wait to spend the rest of your life making it up to her.

—

sorry for any medical inaccuracies:)

I don’t really like this but oh well, hope it’s decent enough 🫶🏼

[jgracie]

I WANT IT ALL

masterlist | rules

❝ hellooo !! i absolutely in love with your works !! may i request percy with the song “i want it” all by lana del rey, specially this part of the lyrics：“do you think you'll kill for me one day?" ／ “yes of course I will, my darling” ? perhaps a mention of dark percy ? 😋 ❞ — 🦇

in which percy would kill for you one day

pairing slightly dark!percy jackson x reader

warnings house of hades spoilers? that’s when this is set, violence (percy bloodbends)

on the radio . . . i want it all (lana del rey)

After experiencing Tartarus together, you couldn’t help but notice how Percy changed. He used to always be able to crack a joke, even at the worst of situations, lightening the mood and raising your spirits. However, now he’s more… serious. Tartarus seemed to harden him up - his eyes, once a bright aquamarine colour, were now of a dark blue-green hue, like the depths of the ocean that even Poseidon wouldn’t venture

You still loved him with all of your heart. He was your precious boyfriend, after all. And besides, you probably changed a lot too after that. Anyone would if they were forced to hallucinate their boyfriend abandoning them like you did. The image the Arai had planted in your head that day, a curse sent your way by a girl you didn’t even know, haunted you. You never wanted to feel that alone and isolated again

Percy knew this. It was part of the reason why he became more protective, more territorial. Watching you wander Tartarus aimlessly, your voice cracking as you begged for his touch and being able to do nothing about it shattered his heart. After that experience, he vowed to never let you out of his sight 

The other members of the Argo II could tell that something had changed between you, too. However, they kept a safe distance, not wanting to interfere in case they made it worse, unable to even fathom what you must’ve gone through in Tartarus

For the most part, though, your relationship was good. Other than the nightmares and protectiveness, the two of you stayed the same iconic couple you are, and as time progressed, Percy felt himself becoming more relaxed, no longer needing to be by your side every second of every day

That was until the ship got attacked. You’d been having a couple days of pretty safe travel ever since you got out of Tartarus, and while you did enjoy simply being able to catch up with all your friends on a boat in the ocean, you should’ve known that something would come along to ruin this for you

It was early in the morning, and you were on watch duty along with Leo, who was manning the ship whilst adding some updates to Festus. The salty air made you think of Percy, and you found yourself suddenly longing for his touch, knowing how much he’d enjoy watching the sun rise over the horizon

“You can go get Percy if you want, Y/N, I’ll be fine here,” Leo mumbled. For someone who claims he’s better at understanding machines than people, he sure was good at reading your mind. Recently, you noticed he’d also been acting differently. According to Hazel, he found a girl he loved (NOT calypso guys don’t worry 🩷) while he’d gone missing, but for some reason he couldn’t bring her with him

You thanked him and were about to make your way to your boyfriend’s room when you suddenly heard a voice yell, “I will take revenge on you, wretched son of Poseidon!” You turned, finding yourself face-to-face with none other than the bane of Poseidon, Polybotes

“You think you can just leave Tartarus as you please? I, Polybotes, will make you pay!” The giant continued. Your feet seemed to be cemented to the ground as you stared at the giant, mouth open in a mix of shock and fear. He was supposed to be in Tartarus, how could he possibly get here? Of course you couldn’t have a moment of peace. Why were you stupid enough to think that maybe, just maybe, you could relax until actually having to fight Gaia herself? 

“Y/N, look out!” Leo yelled, pulling you out of your trance. But it was too late. The giant picked you up, his nails digging into your back, forming crescent shaped gashes. Your nose scrunched at the smell of him as he took a good look at you before laughing (his breath smelled even worse. You had to fight the urge to vomit all over him)

Tears welled up in your eyes. You were completely helpless, with no weapon on you and your limbs still aching from your time in Tartarus. This was it. This is how you’d die. The giant was squeezing you so tight you could barely breathe, black spots beginning to obscure your vision. You sent a quick prayer to your godly parent, asking them to keep your friends safe on the rest of this quest, before you succumbed to the darkness

The last thing you remember seeing is a flash of bright blue - the ocean

“Thank Gods you’re awake! We’re all so worried about you!” Hazel exclaimed as soon as your eyes were open. Looking around, you noticed you were in the makeshift infirmary section of the ship, bruises littering your body

You turned to face Hazel, your eyebrows furrowed, “what… happened?” You asked, trying to push your memories of the incident with Polybotes to the front of your mind, but ending up with nothing, “I remember I was captured by that giant, then I saw the water move, then… nothing.”

Hazel was suddenly incapable of holding eye contact with you, unsure if she should tell you what happened or not. In the end, she decided on the former, knowing you’d pull it out of Percy eventually if you had to

“The water moving was Percy’s doing. We all showed up after hearing the commotion and when he saw you in Polybotes’ clutches he went… kind of crazy. I’d never seen him like this before, Y/N, it was a little scary. He willed the water to move him up to Polybotes’ height and demanded he let you go. When he didn’t…” Hazel stopped for a second, shuddering. What did Percy do? After seeing the way he handled Akhlys in Tartarus, you knew there was a side of him that he kept buried deep inside. Did it come out again?

You placed a gentle hand on Hazel’s, giving her a kind smile which willed her to continue, “he started controlling Polybotes’ blood… he made him choke on his own blood, Y/N, we’ve been spending the past five hours cleaning that up.”

At the sound of voices coming out of the infirmary, Percy barged in, nodding at Hazel before holding you tightly in his arms. You hugged back, glad to see that he was okay. Smiling at both of you, Hazel waved goodbye and left, knowing you two needed a moment alone

“Hazel told me what happened,” you said once Percy pulled away, still keeping your hand in his. At this, he looked at the ground in shame, remembering how much his treatment of Akhlys had scared you in Tartarus

Rubbing circles into your hand, he said, “I’m sorry, Y/N, my fear and anger got the better of me. I don’t ever want to lose you, you’re literally my soulmate. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Your heart fluttered at his words. Feeling your face become warmer as a bright smile made its way onto your lips, you said, “it’s alright, Percy. Thank you for saving me. I genuinely thought I was going to die then.” At this, Percy’s brows furrowed and the grip he had on your hand tightened

An aura of power exuded from your boyfriend, and when he said, “you wouldn’t die, not with me here. I’d kill for you, baby, you understand that, right?” You knew he meant it. If giants didn’t have to be defeated by both Gods and demigods working together, Polybotes would definitely be a mere pile of dust in Tartarus right now

[bluewolfangel01]

Do you think you could possibly write something about the obey me brothers finding out MC has a body pillow? Like how they react when they find out. They stop by to surprise MC only to see them cuddling up to said body pillow. If not I totally understand but I was thinking no harm in asking

I most certainly can! There's absolutely no harm in asking me, and thank you for the ask

-Mc with a body pillow-

The Brothers finding out edition

Its been a while since Mc left the Devildom

Although the brothers and them could still text and call thanks to the D.D.D, it wasn't the same as being face to face

Some days were a bit worse then others, especially for Mc

At least the brothers had each other to keep each other company, although its debatable to how much that actually helps, Mc was sadly alone at their place

Mc had gotten so used to the brothers' presence that their place felt a bit... quiet

It was so bad it got to the point they couldn't even sleep well

That was until they tried out sleeping with a body pillow

Thankfully it worked, and Mc was finally able to sleep

Life in the human world was a bit better after that for Mc

Meanwhile the brothers were feeling worse by the day and nothing seemed to help them get over the fact that their human was no longer in the same world as them

Each one was affected differently and it showed no matter how hard they try to hide it

Belphie was more lethargic then before and seemed to hold little interest for anything that wasn't sleeping, sometimes he'd even wake up thinking his pillow was Mc

Beel seemed a bit more hungrier and ate more, although he ate so much that it was hard to tell at first, he was also a bit less happy although he tried to hide it for his brothers sake, it was the worst when he found/realized he was craving Mc's cooking

Asmo was dejected, he never held the true wild party animal energy, he tended not to talk quite as much, and was missing having someone to help him with makeup or watch his at home fashion shows

Satan kept to himself more and would usually be found in his room or a library unless there was something urgent going on, sometimes he'd catch himself reading aloud like he would when him and Mc were together and they didn't feel like reading

Levi also holed himself in his room more, his spirit was a bit low since his player 2 wasn't around, and he wouldn't break into a full on rant about a video game, anime, or manga

Mammon spent more then he did typically on a variety of items, whether it was actually needed or a simple impulse purchase, he missed being able to mess with and being around his human

Lucifer was stricter and worked more than usual, but that was mainly because of his brothers and their behavior, other then that he would have a tad bit more demonus and become a bit disheartened

After seeing the brothers' behavior, Diavolo decided to lend the brothers an offer, to go to the human world for a day

They gladly accepted the offer and were on their way

They arrived at early morning, when it was still dark out, inside Mc's home, thanks to Barbatos of course

Lucifer stood still while trying to take in the place while the others freely moved about inspecting knickknacks, furniture, and decorations

While wandering about Belphie found the door that led into Mc's bedroom

It was dark and not much was able to be seen or distinguished from the darkness, but Belphie was able to slightly see the shape of the bed and a human sized lump under the covers

He quickly made his way over and layed next to/on the lump and he promptly feel asleep

Beel and Mammon found the room next, while keeping quite, Beel moved to lay behind Belphie and Mammon moved to lay on the otherside of the lump

One by one the rest of the brothers found the bedroom and was now laying on the bed

Except for Lucifer, who was unable to lay down as well even if he wanted to since there was barely any space left, so he stood by the door

The bed was very cramped and it was difficult for the 6 brothers to stay on and not crush the sleeping Mc

They started to shift to get comfy but then it turned into a silent-ish fight over space

They were somewhat loud and of course there was quite a bit of squirming

Although they each kept saying that the others would wake up Mc none of them stopped

That is until they heard the sound of a toilet flushing

That stopped them dead in their tracks

Another door was opened to reveal a very sleepy looking Mc who was rubbing their eyes

The brothers were silent and a bit wide eyed, meanwhile Mc was wondering what kind of crazy dream or hallucination were they having

On one hand they wanted to go hug and greet Mc, but on the other they were wondering who was in the bed instead

"W-whats going on?" Mc mumbled

Lucifer approached slowly, "We're sorry to disturb you so early Mc, however we were permitted to visit you for a day and they (motions to his brothers still in a daze on the bed) wanted to see you as soon as possible."

Mc just looked at him for a second, sizing him up, and the next they moved a finger to poke him

When confirming that the whole scenario wasn't a dream they simply said "Oh."

Asmo was the first to awake from the daze and rushed at Mc, the others soon followed and mirrored his actions

Once each boy was greeted and Mc was a bit more awake Belphie spoke up

"If you were in the bathroom, then who's or what's in your bed?"

"O-oh yeah, that."

Mc moved away from the demon brothers towards the bed, turned on the bed side lamp, pushed back the covers, and took out what was underneath

They gathered it in their arms, turned around, and revealed a body pillow that had a modest cover

There were a few moments of silence in the room, the brothers not daring to make a move or sound

Mc would've sworned they could see the intimidating hidden eyes manga trope on the brothers

"G-guys? L-listen, it's not what you think! It was just a bit difficult to sleep without cuddling something person sized!"

They toss the pillow so that it lands closer to the farther side of bed

"I promise, it wasn't meant to replace you or anything! It was just a temporary solution! Please calm down"

Thankfully the brothers stood down, although the murdery glint in all their eyes still remained

Mc corralled them to the living room area and was able to start actually enjoying their demons' presence and company

The day was spent in Mc's home chatting away, watching movies, eating, cuddling, etc.

Throughout the day though Mc would have to play hide and seek with their body pillow since it somehow, mysteriously, kept vanishing

It was actually kind of impressive for how well they were able to hide such a decently sized item multiple times

When the day was over and the brothers had to leave, Mc made sure the pillow was in there sights in case it mysteriously disappeared again

It becomes an unspoken rule to never take that pillow into the Devildom, EVER

If the rule is broken, well, let's just say Cerburus is going to have a very short lived chew toy

[darkbluekies]

How would the yans react if their darling is already dating someone else

Warnings: killing, kidnapping

Silas: 

He hates to see you laugh and smile with someone who isn’t him. He knows he shouldn’t approach you. You’re so … pure, so normal … and he’s a beast lurking in the darkness. He knows that the second he approaches you, you’ll be sucked into his world and there won’t be a way out. But he cannot bare himself to watch you cling onto someone that isn’t him. Silas sighs. He could actually keep you safe if he really tried. If he doesn’t take you to be his, he will regret it for all eternity. He turns to his second in command. 

“See that person over there? The one leaning onto the one in gray? I want them. And I want the one in gray gone. Why? Personal reasons. Make sure that cute, little thing is in my basement by the end of the night, got it? Thank you.”

Dr Kry: 

His heart breaks when someone else tries to visit you at the hospital. It’s always the same person. He doesn’t dare to ask you about who it is, scared to hear the truth. Of course, he knows that it’s your significant other, but he doesn’t want to have it confirmed. A small part of him still hopes that it’s just a family member. Nonetheless, he has to get rid of them before you start to ask about them. Dr Kry pulls the threat into a supply closed, pressing a drenched cloth against the persons face. 

“Don’t take it personal, this is just for selfish reasons. It actually doesn’t have anything to do with you, just who you’re with. Y/N isn’t yours anymore and I’ve given you more than second chances to make you realize that … but here we are. Just go to sleep, breathe in. It’ll all be over soon.”

King Edmund:

He isn’t worried. He’s the king! Who can’t decline a king a favor? He doesn’t have to be worried about whoever has stolen your heart. Worst case scenario, he’ll rip you open and give you a new heart that only belongs to him. It can’t be so difficult, there are hundreds — if not thousands — of women who want him. If only you got to have one of their hearts …

“My good sir, I want to make a deal with you. You stay away from Y/N and I send you a portion of money every month to make sure you and your family can live comfortably. I know how hard you have it on your farm. All you need to do is to give me Y/N. Not hard, right? You’re winning. I’m taking her off your hands. You could never provide for her. If you refuse? How funny that you asked that … if you refuse, your entire bloodline will die.”

Jerry: 

Jerry hates being jealous, hates that someone can make her that insane. She hates the power you have over her, especially when you’re not doing anything. The person who leans on your shoulder makes her sick. She can’t watch any longer. She has to have you. Now. She storms over with her men behind her. They grab your partner, pulling them away and Jerry traps you in a corner. You trembling in front of her sends tingles down her body. She reaches out her hand, brushing your hair out of your face. 

“Don’t tremble, my love. You’re mine now. You’re with the wrong person. You might not understand it now, but I can assure you that you’re meant to be with me — be my little accessory. Don’t cry, I’m not going to hurt you for this. You had no idea. My pretty, little pet, you have no idea what kind of trouble you're pretty face has got you in …”

Hedwig:

She has been the best friend you could ever have. She has been by your side from the day you transferred … why didn’t you choose her to be your girlfriend? Hasn’t she been everything to you? Hedwig can feel a gaping hole in her heart when she sees you eating with someone else at lunch. She has to stay home. She can’t watch you be with someone else. All she does is cry in her bed. She doesn’t eat, doesn’t move, doesn’t bathe. A living zombie is what she’s become. One day, you come over to check up on her and she knows she has to take the chance.

“Y/N, you can’t do this to me! You have to break up with that … that bitch! P-Please! You have to be mine! I have to have you! I’m so lost without you! I can’t function without you! If … if you’re not going to leave them … I have to keep you here with me. I’m sorry, Y/N.”

[littlelionwriting]

Your Scent

I wrote most of this in the middle of the night due to insomnia and finished it the next morning. I like the idea of Alastor being able to smell you when you’re ovulating or on your period. I also headcanon that instead of a heart beat Alastor has a radio hum in his chest. Minors DNI!

Summary: Your scent drives Alastor mad specifically during one time of the month.

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: Pet names (Dear, Dearest, Deary, Sir), p in v, unprotected sex, breeding kink, shadows used as restrains, eating pussy, love bites, vaginal fingering, not proof read

Word count: 1834 words

When you came to stay the hotel, you were nothing more than another guest to Alastor.  He gave you no special attention instead just treating you like he would anyone else. But slowly you wiggled your way under his skin. He couldn't pin down the exact moment when he switched from treating like any other guest to becoming something... more.

Every day he was finding that he wanted to see you smile more, he wanted to hear your laughter. He found your company enjoyable and even started inviting you to listen to his radio broadcasts up in his radio tower. Everything about you enticed him from your hair, to your eyes, and even your scent. God your scent. It drove him crazy, the perfect mix of floral and feminine, and it seemed to linger even when you weren't there.

There were times where, when he knew no one would catch him, he would enter your room and hold your pillow to his face just so he could drown in it for a brief moment. The worst part was he could smell you when you ovulated. He could smell it on most women and prided himself on his self-control but every month for several days he would have his world turned upside down by you.

The first time it caught him off guard and he rushed away from you to the sanctuary of his tower. He locked the door and stayed there for almost a week, refusing to leave to eat or drink. Instead, he pleasured himself to the thought of you. It barely took the edge off of the burning want, but it was all he was willing to do. His pride refused to let him admit you had such power over him.

When he finally left when your scent had returned to normal, looking disheveled and eyes just a tad wilder than the other hotel patrons were used to but no one dared question the radio demon.

The next few months passed in much the same way, he tracked the change in your scent and would flee to his tower locking you and the rest of the world out till he believed it safe for him to return. But with each passing month it became more and more unbearable. He could not handle this any longer; the need to have you, the need to breed you.

***

The day had passed like a normal day for you with you resting in your room with a novel to wind down the day. You were pulled from your thoughts when you heard three raps on the door. Placing your bookmark in the book you rose from your bed and went to the door, opening it to reveal Alastor. He gave you his signature grin which you nervously returned.

"Good evening, Dear. Would you mind if I entered your room so we may discuss something in private?" You could feel your face flush under the demon's eyes, the thought of being alone in your room with Alastor sending flutters to your stomach.

"Of course. Please come in." You moved aside and let him enter before closing the door behind him.

"Feel free to sit down if you wish." Alastor responded with a quiet hum, crossing his arms behind his back as you walked back to your bed and sat on the edge.

Alastor stood there watching you, you felt like you were being hunted with how his eyes traced every move you made. It made you squirm and rub your thighs together as you felt yourself becoming aroused just by the proximity to him.

"W-what do you want to talk about, Alastor?" Alastor had to suppress a shiver from running down his spine when you said his name, you looking up at him with your pretty eyes. He took a step towards you, offering his hand to you.

"It seems I'm in a bit of a predicament and you're to blame, my Dear." You scrunched your brow and pursed your lips, thinking hard to try and figure out how you could have been causing him any trouble. Your eyes glanced from his face to his hand before reaching out to put your hand in his.

"I'm afraid I'm not following. What have I done?" Alastor pulled you to your feet and held you close to his chest, forcing you to crane your neck to look up at him. You swore that his eyes seemed to glow red in the low light of your bedroom. You swallowed as you put your free hand on his chest, feeling his other hand come to rest on your hip.

"Exist, Darling. You simply smell too delicious. It makes me want nothing but you. It invades my mind and ensnares me." He leaned down, letting his breath tickle your ear and neck. "I want you, Darling. More than anything in this moment." You could feel his grip tighten as he pulled you tighter against his body. A shiver ran down your spine as you closed your eyes and bared your neck to him as your hand traveled up his chest. You pulled at his bowtie, letting out a soft sigh.

"I'm yours." The growl the ripped from his chest was inhumane as he slammed his lips onto yours, stepping forward causing you to step back and having the back of your legs hit the edge of your bed. His hands traveled under your shirt, scratching your skin lightly as his hands traveled to your chest. Alastor took your breast in each hand, groping the flesh and pinching your nipples. You moaned into the bruising kiss, giving him the chance to shove his tongue down your throat. He broke the kiss for only a moment to yank your shirt off of your body and shoving you back onto the plush bed.

You gasped for breath as Alastor removed his shirt and unbuttoned his pants before crawling onto the bed and hovering over you. You reached up to touch him before the shadows suddenly reached out and pulled your wrist back down to the bed restraining you. You let out a soft whine, making him chuckle before he leaned down and started to nip and bite at your bare neck. You moaned as he traveled down the junction of your neck, to your collar bone, and to the valley of your breasts leaving bite marks in his path.

He looked up at you, his eyes not leaving yours as he continued to travel down to the band of your pants, giving you a grin. He pulled your pants and underwear down in one motion, making you shiver at the sudden cold air to your exposed heat. Alastor stared at you for a moment, admiring your weeping pussy before he reached forward and rubbed a single finger across your lower lips. You let out a breathy moan as you arched your back to try and get more friction, but he just let out another chuckle.

"Just look at how wet you are, my Dear. Tell me, have you dreamed of this?" Alastor would never admit he had thought of this moment a million times but teasing you? He would in a heartbeat. Your face turned a cherry red color and you looked away for a moment causing Alastor to growl. He roughly pushed two fingers inside you making you give out a load moan at the unexpected intrusion.

"Do not look away from me. Do you understand?" You nodded your head as you let out a shaky breath.

"Y-yes." He growled again thrusting into you and curling his fingers to where he was hitting the spot that made you see stars.

"Yes what, my Dear?" You let out a pathetic whine.

"Yes, Sir."

"That's more like it." Alastor leaned down between your legs, throwing one over his shoulder as he continued to thrust with his fingers. Hearing your moans and whimpers he gave your thigh a bite, careful not to draw blood but making sure to leave a mark before diving into your heat. He licked at you like a starving man, making sure to time his thrusts with his tongue to be able to taste you as much as possible. With his other hand he reached up and rubbed your pearl, the thrusts and curls of his fingers causing the coil in your stomach to pull tighter and tighter.

You were moaning and writhing under his tongue, the shadows keeping you restrained as you arched your back. You couldn't think, everything was just too much. His name danced off your lips like a prayer that would not go unanswered. Today, right now he was your own personal god. The coil finally snapped, and you let out a cry as you came, becoming limp and gasping for air. Alastor withdrew his fingers from you, licking them clean as he stared down at you.

He leaned forward and kissed you, letting his lips dance against yours as he rubbed his erect cock against your wetness. He nuzzled your neck before slowly thrusting inside, making you gasp and strain against his shadows as you tried to adjust to his size. Your walls clinged to him causing him to moan as you whimpered and moaned. His fingers interlaced with your own as he allowed his shadows to retreat, freeing you. You gave a small thrust upward, signaling you were ready for him to move. Alastor looked down at you and smiled before he began to thrust faster, filling you completely. His thrusts slowly got faster and harder, pounding into your cervix and making you see stars.

"A-Alastor!" His name continued to fall from your lips as his nipped at your neck. His thrusts got wilder and more untamed as you both got closer to your limits. You felt the coil in your tummy stretch tighter and tighter as your moans got louder, not caring who heard you. Alastor groaned and growled, panting as he felt your gummy walls squeezing him.

"Pleasepleaseplease." You chanted as you felt yourself getting closer and closer with Alastor not far behind. You screamed his name when it came crashing down, your walls contracting and arching your back as the world went static. Alastor let out a guttural roar before biting your neck and drawing blood, as thick ropes of cum coated your insides.

Alastor languidly licked at the blood at your neck making you whimper softly, earning a chuckle from him. He stayed on top of you for a few moments before slowly pulling out and laying next to you. You looked over at him, smiling at him which he returned.

"Are you feeling alright, Deary?" You didn't trust your voice, so you nodded. His smile grew larger as he reached for you, pulling you to him and laying you across his chest. "Get some rest then." You gave no objections as you snuggled into his chest and closed your eyes listening to the soft hum of the radio inside his chest.

Want to buy me a coffee or commission a short story? Find me here: https://ko-fi.com/littleleonlion

[moodyvoid]

please i need an alternate life path of dabi 😭😭

Honestly, it would be pretty bad :(

He sees his life as the hero his father wanted him to be. If he wasn’t a “failure”.

Dabi has conflicting feelings about it at first. Seeing himself as a hero left him a little in awe, but it’s also painful as fuck to see.

But then he sees his life behind the scenes. Natsuo and Shoto were never born. Fuyumi grew up extremely lonely since Touya was always training with Enji. Worst of all, Touya is acting just like Enji and going down an abusive/neglectful path with his own future family.

Dabi’s like “You know what?… I’m good.”

(I just don’t see him having any good outcomes being around Enji. Enji, himself, would have to be a completely different person).

ANOTHER PATH:

Rei leaves and takes the kids.

Touya still practices with his quirk, despite it burning him. No longer because he wants to be seen by his dad, but because he genuinely wants to be a hero on his own. (Maybe to spite him a little lol)

Rei is able to get him the proper physical/mental treatment that he needs, and works with top notch doctors/scientists to figure out ways for him to use his quirk without burning himself.

As technology advances, Touya eventually gets the help/equipment he needs to more safely use his quirk (not completely unscathed, but FAR better than it was). He joins the hero course and becomes a pro hero on his own.

(Unfortunately, while a nice outcome, this results in him unable to awaken his ice ability. So he’s always going to have some trouble with his quirk.)

Dabi is watching all of this and he’s almost emotionally destroyed until the next thing he sees…

Touya goes to visit Rei and she’s got company already. He sees Mr. Compress standing in Rei’s kitchen. Yeah that’s right I turned this into Compress x Rei gotcha you’ll never know when I’ll strike with StepDad!Compress

Dabi is like “Okay, I’m done seeing this shit.” and then as he walks away, he stops by Mr. Compress and is like “Stay away from my Mom.”

Mr. Compress is like “??????”

[whetstonefires]

You know what else gets neglected? Wen Xu made Lan Wangji set the library on fire.

Like. Realistically he knew it was going to burn whatever he did, so making a point of defiance that would just get more people killed would have been stupid. (I assume a major reason cql swapped this out for the Headband Cave, besides building up Su She's craven villainy, was that this would have been very expensive to film.) Giving way on this point after getting his leg broken, with his Sect overcome around him and his father mortally wounded, was perfectly reasonable.

But it's also something that was guaranteed to be very traumatic for him. Putting the flame to that building with his own hands.

And then, not knowing the fates of his family and with a broken leg, he got dumped into the Wen indoctrination and wound up in the turtle cave alone with Wei Wuxian, and definitely took his trauma out on him a little bit, though all things considered he handles himself with great restraint.

And then there's the war, and he takes time out of the campaign to try to find a presumed-dead guy whom he almost definitely regrets only being kind to when he wasn't really coherent, and then even though that guy is no longer trying to befriend him gets himself assigned to his theater of war to watch his back.

Lan Xichen is shown in that one tent flashback in the Nie Mingjue empathy section to know full well his brother is in Jiangling because Wei Wuxian is in Jiangling.

During the unclear-but-plural number of years the war went on, Lan Wangji was away from Cloud Recesses more or less all the time. Repairs were, we may assume, made in his absence. The collection was rebuilt as much as was possible, and housed in a replacement building, that may or may not have been complete by the time he went home to stay.

(Presumably one of the irreplaceable texts Xichen smuggled away was a list or index of the more replaceable ones, that got burnt, so they can go around to their contacts in an organized way asking to make copies. They seem to have done so very well at replacing such a large library so quickly that I can only assume they had had a very generous copying policy, and reaped the reward of this after the war.)

So after the war, when Lan Wangji is spending most of his time closed up in his room working on music, his being fixated on saving Wei Wuxian from the spiral of his own cultivation method is the least worrying explanation.

Because the alternate reasons Lan Xichen has to hand for this behavior are 1) Lan Wangji's ptsd is totally crippling and he's potentially going to become a shut-in for life or 2) the trauma he suffered at the start of the war, in the Cloud Recesses, being made to act against the Cloud Recesses, against his own safe place, means that he no longer feels secure or comfortable there, and is shut away obsessively cultivating to avoid their family and home.

And ngl I tend to suspect based on the timing of some beats that Lan Wangji did wind up funneling a lot of the energy from his war trauma into his romantic attachment. Because during that crucial window from 'Wei Wuxian has gone missing' to 'Wei Wuxian is dead' he believed that Wei Wuxian was someone he could help, if he could just figure out how.

And a huge predictor of PTSD, much larger than how 'objectively bad' something was, is how helpless you felt in the face of harm to yourself or others. So channeling his intensity and control issues into the contained and should-still-be-possible issue of Wei Wuxian's well-being would have been....

Not actually the worst coping mechanism, although it sure would have been a better one if Wei Wuxian had in fact been possible to help in some more substantive way than 'watching his back in battle' lmao.

[prinzrupprecht]

Reader is an Artist

Gaahhh I love him. Someone had suggested this idea!

You had been inspired by the late Katsushika Hokusai who recently passed some years ago and his late daughter Oei Hokusai was still alive and made amazing Ukiyo-e paintings. You had used up a lot of your savings to even get one of her paintings.

You had met Okita as kids and lived relatively close to Kondo’s dojo and always went over to watch him practice while you sat near the forest painting him or other scenic sights that came to mind

Okita thought your art was incredible and wondered why you never pursued your hobby. It was simply too expensive to print on woodblocks to produce copies. You solely secretly sold some of your exclusive pieces to tea houses or inns to hang up on their walls.

When you told Okita you were going to be leaving for a while to paint in another province, this has broken him deep down but it was understandable how you wanted to follow your passion just like how he would follow his.

Even though you had written letters and sent him some of your works from another town. You had missed him and it made you curious what he felt about you as well.

You sent him paintings of the cats outside of Kondo’s dojo to lift his mood. He would send you updates on his life and what everyone was doing. Even sometimes hinting when you’ll be back he would ask Kondo to host a dinner party.

It was hard, you wanted to be there for him and support him as well as he does for you. Even when the letters started to become less and less.

You decided to move back to Kyoto to sell your illustrated hand scrolls and other paintings to the tea houses and restaurants. You were gaining recognition for your work in Edo and wanted to return to Kyoto.

It must have been a few months to close to a year. The seasons have changed, and he was certainly out in the back with the men of his division. Yagi residence, the place where the Shinsegumi operated.

Would he be happy to see you? Why did he stop writing to you? The questions were hurting you deep down. You cared about him deeply and maybe affectionately you wanted more. It was hard being away for so long. Yet, did he feel the same? You

You had taken artistry to keep your mind off of such things. It always bugged you deep down and you were probably more sensitive and emotional. Your art was loved by a lot of townsfolk and Souji supported you.

You must’ve been standing outside contemplating and looking lost until you heard someone behind you call your name making your heart freeze and beat faster. Upon tilting your head you saw him standing behind you staring at you. You felt like breaking down in front of him but couldn’t make out any words.

Your mouth gaped open slightly before he ran up to you hugging you. Tightly. It was like he didn’t want to let go of you. “I— I thought you weren’t ever coming back,” he muttered but you couldn’t help but smile and shake your head. You reached into your bag to give him a late birthday present. It was a Ukiyo-e painting on folded a sheet of paper of a cherry blossom tree where you two met.

Okita was teary but wasn’t afraid to show his emotions in front of you. He was happy that you didn’t forget his birthday. He was worried that you had but you two sat outside talking for a while. You had learnt that leaving had broken him too much that he couldn’t respond back sometimes. You decided it would be better to stay in Kyoto in the end and be by his side even if the worst outcomes happen you’d still support him and he would support you.

Note: took me a while to write since this is longer than I thought would be. Next one will be Loki headcanons? Maybe more Anubis or Susano’o.

[gurugirl]

A Delicate Thing* (check-in)

Summary: Y/n wants to know what's going on with her father and Harry doesn't want her to worry about it. But there's a big piece of news she wants to reveal when her worries are finally quelled.

A/n: You guys begged for more of this one and I started this check-in a bit ago but never finished it (until today!). Hope you enjoy! This is a check-in for A Delicate Thing (mafia!harry). 3.8k words.

Warning: 18+ only, smut, talk of violence and murder, anxious feelings

♤♤♤♤

It took a while for Y/n to get comfortable with the idea that she was no longer under the thumb of her father, William, and was now the Boss’s girl. She was treated with respect everywhere she went, was pampered, cared for, and doted upon by Harry.

But as the months turned into a year, she began to understand how awful her life had been before Harry. Her father kept a close watch on her. Told her not to eat too much, to wear certain clothes, to become acquainted with important topics but to act as if she didn’t understand, and worst of all was the way he enjoyed showing her off to his associates. She hated William.

“What are you thinking about,” Harry pulled her into his lap one morning as he sat at the kitchen table and drank his tea.

“I was just… it’s stupid. It’s in the past.”

“It’s not stupid. Don’t say that. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She put her hands up to the lapel of his suit and sighed before beginning, “Thinking about William. How much I hate him. For everything he did to me. And now he’s bragging about how his daughter is the Boss’s girl… as if he had anything to do with it.”

Harry hummed and had his palm spread out over her thigh, the silk material of her nighty smooth under his hand, “Is he now? I think it’s time for me to give him a lesson once and for all. But only if you want me to. I don’t want to do anything that will have you upset.”

“What will you do?”

“Hmm…” Harry pursed his lips to the side for a moment, “What would you like? Demotion? Public reprimand?”

Shaking her head she kept her eyes on her lover, “Something worse.”

Nodding his head he spoke again, “Have someone break his arms? Cut him off from the family?”

“Maybe that. Cutting him off. I think that would be the worst for him. And I wouldn’t need to see him again.”

“Your wish is my command, my love.”

♤♤♤♤

Harry didn’t like to spend time away from his girl. Before she came along he’d take trips for work and never think a second thought about being away from some chick he might have been seeing. But with Y/n, she was his everything. So he started having her come with him if the trip wasn’t going to be too dangerous. Even if it was only for one night. He didn’t like not having her in his bed at the end of a long day.

And now he was currently away for work and had brought Y/n along with him. They traveled with his underboss, Brad, to visit an associate to come to some kind of agreement. Y/n wasn’t sure of the details, she just knew she’d be staying at the large mansion during the day with security outside while Harry, his underboss, and the associate were meeting somewhere unknown.

Harry was generally a busy man. He came home late sometimes but he always came home and he always called her when he was on his way back to her.

It was nearly 9 pm and she was freshly bathed and wrapped in a thick robe as she watched TV from the bed. Her phone rang with the tone she set for Harry and she leaned over to pluck it up, “Hi,” she smiled widely.

“Hi, baby. I’m on my way back, okay? How was your day?”

“Oh it was good,” she plopped back down into the pile of pillows behind her and sighed, “George’s chef made me a really big brunch and I swam in the pool for a while.”

“Good girl. Sounds nice. Can’t wait to see you, baby.”

Harry was the most attentive and loving man she’d ever met. There wasn’t a day that had gone by since he took her away from William, that she didn’t feel his love for her. And she loved returning that love to him just the same.

When he finally returned to George’s mansion and entered their bedroom, half expecting her to be at the front door when he pulled up, he understood why. She was lying on the bed, naked, her legs open and facing the door (on purpose he supposed). He swiftly closed the door behind him as she grinned at him, “Hi, Harry.”

Harry slid his jacket off and draped it at the foot of the bed and climbed in between her legs, hooking the underside of her knees over his shoulders, “Hi, baby,” he spoke in a whisper before he kissed the inside of her thighs and then got to work right away.

He’d woken her up much in the same way, lapping at her slowly until she was shaking and gasping as quietly as possible, not wanting to let anyone else hear what they were doing.

And just like the morning, she was quickly brought to her end with her palm covering her mouth and her other hand grasping the blankets below.

When he let go of her legs and her body melted into the bed below she lulled her head to the side to watch Harry as he pulled his pants and his briefs off and climbed over her frame. She realized what he was doing immediately so she opened her mouth wide for him, sticking her tongue out before he stuffed his cock into her mouth and pressed down into her throat, her soft lips wrapped around him and she coughed around his tip.

Harry grasped the back of her head up from the pillow underneath and rolled his hips down into her. He’d gotten her used to taking him like this. She was always eager to please him, though, so it didn’t take much work. Soon, she was a natural at opening up her throat and letting him fuck her mouth until she was drooling and gagging happily.

“Baby, fuck… Needed this all day.”

And he really had needed it. He left her in the morning without having had anything in return because he didn’t have time. She was always his priority. He always made sure she got off first, even if that meant he didn’t have time to also get off.

But now they had time. They could sleep in the next day and he could fuck her brains out, almost literally in that moment, with his cock filling her mouth and inching its way into her throat.

When she signaled she needed a breath he pulled out and brushed the hair from her face. She gasped and drew breaths into her lungs for a moment before opening her mouth up and lifting her head to find his cock again.

“Hold on, love… needy girl,” he chuckled as he moved off of her. He was ready to make love to her, feel her warm pussy, and make her come once more with him. Fill her with his come.

He preferred coming inside of her pussy lately. Harry wanted to get his girl pregnant. Wanted to knock her up and really have a claim on her. She was already his, but he dreamed of having her carrying his babies. A good handful of them. And when he brought it up to her a few months ago, she agreed she’d like that too. She wanted to give him as many babies as he wanted.

Harry laid on his back and pulled Y/n over him, “Want to see you fucking yourself on my cock and coming again.”

She loved doing this. When Harry would lie flat on the bed and she’d climb over him, his big cock reaching deep and spreading her apart, her knees down as she leaned back and put her hands over his thighs, sliding over him, giving him a good view of the way she liked to fuck herself on him. Then he’d thumb at her clit and she’d tip over the edge.

She positioned herself over him and lowered onto his dick, her hands on his pecs at first. Harry put his hands behind his head as he watched Y/n work herself down over him. Small, muted moans fell from her lips and Harry groaned at the way she felt around him.

When she’d taken him in and she was seated over him she hissed at how deep he was. It always ached so nicely, “Your tip is pushing into my womb. I can feel it. You’re going to get me pregnant, Harry,” she spoke as she leaned back, putting her palms over his well-muscled thighs and began rolling her hips, her labia parting and spread as his wide cock was stuffed into her.

Harry’s mouth dropped open at the sight and her words. She was filthy sometimes without even trying, “Fuck. You want my come deep inside your womb?” He spoke through gritted teeth, the way she was moving over him felt too good, “Gonna milk my cock of everything I have and get yourself pregnant, baby? Let’s see it. Let me see how you fuck my cock and make me come inside of you, greedy girl.”

She nodded and whined as she continued her work, slipping up and down his long prick, her arousal making a mess of him. Soon, she planted her feet flat onto the bed and began to really move over him, lifting upward and coming down with a wet smack each time.

Harry was panting and grunting, gently shifting his own hips upward out of instinct. He couldn’t help but to respond to her creamy pussy as she squeezed and moved over him.

“Oh god… Harry, please!” She gasped louder than she wanted. Her little plea was something he’d gotten used to during their year together. It meant she wanted to come but needed help.

So Harry swiftly moved his hands from behind his head and sat upward enough that he could reach to rub her clit and give it the kind of pressure she required.

“That’s it, baby. Take what you need. Use my cock, baby.” Harry’s words were tight and breathy as he spoke in between pants.

“I want your come so bad. Want to make you a daddy.”

Harry nearly burst at that moment but he groaned and closed his eyes as he sped up his fingers at her clit. She was nearly there. Just a few more minutes.

When her thighs began to shake and her moans grew louder and her words were incoherent curses and babbles of nonsense he knew she was feeling or orgasm bubble up and begin to spread.

Yes, fuck, yes! Come on baby,” he moaned as he watched her face contort as her jaw dropped and she threw her head back suddenly, a loud call of his name followed by unhindered moans as she came. Her pussy pulsed around him as she got herself off with his cock. Harry groaned and released into her, bucking his hips up to push himself into the hilt and to get as close to her deepest spots inside as possible making her tits softly bounce.

“Fuck, baby!” He growled lowly as his come filled her up, his throbbing dick being squeezed and fucked as he came.

When Harry opened his eyes she was lying over his chest, small puffs of breath coming out as she recovered. Harry rubbed his palms over her back and kissed her forehead, “Love you, sweet girl.”

♤♤♤♤

Now, one of the reasons for Harry going to his associate's home 8 hours away from where they lived was to also discuss the fate of William. Harry had told Y/n he could just cut him off. And he could. That decision was Harry’s. But cutting someone off and ex-communicating them from the family was more difficult than just killing them. There were a few reasons for that but in the end, Harry wanted to make his girl happy. So he needed some advice from his associate who happened to be well acquainted with William from work dealings.

Breakfast was served the in mansion’s large dining room with tall windows and gaudy curtains hung. Everyone was at the table. Harry and his girl, his underboss Brad, the associate George, and his wife Blanca.

And Y/n didn’t know the details of what was going on. Nor did she know the status of her father. Harry kept her in the dark from most of their dealings on purpose. So when she heard her father’s name mentioned her ears perked up and she looked at Harry, who she was sitting on at that moment. He insisted she sit in his lap, which was not out of the ordinary. Most of Harry’s work partners and friends had gotten used to seeing the girl in his lap almost all the time.

“So he’s been a problem lately?” George spoke.

“He’s been a problem for a long time. We’d like to have him cut off from the family but we don’t know if he’s involved in anything else. And since you work with him regularly I thought I’d see if you had heard of anything else he might have his hands in. Money owed, things like that.”

Brad spoke next, “I told the boss we should just make him go away for good but the girl here is William’s daughter.”

George nodded, “I see. That makes this a difficult thing to say then, because I don’t see any way to cut him off with how many people would be after him. If you push him out and send him away without the protection of the family, he’ll be killed either way. But not before probably spilling details about your organization. And mine. He’ll be tortured and he’ll talk. It could compromise a lot of our operations.”

Y/n stayed quiet as she listened to the men talk about her father. She hadn’t realized this was a possibility. That William would need to be killed. It was one thing to have him cut off and she’d never hear from or see him again. But to know that he might be killed? Dead?

“Yes. That is my concern. I’d like a list of all of the relationships and affairs he’s got going on with your organization and then we’ll put something together on our end and make a decision about this,” he squeezed Y/n’s hip to let her know he was still keeping her wishes in mind.

On the road back home, Y/n finally voiced her concern about her father, “So we can’t cut him off or send him away, because that risks everything. But if he stays on in the organization… is there any other option?”

Harry wound their fingers together and pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, “You mean other than killing him? Sure. But I don’t think you’ll like any of the other options.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, he could just continue working and making money for us. I could keep him away from you but he will be around. Another thing that could work would be to frame him and send him to prison for good. He’d be protected in prison but you’d never have to see him again.”

“But won’t he talk to the police? Tell them he’d been set up?”

“Not if I make it look like a sacrifice of honor. Tell him I’ll raise his title and thus his respect in the organization. He won’t roll on us if he knows he’ll be doing it for the family and that he’ll be earning the respect of everyone.”

“But what would you frame him for? What would put him away in prison forever?”

“Murder.”

♤♤♤♤

Y/n understood that sometimes things in the organization could be violent. People died, went to jail, wound up in hospitals… But to think about her father being framed for a murder he didn’t commit? Could she come to terms with that? Who would have to die? Who would kill the person? She asked all these questions but, as usual, Harry told her not to worry.

But she was worried. And not just about William. She’d gotten news of something else that morning that shocked her. It shouldn’t have but it did. Unfortunately, the lingering questions she had about her father overshadowed everything else that was on her mind.

She hated William. That was true. But she didn’t want him dead. She also didn’t want Harry to get into trouble for anything. And when it came down to it, when she thought about all the outcomes, the worst were always the ones that had Harry in prison and away from her or dead. She actually preferred her dad dead than to have Harry go to prison.

Even though it had been weeks since Harry had met with George, she still hadn’t gotten word about what was going to become of William and she felt anxious. She hated not knowing. She trusted Harry but she needed to know what the plan was. She wanted Harry to tell her everything. It was for a reason that he kept her in the dark about things, but this was personal for her. This specific thing was about her father.

When Harry came home that evening their routine looked much like it normally did. Y/n climbed into his lap and kissed him and he held her and decompressed for a bit before he was ready to finally eat. She heated his food and poured him a glass of wine and they sat together at the dining table and she told him about her day.

But underneath what felt very normal to Harry, Y/n was getting up the nerve to insist he tell her the plan regarding William.

When she put his plate into the dishwasher and refilled her own glass of wine she joined him on the couch and curled into his side and sighed.

Looking up at him she realized there was nothing to worry about. Harry had never been mean to her or made her feel bad for asking questions. He’d either tell her or he wouldn’t. She only hoped she was able to argue her point and make him understand that this was something she deserved to know.

“What’s going on with William? Have you decided anything?”

Harry continued softly rubbing his hand over her hip and her side as he spoke, “I don’t want you to worry about it, love. Okay? Everything is going to be taken care of.”

She knew he’d answer that way. But she was prepared.

“I trust you, Harry. I really do. But this is my father. And this is personal to me. And you tell me not to worry but I do and I can’t help but to worry.”

Harry turned to look at his girl and nodded in thought. He knew it was personal to her. And normally when he told her not to worry about something she’d drop it. But the fact that she was doubling down on this made him pause. He still didn’t want her to know. He wanted to protect her from the awful truth.

“My sweet girl. I know this is personal. But what good will it do for you to know how we’ll go about this? You know our options here and none of them are very nice. I don’t want you to be upset thinking about it and dwelling on it.”

Y/n turned herself to face Harry squarely, “I’m already dwelling on it. I need to know. I deserve to know. I wouldn’t ask you and insist on something that doesn’t somehow involve me. But this does. I need to know.”

Harry smiled and took a deep breath, bringing his hands up to her face, and gently drew her in for a small kiss before he sat back into the couch and cleared his throat, “One of George’s men was involved in something that got him brutally killed. Right now we’ve made it look like William was the murderer. It’s only a matter of time before the police investigate him and find him guilty. And as you may know, your father has been arrested for battery and assault multiple times in the past and so a murder charge wouldn’t surprise anyone looking to find the perpetrator. He will go to prison for a very long time because the murder was quite savage. If the police think William did that, they won’t want him released.”

Y/n nodded and bit her lip before speaking up, “And like you said at George’s, he’ll think he’s doing a favor to the family? He won’t talk?”

“Exactly. We’ll make sure of it. We’ll supply him with plenty of my money on his account for commissary, and bartering. And he’ll have a nice cell by himself. He’ll be treated well but we’ll never have to worry about him again.”

She let out a breath of relief. It was ideal if it worked, “And you’re sure this will work out?”

Harry let out a small laugh and pulled at her, bringing her to his lap, his favorite way of sitting with her, “Baby, it’ll work. If you don’t think we have a cop on our payroll to make sure of it then you must not realize the kind of power I have.”

Y/n smiled and put her arms over his shoulders, “I know how powerful you are. And I am so happy I’m here with you,” she brought her arms down and took Harry’s hands in hers, moving his palms to cover her low tummy, “So happy for everything that’s to come.”

Harry stitched his brows together as he took in her words and her gesture, looking from where she placed his hands to her face, “Are you… is this?”

She nodded quickly, “We’re gonna have a baby.”

He was stunned into silence. He hadn’t expected it. Sure they’d been a little loose with him coming in her during her fertile days, and he knew they were both in their prime and fully fertile so it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. This was what they had wanted.

“You… when did you find out?” Harry cupped her tummy with more intention now, his eyes wide.

“This morning.”

He let out a small breath and grinned from ear to ear, his dimples carving into his cheeks, and pushed Y/n off of his lap and down to the couch as he lifted her dress upward so he could look at her tummy, placing small kisses all around her skin and over her belly button. Y/n squeaked in laughter at the way his curls brushed her soft flesh as he drew his lips over her tummy slowly. She put her hands into his hair and sighed, “I love you, Harry.”

Harry nodded and continued dragging his mouth downward until he lowered her panties and looked up at her from between her legs, “I love you too, baby. Now let’s celebrate.”

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[supernovafics]

𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐒𝐓

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 6.3k words

summary: in which the summer of ‘84 was both the best and worst time of your life

warnings: explicit language, underaged drinking, angst, fluff, implied smut, cheating

author’s note: second part to cardigan (but could be read out of order). i fully did not expect this to end up this long but hope y’all enjoy<33 (full “folklore” album series masterlist here!)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“but i can see us lost in the memory. august slipped away into a moment in time.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

July 19, 1984

Ten. 

That was how many days in a row you and Steve had seen each other. 

From the first time you two talked to one another outside of Ralph’s Sandwich Shop, his first ever words to you being, “Potato chips on a sandwich? That’s kinda weird,” and the conversation that proceeded from that somehow led you to watching a movie in the theater room at his house that same night. To now this— him spending the majority of his afternoon with you at the library, where you had been working for the past year and a half. 

You wondered how long the two of you would keep the streak alive. 

If it was anyone else you probably would have gotten sick of seeing them that many days in a row, but with Steve you weren’t. In fact, you looked forward to whenever you got to see him again. And maybe that feeling, the anticipation toward seeing this guy who you probably shouldn’t even be seeing this often anyway, should’ve worried you. 

Whenever you thought about how easily the two of you were able to go from absolutely nothing to this— an unlikely friendship that somehow felt like you’d known each other so much longer than barely two weeks— it startled you. 

Before, you had simply known of him; of course, you had, he was practically royalty at your high school. “King Steve,” a charmer, a perpetual flirter, somehow dating straight-A student Nancy Wheeler. It was the combination of those things that told you during that first conversation you had with him that you should stay away from him, but for some reason, you still said yes. 

Maybe it was because the home theater he had been bragging about sounded way too tempting not to take up the offer. Or maybe it was because you liked being an idiot sometimes. 

If it was the latter that was true then you still were an idiot because there you were ten days later still hanging out with him and not regretting it one bit. 

“I need to bring you better games here,” Steve said. He was standing across from you on the other side of the counter. 

“What’s wrong with Uno? Is it because you keep losing?” You jokingly asked, a small smile on your face as you started shuffling the deck. “Also, I’m technically working right now, so I shouldn’t even be playing any games with you.”

“There’s no one here except you and me,” He said and then gestured to the quietness that surrounded you both. “Actually, I think the only other person that’s been in here all day was that old lady who just wanted directions to the park.”

You loved your job at the library and you really didn’t mind how it was rarely busy, especially during the summer, because it meant that you could spend most of your shifts reading instead of helping someone find what they needed or reshelving books. Now the majority of your non-busy moments during your shift were spent with Steve. 

“What are you doing tonight?” He asked as you began dealing the cards, because what else was there to do but play another round of Uno? 

“My guess is hanging out with you,” You answered. “What’s happening?” 

“Party,” He stated simply, and you realized that probably should’ve been your first guess. “Need us to be beer pong partners again.” 

It had been last week, two days after you and Steve unspokenly decided that hanging out with one another would become a common occurrence, when he dragged you to a party; some too big thing at Matthew Lancaster’s lake house. 

A beer pong table was set up, which was not all surprising for a high school party, and you suggested that you and Steve play and be on a team with one another. You were insanely good, practically making every shot, and Steve wasn’t too bad at playing either, which made your team pretty unstoppable. It was a random hidden talent of yours that you would only show off every once in a blue moon because you deliberately didn’t frequent parties. 

“I’ve retired for the time being,” You told him. “I can’t show off my beer pong skills too often or it won’t be a cool talent anymore.”

He laughed a bit at that but still nodded. “Okay, what do you wanna do tonight instead?” 

“Don’t let me stop you from going to the party.”

Steve shrugged and shook his head. “Probably wouldn’t be fun without you, anyway.”

His words confused you as much as they made you feel so happy. And you quickly pushed that “happy” feeling away because you knew just how fast it could lead to feeling other things; things that would make you look like the worst person in the world.

Once again, you wondered why you were doing this. Why were you allowing yourself to get close to him when you’d probably just look like an idiot in the end? And why had he wanted to talk to you in the first place? Those fleeting questions would hit you a lot over the past few days, but you’d quickly push them away because you didn’t want to think too hard about everything. However, this time you couldn’t force them away. 

“Why?” You asked, breaking eye contact with him for the first time probably that entire afternoon. “Why… are we friends right now?”

If he was surprised or confused by the randomness of your question, he didn’t show it. 

“I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you that day, so I did it,” He made the answer sound so simple. “I didn’t really expect it to turn into this friendship, but it’s nice finally having something that actually feels so easy.”

What about you and Nancy wasn’t easy? 

You wanted to ask that but refrained from doing so. He probably didn’t mean her when he said that. You knew that the only reason why he was with you instead of her, and had been for the past ten days, was because she was out of town for the summer. That thought hurt a bit, knowing that you were essentially some sort of “consolation prize,” but it kept you from looking too much into things. You took everything Steve said that could be read as flirtatious with a grain of salt and forced yourself to see it as solely platonic. 

And you’d rather it all be completely platonic anyway because you really liked the friendship you’d developed with him. 

“You’re right. This does feel easy,” You ultimately responded, smiling at him because now that the unspoken lines were finally verbally drawn— the two of you were friends; nothing more, nothing less— you felt the tiniest bit better about it all. “But, I’m glad it does. I’m happy we’re friends.”

Steve smiled back at you. “Me too.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“you back beneath the sun. wishin’ i could write my name on it.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

July 28, 1984

The only reason why you allowed Steve to bring you to this party was because you were a sucker for a bonfire. 

And the only reason why you were currently drunk off your ass was because you couldn’t say no to a game of hide and seek, especially a drinking version of the childish game, which Steve had suggested and you quickly agreed to. 

There was something about this game that made you realize that maybe your entire friendship was a game; a game of who would break first. But, that was something to think about at a different time. Or actually not at all, because thinking further about that would probably only complicate things. 

It was easy to pretend that there was nothing more to you and him when you both were sober. It was also so much easier to lie to yourself that you didn’t feel anything romantic toward him and that you didn’t see that maybe he actually felt the same way too.

There was a constant back and forth happening in your mind, with you continuously telling yourself that being friends with Steve wasn’t a bad idea, even though maybe it was because it was slowly making you want something more. Sometimes it felt as if it made sense to like him; it felt obvious. The way you could talk to each other about anything and everything mixed with how constantly you two wanted to spend time together made you fall in so deep so fast. 

But, you couldn’t accept or think about any of that, and the reasons why were painfully obvious. 

However, with the alcohol currently clouding your brain, that felt like a slightly different story. 

“Sitting behind a tree? Not your best hiding spot.”

Hearing Steve’s voice right then should’ve made you feel at least the tiniest bit upset because it meant that you lost that round of hide and seek, but you drunkenly smiled up at him. 

“I wanted to be original and we’ve been playing for so long I feel like we’ve done everything else at this point. But, that was at least two minutes, though, right?”

“It was actually barely thirty seconds.”

“Oh, wow,” You said with a laugh as you extended a hand up toward him so that he could help you up. You wobbled a bit before getting your balance and then you grabbed the red solo cup in Steve’s free hand to drink the rest of what was left in it as your punishment for losing; the exact contents of the drink were unknown, but it tasted fruity. 

When you were done, you handed the cup back to him and then leaned back against the tree because it somehow felt nice and you weren’t bothered by the roughness of it touching the parts of your skin that the tank top you were wearing didn’t cover.

There were a ton of people at the infamous “Lover’s Lake” because of the party, but nobody had been paying attention to you and Steve running around like five-year-olds playing hide and seek and getting severely drunk in the process.  

The lopsided grin taking over Steve’s features let you know that he was just as inebriated as you were, maybe even more so because he’d been drinking a bit before you two started the game. 

“Maybe we should be done with hide and seek now.”

You gave him a nod. “That sounds like a good idea.” 

Things became quiet for a few moments with the two of you solely staring at each other in the darkness and ignoring the loud rowdiness of everyone else who was only a few feet away. Steve closed a bit of the distance between you both and leaned in close to you; his gaze flickered down to your lips for a hint of a second before going right back to your eyes.  

If this was any other moment, your mind would be running a million miles a minute, screaming at you to not allow the inevitable to happen. But, somehow, you were actually calm. 

“We can’t do that, friend,” You told him, making your voice sound as serious as possible, but you couldn’t help but smile a bit. 

“I know,” He responded but still shut the final space of distance between you both, bypassing your lips and kissing your cheek instead. “That’s okay, though, right?”

The reasonable side of you was obviously telling you to say “no,” but it was hard to make yourself care enough to listen to it. “I’ll allow it.”

The three words came out so quietly, but Steve heard you. He kissed your other cheek and then your forehead and then your nose before pulling away and smiling at you. 

Before he could say anything, you did the same to him; kissing both of his cheeks, his forehead, and his nose, and then pulling back to lean against the tree again. That time it was your eyes that glanced down at his lips before going back to his eyes. 

You were so close to doing it, and he almost begged you to, but then you were pushing off of the tree and asking him to turn around. 

“Piggyback ride to the car, please?”

“We can’t drive right now,” He said as he leaned down a bit so you could hop onto his back. 

You nodded even though he couldn’t see you. “I know, but I will die if I don’t sit down.”

The walk to your car should’ve taken less than a minute, but instead, it nearly took five because, of course, the two of you got a little lost and it took way too long to realize that the first car you had walked past was yours. 

“God, we’re acting like such idiots right now,” You said, laughing as Steve let you down so you could get into the car. 

He laughed too as he got in on the passenger side. “Yeah, definitely not our finest moment.”   

You sighed in contentment when you leaned back against the seat, immediately finding comfort in it, which definitely said a lot about how drunk and exhausted you were because you never usually found your car as super comfortable. 

You turned on your side to face Steve, and as if feeling your gaze on him, he turned to look at you as well. You silently admired each other. Sometimes it felt as if a thousand things were being said in the silences you two shared with one another, things that would probably always be left unsaid. 

“I really like you,” He whispered suddenly and you realized that maybe not everything silently said would be left unspoken. 

You let out a small breath before closing your eyes because it felt too hard to look at him right then. “I really like you too.”

“Please let me kiss you.”

It was difficult to describe exactly what his words managed to do to you, and you tried your hardest to disregard those feelings. 

“We can’t.” You shook your head, eyes still shut. “It’ll ruin everything.”

“What if that’s okay?” He said, voice still quiet. 

It could’ve been easy.

To finally do what you both had desperately wanted to do for weeks at this point, but had refused to admit. And doing it at this moment instead of any other time because, with the drunken states you both were in, none of this would be remembered. Which would also mean that it didn’t really happen, right? 

Your eyes finally opened and you looked at him. “Neither of us is gonna remember this conversation in the morning.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And if you did, you’d regret saying any of this,” You said, and your words were met with silence from him. You couldn’t tell if that meant that they were the truth, or instead, quite far from it. 

Even in your inebriated state, you were too scared to push him further and get an answer because you were unsure which response would be worse; “Yes, I’d regret it,” or “No, I wouldn’t regret it at all.”

Before he could potentially say a version of either of those responses, you began speaking again. “I’m really tired.” 

You then pulled your eyes away from him and looked straight ahead at the people that were still partying around the fire. A part of you wanted to join them, but the other part of you just wanted to fall asleep. 

“Me too,” Steve said and with how long he had been quiet, you were actually surprised to hear his voice right then.

Both of you fell asleep just like that for the time being, putting an end to a conversation that would not be talked about in the morning because just as you’d both assumed, it seemed as if it had been long forgotten.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“salt air, and the rust on your door. i never needed anything more. whispers of ‘are you sure?’ ‘never have i ever before.’”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

July 31, 1984

The sun had long ago set behind the trees, but you and Steve still had no plans to leave his pool anytime soon. 

You swam close to him, your hands finding his shoulders and then pushing down to dunk him under the water. A laugh fell from your lips as you immediately started swimming away, but Steve’s hand quickly found your waist and pulled you back toward him.

“What was that for?” He asked, one arm still wrapped around you, causing your back to be firmly pressed against his chest, while his other hand pushed back his wet hair. 

“For pushing me in the pool earlier,” You answered, only trying for a moment to wriggle out of his grasp but failing miserably so you stopped. 

“That was hours ago.”

“Revenge is best when you don’t see it coming,” You said, smiling widely. 

He laughed against your ear. “You’re evil.” 

You attempted to pull away again but he was still holding on to you, so instead you maneuvered so you were simply facing him instead. 

You were smiling up at him, and you assumed he’d match it with a smile of his own, but he didn’t. Instead, there was a certain look on his face that you couldn’t necessarily decipher. You almost asked him what was wrong, but he started speaking before you got the chance to.

“I remember the conversation we had in your car at the bonfire.”  

You could feel your heart start to race a bit, not expecting things to take that turn. “Oh… You do?”

He nodded his head. “Do you?”

“I remember the whole thing,” You told him, and that was entirely true. You’d spent the past few days constantly thinking about that moment and running through every single thing that was said. You had also tried your hardest to push the memory away because it seemed as if Steve didn’t remember it. 

“I don’t regret anything I said,” He told you and then a hand came up to cup your cheek. “I still really wanna kiss you.”

You were quiet for a moment, letting Steve’s words settle over you, before responding to him in a small voice. “Are you sure?”

Instead of verbally responding, he gave you the smallest of nods and closed the tiny bit of space between you both, dipping his head down and slotting his lips against yours. 

All you could think at that moment was finally.  

Finally, you were this close to one another.

Finally, you were kissing.

Finally, you were doing what you had wanted to do for so long.

The thing that both of you told each other and even convinced yourselves wasn’t going to happen, finally happened. And in a way, it sucked because neither of you felt bad about it, at least not bad enough to stop. 

Your legs wrapped around his waist beneath the water and your arms came up to wrap around his neck, one hand finding its way into the hair at the nape of his neck.

You weren’t in the deepest part of the pool anymore so Steve was able to stand, but both of you were still almost completely submerged in the water. He walked you both over to one of the sides of the pool, pressing you back against it and deepening the kiss. 

Nothing was said, and nothing needed to be said. In fact, you thought that if either of you said something, it would ruin the perfection that was that moment and harshly shove you both back to reality. A reality that told you that this was the farthest thing that should have been happening. 

For the time being, with Steve against you and his lips finding that particularly sensitive part of your neck, you were happy living in this fantasy world. It was a dream that you didn’t want to wake up from, and you convinced yourself that it wouldn’t hurt too bad when you did finally have to wake up from it. 

“We should…” You took a breath, biting back the moan that threatened to spill from your lips as Steve continued the assault on your neck. Your next word should’ve been “stop,” but stopping this was the absolute last thing you wanted to do. “We should go to your room.” 

He finally, and sadly, pulled away from your neck and pressed a quick kiss against your lips. “That sounds like a great idea.”

You detached yourselves from one another just enough to step out of the pool and into his house, wet bodies leaving drops of water across the floor that weren’t the slightest bit cared about. 

You couldn’t keep your hands off of each other.

After getting as close as you just had been, it was hard to go back to how it used to be; the friendliness and innocence that had surrounded the brief touches you two would usually share. Instead, your hand was intertwined with his as he led you up the stairs, and then his arms circled around you when you entered his room, cocooning you in the towel he’d grabbed from behind his door. 

It was you that kissed him that second time. 

You reached up to push his wet hair back and then leaned in, inwardly sighing in contentment. Both of his hands found your waist, causing the towel to fall and it was immediately long forgotten. 

When you pulled away you took the smallest step back and simply looked at him, his pretty face and soft brown eyes that were full of nothing but adoration for you. You tried your hardest to find something within you that resembled regret or made you want to stop this, but you couldn’t. And you knew exactly what that said about you, but it was also difficult to force yourself to care about that either. 

Steve eagerly brought you close to him again, which made you smile into the kiss he pulled you into. He slowly started leading you back toward his bed.

“Wait,” You said, detaching your lips from his and softly pushing him back a bit. “It would be really rude of me to lay on your bed with my bathing suit on.”

He slowly nodded and swallowed harshly as you removed your top first, letting that fall to the floor, and then going to your bottoms. “That’s very considerate of you.” 

You only smiled at him and his sudden nervousness, which managed to wash away any and all of your own shyness at that moment. 

His eyes met yours. “You’re so fucking pretty.” 

“You’re not too bad yourself,” You whispered, reaching out to grab his hands and pull him close to you again. You were about to kiss him again, but it was then that you noticed the time on the clock that was hanging on the wall behind him. “Shit, shit.”

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and a look of concern crossed his face. “What’s wrong?”

“The time,” You answered and then sighed as you started grabbing your bathing suit. “It’s 12:40, and if I’m not home by one, my mom will kill me and then you.” 

“Your mom loves me too much to kill me,” Steve responded, grabbing a t-shirt for you to slip on too. 

“Yeah, kinda weird how after only one meeting where you two barely even talked, she somehow likes you more than me now,” You said as you put on his shirt which kind of swallowed you whole but you loved it and already knew that you would never be giving it back to him.  

You looked up at him and your next words came out quietly. “I’m sorry I have to ruin this right now.” 

Steve shook his head at you. “It’s okay. Don’t be sorry.” Both of his hands found your hips again, squeezing softly. “We’ll pick up where we left off next time.” 

You couldn’t help but smile at that. “Next time?” 

“Mhm, next time,” He said, smiling back at you and nodding. “If you want there to be one?”

“I’d like that,”  You responded and pressed a quick kiss against his lips. 

Even as you headed back downstairs and Steve walked you to your car, kissing you for a few more minutes before you reluctantly drove away, your stomach had yet to fill with even a hint of regret or guilt. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“wanting was enough. for me, it was enough. to live for the hope of it all.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

August 12, 1984

The constant sound of something softly pinging against your window pulled your attention away from the book you were reading in your bed. 

There was only one person that could've been throwing something at your window, but still, you were the tiniest bit surprised when you opened your curtains and saw Steve standing on your front lawn. 

Even though seeing him was such a natural thing at this point, it made sense that you were at least a little surprised because no part of you felt secure with this “thing” you had going on with him, which was more than just a friendship but so much less than any type of actual relationship. You lived in the perpetual state that it would all abruptly end. And maybe that thought process came from you knowing that eventually, this would all have to come to an end; there weren’t that many days of summer left. 

But then there was that tiny slither of hope that maybe it all wouldn’t have to end. You kept that thought buried deep down inside of you, though. 

You lifted your window. “Throwing rocks at my window? That’s very rom-com of you.”

“Sometimes I like to be cheesy,” Steve said, smiling at you. 

It was a sweet, adoring smile that you shouldn’t have been on the receiving end of; it was a smile that didn’t belong to you. It was so easy to see that, but it was nearly impossible to actually do something about it and let him go.

“Can I come up?” He asked. “I promise I’ll be quiet and your mom won’t hear me.” 

“She’s gone for the weekend, actually,” You told him, smiling a bit. “I’ll be down in a second.”

When you opened the front door, he was quick to greet you with a kiss before pulling you in for a hug. 

After that first kiss in his pool, there was an almost immediate shift that happened. An easy shift where you’d gone from constantly telling yourselves that everything was solely platonic to finally allowing yourselves to do every little thing that deep down you both had always wanted to do. With him now always greeting you with soft kisses, and you secretly spending so many nights in his bed because his parents were never home and most of the time it was easy to make up some sort of excuse to your mom. 

Something else shifted too, though. It was a shift that neither of you spoke about because you never really wanted to acknowledge what exactly your friendship had transformed into and what it really meant. Not talking about any of it was a decision that you were unsure if it was completely yours or his because it was all so unspoken. 

When you thought about it hard enough though, you could see that the decision was mutual, because on both sides it was easier to pretend that none of the outside things existed. In that fairytale, he didn’t have a girlfriend, he didn’t belong to anyone else. You were his and he was solely yours. 

“Tell me about this thing that your parents forced you to go to tonight,” You said as Steve kicked off his shoes by the front door and the two of you started heading up the stairs. One of his hands was intertwined with yours and there was barely an inch of space between you both. It had become really hard not to be close to one another.

“It was this big event for my dad’s job, and they always drag me to stuff like that as a way to prove to his coworkers that they’re ‘good parents.’ It was very boring,” Steve responded with a small sigh and then gave your hand a light squeeze. “It would’ve been much less painful if you came.”

He sat down on the foot of your bed when the two of you walked into your room, and the oversized t-shirt you had on as your pajamas rode up a lot as you settled yourself in his lap, knees on either side of his thighs and hands resting on his shoulders. It was an un-innocent position that, for the time being, felt quite the opposite. 

“Going to something like that is something a girlfriend would do, not…” That was the first time you’d even minorly referred to Nancy, and it felt both weird and wrong. It woke you up for a second and made you falter a bit in your next words, breaking Steve’s gaze. “Not a… friend.” 

One of his hands found the side of your thigh, rubbing the skin softly and trying to pull you back into this moment with him. You could feel him reading you so easily and knowing where your mind was going, and he didn’t want you to go there, and neither did you. 

You didn’t want this– you and him, him and you– to break just yet.

“Um, anyway, you didn’t tell me that it would be so formal,” You said, gesturing with your head to the suit he was wearing. 

Your eyes met his again and you could see the relief wash over his face because you didn’t bring up the unspoken topic. Things shifted right back to normal. Well, the normal that you two created for yourselves. 

“I feel kinda ridiculous, and I hate this bow tie,” He responded, hand continuing to rub your thigh. “I should’ve probably changed before I came here but I just really wanted to see you.”

You let his words further push away any thoughts of Nancy that lingered in your mind, thoughts that finally told you that what you were doing with him was wrong.

“Stop. You look good,” You told him, your fingers playing with the bow tie for a brief moment. “Like, really good.” 

“Okay, now I’m really glad that I didn’t change, then.” He smiled before leaning in to kiss you. 

You only deepened the kiss in response and focused on nothing but the feeling of his mouth on yours and his hands beginning to snake underneath your shirt. 

He pulled back, maneuvering things so you were sitting at the foot of the bed and he was standing. The black suit jacket he had on was the first thing to fall on the floor. You slipped your t-shirt over your head and tossed it to the side before helping him unbutton the long sleeve white shirt he had on. 

His hands found your bare waist and squeezed softly. “I’m so fucking happy I’m here right now.”

“Me too,” You responded and then sighed in contentment, eyes slipping shut for a brief moment, when you felt his thumb graze over your already hard nipple. 

Sometimes, usually in moments like these, it felt as if it was your sole purpose to be with him; canceling your plans just in case he’d call or show up, and meeting solely at his place, or yours, or the library.

How deeply intertwined you felt with him let you know exactly how much it would hurt when this all came to its eventual end. But then you were hit with the thought that maybe you would deserve it because you put yourself in this situation. 

Steve’s hand came up to gently stroke your cheek and pull you out of your thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”

Your gaze met his as you shook your head. “Nothing important.”

But, maybe it was the most important thing. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“i remember thinkin' i had you.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

August 23, 1984

You expected to see him that night. 

So maybe him unexpectedly showing up to the library– which was now busy with a bunch of kids scrambling to do their summer reading assignments– was what should have told you that everything was about to go to shit. 

“Hey,” You said to him and placed the book in your hand in its rightful place on the shelf and then did the same thing with the other one you were holding. “I didn’t think I’d see you until tonight.” 

Steve was quiet for a few moments too long, which made you look at him, and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion when you saw the look on his face. It was hard to exactly decipher his expression because it looked as if he was experiencing a thousand different emotions at once. 

“What’s wrong?” You asked, voice quiet. 

“I got a call from Nancy,” He told you, and you nearly flinched at hearing him saying her name to you for the first time ever. “She said she’s coming back tonight.” 

“Oh…” Was the first thing that fell from your lips. It was the word that perfectly encompassed your initial shock at that moment. “That’s, um– That’s really, uh…” You almost said “great,” because if the circumstances were different and if things were actually normal between you two, it probably would’ve been great that his girlfriend was coming back after being gone for almost two months. But, things were far from normal and the circumstances weren’t different at all, so you were at a loss for words.  

Finally, after what felt like hours of silence, but what was really probably only seconds, you said something. “I really don’t know what to say to that, honestly.” 

“I’m sorry,” He said softly and pulled his eyes away from you. He looked down and ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I guess we, uh, both know what that means.” 

“Say it, Steve.” You muttered. You had to hear him say the words in order for it all to be real for you. You couldn’t take all of the unspoken, reading-between-the-lines bullshit. 

He was quiet for an unbearable amount of time before he finally spoke. “We can’t see each other anymore.” 

From the second he kissed you in his pool nearly a month ago, you knew that those words would ultimately come. Each happy day that passed with you tangled up in his bedsheets or cuddled up on his couch laughing about nothing was leading to this moment. 

It had all been so inevitable, but it still hurt harder than you had expected it to. You quickly decided to pretend as if it didn’t, though. 

You nodded at him. “Okay. Got it.” 

“I’m sorry. This shouldn’t– I didn’t–”

“Don’t,” You quickly shook your head, not at all wanting to hear whatever pitying thing he would say to you at that moment. “Please don’t.” 

You were suddenly glad that you were at work right then because you could distract yourself from thoughts of him and everything that had just ended with the current busyness of the library. You looked away from Steve and noticed a little girl struggling to grab a book that was high on a shelf.

“It’s really chaotic here right now, and I have to actually do work for the first time probably all summer, so yeah…” You forced a small smile and then walked away from him, ignoring the words he said to you that you barely heard and couldn’t make out. 

Over the next two final hours of your shift, you’d silently accepted that that brief conversation would be the last time you talked to Steve Harrington. Although there were a thousand more things that probably could’ve been said, it was okay. That ending was okay. Or at least in the long run, it would be. 

So it slightly startled you when you saw him in the parking lot, leaning against the side of his car. When he noticed you, he waved. 

“Have you been here this whole time?” You asked, walking toward him, but leaving a wide space of distance between you two. 

“Maybe, yeah.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t know…”

For the first time probably ever, he confused you. 

“I just— I wish things could be different,” He ultimately said, and hearing those words simultaneously made you feel happy while also making you feel so fucking upset. 

“Things can be different,” You told him as you stepped toward him, the tiniest glimmer of hope inadvertently beginning to swirl in your stomach. “We could be together.”

Your hands found his, slowly intertwining them. His gaze met yours and you let the silent conversation play out. Your eyes pleading with him to not let go of what you two had, and him looking at you so softly while also battling whatever else was going on in his mind. After a few moments, he gave your hands a quick squeeze before he let go of them. 

“I love Nancy.”

Not you. Those were the words he didn’t say, but you could read between those lines a little too easily. 

“I love you” was the one thing you hadn’t said to one another, but you thought that you could feel how much he loved you through each soft touch, every longing look, every plea for you to stay in his bed for just a minute longer; one minute that always turned into at least five. 

Apparently, you were wrong, though. 

And now you knew for certain that you were wrong about every single thing that happened that summer. 

Because you knew that you felt that way toward him. You loved him. 

But he didn’t love you. He didn’t want to be with you. 

He loved her. 

His girlfriend— the only girl he was supposed to love. 

You let the feeling of regret and guilt toward everything that happened this summer crash over you like a tsunami. 

“I should’ve never done this,” You said, whispering that more to yourself, than to him. 

“What?” He asked, unsure of what you’d just said.

“You love her.” You said as you moved away from him. “Go be with her.”

“I’m really sorry,” You heard him say as you walked toward your car. 

You didn’t say anything in response to that. Mainly because there was nothing to say, but also because you refused to talk to him any longer. And quite frankly, you never wanted to talk to him again. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“so much for summer love and saying ‘us.’ ‘cause you weren't mine to lose.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

let me know ur thoughts<333

(read “betty” here!)

[hard-core-super-star]

you can see it with the lights out [K.Bishop]

pairing: kate bishop x reader

summary: enduring a storm and a subsequent power outage with kate bishop by your side might not be the worst thing in the world.

warnings: none, just tooth-rotting fluff; storm + power outage = kate bishop being an adorable dork; very light mentions of anxiety and small insecurities

wordcount: 1.5k

a/n: i had so many other things to write but i really wanted to do some good old-fashioned fluff. i'm always so tempted to turn my kate fics into angst or hurt/comfort or smut so this was a nice change of pace. although you could argue this isn't just fluff but shhh. i just think golden retriever gf kate is the best kate <3 [and i would 100% cry if someone did something cute and dorky like this for me]

* * * * * * *

Storms and power outages have become synonymous with life in New York for you. Any time the sky fills with those dark clouds, you know to go stock up on candles and blankets since the power will most likely go out in your apartment. 

You’re not sure if it’s a safety precaution or if the power lines around your building always end up getting damaged, you just know the routine you’ve come to adopt over the years. 

A routine that’s never included Kate Bishop until now.

You’ve been dating the brunette archer for a few months and she’s somehow become the one constant in your life that you didn’t know you needed but have grown to adore.

Whether it’s randomly showing up at your apartment with a bag of takeout or staying on the phone with you until you fall asleep, Kate always does her best to be there for you and provide the support she knows you’re still too shy to ask for.

She thinks it’s cute that you still get tongue-tied around her despite how much of a dork she truly is when she’s with you. You, on the other hand, think she’s a jerk for pulling that damn smirk onto her face and making you flustered every chance she gets.

So maybe you’re a little head over heels in love with Kate and maybe she’s a little too proud of herself for that, despite the fact that neither of you have spoken your true feelings out loud yet, but the two of you make a perfect pair. A pair that’s only rivaled by power outages and your apartment building.

There had been a heavy rain warning for the past few days but it wasn’t until this morning that the sky filled up with borderline black clouds. Clouds that told you your power wouldn’t be on for much longer. 

You had accepted your fate, gone on a brisk walk to the nearest grocery store, and shot your girlfriend an apologetic text about having to postpone your picnic date. The brunette had left you on seen but you didn’t think anything of it since Kate’s attention span can sometimes be shorter than Lucky’s, which is saying something.

Most of the day flies by in a blur of reading and watching your comfort show while listening to the heavy rain falling against your windows. It’s not until you hear a knock on your front door that your normal routine is interrupted.

“Kate?” Your eyes widen as you open the door and come face to face with your rain-soaked girlfriend. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I hated that we had to cancel our date so I decided to bring the date to you!” She proudly holds up a takeout bag not-so-carefully stuffed inside a light brown picnic basket. “I wanted to cook something but you can imagine how well that went.”

There’s something about the way she’s looking at you with that sparkle in her eyes and a huge smile on her face that makes you tear up a little. There’s nothing incredibly extravagant about her actions but the feelings behind every one of her choices makes your heart flutter in your chest in a way you’ve never felt before.

Kate doesn’t need any words to tell you how much she truly adores you. And it’s something you never thought you would find, much less with someone like her.

“Hey, what’s wrong, babe?” She asks, her head slightly tilted to the side.

You can’t form a single sound but your girlfriend doesn’t need your help to know what to do. She steps forward in an instant, gently dropping the picnic basket on the ground before pulling you into her embrace and kicking the door closed behind her.

The fabric of her soft purple hoodie is completely soaked but you don’t mind one bit. You just wrap your arms around her waist and let the feeling of her body against yours drown out everything else.

Including the tiny voice in the back of your mind that reminds you your apartment is a complete mess that’s probably a few minutes away from being submerged in total darkness.

Kate might be a New Yorker through and through but she’s had a different life than you. One that’s been filled with the nicest things money can buy. Such as an apartment that can actually withstand a storm.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, unable to keep your thoughts to yourself while your head rests against her shoulder.

“Why are you apologizing?”

You shrug but Kate doesn’t accept silence as an answer. She doesn’t rush you, though, she just trails her fingers up and down your arm in an attempt to reassure you that she’s with you.

It’s unusual for her to actually be patient for once yet she puts all her focus on waiting for you to tell her about all the worries she knows linger in the depths of your mind. She’s gotten incredibly good at reading your nonverbal cues by now.

“I don’t know,” you finally say. “I just feel like you…deserve more than this.”

She can’t back a quiet chuckle, one that comforts you in ways you can’t describe. “More than a cozy night in with my gorgeous girlfriend?”

“You know what I mean,” you whisper, leaning back a little so you can look at her again.

“Mmm, nope. I really don’t.”

She doesn’t give you a chance to argue back even though she can practically hear the words gathering on your lips. Instead, she leans in to kiss you and successfully distracts your mind from all the small insecurities that linger inside.

The lights go out right when she pulls away from your lips.

The sound of your groan is swallowed up by Kate’s laugh. The excitement you hear is more than enough to change your attitude about the current situation even if you’re a little confused about her reaction.

“What’s got you so giddy?” You question the brunette.

She doesn’t answer you immediately but you can see the telltale signs of her coming up with a, probably ridiculous, idea. Her hands leave your body as she picks up the picnic basket once again, that smirk you’ve come to love adorning her face. “Can I interest you in a romantic candlelit dinner?”

You smile despite yourself. “Only if you promise to wash the dishes afterwards.”

“Way to ruin the mood, babe.”

All you can do is laugh while she pulls you toward the kitchen, both of you stumbling around like idiots due to the darkness that consumes the apartment.

It’s not until a few hours later when the two of you are cuddled up underneath your fluffiest blankets that she gathers the courage to ask you about your earlier reaction.

Your head rests comfortably on her chest, her fingers drawing random patterns on your side, as the question leaves her lips. “Baby? What got you so emotional when you saw me at the door? Did I do something?”

Her concern serves to soothe you and make you nervous at the same time. You debate coming up with a stupid response instead of telling her the truth and laying your feelings on the line. Ultimately, you decide to take the jump, somehow knowing Kate will be right there to catch you.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Katie,” you respond, loving the way she pulls you closer once the nickname leaves your lips. “You just always know what to do. How to make me feel better, how to make me feel…loved.”

You feel the way her breath catches at your words and you can already tell you’ll never grow tired of it. She’s silent for a long while but you don’t mind. Where there once was anxiety and uncertainty, now there’s only safety and love.

She shifts around after a few seconds, placing your head on the pillow instead of her chest before she turns onto her side so you’re face-to-face. The tiniest of slivers of moonlight shines through your bedroom window and offers you enough light to see the expression of pure love that covers the archer’s face.

There are no words but her eyes say it all. Even in the silence and with the lights out, you can see it.

And you’re sure there’s no better feeling than this…until she finally speaks the words out loud.

“I do love you, y/n. A lot. Like almost as much as my bow, or Lucky, or-”

You lean in to kiss her before she can keep rambling. You feel her smile against your lips as her arm goes around your waist again, pulling you impossibly closer to her warm body.

“I’m going to ignore the fact that you just said you love your dog and your bow more than me,” you tease her. “I love you too, Katie.”

A content sigh leaves her as you lean your head against her chest once again, her chin resting on top of your head while she holds you in her protective embrace. “I love you more though.”

You just smile in response, letting her have her way for now, and allow your eyes to slip shut. The storm and the blackout are the last things on your mind while you rest in your girlfriend's arms.

[inklore]

spellblind

premise: there’s a long list of reasons why peter should ignore the dark thoughts in his head, but none of those reasons gets him you.

pairing: dark!peter parker x bestfriend!reader

word count: 1.7k

warnings: eighteen+ content, noncon, this is dark as hell so please mind the tags babes, hypnotism, unprotected p in v, creampie, au since spider man don’t got hypno powers but also this is set after no way home, slight obsessed!peter, one sided love, oral sex, marking, mentions of captivity.

etc: this is my first time writing for mcu!peter and i made it dark and messed up, this is shocking to no one lmaosjsj.

kinktober 04 | kinktober masterlist

There’s a part of Peter that knows this is wrong—a section of his brain that is waving red flags and flashing lights telling him to stop, to not let anything go as far as where the dark recesses of his mind are tempting him to.

He’s Peter Parker. The friendly neighborhood spider-man, he should know better—does know better. Was taught right from wrong and always does the right thing. Always stays on that path of golden behavior even when it lands him with blood and bruises, or flat on the concrete.

He’s always playing the good guy; is the good guy, the best guy. This doesn’t make him a bad guy, the worst guy…he didn’t even mean for it to happen. This hadn’t been his intention when he had asked you over tonight.

A simple movie date with his best friend turning into something else entirely.

Something out of his control.

And it wasn’t really his fault. His powers were ever changing, new things being discovered, his body mutating and becoming more insect than man.

Simple interests becoming urges. Simple thoughts and kind acts finished with an ‘but what do I get in return, shouldn’t I be rewarded for saving lives?’ In those newly dark parts of his mind.

He had thought it was just exhaustion. Saving the city, getting his G.E.D and trying to make money to stay in a cheap apartment was easier envisioned than exercised.

He had thought these new dark feelings were nothing a drink at the bar a couple of blocks down, or hanging out with you—his only friend and neighbor—couldn’t fix.

But now he’s realizing that was furthest from the truth, as those dark thoughts have his knee bouncing, fingers tingling for all the wrong reasons; to reach out and touch parts of you he’s only dreamt about. Fantasized about late at night.

One minute you were looking into his eyes laughing at the rom com on his cheap tv, and the next you were still as a board, expression slack, unresponsive. Body compliant as Peter easily shook you to get you to come too.

It was as if you were hypnotized.

As if his thought—as the two of you held eye contact—dark and bitter had manifested itself into his eyes going dark, mind buzzing. Peter coming to to you in this state.

A state that sends him in a panic; until it doesn’t.

Until the dark thoughts win and he’s thinking perverse thoughts that make his cheeks burn hot and cock grow hard against his jeans. Thoughts he shouldn’t be having, shouldn’t be entertaining.

But he’s wanted you for so long.

Longed for you even longer; watching you through his peephole when he was too scared to say hi, cheesy jokes exchanged as the two of you got your mail, both elements soon forming into a tight friendship he doesn’t know what he would do without. He’s already lost so much.

There had been many times he could have confessed his feelings, professed his crush that quickly turned into something stronger—something aching and dreadful each time you didn’t see it. Didn’t get the hint. Ignored all the signs. Dated other people; guys who were no good and only hurt you.

Peter would never hurt you.

He’d treat you the way you deserved to be treated: like a damn goddess.

If only you’d give him a chance.

But maybe he was done waiting. Waiting for something that may never come. Maybe this was his only way of having you. Maybe this was a sign that he should at least know what it’s like to be with you, this way, any way.

Peter tries to make a con list in his head. A list of why he shouldn’t be thinking like this—why he shouldn’t do this.

He really tries to ignore those dark thoughts, fighting tooth and nail against his mind….but you look so pretty in that dress, the dip in the summer fabric showing just the right amount of cleavage.

And it’s like a moth to a flame because the next thing he knows his palm his cupping you. The pad of his thumb running over your nipple, his eyes flashing to yours to see if you react but there’s nothing. No signal or indication that lets him know you’re coherent.

It should stop him, but it does the opposite.

As he pulls down the top of your dress, your bra going with it. Putting your chest on full display to him. A hard swallow bobbing his throat as he stares, mouth watering. Jaw ticking in want, driving him to lean forward and wrap his lips around your nipple. To moan and suck and bite at the sensitive flesh, his eyes rolling in the back of his head as he kneads your other breast with his palm. Switching back and forth between the two.

Your skin feeling so soft and delicate against his tongue.

He leaves stray kisses and saliva covered bruises along them. Doesn’t care that you’ll come too later and see them. He wants you to see them, to wonder, to think that they could be from him.

The thought of you walking around carrying marks from him making his cock throb even more; to the point of pain.

That’s why he lays you down on the couch. That’s why he pulls your dress up, why he presses his nose to your underwear and inhales, runs his tongue against the outside of them. Hooks a finger in them and pulls them to the side to reveal your pussy.

A hungry noise hitting the back of his throat when he dives into you, letting his mouth and tongue eat you out with vigor. Memorizing the way you feel against him, the way you taste, the way he groans each time he swallows you down.

When he feels your entrance clench around the tip of his tongue, he has to move back from your body, has to make sure you’re still out of it.

Smirking with the knowledge that he can still make your body come like this. That the two of you can still be connected this way, even with you in this state. Your body still gives yourself over to him. Still opens for him when he pushes his fingers inside of you, your walls quivering around them.

He could get addicted to this. To having his mouth on your pussy, to finger fucking you hard as he runs his throbbing cock against the seam of his jeans, as he makes you come without you even stirring.

And as Peter sits up, as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, staring down at your body; open legs, thighs covered in your own wetness, underwear thrown to the side, dress pushed up and pulled down, your boobs still on display for him—how could he not fuck you?

He has to. Needs to.

Thinks he might go insane if he doesn’t. If he doesn’t live out his fantasies and finally know what you feel like. Finally fuck you instead of his fist.

So with hesitation still the farthest from his being, he makes quick work with unbutton his pants, pulling himself out and giving himself a few deft strokes before he lets the tip of his cock run through your lips. Mouth hung open at how beautiful the sound is.

A gasp torn from his lungs when he finally pushes inside of you, when your warmth finally engulfs him.

“Oh my god,” you’re so tight, so warm, so wet. He can barely stand it. Can barely catch his breath as he presses his face into your neck, trying to breathe. Trying to not come inside of you so soon. How can something feel this good?

How can something look this beautiful with his cock inside of it and it be wrong?

It can’t. It just can’t.

With his fingers digging into the couch cushion, breaths heavy and groans tumbling from them; he starts to move. Can’t restraint himself from setting a hard rhythm of his hips slapping the insides of your thighs as he fucks you. Your tits bouncing against his chest, body perfect and pliant against him.

“You feel so good, oh my–“ Peter whimpers. Presses his mouth to yours, finally kissing you after all these years. Finally pushing his tongue inside of your mouth, moaning against it, taking another part of you. Making it his. Marking you with bites left on your lower lip, and sucks on the side of your neck.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s chanting. As if you can hear him, as if you’ll ever know he’s fucking you. Losing complete control inside of you, your walls gripping him so deliciously he wants to scream. Wants to fill every one of your holes. To not let you leave his apartment until you’re dripping his come from all of them; until you’re stretched and raw from him going so many rounds with your comatose body. “Forgive me.” He kisses your lips, runs his tongue along yours, “I love you, I need it–couldn’t control it. It’s,” he swallows, “it’s too good.”

He wants to hold off longer. To keep fucking you until his cock is raw, but he’s coming before he knows it.

A strangled sob against your cheek as he fills you up. As he continues slow languid thrusts even after he’s spent, the sensitivity only adding to the darkness of the weight of what he just did. The squelch of his come and your wetness louder than his heavy breaths.

Once his breath finally goes back to normal, once his thrusts stop, he pushes himself up to look down at you; to see his come leaking from your pussy and staining his couch. Your chest and neck marred by him, lip having the smallest of cuts on it from how hard he bit you in his lust fueled fury.

You look just as beautiful as ever, if not more now that there’s remnants of him inside and outside of you.

He got what he needed. Finally fucked his best friend, finally showed you how much he loves you.

But…his cock is still hard, and you’re still unresponsive.

There’s no reason why he shouldn’t get his fill of you. You have two other holes that need his attention.

Maybe he’ll keep you like this. That way you can be his forever.

[dravenscroft]

So I make a loooot of shitposts and jokes (mainly because my actual career is writing dark and serious novels and therefore I come to Tumblr to get away from that) but I FINALLY wanted to write a post that sums up my thoughts regarding the Hickey/Tozer dynamic because it fascinates me so much.

I'm putting it under a read more because I know I'm going to ramble.

Okay so first of all, as much as I may like to make jokes about the sex being so good it drove a guy to mutiny, I don't actually believe there was any sexual intimacy between Hickey and Tozer at all. This is mostly because I think post Carnival NOBODY was getting laid, everyone was far too sick and weak and tired for that - do I think in different circumstances it could have happened between them? Possibly, yeah. I definitely see the dynamic as romantic, but in a weird, unspoken, 'whatever the hell they have going on is also way more complicated than that' way.

The main thoughts I have about how and why Tozer ends up locked into in the Worst Situationship Of All Time are mainly due to three factors:

Heather's death and the breakdown of command.

The obvious Oh Shit moment of watching the Tuunbaq devour Collins' soul.

Physical touch.

The first one is the primer, as it were. It sets Tozer up as angry, desperate, and willing to mutiny. It's already become clear by Carnival that command is breaking down, they don't know what to do, and what a soldier needs more than anything is a CLEAR, DECISIVE CHAIN OF COMMAND. Without that, Tozer - who already has some Opinions about the way the marines are being put at additional risk (unionise, king) - has no one to keep him on a leash, for want of a better word. He's a dog trained to kill that suddenly doesn't have a master. He cannot be in command himself. He needs someone above him; he's not a leader.

This builds and builds, but then Heather's death - the loss of any vestige of something that would keep him loyal, since evidently Heather's care would continue under ordinary command - at the hands, essentially, of the very command he's started to doubt...well, that's it. Gun primed.

The discovery of Fairholme's group shatters any remaining hope he may have had, Crozier's reluctance to tell the men only further compounding the 'command is failing' mentality Tozer already has in spades. And there you go - the trigger is pulled.

BANG. Mutiny.

The second major factor comes after he's thrown in his lot with Hickey in a way he can't go back on. He sees Collins' soul sucked from his body by Tuunbaq before his very eyes. Suddenly, everything he thought he knew has been tipped on its head and an existential crisis he definitely didn't expect or need is thrust upon him, but now any decision he might have made to stay with Crozier and co based on this revelation is no longer open to him. The gun is still smoking, there's no way of putting the musket ball back, and now Hickey is his only option.

But maybe that isn't so bad? Because Hickey is providing something command didn't. He seems in control. He seems to know what he's about, what he's doing, and what to do next. He gives clear concise orders. He's taken up the leash command dropped, and Tozer has a master again. He feels like a marine again, like some of his identity has returned to him in a weird, perverse way (and we know Tozer is incredibly proud of being a Royal Marine from his earlier conversations)(not to mention Crozier's remark to Fitzjames about not asking the men to leave bits of themselves behind straight away when leaving the ships; Tozer has already lost bits of himself, when Heather died, and he lost faith in command).

Tozer is NOT willing to do a second mutiny because that would put HIM in charge, stripping him of that identity all over again, and he cannot handle that.

And finally, physical touch - physical touch is one of the things that keeps him chained to Hickey (quite literally by the end). It's perhaps not nearly as much of a factor as the other two, or perhaps an enormous factor, but definitely there. Throughout the earlier episodes we see that Tozer is a pretty tactile guy. Playfully wrestling at the birthday party. Caring for Heather, squeezing his hand to try and get signs of life. This is a man who isn't afraid to touch other men. When Hickey holds his face in That scene, he doesn't appear surprised - a little spooked by the way he leans in suddenly, and Hickey's intensity, but not shocked. Not like it's the first time Hickey has ever touched him. I generally imagine there's a lot of physical intimacy Hickey offers him during the scenes we don't see, because Hickey IS good at recognising things in people most of the time, and I can see him honing in on that need for touch immediately.

I imagine him touching him a lot, sleeping unusually close to him, soothing him, everything to make Tozer feel safe and secure and remind him WHO is meeting those specific needs. He's providing certainty, command, and comfort, three things Tozer desperately needs.

If there WAS any sexual intimacy between the two, I believe it would build off this even further - confuse Tozer about his feelings, make him feel uniquely bonded to Hickey in a way he can't easily undo. Especially as a Royal Marine, essentially a symbol of the warlike 'noble' Empire, with all the corresponding Victorian hangups and ideals, which would no doubt feel incredibly threatened by any attraction to Hickey. Hickey, who, as we know, WANTS to erase this sense of Empire as identity, not because he understands the evils of Empire but because he wants to replace it with his own where he is at the top.

Hickey both offers Tozer his identity back while at the same time trying to reshape it to fit his own empire. And for Tozer that's confusing and conflicting - but it's better than what he had before. Because Tozer, too, cannot see the world through any lens but that of Empire and hierarchy and command - that's the fatal flaw of all these men.

By the end, it seems he's starting to see what a horrible mistake he made - but by then it's far, far too late.

And a dog NEEDS a master.

Tldr; I think Tozer's bond with Hickey stems from both very human needs such as touch and closeness and certainty, but also from a very thematic need to have a place and easily understood identity within the structure of Empire. And there's almost no real way for those two different sorts of needs to coexist without disaster.

(One day I'll go into how I think Hickey gets more from this relationship than a mere henchman, but this isn't the post for it! This is about Solomon)