#this came to me in a vision while listening to the cure and i needed to share it. ok

[lighthouseas]

whenever will has a bad day at work (or just a bad day in general), and he's just sitting on the couch and sulking, mike will put on will's current favorite song and ask him to dance really stupidly formally like they do at weddings. will always rolls his eyes and pouts and refuses at first - until he sees mike, his wonderful amazing beautiful boyfriend, busting out his absolute cringiest dance moves to their favorite the cure song or whatever else and singing along to said song horrifically off key in the middle of their living room. and then mike extends his hands to will and forcefully pulls him up off the couch and twirls him around and dips him down to kiss him like he's the most special boy in the world (because he is. Obviously) and will can't pout anymore because mike's hands are so big and warm in his own and it's just them, being stupid and silly and crazy together in their tiny little one bedroom apartment and dancing along to all of their favorites. before the first song even finishes, though, will finds himself singing and dancing along too and twirling mike back because mike's dopey little grin is so damn infectious that he just. can't help it.

and this is how mike develops the Tried And True Method To Turn Will's Frown Upside Down (pun not intended) that he still continues even when they're older and married, because they're still stupid kids at heart and love each other so much that it needs to be shared in every way possible ❤️

[polarisbibliotheque]

Dante gets drunk and confesses to his s/o that "everyone I love and who means something to me dies horribly" because he's a Son of Sparda. Next mission he comes back, emotionally drained and just depressed overall. Soon his s/o come over and after pampering with a warm bath, washing his hair, giving him love and the whole nine yards. He asks quietly, why? To which his s/o comments that whoever's gonna try to kill them, has gotta bring an army and tons of reinforcements. (1/2)

So, this one has been sitting on my asks for SO LONG, and now I finally got the time and inspiration to make it happen. This idea is so lovely to me, because I do believe some interesting things would happen with drunk Dante and Vergil - angsty ones and funny ones.

Therefore, this one will be the angsty. But do wait for the funny one, 'cause dear, now you inspired me to write drunk Dante and Vergil antics ;)

Thanks a lot for the ask and the ideas!! I hope you like how it turned out ^^

Dante & Vergil getting angsty drunk and their s/o comforting them

Pairings: Dante x Reader; Vergil x Reader

Summary: Drinking could bring either two things to the Spardas: fun or sudden visions that could open the Pandora's box inside their hearts. When that happened, you were the only one able to soothe the fear of losing their loved ones... Again.

WARNING: There's drinking as an unhealthy coping mechanism, the mention of the reader knowing someone who would turn to drinking and become completely different (not detailed) and in both stories, they have visions of their s/o, the reader, lifeless. It's stated exactly like that, but if this is something that bothers you or if you're sensitive to imagining that, I advise not reading this one. Next one will be more chill and upbeat!

Author's notes: I gotta say, I loved writing both of them. I picture their s/o a will powerhouse just like them, so there's a lot of that. Also, I listened to two songs in repeat while writing, I recommend listening to them! Never Fade Away (shdsky remix), by shdsky; and Burn, by The Cure.

They encapsule the heartwrenching feeling they have and I blame the angst and intensity from Vergil's on The Cure

Dante

Saying the Sparda family had no healthy way of expressing their feelings was a huge understatement.

Dante would constantly complain about Vergil – after all, most of their problems came from Vergil being extremely powerful and broken by the trauma of their past. If only he had gone to therapy, a lot would have been avoided – at least, that what Dante would say.

But it seemed like your red devil failed to see he himself needed therapy. You knew he was on a long path of healing – and a lot more healed than Vergil, who had just admitted he needed help and couldn’t be self-sufficient forever – but that didn’t mean Dante had already found a healthy way to cope with his inner demons.

Figuratively and literally.

When things got too bad, Dante drank to forget. But he also enjoyed drinking with you to have fun – he was all about keeping his mind occupied so he wouldn’t let the quietness settle in and let the demons come out from the dark, creeping towards him with their silent fingers and taking a hold of his heart.

That night, it had started for fun. He didn’t keep too much alcohol in the shop, but he always had an emergency bottle of whisky laying in his desk’s drawers.

“Well, well, have I ever told you how beautiful you are…?” His cheeks were flushed, and flirty Dante mode was on. He sat by your side on the couch, keeping one of his arms around your shoulders and his nose a little bit too close to your face.

You couldn’t stop yourself from giggling at that goof.

“A thousand times, Casanova.” You answered, trying to get a little distance in to look into his beautiful sky-blue eyes. Dante observed you with adoration and a sincere smile on his lips, as if every word you said sounded like the most crystalline and new music note he had ever heard. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are here?” As you asked, you touched his chest, above his heart. Dante’s adoration just seemed to grow, as if you had never touched him in your whole lives. “I love the entirety of you, but your soul… Your soul is brilliant, red devil.”

“Sheesh, babe, if ya keep talkin’ like that, I’ll get all flustered!” Despite his words, Dante leaned on your head, touching your forehead with his. He always got giggly and didn’t quite understand personal space when drunk.

Not that you cared – Vergil, in the other hand, always threatened to stab his inconvenient brother. Used to being around him, it wasn’t a nuisance to you.

“I don’t think you can ever get flustered, big guy!” You laughed back, rubbing your nose on his – that made Dante’s heart only beat faster. “But I mean it. Your soul is the kindest I’ve ever met. I love you endlessly, Dante.”

Your words met his ears in a whisper, still smiling as he kept his forehead leaned on yours. Dante’s heart, though, trembled with a thousand different feelings that, if he was sober, he’d know how to control.

As you left for a quick break to the bathroom, he poured himself another shot of whisky – seeing how the bottle was getting to an end. Dante lost count of how many days he drank bottles and bottles of whisky on his own, trying to forget his past, to let go of all the things that happened to him.

He didn’t see that kindness, that brilliant soul you saw in him.

You talked of him as if he was an angel, but Dante knew he was far from that – a literal half demon, bursting in anger with spiked wings and red fiery horns when he couldn’t restrain that animal inside him any longer. He had learnt to control it – and Dante controlled his demon with all his might, hating that part of himself.

Nevertheless, you saw something else. You saw the human in him, but you also loved the demon. And he couldn’t understand how – he knew it was the same way his mother fell for his father, but… Still. Dante couldn’t see all the beauty you saw.

His whole existence was cursed – a foul curse that ran in his veins, that came from his blood. The blood of Sparda. That was the reason for so much death, so much suffering. His father was a savior to humankind, the one who protected the world from demons and Mundus, but he had paid with cursing his name for eternity – bringing only pain and death to those who associated with it.

Eva died. Nell died. People who had relationships with him in whatever way died. He lost count of how many times he saw Vergil die – or even killed him with his own hands. Dante lost everything, over and over and over again. It was as if that night his house caught on fire and all he knew crumbled in flames and blood repeated itself every time Dante found his heart allowing himself to feel safe and welcomed – to feel a spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be cursed until he died.

But then, it would all drown in blood and dust.

As his lips got wet with the bitter taste of whisky, Dante saw something right in front of his eyes – too real, too dangerous.

The Devil May Cry in flames. Him sitting on the floor, blood all over his hands. Corpses of the demons you had slain together lying at his feet. You, laying between his legs, your head cradled on his chest, lifeless.

Once again, tears falling from his eyes as all he had built up until that moment burnt down until there was nothing left.

“Hey, Dante…? Dear, are you crying…?” Your voice snapped him out of it, making Dante shoot his glossy eyes back at you – barely noticing a tear running down his face.

It was the first time you saw him so terrified.

“What happened?” You immediately ran to him, sitting by his side on the couch and taking Dante’s calloused hands in yours. Whenever your mind got hazy with alcohol, you prioritized whatever your heart told you should be put first – and that usually was Dante. Just like him, the alcohol made it easier for your feelings to overflow.

“Hmmm nothin’, I… I just… Damn.” Dante sighed, shaking his head slightly and looking down. He was trying to get those images out of his mind – but the feeling of having you in his arms while both of you were engulfed in flames was too real for him to let go that easy. His hazy thoughts wouldn’t let it go – and his heart… Oh, his heart would scream in pain every time he saw a glimpse of losing you like that. Just like he lost everyone else. “I’m not… Shit…”

“Memories again?” You took one of your hands to lightly brush his face, finding his teary eyes under his white hair. You brushed his fringe away from the sky-blue sea that stared back at you, overflowing even more as your silky touch found the rough texture of his cheek – caressing him so carefully, as if Dante was but a precious, fragile crystal.

If you kept like that, you’d break his heart. Dante wasn’t sure whatever lied in his chest was strong enough to take all that gentleness – it could take violence, but it wasn’t used to such a loving touch.

“Yeah… Old and new, babe…” He allowed himself to rest his head on your hand, as you cradled him with nothing but care. He didn’t want to lose you. He couldn’t think about losing you. All those years, Dante had nothing and now… You were everything. This time, if he lost anyone he loved again, he wouldn’t survive. Dante was sure – it would be impossible for his heart to recover from you.

“New…? From what…?” Your brows furrowed as you kept on caressing his face. It wasn’t the first time you saw Dante like that: anxiety attacks and flashbacks were very common on your relationship and, by now, you knew how to deal with them whenever Dante fell into the abyss. You were the only hand holding him tightly and making sure to pull him back up – the only one to stay there and go through hell alongside him. “Was it that hunt we had the other day…?”

“No, no… I…” Dante sighed again, unable to explain. It was so easy for him to let other feelings out his chest: happiness, anger, complacency… But those? He had no words for it. No matter how much he tried, Dante couldn’t bring himself to let out that horrible scene for you… No matter how much alcohol. “I got… Kinda of a flashback… Of somethin’ that didn’t happen.”

“Hmmm… Was it of something that has happened, but with different people?” You tried, noticing how his sky-blue eyes, adorned with the redness of the tears, shot up at you.

It wasn’t the first time you noticed Dante worried about something happening to you. He had vivid nightmares sometimes and once, before waking him up, Dante was tossing and turning, screaming your name and holding his pillow as tightly as he could. He whispered something along the lines of don’t leave me, and you had an idea of what was going on. As you woke him up, Dante held you close in real life, as if that was going to keep you safe and sound.

“I… Damn, y/n…” Once again, he looked down, sighing heavily and shaking his head. Tears fell on your hands, but you didn’t let go of his. Dante had to understand you would be there, through hell and high water. “Everyone I love, everyone who means something to me, die horribly. It has been like that ever since I was a kid, remember?”

He pointed at the portrait of Eva he kept on his desk. It was a rhetorical question, you knew, but you wanted to say you would never forget. It was part of who Dante was, and, inevitably, it was part of your life too. The day you decided to stay with him, was the day your paths intertwined – and now, they couldn’t be separated, by any power of Heaven or Hell.

You wished he understood that.

“I’m not this knight in shiny armor you say I am, babe.” Dante’s eyes were tortured, and he had a melancholic smile that didn’t fit on his lips. “I’m no angel. I’m a demon who will burn everything on my path, spittin’ anger and blood. I’m no good for anyone… And hell, I don’t wanna lose you. Not you.”

“You won’t, Dante. I’m here. No matter what you saw, I’m here.” You took him into your arms as his tears found no resistance anymore. Crying on your shoulders, Dante held you strongly against him – as if that could keep any harm away from both of you. “And you gotta understand, you’re so much better than you give yourself credit for, dear. There’s no one else I could love in this world the way I love you.”

That would be a long night.

*

With his hair soaked in blood, the red veins flowed down Dante’s face like tears.

It hadn’t been a simple job, but it wasn’t a difficult one either. Dante had worse – but he also had better. He had been better. It seemed like the world had settled on his shoulders and it made his whole body heavier.

Good thing he didn’t have to carry Rebellion on his back anymore – or the walk back to the shop would have been a lot worse than it was.

His feet were practically dragging on the floor – not so much from his body being tired; the problem was his soul. Whenever those demons clutched his heart and mind, there wasn’t much Dante could do apart from going through it. Just like he did in Hell.

He couldn’t get that vision out of his head. The way you had felt in his arms as he cried with the fire engulfing both of you. Dante would have let himself be consumed by the flames – he wouldn’t fight anymore. Without you, he wouldn’t have the strength. Not this time.

Dante had always pushed through in his life – but now… Nero was around. He could protect humans in a much better way than he did. Lady and Trish could live quite well without him – Dante would argue even better than with him around. And Vergil… He had a lot to sort in his own heart. Dante believed without him, Vergil would turn to his demonic nature for good and never be seen again but…

He was tired.

Dante was tired of fighting. He had fought his whole life, tragedy after tragedy. It never seemed to get better, and he had to admit… He could only take so much. After so many years of holding his loved ones dead in his arms, Dante was getting to his limit.

If something happened to you, it would be the last straw. The last of his heart strings, breaking apart alongside with the string of your life.

Opening the door to the Devil May Cry, Dante managed to smile when he saw you sitting on his big chair, feet on the desk, magazine in your hands – just like him. He never thought his heart would grow so warm with something so trivial, but, like Eric Draven himself would say, nothing is trivial.

Losing y/n is just a matter of time.

That dreadful voice in the back of his head made sure to tell him that as you raised your eyes to Dante and smiled with a “hello babe”. Dante always lost everyone he loved. It was just a matter of time.

“Damn, you look like hell.”

“Yeah, those demons weren’t playin’ ‘round today.” Dante sighed back, lowering his head while kicking his boots off, in order to leave them by the door. They were covered in blood and dirt and that was rather annoying to clean – so you both created this rule of leaving shoes by the door.

“You need a shower.” As you left the magazine on the desk, you followed Dante with your smart eyes. He didn’t answer with his usual carefree voice – it was more of a strained tone. The tone of someone spiritually tired.

“Yeah, I know, babe…”

That was certainly out of character.

Without a word, you got up from your place and took Dante’s hand in yours. He stared at you, cluelessly for a while, before walking up the stairs alongside your steps.

He needed your help – and you’d be there for him.

*

“Babe… Don’t you think you spoiled me enough for today…?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Dante remained shirtless, his wet hair occasionally dripping on his pants while you kneeled behind him and massaged the tense muscles of his back. His neck felt like a piece of wood, and you noticed how he groaned every time you ran your hands under his shoulder blades.

It felt like Dante didn’t know what relaxing meant for years.

“Hmmm. It’s never enough when it comes to you, Dante.” You had a calm smile on your lips, maintaining a soft tone to get him to relax. As your hands found another sore spot close to his neck, Dante groaned once more, lowering his head.

He couldn’t understand you. Dante would always believe wholeheartedly you could choose whatever wonderful life you wanted to have, but instead, you decided to doom yourself with him. Stuck in the Devil May Cry, until, inevitably, fire and destruction came to take you away.

You knew that. You knew how dangerous it was, how cursed he was. And, instead of running like any other sane human being, you decided to stay.

Not only stay, but shower his human and his devil with love. Dante would always be amazed by that.

“Why…?” Dante’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper. He wanted to hear from you, but he was also a little scared to know the answer. What if you stayed for reasons other than him?

You stared at his wet white hair for a while, still running your warm hands on his muscly back. Dante seemed to be the most confident man in the whole world, but he wasn’t afraid to show you how insecure he actually was. How scared. Dante had many demons in his head, and it took a while for you to build enough trust until he started to be so open about his darkest feelings.

And you knew what was going on inside his head. How he didn’t let go of the vision he had that day while you were drinking.

“Because my soul chose yours, Dante. It’s that simple.” You shrugged, still massaging his sore, marble back. “I’m not afraid of whatever curse you think is attached to your blood. I’m not afraid of dying from being with you. Whatever comes to threaten me better bring an army and tons of reinforcements, ‘cause I’m not going down that easy. You taught me to always keep fighting, and that’s what I’m gonna do.” With those words, you leaned closer to him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and resting your head close to his, feeling how your body seemed so small glued to his towering shape. Dante immediately held your hands close to his heart, tilting his head in your direction. “Those demons better know I’m human. I won’t stand down and I’m going to do everything in my power to live a great life by your side, babe. I am not going to die horribly in the hands of whatever creature who wants to hurt you, and if they attack me, I’m going to bring them all down. I chose to be with you and there’s no power in any world that can take me away from you now. That’s a promise, Dante.”

You couldn’t see how much his lips were smiling or how his eyes were tearing, but you could feel it by the way Dante held your hands as if they were the last lifeline connecting him to the human world. You nuzzled his neck, doing your best to cuddle his body against yours.

“I love you, y/n.” His voice was like a secret, even though the whole world knew that from his heart. “You know that, right?”

“Of course I do.” You hugged him tighter, making him chuckle, even if just a little. “I love you too, Dante. That’s a promise too.”

As he intertwined his fingers with yours, Dante smiled. You weren’t one to break your promises.

Vergil

“Thanks for the ride, Lady. I owe you one.”

Stepping out of the bike, you gave Lady her spare helmet back as she winked in return.

“No worries, y/n! I might just transfer your debt to Dante!” Lady shrugged in a playful manner, making you laugh as you opened the door.

“It’s not like he has enough debts already, huh?” You shot back, provoking a mischievous giggle on her in return.

“It’s not like I don’t have fun with it!” Her answer was in a sing-song tune, as she pointed back at you before finally leaving. “Take care of that, though. You got hurt pretty badly this time, I’m gonna be worried.”

“You don’t need to be. I already got the world’s most protective and worried man right here with me.” It was your turn to wink back at her. “Vergil isn’t going to leave me alone while I’m not 100% recovered.”

“Well, he had to have at least one quality.” She muttered back, adjusting her helmet. “Don’t forget to call me!”

“I won’t! Thanks again, Lady!” You waved as the red motorcycle made its way through the darkness of the night.

While closing the door, you couldn’t help but to smile. Lady was a good friend, and you would always be grateful for the way she cared about the very few people she loved. She wasn’t the mellow type, but, in her own walking arsenal sort of way, you would still consider her sweet.

Your thoughts came to a halt, though, when you found Vergil sitting by his desk with an empty bottle of whisky on it. He was slouching over the table – something he usually didn’t do – with one of his hands entangled on his hair, while the other held an almost empty glass. His eyes were closed, but the way his eyebrows furrowed told you how much his thoughts were troubling him.

“Vergil, love. Is everything alright?”

You question was immediate albeit careful. You knew whenever Vergil’s thoughts weren’t too controlled, he was prone to flashbacks and instinctive self-protection. Startling him could be a death sentence – although, you were more scared of his memories of Hell than being accidentally hurt by his hands.

Vergil slowly opened his silver eyes, resting them on your form for a couple of seconds. You waited until he let out a long sigh, closing his eyes once more.

“I can’t sleep.”

Oh.

It was one of those days.

“For how long?” You left your boots by the door, calmly approaching him. You weren’t careful in your steps – you didn’t need too – but you didn’t want to make sudden movements. He needed peace, not chaos thriving around him.

His whole life had already been chaotic. Vergil needed to learn how to live in a healthy environment.

“Three days.”

You got seriously injured during your job with Lady exactly three days ago. You and Vergil were already used to each other being badly hurt during a hunt, but that didn’t stop you both from worrying about the other.

Sometimes, though, a situation like that could trigger some things Vergil usually buried deep inside his chest and didn’t allow them to come out.

“You need to rest, my love.” You laid your hands on his shoulders, feeling them tense under your fingers for a few seconds before relaxing under your touch. You placed a kiss atop his white hair. “Is that why you’re drinking?”

Vergil didn’t answer, just groaned as a confirmation. You took the glass from his fingers, taking a sip of the bitter liquor, feeling the alcohol burn down your throat.

“What’s the matter, Verge? Why can’t you sleep?”

Vergil just dismissed your question with silence.

He wasn’t used to sharing his worries – he had always seen that as a weakness. Vergil had learnt to be self-sufficient, going by his life on his own and burying whatever insecurities and fears he had inside his chest – smothering them in the hopes of asphyxiating those feelings and never hearing of them again.

But that was just a temporary solution, one he did to survive. He had been a survivor his whole life, watching everything around him burn and die. Vergil cut ties and bridges to people in order to shield his heart from bleeding over and over again, from hurting him so much. He could take only so much and, if he kept being hurt and having his feelings dilacerated in front of him again and again, there would be a day he wouldn’t survive.

This time, your injury provoked a nightmare. While on your job, you got hurt by an Angelo, a creature so similar to what he once was when Mundus made him just a pawn on an endless chessboard.

In his dreams, Vergil saw himself as Nelo Angelo once again. His eyes glowing in red, hands holding a flaming blue sword, towering frame inside his hellish armor. You called him, you screamed his name – he heard you, but his body wouldn’t answer to his commands. The house around you was burning down in flames, demons terrorizing whoever tried to approach you.

With each heavy step of his iron boots, you begged and pleaded for him to listen. You said all the beautiful things your heart had for him, proffered your favorite poems for his ears, but Vergil’s mind was being held hostage in a body that wouldn’t answer.

It was only when your lifeless body was laying on his arms that Vergil snapped out of it.

By his sword. By his hands. He was covered in blood, your blood. Vergil tried to bring you back, but you were long gone. He kneeled on the floor, cradling your body and crying his heart out, screaming desperately for that pain in his chest to let him breathe – just like the day his mother perished in his flaming childhood home, years prior. But this time…

It was his fault.

You were doomed to die, whether by his unconscious hands or hands of demons, since the day your lips touched his. The day you and him decided to allow your hearts to intertwine your paths, was the day you received a death sentence.

No one who came in touch with the blood of Sparda survived. Vergil was aware of that.

With that image haunting his mind every time he closed his eyes, Vergil decided not to sleep. It wasn’t much of a choice, but a defeat: he couldn’t bring himself to dream of something else. He couldn’t convince himself you were safe, and nothing would happen to you – he couldn’t stop desperately cradling your body close to his heart as his eyes closed.

He couldn’t sleep.

“You do know drinking won’t make the nightmares go away. They will be back eventually.”

Vergil groaned again, sliding the glass away from him on the desk. It was a rare sight, but he looked defeated. You’d say you were the only one in all the worlds allowed to see him like that.

“I had someone who would compensate with drinking. Whenever he did, he’d turn worse than all devils I met.” You decided to leave the comment around, pulling a chair to sit close to Vergil. He watched you with attentive eyes, clearly processing in his head what you had just said.

“I hardly believe a human can be worse than me.” His answer was preceded by a defeated sigh while you watched him intently. Vergil referred to his demonic blood – or he wouldn’t have deliberately said the word ‘human’.

“I beg to differ.” Your reply was almost a whisper, leaning on the table just like him, but taking your time to adjust Vergil’s messy hair back to the state he always liked when he was sober. “You are not a mindless aggressive creature when in demon form, even if you’d like me to believe otherwise.”

“But I have been a mindless hellish creature once.”

There. You finally got to the main issue in Vergil’s thoughts – you could see it in the way he took his eyes away from yours, fixating back on the table. He never really told you the things he went through as Nelo Angelo, and you never forced him to tell you. Vergil would say what he was comfortable saying – and he would keep to himself the things he was not yet ready to tell.

But of all the things that crossed his complicated mind, you knew your safety caused the most worry to Vergil – your safety from him.

It wasn’t a secret he believed you both were a love story fated to destruction – just like it happened to his parents.

“Once.” You threaded your fingers carefully through his hair, as not to startle him. You always had to ease him into physical contact – and Vergil would always be starved for it, whenever he finally welcomed your touch. “And even so, you are so strong, you broke out of its dominion over you on your own. Dragging your crumbling body to the only thing that could be your salvation.”

“Dante killed Nelo Angelo. I did not do it on my own.” Vergil’s mutter was bitter as the alcohol on the table, his eyes closed as he enjoyed the way you fondled his hair.

“It was Vergil who broke out of Hell and saved himself, even if in the most extreme way he found to do so.” Your hands were gentle, but your voice was now a bit harsher – mirroring the strength of the Dark Slayer. “He was the one to know what he was doing was probably a road with no way home, but it was the only way to keep himself alive. He kept walking even if his body was tearing itself apart, he grasped the very last sliver of hope he had. Not looking for forgiveness, not looking for absolution, but looking for survival. Not Nelo Angelo, nor Dante or Nero, not even Sparda. Vergil.”

His silvery eyes stared back at you in confusion and glistening with sudden tears as you told him what you thought about all the things he did. You didn’t apologize his many mistakes, but you couldn’t bring yourself to judge – what would you have done if you were in his shoes? Could you make better decisions, could you do the right thing after so many years of suffering, trauma, and torture, after being stuck in survival mode for the most part of your life? The average person would have never done the things he did, but Vergil was never average.

“You did many wrong things in your life, Vergil. But you survived. Your willpower isn’t to be toyed with and the amount of admiration I have for you is endless, love. You have to know that.” With that, you used your thumb to wipe a tear that decided to run over his sharp cheek. Vergil remained still, not really knowing what to do with all that – he was used to be called names, to be berated, humiliated, and even hated. He didn’t know how to react with being admired like you did. He didn’t know what to do. “I don’t think someone with that kind of willpower would accept another they see as weaker – and love, my will is as strong as yours. I have fought, and I have survived as well. All the legions of Hell would have to march against me to take me away from your arms. And I won’t say this is a promise, because those can be broken or changed like the phases of the moon – it is a fact.”

“Love…” Vergil whispered, finally taking your hand in his and running your palm through his face, following the pattern of your fingers with the tip of his nose, until finally placing longing kisses on your fingertips. His silvery eyes opened once again, focusing on you; his lips barely away from your skin. “These violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die like fire and powder. The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness.”*

Not knowing how to express his thoughts and feelings – all those he had been trying to kill, asphyxiated in his chest for so long – Vergil recurred to the best way he knew how: poetry. As always, he knew you would understand what he meant… And there was only one way to answer.

“The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death.* I do not fear anyone who might come near me. They should fear me, love, for I will fight as bravely as you have – and there is no power enough to take me from you.” With those words, you pulled Vergil closer to you, looking deeply into his eyes – he would always be mesmerized how you wouldn’t be intimidated by them. Instead, you always welcomed Vergil’s sharp gaze, holding it with your own. “Thus, with a kiss, I die.”

You didn’t give him time to think – suddenly, your lips were on his, sealing your fate over and over again, every time you repeated that kind of affection with Vergil. Cradling your face gently with his hands, he soon retributed the kiss, trying to make you understand how much he admired your human strength and will – something he couldn’t put in words, but could try to express with actions, at least.

Vergil lived his whole life being feared in order to protect himself – whether by his name or reputation. Having you stand by his side not fearing neither, made him believe that maybe – just maybe – your love story wouldn’t go down in blood and flames like he was used to.

Maybe Vergil could finally know some peace… After all, you were strong enough for love.**

*Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare

**Ordinary Love, by U2

[that-student-that-has-homework]

You WILL Have my Herbs 03

Diluc / Reader

Previous Chapters: Chp 1 | Chp 2 | Chp 3 | Chp 4 | Chp 5 | Chp 6

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Summary: Listen you just wanted to pick some plants, do some experiments, find some cures, and report back to your mentor. Unfortunately a handsome vigilante puts you in his debt and now you have to fight him to let you make it up to him.

Chapter 3: A Most Suspicious Shade of Blue

Your constant run-ins with Abyss Mages warranted surveillance.

Or at least that’s what The Knights of Favonius’ Cavalry Captain thought. If not to reveal if you were somehow involved with their plot, then for your own safety. 

To be fair to you, you’d not killed or poisoned any of the people you’d offered remedies to. He did get the sense that you were just another earnest researcher, and stubbornly generous in a way that was most peculiar. He hadn’t confirmed he’d wanted a bar of soap, but there had been one delivered to him, wrapped up neatly with his name on it, and a note stating you had more if the soap was agreeable with his skin. 

As innocent as you seemed though, there was a sharpness about you, and Kaeya was not the type to leave a stone unturned. Unfortunately, you’d rejected the pen he’d applied an elemental marker to, which would have given him a gist of your general activities. So he assigned a knight to keep an eye on you and report back on your activities. After all, you weren’t suspicious enough to warrant his personal supervision. Yet.

With you taken care of in a sense…the ever so diligent Cavalry Captain went to get a drink, in preparation for the incoming attack of course. Oh and to inform the intended target of the plot while he was at it.

“One Death in the Afternoon,” he called out to the familiar bartender as he slid onto one of the bar stools.

“Drinking on the job?” The bartender chastised without turning around. “This is what the Knights of Favonius do on duty? As inefficient as ever.”

“Not inefficient if you can hold your liquor my dear Diluc,” Kaeya responded smoothly as he surveyed the tavern, “fortunately I can hold mine.”

It was barren, not a patron in sight, just what the captain required. 

“I heard a most interesting piece of information,” he began, his singular eye scrutinizing the redhead as he poured him a drink that didn’t quite look like his order, “seems that some Abyss Mages are planning a series of attacks on Mondstadt,” the bartender slid him the glass, still not looking at the knight, “something about drawing out a Dark Knight Hero.”

“Well then, rather than talk to me, shouldn’t you be preparing to prevent these attacks?” The redhead scoffed.

“My so cold,” Kaeya smirked, his visible eye crinkling, “people would think you’re the one with a cryo vision.”

At that, the captain took a sip of the drink, noting its distinctly acidic taste. Cider, non -alcoholic cider. Definitely not his order. He let out a little chuckle and surveyed the counter: no bottles were within reach, how unfortunate.

“I just thought I’d let you know,” he resigned himself to his non-alcoholic drink and took a long sip of the apple cider instead, “in case you weren’t already aware.”

He received a grunt in response as the redhead continued to tidy his workspace. With a sigh, the cryo user took another sip of his drink, remembering another thing he was mildly curious about.

“I heard a report a while back about an Abyss Mage attacking a visitor to Mondstadt,” he trained his blue eye at his suspect, “apparently someone using a pyro vision saved her and fled into the darkness of the night,” the suspect in question continued to organize and prepare for when the busier hours came around, “that wouldn’t have been you, would it?”

Diluc let out a tired exhale, “the knights couldn’t even save one visitor to Mondstadt?” He scoffed. “As ineffcient as ever.”

“There’s no need to hide it from me Diluc,” the blue haired man took another sip of his cider, “We both know you’re the famed Dark Knight Hero.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity.”

He heard a tired exhale from his sworn-brother then. Well the answer he’d given was enough. It also corroborated your story. You really had been jumpy due to the attack then. He didn’t really doubt it much after having gotten to know you a little, but it was still nice to confirm that you really hadn’t been lying.

If he were to be honest, the Cavalry Captain was really hoping you weren’t . You were strange, no doubt, but that made you very amusing. He’d rather not have to eliminate you.

The downside to all this, was that you were onto Diluc’s secret identity. That’s quite impressive, given how of all of Monstadt’s citizens, he was the only one who figured it out. Then again, most of her citizens were drunk, whereas you were adamantly sober, perhaps that factored in?

With his curiosity satiated, the captain downed the rest of his drink, paid the bartender what he owed and got up to leave.

Finally managing to make eye contact with his conversation partner, Kaeya was about to bid him farewell when the redhead beat him to it.

“Thanks,” Diluc said, maintaining eye contact, as he accepted the mora. 

“Take care, Diluc,” the captain cast the man a small smile, before turning and heading out.

Feeling oddly refreshed, the captain decided to make a round about Mondstadt proper, check in with the knights and see if he could sniff out any suspicious activities. It’s unfortunate that they hadn’t sniffed out these activities prior to getting the intel. Then again, with Diluc going around eliminating the mages it would be difficult to detect them.

Kaeya was on his way to investigate the shoreline just outside the city walls when he came about a peculiar scene.

The knight he’d assigned you was truly lucky that you were rather herb obsessed. His mediocre surveillance skills aside, this guy had no idea how to think fast on his feet. Hilariously, Kaeya had arrived just in time to witness the knight being caught by you. My, and it hadn’t even been a day of surveillance yet. Though it had only been a matter of time with that knight’s skills, or lack-thereof, really. 

You seemed stunned by the presence of this knight, pausing, as though you’d been frozen by cryo, to stare at your observer. As you usually did, you put on a friendly smile and asked how you could be of help. To which his little spy locked up and stuttered and truly gave himself away. 

Or he would have, had you not seemingly assumed that the knight was just stunned by your behaviour and was struggling to articulate his thoughts. Kaeya would say you weren’t off with that assumption. You were, holding on to a tree branch with your legs obviously trying not to fall and break your neck, after all.

The knight seemed to finally regain his bearings enough to attempt to help you. Which involved him holding your knapsack as you refused to be touched for whatever reason. Then again with where the knight’s hands were going he could understand why. Regardless, you managed to get your arms back onto the branch through what seemed like sheer willpower, and hug it, looking much like a sloth, before righting yourself with less effort. Not long after you scrambled down the tree to retrieve your precious bag, and reissue your offer, however right side up this time. 

With some coaxing from you, the knight chose a random ailment, and you had some remedy for it. He took it sheepishly and wisely chose to walk away.

At this point Kaeya could have been able to conclude that you were truly innocent, after all you hadn’t suspected the knight in the slightest. But at the same time, you’d been a spectacle, to put it mildly, and so it only made sense that a knight would “approach” you, and therefore be in your vicinity. 

You were truly a peculiar character. That weird mix of clueless and vigilant: you were obviously perceptive enough to know to avoid being indebted to him, yet rather clueless about most matters that did not involve your beloved herbs.

Your peculiarity increased with time. The assault on Mondstadt began, and after an attack you would go and study the aftermath of the skirmish. You would then look around to make sure you hadn’t been caught, before scurrying off and doing things with your plants. That was the report that Kaeya had received the first time you’d done that. That same evening he received word from Lisa over drinks that you’d provided the Knights with a pot full of salve that treated burns.

This behavior persisted. The Mages would attack, you’d inspect the aftermath and provide a solution. There weren’t too many casualties, given the more difficult enemies were being decimated by Diluc in the shadows. Kaeya was also doing some secret work to subtly assist his brother-hopefully without his detection.

It was as things were starting to stretch on that Kaeya’s spy came back with another observation. He hadn’t thought it too odd to begin with, however after delivering remedies to the knights you would head to the Dawn Winery. You went there consistently every two or three days. He was embarrassed to admit it, but he’d even missed you one time you’d done so as you’d left just as the sun began to rise. Even worse, he hadn’t realized you were gone until you’d come back.

The captain folded his fingers into each other and rested his chin atop them, humming to himself a bit. “When is her next trip to Dawn Winery?” He asked coolly.

“In two or three days sir,” he reported dutifully, “she returned just this afternoon after spending the night in Springvale.”

“Springvale?” He raised his visible eyebrow.

“There was a flu going about, she provided aid,” he paused before adding, “free of charge.”

Kaeya leaned back in his seat with an amused huff. That was very consistent with his own observations.

“How does she manage to continue affording to eat?” He mused to himself.

“Actually she was recently asking about ways to earn mora,” his spy supplied, “respectfully sir, I don’t think she’s a threat.”

Kaeya chuckled. Truthfully he didn’t either. At this point you were more a source of entertainment for him through the mundanity of his duties. The captain sat up again.

If he let this knight continue with his surveillance you may unwittingly expose the redhead. That wouldn’t do anyone any good. And it wouldn’t even be your fault really, it would be his . Unless of course that was your plan all along. But again, you were now under surveillance for his own amusement, nothing else. 

“Agreed,” he finally responded to the knight, “from tomorrow onwards, we are ending our surveillance of the apothecary. You are to resume your previous post. ”

“Yes sir!” He saluted, however didn’t make a move to leave.

“If that’s all then you’re dismissed,” the captain waved. 

“Actually sir, one last thing,” Kaeya nodded at his temporary subordinate for him to continue, “she recently purchased a basic polearm from Wagner. Which was strange.”

Kaeya snorted, “that’s a good choice for an absolute novice,” he propped his feet up on his desk then, “dismissed.”

With that the knight took his leave.

Kaeya wasn’t about to lie: it was curious that you headed to Dawn Winery so frequently. Had you managed to convince Diluc to accept your aid? It wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, just highly unlikely given he didn’t really know you. Anyway, he kept an eye on you, and only on the third day since he relieved the spy of duty, did you finally head out to the winery.

The cavalry captain made a few observations:

Your backpack seemed lighter than he’d have expected it to be.

You could not resist plucking every stray and random piece of grass that met your fancy.

You actively avoided monster camps of any kind.

You were a fast runner. You bolted from the slimes that had emerged from nowhere like your life depended on it. To be fair it probably did.

You got along well with Adelinde.

Yes when you arrived at the winery, she’d been outside enjoying a quick cup of tea, and had set the cup down to whisk you into a brief hug. You’d then swung your backpack off of your shoulders, and began to rummage through it. Huh-it looked notably fuller than it did throughout your journey.

Kaeya noticed you pulling out some more soap-ah could Adelinde be the kind lady you’d mentioned that one time? Among a few other things that seemed specifically for her. Kaeya was beginning to wonder if your trips were exclusively for the maid when Diluc’s butler appeared and led you around behind the building.

The two of you talked briefly. You took notes as the older man spoke. At some point you startled and seemed worried, while he seemed sheepish. You relaxed not long after though, and began to pull out all manner of things. As well as what looked to be a book.

Kaeya watched you most likely explain what some of the items you’d produced were for and how to use them. Seemed some of the others were already familiar to him as he nodded in recognition at some products. It seemed like you were gearing up to leave when the man seemed to ask you to wait before heading into the winery in a rush. He re-emerges shortly after with containers similar to the ones you’d just given him. Kaeya speculated that they were likely yours and had contained the first batch of ointment or what not.

With a final goodbye to the butler, you were off. He noticed that you headed to Springvale instead of returning to Mondstadt. He’d confirmed what he’d wanted to confirm though, so he instead continued on his way to Mondstadt.

A drink was in order, and he was pleased to find just the bartender he wanted to see, tending the bar. He’d almost expect someone who was relentlessly going after and obliterating scores of monsters to look worse for wear, however Diluc didn’t have the usual signs of fatigue on him. Well at least not physically. It’s still draining to be on high alert. 

The captain ordered his usual, and this time he actually got what he asked for. He also noticed how Diluc was radiating a rather familiar, though unique scent. It almost smelled like a product he owned too. Like a product he’d been gifted.

He smirked up at the bartender, “nice to see you’ve been taking care of yourself.”

A quizzical raise of the brow was what he received in response. 

Seemed the great Dark Knight Hero was too busy saving Mond to realize where his soap, and potentially many other ointments, were coming from.

Not long after he’d stopped surveillance of you, the Knights received another tip. Jean said that there was an unnatural increase in illnesses and strange ailments in Springvale, and that she would be sending out a reconnaissance team to investigate the area.

That tip was obviously from you. He wasn’t part of the recon team, and Eula had told him as much when she saw him there. However that didn’t deter him in the slightest as he sought you out.

“Sir Kaeya!” You greeted when you saw him. “How are you?”

“I’m well. And yourself?” He returned with ease.

“I‘m well,” you chirped though not seeming to have your usual energy, “I am concerned about the villagers here though.”

“I assume that’s why you reported it to the knights?” He offered you a practiced smile.

Your brow furrowed at that. Then you shrugged, “I suppose Master Jean could have told you,” you paused and cast your sceptical gaze back at him, “how did you know it was me though?”

He smirked then, “let’s say I had a hunch.”

Your expression told him you didn’t believe him in the slightest. Or at least that you knew that wasn’t the whole truth. However before he could let you dwell on that he began his interrogation. 

“What are these strange ailments you spoke of?”

You paused. “Very dark mucus, it looks like tar,” you started before shaking your head and correcting yourself, “when the villagers cough, they cough violently, and, well, actually let me start from the beginning,” you took a breath. 

“Villagers develop coughs out of seemingly nowhere. And when they have severe coughing fits where they hack up mucus that’s black in color-for the record it’s usually translucent when healthy or yellow-ish or green-ish when ill,” you pause before, “and sometimes the severity of the cough causes enough strain that they cough up blood. They also have a severe chest pain.”

“That does sound troubling,” Kaeya’s face scrunched up.

“It is. Extremely,” you agreed, “there’s also a case of severe fatigue, and some people’s limbs seem to have a faint bluish tint. I was concerned it could be poor circulation but it doesn’t seem to be the case.”

After a slight pause you continued, “also people seem to simply have the life sucked out of them. Pure emotional fatigue, a sense of emptiness, even in children that were quite literally full of life and aspirations just the day before.” 

Kaeya was quiet as he considered things. You continued, “I also heard complaints from the hunters and farmers here, seems there’s something odd happening to nearby flora and fauna. They have to go farther out to hunt? The ground seems to be sucked dry of its nutrients. According to them that’s unusual.”

“I suppose I’ll just have to ask them about that then,” he let out a sigh, “thank you for your cooperation.”

“No problem. Well actually there is a problem, uh you’re welcome?” You returned.

Kaeya let out a huff of amusement and left you to your own devices. Which involved helping with the ailing citizens. He went ahead and asked Draff to confirm what you’d informed him of, and while the hunter was complaining, a farm lady came by and also complained. She produced a familiar white branch, and everything clicked into place. Kind of.

Seems the Abyss Order was behind this madness. Which meant if they could handle this issue they may be able to nip their: ”assault on Mondstadt issue” in the bud. 

Though he usually acted independently, Kaeya did want to get things done here quickly, hearing children were being sucked dry of their ambitions left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

He convened with Eula, gave her what intel he had and received what she’d gathered. Kaeya then took this intel back to Mondstadt to share with Lisa. The trusty librarian could go through the restricted books and possibly come up with an answer.

She did not disappoint. A day or two later, she’d concluded that there was likely a domain nearby teeming with Abyssal energy. It could possibly be polluting and potentially even invading the environment near Springvale. Which would explain the peculiarity of the ailments. The information was relayed back to Eula and a domain was indeed discovered.

Though by the time the Knights had geared up to go in, it had already been cleared out. 

Kaeya didn’t see Diluc for another week after that. 

Pity, he needed to talk to him about what he saw in there. Though from what he observed, it seemed like there was a high concentration of Abyss Mages. An alarming amount really, which could explain why Springvale seemed to suffer as well. It was a wonder how Diluc even managed to go in there alone and escape-he did defeat them and make it out alive right?

It turns out that the fiery ex-Knight did in fact make it out. However he was not uninjured. The fact came to him in the most amusing manner. Jean had mentioned that your remedies were being brought to Mondstadt alongside the Dawn Winery’s famed dandelion wine. It was rather curious, however it made sense if you were assisting with curing the villagers.

However you were not in Springvale. 

He was rather fortunate that one of the knights they’d temporarily stationed in Springvale happened to be the one he’d assigned to watch over you. Given he was sensitive to your movements, he informed Kaeya that you’d disappeared around the time the knights discovered the domain was cleared out, and only returned four days later, even then you didn’t remain long and disappeared for another day.

He was mildly suspicious that you knew the identity of who cleared the domain. That part was troubling. The captain told him not to worry and that you probably were likely scouring the land for herbs to use for remedies.

That wasn’t a complete lie.

After all you clearly had been aggressively foraging if what he found was any indication.

A trip to the winery and a little bit of scouting revealed that you’d set up a camp far enough from the winery to not be immediately detected, but close enough that you could be summoned in case of an emergency.

You looked worse for wear.  Absolutely horrible if Kaeya was to be completely, unabashedly honest. With how you were stirring a strange bubbling concoction in your haggard state, you looked as ominous as an Abyss Mage. It was clear you were running yourself ragged, and while the location you chose was relatively safe, the wilderness could be unforgiving.

You had pots and jugs of all shapes and sizes that you were filling with remedies. As the day went on he was fortunate enough to observe you meeting with Adelinde twice and Diluc’s personal butler twice as well. 

Adelinde’s first meeting seemed to stress you, you had immediately scrambled for something and handed it to her with what he assumed were some instructions. Upon her departure you’d refocused your efforts according to whatever she’d said, pulling out another cauldron-not without difficulty though-to brew something else. When she returned later, very little tension left you and you only offered her more salves and instructions.

Kaeya could only assume whatever you and Adelinde were discussing had something to do with Diluc. Because when the butler came around, he had a bunch of weeds and he received the larger pots of salve. Meaning he likely handled the transport of remedies to Springvale and Mondstadt. 

Perhaps he ought to pay the Winery a visit the following day? After all, he really did want to go to check up on his dear, reckless brother.

For now he would amuse himself with watching you slave over all these remedies. What was particularly amusing was when you finally sat down, barely munched on an apple and then fell asleep holding it.

-_-

The following day the cavalry captain got a greeting as warm as his vision. His estranged brother did not seem particularly thrilled to see him. Amusingly enough, the redhead looked to be in a better condition than you did, despite the multitude of bandages and stitches he could see poking out from under his loose blouse.

“Why it’s great to see you too, brother ,” Kaeya’s smile was polite, “you can’t imagine how relieved I am that you’re alright.”

The winery owner shot him a displeased frown. Despite his tone, Kaeya was genuinely happy to see him doing relatively well. If he were to be completely honest with himself, he’d admit that this newfound lightness he was experiencing was relief at his brother’s wellbeing. Why, the man was already in his study attending to every manner of task, meaning he was very well indeed.

“Though I can’t help but wonder what it is that could have injured you so much?” He obviously eyed the variety of bandages. “Did your glider perhaps not deploy properly?”

Diluc let out a frustrated sigh, “state your business Kaeya.”

“I’m just here to check up on my reckless brother,” the captain kept his tone light, innocent.

“I wouldn’t have to be so reckless if the Knights of Favonius were not so inefficient .”

“What was in that domain?” The Knight asked finally. “What have you learned?”

Red met blue in a stare-off that would only delay the inevitable. 

Kaeya smirked, “come now Diluc you can’t complain of the knights’ inefficiency and then not share information that could potentially remedy that issue.”

The former knight let out an unamused snort. Before closing his eyes and letting out a tired sigh, “perhaps had the knights been more efficient they would have acquired the information they needed themselves .”

“We already know the domain was teeming with Abyss Mages,” the cavalry captain shrugged, “there had to have been some Pyro Abyss Mages. So how did you manage to make it out without being more severely injured?”

The redhead wasn’t looking at him. Rather he seemed intent on setting a paper on his desk ablaze with the intensity of his glare alone.

“Is that all?” He asked as he met Kaeya’s gaze again.

“The traveler was last sighted in Inazuma,” Kaeya folded his arms across his chest, “so your usual assistant in these situations was most likely not present, unless you have information proving otherwise?”

The silence persisted.

“Diluc I’m sure you’re aware that in your current state providing Jean and I with the information you have is necessary to protecting Mondstadt,” the captain narrowed his single eye at his brother.

The man seemed to consider his words a moment, before letting out an exhale and leaning onto his elbows on his desk, “they had amassed their troops within the domain.”

“How many of their forces did you take down before you had to retreat?”

“To my knowledge, all of them, however there could be more coming,” he responded levelly, “that was only one domain.”

“There, now was that so hard?” Kaeya cooed-he wasn’t about to reveal his surprise, they’d estimated at least ten Abyss Mages if not more than that.

The glare he received was extremely displeased. That was all the information he’d be getting for the day it seemed. He was about to excuse himself, however the lovely Adelinde came in bearing a freshly brewed tea for the two of them.

Seeing Diluc’s exasperation, he simply couldn’t help but stay. The captain took a seat in one of the chairs in the room, and happily accepted a cup when the familiar maid offered him one. It was a strange blend, it smelled divine and was as invigorating as its scent. Perhaps this was one of the blends you provided?

Finishing up his cup, Kaeya rose to his full height again. 

“Please tell me you’re compensating the person offering you such… herbal blends?” He grinned.

Ah. By Dilu’s expression, he’d clearly had his suspicions about the source of his treatments. The slippery captain didn’t give him time to respond.

“Good day Diluc,” he opened the door of the study, “I wish you a speedy full recovery.”

With that he was gone. The captain spared you an undetected glance and hurried back to Springvale to investigate the domain again.

This time, he managed to unearth yet another interesting piece of the puzzle.

[as-above-rp]

"Don't chase the rabbit" / for Kairi.

Send me "Don't chase the rabbit" and your muse will be shown a random memory from my muse's past.

A voice calls out to Gabe in whispers overlapping, all around him;

'Ah, a new plaything stumbling into my lair? How refreshing. You have the smell of another on you. Someone you hold in high regard. But she has secrets. Would you like to know one?'

A hand reaches out of the shadows, all black and cloaked in smoke, and grabs the front of his face.

'Sleep. And you will dream of a secret. What you do with the knowledge is no concern of mine. I seek only to watch the chaos that unfolds after~'

Gabe's vision would fade, and he would find himself as a first person captive in someone else's memory...

[CW; MENTIONS OF CHILD ABUSE, FAMILIAL LOSS, HOSPITALS]

.........

......

...

Kairi's body felt heavy all over. It had felt like concrete ever since she woke up in the hospital, with her head and feet being the heaviest of all. The back of her head throbbed from the raised swelling, the stitches holding together the skin that had split from being slammed into the wall a week prior. Everything hurt so much that she had grown completely numb; she didn't even cry when the doctor's came to tell her that her mother had called to deliver the news that her father had passed away. It was just like her mother to not even bother delivering the news in person.

Himeno, Kairi's mother, treated everyone around her like playthings and messengers--mere servants to do her bidding. She didn't lift a finger when Kairi's dad became bed ridden--Kairi had done everything! From administering his medicine to cleaning him up and helping him change, to feeding him--she only left his side to use the restroom herself, or when she was pulled aside for private tutoring. She dropped out of her private middle school to take care of her father before her mother would even consider taking less hours at work. Kairi was happy to take care of her father; but it shouldn't have been her burden alone.

But thanks to her mother, Kairi had missed even being by his side in his final moments.

Her mother had come in while Kairi was administering the treatments that they had both worked on together; a possible cure for their hereditary heart disease. It was his passion, and Kairi had picked up the torch as soon as she was old enough to hold a beaker. But her mother, materialistic and narcissistic as always, saw Kairi injecting the solution into his IV and accused her of trying to kill him. She flew into a rage, saying Kairi was trying to prevent him from meeting with their lawyer to finalize his will. She pleaded with her mother to listen, but she wouldn't hear a word of it. She chased Kairi out of the room with murder in her eyes, fire magic crackling in her hands. Kairi tried to flee, but her mother caught up to her quickly; she was grabbed by the throat and slammed into the wall, splitting a nasty gash in the back of her head. By the time she had gotten herself up off the floor, there were dancing orange and gold lights outside.The last thing she remembered before blacking out, was seeing her father's greenhouse and all his research up in flames.

Now, Kairi was on her way home after the worst week of her young life. Her mother had only come up to the hospital to sign the release forms and take her home. In the 10 days she had spent recovering in the hospital, her mother didn't visit once. And the whole way home, she was griping at her daughter;

"You look like a skeleton. What did they feed you in there? You better not have forgotten to watch your calories while you were being doted on like a spoiled brat."

Kairi just stared down at her hands in her lap, her voice quiet and meek. "Yes, ma'am."

"As soon as you get home, you need to shower and help Millie pack up your father's things." She glanced to Kairi, golden eyes sharp and scrutinizing. "God, your hair is a trainwreck. Did they really have to shave that much off to stitch you up? Honestly, it wasn't even that bad. Did you tell them you had a competition in a week?"

"...no, ma'am." I was unconscious from you slamming my head into a wall, she wanted to say. But Kairi held her tongue--she knew better.

Her mother clicked her tongue in disappointment. "Of course you didn't. Anything to try and get out of the one thing you and I do together. Well we've already paid all the fees and bought your dress. We'll just have to do something else about your hair..."

Her mother's voice became white noise as Kairi looked outside the window. Her looks were one of the few things Himeno took pride in when it came to her daughter; Kairi had bright hazel eyes the color of warm ocean waters, and freckles from head to toe. Her hair was the color of wheat, shiny, thick and healthy hanging down to the middle of her back. She was the spitting image of her father, down to her nose. The only physicality she had of her mother was her strength and her curves, but her diet was strict so that she didn't get too plump in the wrong places. Kairi didn't inherit any of her mother's Oni traits; no horn, no red skin, no golden eyes. Her mother always said it was a good thing. Macro men didn't like women who looked like demons, she would say. Kairi could care less.

When they got home, Millie was waiting for them on the front steps. She greeted Kairi with a warm smile and an eager hello. Kairi tried to muster a hello in kind, but she could barely even manage the faintest curl of her lips into a forced smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the charred frames of their greenhouse leaning around the side of the house. Kairi didn't dare look at it.

Her mother walked right past her, but stopped to glare at Kairi after she'd stepped inside. "Are you listening to me? I said go take your shower. NOW."

"...Yes, ma'am."

Her mother rolled her eyes and turned her back to them, pulling out her phone. As she disappeared down a hallway, Millie leaned down to speak to Kairi.

"Miss Kairi do you need any help washing your hair? I don't imagine you should be getting the stitches wet."

Kairi shook her head. She had been surrounded by strangers, noise, and potent smells for 10 days. She just wanted some time alone.

"Alright. I'll be in your father's room getting things ready. If you need anything, just come and find me."

With a nod, Millie left to go upstairs. Kairi stood alone in the foyer, slowly looking around. She was in fact home...but it didn't feel like a home anymore. It felt just as sterile and lifeless as the hospital. There were no smells of hot oil, or seafood, or spices anymore. The plants here were expensive fakes. It was warm, but not in a welcoming and cozy way; warm in the same way a sauna or a gym felt--suffocating and sticky. She would have almost preferred the freezing cold of her hospital room.

Eventually, Kairi made her way over to the stairs leading up to the second floor. She dared not to move too quickly, lest she be hit with another fainting spell and end up passed out at the bottom of the steps. She passed the reading room, her own bedroom, and stopped in front of the bathroom door. The next door down was the spare room her father had been using when he was on bedrest--her mother had him moved there when the equipment 'kept her from getting any sleep'. Kairi forced herself to turn back to the bathroom door and step inside. She undressed from the tshirt and sweats her mother had brought for her to change into, and passed the sink to turn on the shower...but she stopped when she caught a reflection of herself in the mirror. She really did look like her father; sunken eyes and tired bags, a paleness to her already fair skin. She reached up to feel the back of her head, running her fingers over the stitches and soft buzzed hair around it. It was rather large, a 4 inch split with 14 stitches holding everything together, and an extra inch and a half shaved around the whole thing. Trying to style her hair to cover it would be tedious, but doable with how long it was...

And then, an idea hit her. An impulsive one. Kairi looked at the top drawer on the left side of the sink. She stared at it for a few seconds before opening it up. Slender fingers reached in and pulled out the electric razor she had been using to fix her father's hair when we was too weak to go out to get it cut. She remembered the first time she tried to use it on him, when she left a large bald spot on the top of his head. She was mortified, but he just laughed and made a joke about always wanting to see how he'd look as one of the Three Stooges. The memory made her smile a little, and tears sting in her eyes.

Kairi sniffled, and looked back at her tired reflection in the mirror. She could see her father in the wet reflection of her own hazel eyes, the same color as his, putting a hand on her shoulder for encouragement. She turned on the razor, the blades whirring to life. Taking a deep breath, and keeping one hand over her stitches to protect them, she made the first swipe down the middle of her head.

[opalesense]

you asked for it

kaeya & f!reader [NSFW]

4.2k words • ~30 min. read

summary: after a frustrating and touch starved week, kaeya catches you playing with yourself despite promising you wouldn’t while he was gone. needless to say, he is not happy.

warnings: sadist kaeya, lots of degradation, choking, bondage, spanking, belt whipping, facefucking

notes: i’m so embarrassed to post this because i’ve never written a full nsfw thing before hahahhddhdhd anyway i’m going to hell... also if you can spot canon voice lines i’ll give you a smooch

"I’M HOME, PRINCESS!"

 Kaeya's alluring voice marked his distant presence outside the bedroom door. The sound of the front door closing behind him made me jump and snapped me out of my daydreaming state.  I could hear him taking off his shoes and putting his bags down on the dining table, the sounds of his coat shuffling off his body and onto the coat rack making my thoughts race even faster.

 He's home already?  I thought he was coming home tomorrow!

 "Our new recruits did so well in training that Jean let me off a day early.  They don't need anything else from me for now," he said, as if he were reading the questions that bubbled in my head.  "Can you believe it?  I hardly ever get a break.  I guess today is truly my lucky day."

 Panic began to bubble in my stomach now as I heard his footsteps quickly advancing towards me, giving me no time to cover up the sticky situation I put myself in.

 Literally, a sticky situation.

 I had been spending the last half hour curing my loneliness in bed, using my hands to replace the pleasure I was missing so badly from Kaeya.  His sudden return home made me curse under my breath. I was so close to a release too.

 I quickly pulled my fingers away and sprung up from the bed, rushing to the dresser to find some clothes to throw on.  But as soon as I pulled the nearest shirt over my head, the bedroom door creaked open, revealing the handsome figure standing and immediately pinning his eyes at me.

 "Hi, Kaeya!" I turned and took a few steps towards him, immediately wrapping my arms around his torso and burying my head in his chest.  He smelled like sweat and hard work.  "Welcome home, sweetheart!"

 "[Y/N]," Kaeya placed cold hands on my lower back to return the hug and gave me a sweet smile, "what were you doing just now, cutie?"

 "I was just about to take a bath," I quickly lied and cupped his face with my dry hand to give him a peck on the cheek.  "Care to join me?"

 His expression suddenly changed from gentle and loving to unimpressed.  He could see through my lie – I could tell.  He was always so good at spotting my lies. His blank eyes pierced through mine, sending a shiver down my spine.  Or maybe that was his hands slowly freezing up my skin with his vision, the annoyance easily seeping through his sharp stare.

 "Are you sure, princess?" he reached to grab my other hand and lifted it up to his face, licking my wet fingers without breaking eye contact. He let out a deep growl at the taste, his eyes turning more dangerous by the second.  Any hopes of me escaping this lie were completely gone now.  "It doesn't seem like you were... 'just about to take a bath.'"

 "Kaeya..." my body quivered at his strong grip on my hand, "Listen, I’m so sorry, I was just so lonely without you–"

 His face inched closer to mine as he slowly walked both of us to the edge of the bed.  "You couldn't wait for a week?" his sharp voice tickled my ears, "I specifically told you to wait for me, didn't I?  You even promised me you would."

 "Y-yes, I did promise," we stood at the foot of the bed, my naked hips desperately pressed into his.  "I’m so sorry–"

 "Yeah, you’re 'so sorry,'" he mocked me and rolled his eyes with a smirk.  "You better be sorry, sweetheart.  I missed you too, but at least I kept up my end of the promise and didn't touch myself while I was gone, unlike some slut I know," he hissed.

 Suddenly, he wrapped his other hand around my neck and began applying pressure, pinning me down into the mattress.  His clothed knee spread my legs open and pressed against my sensitive clit, driving more shivers up my spine and triggering a moan from my throat that only came out as a weak whimper.  His face leaned down to mine to give me slow, gentle kisses.  "My slut," he whispered between kisses, squeezing my throat harder, "I can’t believe I’m in love with a stupid disobedient bitch."

 The insults only made my core light up with satisfaction.  I closed my eyes and relaxed into his touch, forgetting about all the consequences I knew he would lay out for me in a few moments.  I could tell he missed me just as much as I missed him with how gentle and loving his kisses were in contrast to his hand suffocating me.  We kissed as if this was our last time ever seeing each other, as if the world was going to end in one minute.  My heart thumped with excitement as the realization that he was finally back home began to settle in.

 He released my poor throat and instead ran his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp and deepening the kiss.  His lips began moving with a purpose, groans escaping and movements getting more and more desperate.  "[Y/N]," he muttered into my own lips, "I missed you so much, princess. You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted this."

 He slowly separated his face from mine and nuzzled his head into my neck, biting and suckling my already bruised skin from all the other love marks he had given me last week as a memento before he left.  "I’m not going easy on you after this, sweetheart. Savor my mercy while it lasts."

 I grew restless after a few minutes of him licking and nibbling at my neck and started to grind my hips on his knee, wanting some kind of advancement in this hazy evening.  He took notice of this and paused his kisses, lifting his eyes to meet mine.  I pleaded for more action with a pout, to which he replied by removing his knee and instead tucking his thighs below mine with my legs pinned at his sides.  I let out a shaky exhale at the realization that his bulge was mere inches away from my holes.

 "What's the hurry, princess?" he leaned down to run his hands up my sides, dragging my loosely fitted shirt along with him.  "Is there something you're waiting for?"

 He pulled the shirt up enough to expose my anticipating breasts, perked with excitement at his chilled fingers.  I gasped at the bite of the cold air he was manifesting.  "Kaeya, please..."

 “Please what?" he traced a finger on the underside of my breasts and planted more kisses across my collarbone, "Use your words, baby.”

 "Stop teasing me, please," I begged with shame, "You know I want you...  I need you inside of me..."

 He hummed as if he were processing my answer.  Instead of using his own words, he responded by completely pulling the shirt off of me and twisting it into a long strip.  He grabbed both of my hands and pinned them above my head, purposefully pressing his bulge against my aching hole.  He hesitated to look down at me, his eyes becoming consumed with pure lust.

 "Final warning, [Y/N].  Do you want to do this now?" Any remaining gentleness seemed to slowly spill out of his voice as he made it apparent he was asking for my consent.  My core lit up once more knowing we were just getting started.

 I trembled with a mixture of excitement and fear, not knowing what he had under his sleeve tonight after the touch deprived days that broke our usually consistent sex streak.  We were two lovers in desperate need of pleasure.  "I need to be fucked senseless," my voice shakily begged, "I need to be covered in your cum by sunrise, sir."

 He raised his eyebrows at the vulgar language that spewed out of my mouth, knowing how uncharacteristic it was for me to beg before we've begun.  Judging by the evil smirk that formed on his face, those two simple sentences were enough to send him over the edge and into complete darkness.  An evil chuckle escaped his lips. The glint in his eyes that was once loving and sweet became borderline malicious within seconds.

 "Safeword?" he breathily muttered with a grin.

 "Diluc," I sarcastically sneered at him, knowing how much he hated when I used his brother's name as a safeword, even if it was just a joke.  His hand quickly struck me across the face, catching me by surprise.  The sting made my eyes swell with small tears.

 "Fucking brat, always messing around with me," he chuckled.  "But you know, I could always arrange something for the three of us–"

 "Kaeya!" I interrupted him and he laughed at my flustered face.  We had been joking about a threesome for quite some time now.  At least... I was joking about it. Maybe he seriously meant it.

 He guided his hands to make me sit up then pinned my arms behind my back. "It’s just a suggestion," he grinned at the thought while tying my wrists together with my own shirt.  "Oh, to see my little princess squirm with both her holes pounded crying with pleasure and pain...  That would be quite the sight indeed, don't you think?"

 “Please shut up,” I giggled, bucking my hips into his for an ounce of stimulation.  He tightened the fabric around my wrists and tugged at it a few times to make sure it stayed in place.  He gently laid me down again, enjoying the sight of my naked body fully exposed to him.

 "Now for the fun part," he smiled.

 He sat up to take his own shirt off and set it aside.  My eyes widened at the sight of his toned torso, my mouth practically drooling as my gaze traced his muscular abdomen.  His delectable skin glistened in the light of the fading sunset and I couldn't help but stare at his beautiful body.  To my dismay, my staring was interrupted by his shirt being placed over my eyes as he blindfolded me, pausing the fantasies in my head that came with that delicious sight.

 I felt Kaeya’s hands turn my vulnerable body so my chest pressed against the bed, my back arching to greet his face with my holes.  He snickered at the sight of me being drenched as a result of him teasing me for the past ten or so minutes with kisses and cold fingers.  All I could feel was his chilled breath tormenting my wetness and a hand caressing my inner thigh.  "Seems like you're so eager to be touched despite ruining yourself with your own fingers.”

 "Y-yes," I whimpered as one finger outlined my entrance, making me gasp.  "More..."

 He suddenly slapped my ass with his other hand, earning a yelp from my throat.  "I’ll think about it after I punish you, cunt.  Don't think I have forgotten about that."

 He got off the bed to stand up and pulled my body closer to the edge of the mattress.  "Now, count to fifty."

 I hesitated.  "Fifty? What do you mean–"

   "Do I seriously need to repeat myself for your dumb whore brain?" he responded slowly and sternly as if he were spelling it out for me.  "Count to fifty now before I leave you here and drink at the tavern tonight instead. You wouldn’t want to waste an opportunity to get fucked stupid by my fat cock tonight, would you?"

   I paused again thinking about why he'd want me to count in this situation before shyly starting.  "One–"

 SLAP!

 "Fuck!" I instinctively buried my face into the sheets as his hand stung my ass.  That hurt way more than it should.  That's why he wants me to count?

 "If I hear anything out of that mouth other than numbers I will not hesitate to leave you here.  No cursing, no gasping, no moaning.  Do you understand?  Now pull yourself together and count.  Start from one again."

 I quivered at the thought of him leaving me here after already being separated for a week.  I suppose the pain I’ll soon endure is my punishment, after all. So with no hesitation, I obeyed what he told me to do.

 "One..."

 SLAP!

 “T-two...!"

 SLAP!

 It hurt so bad and it had barely begun.  “Three..."

 SLAP!

 “Pick up the pace, my little painslut.  You can handle it."

 "Four..."

 SLAP!

 “Five..."

 SLAP!

 "You're doing so well, princess."

 Soon enough, we were nearing the end.  I truly underestimated Kaeya's strength with each smack.  Sometimes I forget that he's a Knight of Favonius, that he has a vision, and that he trains nearly every day to maintain his strength.  His blows were hellish now in comparison to the first few counts, which were extremely gentle in hindsight.  And he never hesitated with each slap, as if he wanted to do this to me for a long time.

 “Forty eight..."  I was a teary eyed mess at this point, trembling at the pain that stung like a million needles.

 SLAP!

 “Forty nine..." I whimpered, thinking about how i got myself into this situation, never being punished by him like this before.

 SLAP!

 “F-Fifty!"

SLAP!

 I sobbed at the aching pain while he simply chuckled.  He sat next to me and sighed contently.  "How do you feel, princess?"

 "P-please stop...  no more..." I muttered incoherently as the pain didn't seem to fizz away.

 "You have a safeword you know.  But it would be a shame to stop now when we’ve only just begun," he caressed my bruised skin with care, making me flinch instinctively.   I gulped.

 No.  I'm not going to stop here.

 "Tell me how you feel, my love.  Don't be shy."

 I paused, struggling to come up with the right words when all my brain could focus on was the excruciating soreness.  "I-it hurts s-so much..."

 "I know, baby.  But that's what you get for disobeying me.  You’ve learned your lesson, I hope?"

 "Yes, I-I've learned my lesson, sir," I breathily cried, "I w-won't ever do it again..."

 Suddenly I felt his thumb caress my wetness, eliciting a gasp from my throat.  "Oh?  But it seems like you actually really enjoyed that," he played with my aching folds as I stifled my moans, not sure if I was allowed to make noise.  "Well, princess...  that's not what a punishment is for, don't you think?"

 He pulled away his hand as he stood up which made me whine at the loss of touch.  I heard him undo his belt, but once it was off, I didn't hear him unzip his pants like I had hoped for.  Instead, I felt a leather strip gently trail down my thigh.

 "Your skin isn't that pretty shade of purple I was hoping for either.  In fact, if I had to take a guess, I would say it's red from pleasure instead of pain."

 "Wait, Kaeya!  No, please, it really does hurt...!" I weakly muttered as the realization settled in when he gently tapped my skin with the looped leather.

 "I don't think you realize how long I've waited for a moment like this, baby," his gravely whisper struck a genuine fear into my stomach, "A moment when you'd slip up so I'd have an excuse to make you quiver in pain.  You've been such a good girl for so long that I've never had a moment where I can make you beg for my forgiveness.  Which, as a matter of fact, there hasn't been a single moment so far where you've begged.  I assume you haven't actually learned your lesson yet."

 He brought his hand up to prepare for a blow.  "I'm going to brand you.  I'm going to make your skin raw until I feel tired.  And I can last all night and all day, baby.  You know that."

 He whipped the belt down to meet my thigh, creating a new kind of pain that made me cry out in desperation.  This was a new side of Kaeya that I have never seen before.  A new darkness had consumed him so suddenly that I sat on the fence of being terrified and being turned on at the same time.

 And this was still only the beginning.

 "Convince me to forgive you or bleed.  Your choice."

 He immediately whipped me at a quick, consistent rhythm, paying more attention to my thighs in addition to my already bruised ass.  At times the belt would land on my holes, which made me twitch with excitement and agony at the same time. This isn’t like him. Why is he doing this to me?

 "K-Kaeya, please stop!" I moaned out after a few hits, "P-please stop, I'm begging you!"

 “Try again, slut."

 More hits landed with sharp hisses sizzling off of my skin.  "K-Kaeya, I'm so sorry!  P-please forgive me–"

 “I don't even know what you're apologizing for," he interrupted with that damned teasing tone of his, "Could you remind me again?"

 The blows got stronger, more urgent and unforgiving, hitting any inch of exposed skin even if it was already raw.  "I-I'm so sorry for disobeying you...  I'm sorry for t-touching myself without your permission...!  P-please stop, I just want you inside of me–"

 He paused the hits to emphasize his words, which were muttered through gritted teeth. "I don't give a single fuck about what you want, whore. You’re just a toy for my amusement and somehow you still managed to fuck up."

 He quickly resumed the stings. "I'll be a g-good girl from now on!  P-please...  Please just forgive me!  K-Kaeya!" my voice slowly raised in volume in cries for the pain to stop.

 "Dumb whore.  It’s funny that you think I believe you."

 “Y-yes, I’m a dumb whore!" I scrambled for words and just copied his. There was no use in begging anymore. A part of me hoped I would be beat to unconsciousness under him just to relieve myself of this pain momentarily.

 He let out a groan and a low maniacal laughter, "Seeing your veins under my belt makes my cock twitch, princess.  I'm not sure if I want to stop, even if you kept asking me to."

 I couldn't take it anymore.  The pain hurt so bad but as fucked up as it was, I was still so unbelievably aroused by him.  The thought of him getting so aroused by me pulled out some kind of satisfaction within, despite the borderline torture I was experiencing. Maybe he was so comfortable with hitting me because he saw my body as just another criminal to interrogate and punish. Maybe he was releasing pent up frustration on me. Why is all of this so arousing?

 I felt my core light up as my thighs squeezed together.  For a moment, I forgot about the pain and a wave of pleasure washed over my body, sending twitches through the nerves in my legs. "K-Kaeya, actually p-please stop, I think I'm gonna c-cum...!"

 He disappointedly cursed under his breath and let me feel one last blow for good measure before letting go of his grip on the belt and tossing it onto the bed.  “Fine. That’s enough for now.”

 He climbed over my curled up body so his bulge pressed against my tied hands near my tailbone, my head trapped between his hands on the mattress.  He stayed hovering over me, slowly panting.

 "I don't have enough words to describe how much you're turning me on right now," Kaeya began to slowly whisper.  I could feel how hard he was by how he nestled himself into my tied hands.  "Your body shaking under mine, shaking in pain and pleasure...  And to think you were going to cum by my belt alone...  You really are a slut, [Y/N]."

 "K-Kaeya, I'm your slut...  and I need your cock in me now," I weakly interrupted him, "I n-need to be fucked...  right now, please, I'm begging you..."

 He stayed there for a moment, taking in the sight of my helplessness before standing up at the edge of the bed again.  He guided my shaking torso up to finally flip me on my back, pulling me closer so my head hung over the edge.  My lower half felt so relieved to finally make contact with the soft sheets, which were slightly damp from sweat and possibly my own wetness. I felt him wrap the belt around my neck, letting the loop gently tighten around my throat as he tugged.  I couldn't help but be reminded that he could kill me here if he really wanted to.  I was completely surrendered to him.

 I heard him finally take off his pants with the other leg, the scent of his sweaty skin tickling my nose.  I have never longed to get this stupid blindfold off and lay my eyes on his figure already. It had been so long since we’ve seen each other and now that he’s here I couldn’t even fully appreciate the sight of him. Nevertheless, I felt the shadow of his cock drape over my face and let out an exhale before he tugged the belt to catch my attention.

 “Don't make me tell you what to do."

 I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out eagerly which earned a chuckle from him.  He slowly pressed the tip of his cock into my awaiting throat, groaning loudly in the process.  he was surprisingly gentle about making sure I wouldn't choke immediately.  "F-fuck yes, [Y/N]...  taking all of it in like a good slut..."

 As soon as his long member hit the back of my throat, he tugged the belt tightly and groaned deeper.  My throat spasmed at the suffocating sensation which he responded to by pulling tighter.  I tried my best to relax.  "Behave," he reminded me.

 He began fucking my throat with no mercy, gradually quickening his pace but never pulling out or pausing to let me catch my breath.  He had trained my throat over the past few months for this, but the belt added a whole other level of difficulty and torment.  The muscles of my throat tightening around him more than usual made him breathlessly curse and praise me.  "Such a good slut...  My whore is doing so well taking my big cock...”

 He eventually let go of the belt to place both of his hands on either side of my face and fuck my mouth senselessly, ignoring my sputtering and cries for help at the suffocation.  It felt like I was drowning, but all I could think about was how good it felt to pleasure him, to hear his grunts and sighs of relief. His praises were consistent, a stark contrast to the way he degraded and pummeled me into the ground like a prisoner. Before I nearly passed out at the cut off oxygen, all his pent up frustration over the past week suddenly flooded my throat as his warm fluid was dumped into my mouth, deep groans and heavy breaths filling up the room.  His breath stuttered as I swallowed each pump of cum he fed me with hazy eyes, somehow enjoying this moment despite suffocating as he used his thumb to caress my face.  Kaeya placed a hand on the bed and pulled his hips away from my hanging head, leaning over my body and keeping only the tip of his cock inside my mouth.  I coughed and sputtered for a moment before pulling myself together to swirl my tongue over his tip, inciting a few twitches and extra drops of cum as a reward.  Tears and saliva painted my face, but at last, I finally caught a moment to breathe.

 "Keep licking and I might immediately cum again," Kaeya chuckled, cooling down from the heat of the moment.

 "I wouldn't complain," I playfully responded, letting out small coughs to clear my throat.

 "I suppose that's enough punishment for today," he gently lifted my head back up on the bed to provide better airflow.  He untied the blindfold off of my face so I could finally see him again.

 "Hi, handsome," I grinned, saliva dripping down my cheeks and into my hair. He ran his fingers through my hair and began massaging my scalp.

 "God... you are so inexplicably beautiful right now," he whispered desperately.  He began slowly stroking his cock in front of my face and deepened the massage, a proud yet cunning grin stretching across his face.  "But you'd look even more beautiful with my cum dripping out of your cunt, don’t you agree?"

 I moaned out his name and slowly lifted my knees up to my chest, teasingly using my hands to pull my thighs apart as an invitation. My eyes stayed locked with his. "Punishment's over, right?"

 He silently agreed, releasing his cock from his grip and taking another moment to catch his breath.  I watched him with pure lust in my eyes as he positioned himself at the crevice of the pillows in front of me then pulled my body forward to sit in his lap.  His sensitive cock twitched as the tip of his shaft kissed my dripping hole, aching to rearrange my insides.  He used one hand to pull himself down and shower my shoulder with bites and kisses, the other hand reaching down to massage my wet cunt, preparing for the night ahead.

 "My beautiful, stunning slut..." he growled into my ear between kisses, "I can't wait to see you completely destroyed by sunrise. You asked for it, after all."

[notsoheadless]

Remember Longcat, Jane? I remember Longcat. Fuck the picture on this page, I want to talk about Longcat. Memes were simpler back then, in 2006. They stood for something. And that something was nothing. Memes just were. “Longcat is long.” An undeniably true, self-reflexive statement. Water is wet, fire is hot, Longcat is long. Memes were floating signifiers without signifieds, meaningful in their meaninglessness. Nobody made memes, they just arose through spontaneous generation; Athena being birthed, fully formed, from her own skull.     You could talk about them around the proverbial water cooler, taking comfort in their absurdity. “Hey, Johnston, have you seen the picture of that cat? They call it Longcat because it’s long!” “Ha ha, sounds like good fun, Stevenson! That reminds me, I need to show you this webpage I found the other day; it contains numerous animated dancing hamsters. It’s called — you’ll never believe this — hamsterdance!” And then Johnston and Stevenson went on to have a wonderful friendship based on the comfortable banality of self-evident digitized animals.     But then 2007 came, and along with it came I Can Has, and everything was forever ruined. It was hubris, Jane. We did it to ourselves. The minute we added written language beyond the reflexive, it all went to shit. Suddenly memes had an excess of information to be parsed. It wasn’t just a picture of a cat, perhaps with a simple description appended to it; now the cat spoke to us via a written caption on the picture itself. It referred to an item of food that existed in our world but not in the world of the meme, rupturing the boundary between the two. The cat wanted something. Which forced us to recognize that what it wanted was us, was our attention. WE are the cheezburger, Jane, and we always were. But by the time we realized this, it was too late. We were slaves to the very memes that we had created. We toiled to earn the privilege of being distracted by them. They fiddled while Rome burned, and we threw ourselves into the fire so that we might listen to the music. The memes had us. Or, rather, they could has us.     And it just got worse from there. Soon the cats had invisible bicycles and played keyboards. They gained complex identities, and so we hollowed out our own identities to accommodate them. We prayed to return to the simple days when we would admire a cat for its exceptional length alone, the days when the cat itself was the meme and not merely a vehicle for the complex memetic text. And the fact that this text was so sparse, informal, and broken ironically made it even more demanding. The intentional grammatical and syntactical flaws drew attention to themselves, making the meme even more about the captioning words and less about the pictures. Words, words, words. Wurds werds wordz. Stumbling through a crooked, dead-end hallway of a mangled clause describing a simple feline sentiment was a torture that we inflicted on ourselves daily. Let’s not forget where the word “caption” itself comes from: capio, Latin for both “I understand” and “I capture.” We thought that by captioning the memes, we were understanding them. Instead, our captions allowed them to capture us. The memes that had once been a cure for our cultural ills were now the illness itself.     It goes right back to the Phaedrus, really. Think about it. Back in the innocent days of 2006, we naïvely thought that the grapheme had subjugated the phoneme, that the belief in the primacy of the spoken word was an ancient and backwards folly on par with burning witches or practicing phrenology or thinking that Smash Mouth was good. Fucking Smash Mouth. But we were wrong. About the phoneme, I mean. Theuth came to us again, this time in the guise of a grinning grey cat. The cat hungered, and so did Theuth. He offered us an updated choice, and we greedily took it, oblivious to the consequences. To borrow the parlance of a contemporary meme, he baked us a pharmakon, and we eated it.     Pharmakon, φάρμακον, the Greek word that means both “poison” and “cure,” but, because of the

limitations of the English language, can only be translated one way or the other depending on the context and the translator’s whims. No possible translation can capture the full implications of a Greek text including this word. In the Phaedrus, writing is the pharmakon that the trickster god Theuth offers, the toxin and remedy in one. With writing, man will no longer forget; but he will also no longer think. A double-edged (s)word, if you will. But the new iteration of the pharmakon is the meme. Specifically, the post-I-Can-Has memescape of 2007 onward. And it was the language that did it, Jane. The addition of written language twisted the remedy into a poison, flipped the pharmakon on its invisible axis.     In retrospect, it was in front of our eyes all along. Meme. The noxious word was given to us by who else but those wily ancient Greeks themselves. μίμημα, or mīmēma. Defined as an imitation, a copy. The exact thing Plato warned us against in the Republic. Remember? The simulacrum that is two steps removed from the perfection of the original by the process of — note the root of the word — mimesis. The Platonic ideal of an object is the source: the father, the sun, the ghostly whole. The corporeal manifestation of the object is one step removed from perfection. The image of the object (be it in letters or in pigments) is two steps removed. The author is inferior to the craftsman is inferior to God.     Fuck, out of space. Okay, the illustration on page 46 is fucking useless; I’ll see you there. (21) But we’ll go farther than Plato. Longcat, a photograph, is a textbook example of a second-degree mimesis. (We might promote it to the third degree since the image on the internet is a digital copy of the original photograph of the physical cat which is itself a copy of Platonic ideal of a cat (the Godcat, if you will); but this line of thought doesn’t change anything in the argument.) The text-supplemented meme, on the other hand, the captioned cat, is at an infinite remove from the Godcat, the ultimate mimesis, copying the copy of itself eternally, the written language and the image echoing off each other, until it finally loops back around to the truth by virtue of being so far from it. It becomes its own truth, the fidelity of the eternal copy. It becomes a God.     Writing itself is the archetypical pharmakon and the archetypical copy, if you’ll come back with me to the Phaedrus (if we ever really left it). Speech is the real deal, Socrates says, with a smug little wink to his (written) dialogic buddy. Speech is alive, it can defend itself, it can adapt and change. Writing is its bastard son, the mimic, the dead, rigid simulacrum. Writing is a copy, a mīmēma, of truth in speech. To return to our analogous issue: the image of the cheezburger cat, the copy of the picture-copy-copy, is so much closer to the original Platonic ideal than the written language that accompanies it. (“Pharmakon” can also mean “paint.” Think about it, Jane. Just think about it.) The image is still fake, but it’s the caption on the cat that is the downfall of the republic, the real fakeness, which is both realer and faker than whatever original it is that it represents.    Men and gods abhor the lie, Plato says in sections 382 a and b of the Republic. οὐκ οἶσθα, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὅτι τό γε ὡς ἀληθῶς ψεῦδος, εἰ οἷόν τε τοῦτο εἰπεῖν, πάντες θεοί τε καὶ ἄνθρωποι μισοῦσιν; πῶς, ἔφη, λέγεις; οὕτως, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὅτι τῷ κυριωτάτῳ που ἑαυτῶν ψεύδεσθαι καὶ περὶ τὰ κυριώτατα οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν ἐθέλει, ἀλλὰ πάντων μάλιστα φοβεῖται ἐκεῖ αὐτὸ κεκτῆσθαι. “Don’t you know,” said I, “that the veritable lie, if the expression is permissible, is a thing that all gods and men abhor?” “What do you     mean?” he said. “This,” said I, “that falsehood in the most vital part of themselves, and about their most vital concerns, is something that no one willingly accepts, but it is there above all that everyone fears it.” Man’s worst fear is that he will hold existential falsehood within himself. And the verbal lies that he tells are a copy of this feared dishonesty in the soul.

Plato goes on to elaborate: “the falsehood in words is a copy of the affection in the soul, an after-rising image of it and not an altogether unmixed falsehood.” A copy of man’s false internal copy of truth. And what word does Plato use for “copy” in this sentence? That’s fucking right, μίμημα. Mīmēma. Mimesis. Meme. The new meme is a lie, manifested in (written) words, that reflects the lack of truth, the emptiness, within the very soul of a human. The meme is now not only an inferior copy, it is a deceptive copy.     But just wait, it gets better. Plato continues in the very next section of the Republic, 382 c. Sometimes, he says, the lie, the meme, is appropriate, even moral. It is not abhorrent to lie to your enemy, or to your friend in order to keep him from harm. “Does it [the lie] not then become useful to avert the evil—as a medicine?” You get one fucking guess for what Greek word is being translated as “medicine” in this passage. Ding ding motherfucking ding, you got it, φάρμακον, pharmakon. The μίμημα is a φάρμακον, the lie is a medicine/poison, the meme is a pharmakon.     But I’m sure that by now you’ve realized the (intentional) mistake in my argument that brought us to this point. I said earlier that the addition of written language to the meme flipped the pharmakon on its axis. But the pharmakon didn’t flip, it doesn’t have an axis. It was always both remedy and poison. The fact that this isn’t obvious to us from the very beginning of the discussion is the fault of, you guessed it, language. The initial lie (writing) clouds our vision and keeps us from realizing how false the second-order lie (the meme) is.     The very structure of the lying meme mirrors the structure of the written word that defines and corrupts it. Once you try to identify an “outside” in order to reveal the lie, the whole framework turns itself inside-out so that you can never escape it. The cat wants the cheezburger that exists outside the meme, but only through the meme do we become aware of the presumed existence of the cheezburger — we can’t point out the absurdity of the world of the meme without also indicting our own world. We can’t talk about language without language, we can’t meme without mimesis. Memes didn’t change between ‘06 and ‘07, it was us who changed. Or rather, our understanding of what we had always been changed. The lie became truth, the remedy became the poison, the outside became the inside. Which is to say that the truth became lie, the pharmakon was always the remedy and the poison, and the inside retreated further inside. It all came full circle. Because here’s the secret, Jane. Language ruined the meme, yes. But language itself had already been ruined. By that initial poisonous, lying copy. Writing.     The First Meme.     Language didn’t attack the meme in 2007 out of spite. It attacked it to get revenge.     Longcat is long. Language is language. Pharmakon is pharmakon. The phoneme topples the grapheme, witches ride through the night, our skulls hide secret messages on their surfaces, Smash Mouth is good after all. Hey now, you’re an all-star. Get your game on.     Go play.

[makeste]

literally just another giant post of Bakugou faces.

so I did this last year, but I only got up to chapter 120 before I ran out of steam. happily, though, this left me with an additional 190 chapters’ worth of glorious gremlin faces to choose from for this year’s edition! which I figure I had better do, before tumblr finally pulls the plug on my poor sweet image limit.

so without further ado, happy birthday to Kacchan, and happy birthday to Kacchan’s asymmetrical HAH face where his eyes do the thing like ( ◣益◢).

why I like it: so this is from Kirishima’s flashback in chapter 133, where Kirishima was getting all down on himself because his quirk Only Does One Thing, and Kacchan was all “nah bro don’t worry about it because your One Thing is totally fucking rad, and you’re strong enough to withstand anything.” so that of course was incredibly sweet, and one of the few times we’ve seen him give an actual heartfelt pep talk without so much as a single insult thrown into the mix. but what really puts this scene over the top for me is the fact that you can see the ever-so-subtle hints of guilt and regret when he talks about All Might and Kamino. for just a moment, he gets this distant look in his eyes, and his expression turns soft and contemplative. basically this is a rare collector’s edition Kacchan face you will not find in many other places.

why I like it: because this frankly needs to happen in every damn fight until this kid finally gets it through his thick skull to ditch the mask so we can see every fantastic facial expression in full 4k glory. work with me here please Kacchan.

why I like it: because character growth!! this was our first big moment of post-DvK2 Kacchan development, and the payoff was well worth the wait. it only took him 166 chapters to realize that it’s hard to grow as a person if you’re determined to be a humongous dick to every single person you meet!! lmao, but it’s progress though.

why I like it: these two panels are criminally underrated. the way his face transforms when Deku gets the answer wrong dlkjfldk. this is easily one of the funniest subtle gags in the entire series.

why I like it: “hey Bakugou do you want to play in our band?” “fuck you, no.” “pretty please.” “fine, but I refuse to call it a band.” “well then what do you want to call it -- ” “MURDER.”

why I like it: GONNA MURDER EVERYONE BY PLAYING THE DRUMS!!!! SOMEHOW WE’VE SUCCESSFULLY COMPARTMENTALIZED THIS SCHOOL-SANCTIONED DISPLAY OF PERFORMING ARTS AS A DEATH MATCH. OH TO UNDERSTAND THE INNER WORKINGS OF THIS YOUNG MAN’S MIND.

why I like it: hah?! I love how he has to tilt his neck all the way back every single time he does this. he’s so cute I love him so much.

why I like it: somewhere around this point in the manga Kacchan decided to do away with being handsome and decided to just be a full-time gremlin in every single panel. this persisted for the next 90 chapters or so and he was very dedicated. I’m pretty sure he was going for vulgar and intimidating, but unfortunately for him he’s too inherently adorable and so the end result is just endearing and almost charming in its own way.

why I like it: this was from chapter 194 when Aizawa was announcing that they’d have a special guest for the Joint Training arc, and so Kacchan was all “BOY OH BOY A NEW ASS TO KICK.”

why I like it: more character development! and just look at that confidence! he’s fully recovered from his low point after Kamino and the provisional exam. he knows what he’s about now, and he is THRIVING. and once again you can see how his conviction inspires the people around him and makes them more determined. just, he is going to be such a good number one hero you guys.

why I like it: it’s the three little “!!!” lines hovering in the corner next to his head for me. “oh my god it’s All Might, All Might saw me being cool and Saving To Win and stuff, what’s he gonna say what do I do omg quick act natural.”

why I like it: QUICK HIDE YOUR FEELINGS!! WE CAN’T LET THE NEIGHBORS KNOW WE CARE. fjkdlsjklk

why I like it: this is his expression when he first sees Deku activate Blackwhip for the first time. it’s one of the few unguarded expressions of complete surprise that we’ve gotten from him and I love it thank you.

why I like it: classic asymmetrical HAH face. he truly has perfected this look. look at him, casually clinging to a pole for no reason other than to look dynamic. this boy truly cannot sit or stand or walk or do anything normally. he spent three months working his ass off to catch up to Deku and the others, and now that he finally has he’s filled with so much pent-up energy that he simply cannot hold it back anymore and he’s gotta climb a pole. he’s just gotta.

why I like it: because he is so fucking good at saving people now you guys, he’s like a whole-ass professional and shit, and yet it hasn’t changed who he is one single iota. he will save your life and he will SCREAM AT YOU WHILE DOING IT and you’ll sit there and be grateful goddammit.

why I like it: o noo he was caught unawares. All Might was all “I’m gonna have a dad moment and nobody can stop me” and he walked right up to him and put his hand on his head because he’s All Might and so what is he even gonna do about it. nothing, that’s what. you got played, Kacchan. outmaneuvered and outfoxed. all he can do is stand there and make that grumpy face he makes when he’s receiving unwanted affection (҂⌣̀_⌣́).

why I like it: more unwanted affection. now they’re even feeding him ffs. how could he let this happen. mm chicken.

why I like it: GREATEST ASYMETRICAL HAH?! FACE OF ALL TIME. out of all the people to befriend him against his will, Todoroki is by far the most confusing to him and it’s just so great.

why I like it: this is when Hawks is staring at him in chapter 244 because he fake-killed his mentor and stuff and he feels sorta guilty about it. but meanwhile Kacchan just thinks he’s trying to start some shit, and so he’s all “I WAS FASTER THAN YOU BACK THERE YOU KNOW” and Hawks is all “hahaha okay little buddy you just keep telling yourself that”, because as previously discussed Kacchan is too adorable to ever be intimidating.

why I like it: this is from 246 when he’s in the middle of arguing with Burnin’ and all of a sudden Endeavor calls to him and he’s just like o shit what’d I do.

why I like it: because Endeavor’s mentoring them and shit and he’s just casually sitting there eating his lunch like yeah. with his lil hamster cheeks lulz.

why I like it: the look that instantly became iconic. this panel cured me of the misconception that Bakugou “goes to bed at 8:30pm” Katsuki was a morning person. the truth is he loathes all times of the day equally.

why I like it: this one is a team effort because Deku’s faces are equally as good. I’m genuinely shocked that this family dinner with the Todorokis didn’t prematurely unlock Danger Sense. you can tell that he and Deku have a silent agreement to call a temporary truce on their rivalry for as long as they sit at this table as outsiders in this strange land. this is by far the most hazardous meal Bakugou has ever experienced, and yet the mapo tofu is too good to go to waste, so he’s just shoveling it down his throat trying to finish as much as possible before shit inevitably hits the fan.

why I like it: Kacchan is New Here so he doesn’t yet realize that if the Todorokis are spilling family secrets, there is always inevitably going to be someone listening in the shadows just outside the door.

why I like it: the battle with Ending was probably peak gremlin!Kacchan. like, we’ve had gremlin before and afterwards, but never quite to this same degree. Horikoshi really decided to push the limits of contorting this child’s face in the strangest ways.

why I like it: peak. gremlin.

why I like it: nothing to see here, just Kacchan quietly realizing after 252 chapters that he MIGHT have been just a BIT of a cartoonishly villainous asshole to Deku back at the beginning there ha ha ha oh god oh fuck.

why I like it: because he found the answer to What It Is That He Lacks, and he’s all cool and calm and infuriatingly secretive about it. it’s such a sudden and stark contrast to the gremlin faces he was making only moments earlier, and it makes this moment hit home that much more.

why I like it: because this is him being friends with Deku!! like for real though!! because he’s fucking around and insulting him and making weird faces and stuff, but it’s because in his mind That’s What Friends Do. they clown on each other and help each other train and shit. half an hour after this they’ll go down to the training gym and play Catch-A-Kacchan, and then he’ll quietly confess to All Might that he wants to atone. he may be a gremlin, but he’s a gremlin with layers goddammit.

why I like it: because this is right after TomurAFO shows up out of nowhere and scares the shit out of him and Deku and makes them see a terrifying death vision and stuff, and you can see how shaken up he is by it. he definitely understands how close they came to dying just then and he’s sobered the fuck up. this is the moment when it really sinks in that shit has gotten real. eight minutes from now he’ll move without thinking and save Deku’s life.

why I like it: hydro homies. nothing restores those electrolytes like good old Raquaius Sports Drink.

why I like it: because this panel was when it started to become clear that the real reason he grabbed this sports drink was to pretend like he was busy so he could act like he wasn’t interested in Deku’s training because god forbid the neighbors know that he actually cares.

why I like it: because the sideways glance!! and the fact that he doesn’t deny it!! in fact he does the opposite of denying it, and he basically starts pouring his heart out about how goddamn worried he actually is. he’s guilty and anxious and restless and this entire conversation is amazing.

why I like it: he looks so goddamn young here. when he finally stops scrunching up his face and putting on his usual tough guy act and for once allows his actual emotions to show on his face instead, the result is so damn striking. for once we got an entire conversation with no gremlin faces, because Horikoshi had to drop them completely in order to show just how serious he is here. which was incredibly effective btw.

why I like it: because he’s basically just fidgeting with the bottle now to avoid making eye contact with All Might because he just revealed a deep dark secret to him and he’s precariously vulnerable right now. that’s the body language of a kid who knows how badly he fucked up, and just wants to hear from someone else if it’s going to be okay, if he can still make it okay. he looks so small here.

why I like it: the worry lines under his eyes. the look of uncertainty and wanting to believe that what All Might says is true (“you’ll get a chance to talk eventually”). the hesitance to turn back and look at him, and the way he doesn’t dare until he finally gets that small bit of reassurance. All Might isn’t judging him. All Might understands him and understands where he’s coming from, and he’s giving him his blessing. he’s giving him a thumbs up and reassuring him that he sees the change in him and sees that he’s sincerely trying, and basically saying that he has faith that he and Deku will be able to work it out. and you can see that it means a lot.

why I like it: because this kid spent his entire internship with Jeanist doing nothing but bitching nonstop, and then later on when Jeanist went missing he was all tight-lipped about it because once again NOBODY CAN KNOW THAT WE CARE GODDAMMIT, and it was all very Classic Bakugou. but then Jeanist finally shows up again at Jakku, and we get this little moment of happy, smirky FUCK YEAH, I KNEW YOU WEREN’T DEAD YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, and it’s just the best.

why I like it: HE’S SO UNABASHEDLY PROUD GOD BLESS HIM.

why I like it: because he nearly died and then he woke up here in the hospital two days later not knowing where anybody else is or whether they’re even still alive, and this, my friends. this is finally the moment. the moment where he was all FUCK IT, MAYBE WE CAN LET THE NEIGHBORS KNOW WE CARE AFTER ALL. character fucking development. you love to see it.

BONUS:

WHAT HAVE I BECOME, MY SWEETEST FRIEND. EVERYONE I KNOW GOES AWAY IN THE END.

happy birthday Katsuki. feel better sweetie. HORIKOSHI YOU BETTER TREAT HIM RIGHT I AM COUNTING ON YOU.

[marauderundercover]

Taking Chances Ch. 11: Blast from the Past (Siblings)

AO3

Prev

Swinging side by side with her father was an amazing experience. Marinette tried hard to stifle her laughter, figuring Batman wouldn’t appreciate it if word got around that the newest vigilante was a giggler. He swings to the next roof and pauses, Marinette frowning as he listens to something on his comm.

“Alright. All hands on deck. Robin, you’ll stay on the roof with Ladybird.” He instructs, Marinette frowns. Was he really sticking her younger brother on babysitting duty? And why couldn’t she go wherever it is he’s going?

“What’s happening?” She asks, crossing her arms.

“There are several crates of weapons and a few dozen armed men in a warehouse a mile out from here. You and Robin are going to stay on the roof to make sure no one leaves before the police arrive.” He instructs before turning and grappling away. Marinette frowns, but follows behind him. Does he really not think that she can handle herself? And she knows this is going to cause problems with Damian. He already doesn’t like her and now he has to stay with her. She watches as he swoops down into the warehouse and she lands silently on the roof.

“I do not appreciate this.” Robin says, stepping out of the shadows with crossed arms. Although she can’t see his eyes behind his mask, Marinette knows he’s glaring at her. She just rolls her eyes.

“I don’t either. I don’t need someone watching me 24/7. I can take care of myself.” She says, and with a sudden jolt, she realizes this is the first time he’s willingly speaking to her. The first time they’re talking and it’s to argue. Lovely.

“If you had simply stayed away, then I would have been allowed to follow Father. Instead, I am being punished for your insolence.” He adds. Is he going to lecture her the entire time Batman and the others are fighting in the warehouse, she thinks, raising an eyebrow. She starts to snark back, but a shadow moving behind him pulls her attention instead. Narrowing her eyes, she watches as a figure steps out of the shadow, a gun raised at her.

“Well well well. What do we have here?” The man asks, a smirk on his face. Marinette glances at Robin, trying to see if he recognizes the voice. She doesn’t see any recognition, so she immediately catalogues the man as an unknown threat. Chances were that he was involved with the group currently fighting in the warehouse and not an actual Batman level villain. But he still had a gun, so she wouldn’t underestimate him. Robin turns to face the man and he immediately takes the gun off Marinette, pointing it instead at Robin’s head. Marinette narrows her eyes. She may not know him very well, but he was still her little brother. And she wasn’t about to let some stupid goon threaten him. Flicking her wrist, she aims her yoyo at the man’s gun, smirking as she manages to yank it from his grasp. She catches the gun as it flies back with her yoyo, holding it carefully and trying to ignore the internal panic. She’d never held a gun before, never wanted to or had a reason to. And she really didn’t want to hold it now, but she didn’t want the man to know that she was scared of the gun, because that would give him an advantage. She just grins at the dumbfounded look on the man’s face, his shock enough so that Robin was able to knock him down without a fight. He pulls a zip tie out of his utility belt and ties the man’s hands together.

“Well that was disappointing. I was hoping for more of a fight.” Marinette teases, hoping that the tension between her and Robin would break. She watches as his lips purse slightly, not sure what the expression meant.

“I hardly think one buffoon with a gun would be much of a fight for either of us.” He finally says, and her eyes light up. Success!

“But if it was the right foe, they could surely take you down.” A new voice says, and this time Marinette can practically feel the tension rolling off of Robin.

“Slade.” He says, obviously tensing for a fight.

“Damian. I wasn’t aware you were in possession of a Miraculous.” The man, Slade, says, turning towards her. Marinette stiffens, uncomfortable by both his words and the fact that she can’t see the man’s face because of his costume.

“I’m not in possession of anything.” He says, his jaw clenched. Marinette shifts into a defensive position, desperately wishing that she had a comm. Surely the rest of the family had heard this man’s intrusion through Robin. But she wished she could hear them. Whether it was giving information about the man or reassurance that the rest of them would be there soon, she wanted to hear them.

“Tell me, little girl, how did you stumble upon one of the most powerful pieces of magic in the universe? And why haven’t I met you before?” He asks, stepping towards them. Glaring at the man, Marinette steps forward so that she’s standing in line with Robin, unwilling to cower behind her brother.

“I don’t think we run in the same circles. And I assure you, I didn’t stumble across anything. I was chosen to wield this Miraculous.” She says, shoving false confidence in her tone when all she wanted was to grab Robin and run. Slade oozed a sense of wrongness and danger. Not a combination she wanted anywhere near her or her family.

“Mmm. Perhaps not. But we’ll never know, will we. I’m going to have to ask you for that Miraculous now, dear.” He says, her eyes narrow.

“I’m not sure if that’s worked for you in the past, but it’s not going to work today. You’re not the first creep in a mask asking for my Miraculous.” She snarks, hand twitching as she analyzes him and tries to come up with a plan. Without any warning, he lunges towards them, a sword suddenly in his grasp. Marinette jumps back, going on the defense as Robin lunges forward with his own katana. Marinette flits around both of them, throwing her yoyo at Slade every time he got too close to Robin. It was obvious the man was well trained, and it was also obvious that he had little patience for the two.

“You’ve improved, but you’re still not good enough.” He hisses, lunging towards Robin, his sword aimed at the boy’s chest. Marinette lunges towards them, shoving Robin out of the way. She shrieks in pain as Slade slides his sword into her shoulder. She can’t see the man’s face, but she can just imagine his smirk. He puts his other hand on his sword, and she just knows he’s going to twist. She can’t let that happen. So instead, she jerks back, screaming as she pulls herself off the sword. Robin launches himself at Slade once again, furiously slashing at the man. Slade lifts his sword up and Marinette flicks out her yoyo, grunting in pain as she irritates her shoulder. But she’s able to wrap her yoyo around the man’s wrist. Smirking, she tugs roughly, pulling the man off balance enough so that Robin can disarm him. Just as she lets her shoulders relax, Slade yanks his arm, tugging her to him. She yelps in pain as he wraps her into a chokehold. Staring at Robin, she tries not to panic. They’re gonna come for them, right? The rest of her family? Surely they’ve beaten those goons by now. They definitely heard the problem on the roof through Robin’s comm, right?

“Unhand her.” Robin says, shifting his position now that he has two swords.

“I don’t think I will. Not for free, anyway. You want her alive for some reason.” Slade says, tightening his hold. Marinette lets out a choked breath, desperately trying to pull in enough oxygen.

“What do you want?” Robin asks, Marinette tries to shake her head, already guessing what the man wants. She’d rather die than give some psycho the power of Tikki. Not only could he destroy the world, but Paris would also be lost without the Miraculous Cure.

“Her earrings. Let me take them, and I’ll let her live….this time.” He says.

“No….don’t...not..worth it.” Marinette manages to say, just barely able to shake her head. She gags as Slade tightens his grip again, black spots dotting her vision.

“Ladybird-” Robin says, and Marinette is certain she’s hallucinating now. Because he almost sounds pained.

“Don’t.” She begs, fighting to stay conscious. As she watches him, she sees a smirk make its way onto his face. That’s good. Good. Smirking brother means….what does it mean? She’s not sure. All she knows is that suddenly, the pressure on her neck is gone. She falls to her knees, gasping for breath and wincing at the burning in her shoulder. Too much. Too much all at once. A hand on her good shoulder shakes her from her thoughts and she weakly hits at it.

“Ladybird, it’s me.” A voice says. She blinks, opening her eyes, wincing at the pain enveloping her. Looking closer at the figure, she sighs in relief, letting herself slump down. She’s safe. Arms pick her up gently and she smiles softly, tiredness hitting her as the adrenaline finally fades. Curling in closer, she mumbles into Batman’s chest.

“Thanks dad.”

---

Bruce Wayne was pissed. And the only person who could piss him off so much was himself. He’d left Damian and Marinette on the roof alone because he thought they’d be safer. He didn’t think the two would be able to get into any trouble up there. Of course he would be wrong. Of course Slade Wilson would choose tonight to come after Damian. And of course the man just had to know about the Miraculous.

Hearing his daughter’s pained screams over his son’s comm would haunt his nightmares. It’d likely become the unholy symphony over the images of Jason’s broken body and Damian’s limp form. Images that’d haunted him for years and would continue to do so until he dies. When he was young, his nightmares were just of his parents. But he had seen things much worse since becoming a father. And now he’d heard much worse. Shaking his head, he tries hard to hold onto the one bright part of the evening.

Marinette had called him dad.

It was the first time she’d called him anything other than ‘Mr. Wayne’. His heart warmed at the thought, but everything came crashing down again when he remembered. Slade Wilson was gone. He’d managed to get away while his focus was on Marinette’s wellbeing. Which means his daughter was now in even more danger. Damian had informed him of the man’s obsession with the Miraculous. It was something they’d need to talk about, but not tonight. After she passed out in his arms, he brought her back to the manor. Alfred stitched her shoulder, and Bruce brought her to her room. It wasn’t decorated yet, but he’d made sure to pick out a room for her after finding out about her. Even if she didn’t want anything to do with them after this, she’d always have a room here.

Sighing, Bruce sticks his head into Marinette’s room, just to reassure himself that she was there. That she was safe. It was something he did with each of his kids, every time they were injured. Every time he was afraid that he would lose them. The sight in front of him makes him pause and pull out his phone to take a picture. They might be mad at him for it later, but he’d curse himself forever if he let this moment slip away. All of his children were piled in Marinette’s room. The girl herself was on the bed, curled into a ball despite her injured shoulder. At the foot of her bed was Damian, his face peaceful for once. Jason, Dick and Tim were all in a pile on the floor, pillows and blankets scattered both beneath them and on top of them. They were an impossibly tangled pile of limbs, guarding their youngest sister. He smiles softly, eyes finally falling on Cass curled up in an armchair that she must’ve pulled next to Marinette’s bed. Satisfied that all were well, Bruce shuts the door gently, not wanting to risk waking any of them.

His children were together, and safe. For now.

Next

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[rebrandedbard]

If you are still writing 14?

Okay so this one accidentally went from a drabble to an actual fic whoops. The cure is totally inspired by the Rapunzel fairy tale, spoiler alert, where the prince falls in the thorn bushes around the tower and Rapunzel’s tears fall into his eyes, curing him.

14. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”

wc: 4444 which is an awesome number I’m so happy lol

Robbed Blind

Someone botches a spell to steal Jaskier’s artistic vision and he’s cursed with blindness. Thankfully, he falls into the company of Ciri and Lambert. They journey safely to Kaer Morhen, but what could be the cure to his affliction?

-

She had found him, tripping over the strings of destiny, in Drakenborg. He’d been on his way to Oxenfurt when the curse took hold, and he had gone no further. Jaskier was haggard, gaunt, and looked quite worn. His hair lay flat from constant fussing. It was a habit Ciri remembered well from his visits, always combing a nervous hand through his hair before a performance. She had never seen it look so lifeless. He needed a mirror, she thought. She would soon realize that a mirror would serve him no purpose.

He was blind. He startled when she ran to him, throwing her arms around his waist. She’d been so relieved to see a friendly face that she’d run right into his arms, nearly knocking him from the stool in the corner of the tavern. Why should he not catch her as he’d always done? He’d been looking directly at her; she thought he’d merely not recognized her beneath the mud and hood.

“Let me go! Who are you? Stop—stop this now or I’ll give you such a wallop, I’ll—!”

“Jaskier!” Ciri cried, shocked. She flinched away from him as he elbowed her roughly against her temple. She rubbed the spot, standing out of reach.

Jaskier straightened up at once. “Is that—? Little cub, is that you?” he asked. He turned his head as if searching for her and reached out a hand, feeling the air. It was nowhere near.

Ciri took his hand. During their long weeks of travel, she refused to let it go again. She became his eyes, and together they started for Oxenfurt and the safety of its halls.

He’d woken up blind one day, he explained. No warning or explanation. The mage had told him what magic was at play. Someone had tried to steal his artistic vision and the enchantment had gone wrong, stealing from him his very sight.

“Is there not a cure?” Ciri asked.

Jaskier shook his head. “The mage said it was a botched spell. There’s no telling what will fix it, only that it must have something to do with artistic vision. The mage suggested it might be cured by the old methods: kisses and the like; gazing upon true beauty.”

He squinted and took her face between his hands. “I’m looking and looking at you as hard as I can, and I remember you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen when you were first born. So what do mages know? Have you become a pox-faced adolescent or scraggly Medusa? Ah,” he chuckled, “but you’d still be a fairytale princess in my eyes if you had the face of a basilisk.”

She laughed and squirmed out of his hands. “You were always very good at Blind Man’s Bluff. Do you remember when we used to play it? Back then, you were always stumbling; you aren’t stumbling as much anymore.”

“I’ve grown used to it, I suppose. But you are a princess—do you suppose a kiss from you might cure me? How are you with frogs? Ever wake a sleeping prince?”

“No, but we may try it. There’s magic in me of a sort, I know. Here, kneel a moment.”

Jaskier knelt on the dry road and closed his eyes, tapping the lid. “Right here. Give it a go,” he said encouragingly. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll practice on a frog and work our way up.”

Ciri kissed both eyes to be sure. “Alright. Open them. Do you see anything?”

She tried not to get her hopes up, watching Jaskier squeeze his eyes tight. He opened them, blinked several times, and gave her a sad smile.

“Not to worry, we’ll find a pond in no time,” he joked, trying to keep the mood light.

-

“Well! I go to find a cat and find a lioness instead. And a songbird. Must be my lucky day.”

Ciri put herself between the stranger and Jaskier, waving a large branch in warning. “Keep away,” she growled. “If you come any closer, I’ll scream.”

The scruffy man put his hands up and grinned. “I’ve heard what sort of screaming runs in your family. Trust me, I would rather not be around for one of them. Heard it knocked pretty boy flat on his back at your mother’s little Surprise party.”

Jaskier put a hand on Ciri’s shoulder. “Wait a moment,” he said. “I know that moniker. Geralt complained of it before.” He was quiet a moment, stirring up a memory. Then, he lit up, asking excitedly, “Did you say you were looking for a cat? A cat witcher, by chance?”

“Why? Find one up a tree?” the stranger pressed.

Jaskier patted Ciri’s shoulder and strode forward, extending a hand. “You must be Lambert! I’ve heard—” his hand buckled against Lambert’s chest, his stride clearing the distance too quickly “—oh, my apologies. I’ve heard about you before. I was hoping to see you under better circumstances if I ever got the chance. Or to see you at all, really. Damnable timing.”

Lambert looked at him, then took his hand. Ciri watched as the understanding settled in, for Jaskier was staring straight at the man’s forehead, a near lucky guess of his eye line. Lambert wore an expression of pity freely, knowing Jaskier could not see it, though his tone was light and cocky as before. “I always wondered what you saw in that sourpuss, following him as long as you did; now I know you didn’t see anything after all,” he joked.

Jaskier snorted. “It’s new.”

“Ah, so you’ve been blinded by love, have you?”

Jaskier flapped his hand until he felt the brush of Ciri’s sleeve at his side, then he tugged her forward and presented her. He cleared his throat, a tad flushed. “May I introduce Her Royal Highness, Princess Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, the Lion Cub of Cintra. Geralt’s child Surprise.”

Ciri tossed her branch aside. “You know Geralt,” she said.

“They’re brothers.”

Lambert sneered. “He got all the looks, Eskel got the talent, but I got the brains.”

“What little there were to be had,” Jaskier added.

“Oh, ho! You’ll fit right in at the keep, talking like that.”

There was a pregnant pause between the three of them. Jaskier nudged Ciri gently forward. “She’ll be safe there. And her wit is more cutting than mine.”

Ciri turned at once to protest. “But what about Ox—”

“And so would you,” Lambert cut in. “A dull knife and a dull wit can be sharpened, and I’d rather keep two knives in my belt than one, whatever their make. Don’t start that maudlin shit with me; you’re coming along.”

Jaskier opened his mouth to protest and Lambert raised a hand. Then, realizing how ineffective that was against one who could not see it, he recovered and smacked the side of Jaskier’s head to shut him up before he started.

“Come on; it’s a long and dull road we have ahead of us, and you’re my entertainment. I want to hear every embarrassing story you can supply. I’ve long run out of blackmail and I’m in need of fresh material. Besides, what better bait for a cat than a twittering bird? If you sing loud enough, we might pick him up along the way.”

-

They were all together in the great hall when at last he came. The figure stood in the doorway, a black dot against the stark white of winter outside. A pair of bags dropped with a thundering bang upon the floor, the sound echoing throughout the room, and the figure bundled up by the fire started awake in fright.

Jaskier patted the blanket beside him, made frantic by his sudden awakening. “Ciri? Ciri!” he called, for she had been asleep next to him what seemed only moments ago.

She paused only a moment to stare at the imposing figure in the light. Something in her shouted, compelling her to go to him. But Jaskier called for her in that voice wrought with panic once more. She flew from the circle of wolves to his side, abandoning her hand of cards, disregarding the man of destiny at the door.

“I’m here,” she said, taking his hands. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always. I’m not going anywhere.” She and the others looked at each other, looked at Geralt, and said not a word.

Jaskier settled and took a deep breath. “I heard something crash. I dreamed—but never mind that.” He sighed, pressing his head to their joined hands. “I’m sorry. I know it’s safe here. I’m just not used to you wandering off just yet.”

“I know.” She stroked his hair gently. It was soft again, though not as silky as before. Lambert and Eskel had drawn him a bath for the first time in a long while, but he had not his customary soaps and oils. He was … less bright, his appearance dulled with his mood.

Vesemir had examined him. Countless hours, the wolves had huddled together in the old library, trying to find a cure for Jaskier’s condition to no avail. As time went by, the reality of his situation weighed on Jaskier. He could no longer read his notebook, nor write his music to be remembered. Ciri read his notes aloud and studied the art so she might transcribe them for him, but it was obvious how he felt.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” he’d said.

And now he gave her that same false smile, the one that failed to meet his eyes. She missed the lines in the corners and wished they might come back. Perhaps they’d flown off with the crows, frightened of the winter snow.

“Go back to your game,” he whispered. “I’ll head up to bed.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” she offered.

He shook his head. “I know the way now. If someone will take me to the stairwell?” he prompted, raising a hand.

Ciri looked at Geralt. There was so little she knew of him—stories and songs … words spared in rumors and stolen from conversations where she lingered unnoticed to listen. What she knew of the wolf and bard she had pieced together with care. For all the tales Jaskier would tell, he would not disparage Geralt before her, and he would not tell the story of the dragon hunt. But dwarves talk. Stories travel and lesser bards would imitate the songs of greater. Witchers collect news of other witchers, and two adults would speak as adults when ale made easy speech. Jaskier had confided in Lambert those tearing words once flung at him upon the mountain. And thus she had put the final piece into place of the great mystery between them.

‘If life could give me one blessing…’

“Who will take him?” she asked. She kept Geralt’s eyes as she rose to her feet. “Who will take him into his hands?”

It was only the barest movement, but she swore she saw the wolf of legend flinch.

Jaskier sat up with a huff. “You make it sound so dramatic. Are we playing at a quest now? Very well, who is my knight errant? The princess has thus decreed a quest is in order: a quest up the perilous tower steps, my-my! Such a task!”

“I should think a white knight is the one suited best for the task,” Vesemir grunted. He shuffled his hand, eyes narrowed at Geralt.

The white knight in question let his cloak fall. He shook the snow from his arms and dusted them slowly, looking at each watching face in turn. His hesitation was clear. When none moved to claim Jaskier, he stepped forward cautiously. Without a word, he took Jaskier’s hand and lifted him to his feet.

Jaskier clapped an arm around his shoulder, hands patting the edge of his long hair. “Ah, thank you, Vesemir,” he said. His hand slipped from Geralt’s armour and he made a face, flicking his wet hand in the air. He prodded the armour curiously. “You’re soaked; I thought you said you’d sent Eskel for the firewood.” He prodded again and bumped against Geralt’s shoulder pad. He pinched it between his fingers, figuring out its shape. He hummed curiously. “What are you wearing? Did you go hunting?”

Geralt stared. Jaskier was not looking at him. Geralt looked at the circle of men by the fireside and there sat Vesemir in silence, watching. He was struck dumb. What … game was this?

“A knight needs a knight’s armour,” Lambert called.

Jaskier laughed. “Oh, of course. Such a soft touch; did you get all dressed up for Ciri? Have I woken in the middle of a game?”

Eskel tossed a card in the middle of the circle. “Yes,” he answered, “but we’ve just started on another, different game.”

“Very cold and calculated,” Ciri agreed.

“Cold and calculated. So a snowball fight has become a snowball war, no doubt born of the most complicated strategies. Shame on the lot of you. You ought to let your elders warm themselves before sending them on tasks. You’re young; you’ve got legs,” Jaskier scolded.

“It was his idea,” Eskel replied.

Vesemir nodded, keeping silent as the game unravelled.

Jaskier looped his arm through Geralt’s and stood straight and tall in an affected manner. “Come, my good knight,” he said, “and let us bid good night to these slacking youths.”

He started to walk in the general direction of the stair, Geralt turning them with truer aim. Geralt looked over his shoulder at the others, frowning. This was not the sort of confrontation he expected when next he saw Jaskier. If he ever saw him. And here was his child Surprise in their midst without a word of greeting or explanation, and the bard, the two of them together and settled within the walls of the keep.

It was too perplexing for him to puzzle out. And Jaskier was acting strangely. Where were his speeches? Geralt had expected him to argue on sight, or else to pretend all was right and greet him, “Geralt! How good to see you,” or, “Fancy meeting you here,” and play off the mountain like it never happened. Or at the very least to ignore him. But to call him Vesemir and take to his arm? What joke was he playing at?

The answer came as Jaskier dodged the first step and nearly fumbled upon the stair. He clung to Geralt’s arm with a cry and his other hand shot out to grope the wall. He flailed for it, feeling his way from the step outward, then sliding his hand up the side of it. He turned his head, looked at Geralt and laughed. “I’m still not used to these uneven steps,” he said. “Give me time and I’ll be able to find my way around unassisted. By next week, I’ll be able to navigate every pool in the hot springs, then you four will never see me fully dressed again!”

Geralt raised a hand to Jaskier’s face. He rested a thumb just beneath his eye. They were as blue as ever, nothing seemed amiss, and yet …

Jaskier’s smile weakened. He closed his eyes and pushed the hand away. “I know the three of you are working hard to find a cure. I know the jokes fall flat. But I must make them. If I don’t … Vesemir, if I can’t make light of it, the darkness I see will be all I have left.”

He turned toward the stair again, hand firm on Geralt’s arm, the other on the wall. “Right then. Up we go. Just one at a time,” he said. He stepped tentatively forwards, prodding his foot before him until he nudged the base of the first step. “Got it. First is always hardest, isn’t it?”

They carried on. Two steps, three, one after the other slowly. They were uneven by design: a final defense against those who would try to invade their stronghold. The spiral stair favored those who walked it every day, gave advantage to the men who would be at the top, swinging their swords to fight back those who would dare trespass unwitting. It was difficult enough for any stranger with sight. With Jaskier, it was a quest in itself.

Midway up, Geralt thought to carry him. They were going so slowly; it would have been easiest that way. He nearly offered, but stopped. If he spoke, Jaskier would know him. He began to reach an arm out to simply lift him, but Jaskier fumbled once more, his knee hitting the step with a mumbled curse. And Geralt heard him muttering through his teeth as he crouched upon the stair.

“I will learn,” he hissed. “This will not stop me. I refuse to be a burden to anyone. Never again.” He touched his forehead to the step and Geralt put a hand to his back. He was trembling.

When Jaskier rose again, he did not take Geralt’s arm. He reached out and took hold of the wall on either side, arms stretched wide to hold himself up. He proceeded to climb the stair alone. When Geralt reached out to help, Jaskier waved him away.

“No,” he whispered. “We’re nearly at the top. Just let me do this much. Please.”

And Geralt let his hand fall away.

Jaskier reached the landing with a powerful stomp, expecting a final step. He breathed a sigh of relief and sagged against the right wall. Geralt followed behind and patted his shoulder. Small congratulations. From there, Jaskier walked down the corridor, tapping when he came upon a wooden door. He passed three, tapped each with his knuckles, counting. When he reached the forth door, he opened it. In this space, he walked with ease away from the wall. He flopped confidently upon the bed and rested a moment as one does after a long journey.

He shucked off his doublet and loosened the laces of his boots. He set these aside at the very foot of the bed where they might easily be found again. He undid the back lace of his trousers, paused, and inclined his head toward the door.

“Are you still there, Vesemir?” he asked.

Geralt did not know how to respond. He stood fixed in the doorway, but dropped his eyes to his feet modestly. After a moment’s wait, Jaskier finished undressing and climbed beneath the heavy furs. A memory stirred—that was not the final task of the evening. What was the last of their routine each night? What was left undone that made this finality seem so abrupt? Geralt realized it in the darkness of the room. He had no candle to blow out.

The truth struck Geralt sharp as a blade to his gut. He stole through the door, walking quietly toward the bed. He sat on the edge, the furs rumpled beneath him, and listened to Jaskier’s breathing. He was not yet asleep—would never be, so soon—but he did not stir.

Geralt took his hand gently.

Jaskier squeezed it back.

“I only wish that had not been the last I’d seen of him,” Jaskier whispered. “I try to remember his smile now. For all my poetry, I can’t remember it clearly. His smiles were so rare, but I don’t suppose you need me to tell you. Or perhaps you do. I don’t know if he smiled here; I know nothing his life in this place. Were you so fortunate that they were commonplace?”

Silent footsteps creeped up the stair. Ciri had waited long enough to follow. Geralt heard no sign of her under the ringing words of Jaskier’s speech. Though he spoke no louder than the breath of the wind, every last syllable echoed like a clap of thunder in his ears.

Jaskier slipped his hand free and turned on his pillow, hugging it close. “I wish I might at least see Ciri now, know how she’s grown. They change so quickly at that age. Does she look like her mother? Does she look like him? Destiny makes strange things of those it touches. She was beginning to look like him, I once thought.”

She saw him well enough, looking through the open door. She crouched behind the wall, listening as she always did in secret, for the things he would not burden her with.

“I always did wonder what you looked like. Geralt spoke once to me of his brothers, his mentor. You’re still stories to me in ways. I know you have long hair, grey with age. I know Lambert is shorn, Eskel is shaggy. I know your voices, your height, and a hundred other things. But do you share his eyes? What color is the armour you wear? How does the sun set over the mountainside? The carpets before the hearth—what pattern is woven there? What thousands of stories do you keep in that library? What do the monsters look like illustrated in the great bestiary?”

He buried his face in his pillow. His voice was muffled, but both Geralt and Ciri could hear the husk in it. “I won’t feel sorry for myself. It doesn’t mean anything—just idle curiosity. It doesn’t matter how the carpet is woven or if you wear brown shirts or red. I’ve seen a lifetime of sunrises and sunsets and stars. I don’t want them!” he barked. He writhed on the bed, his face falling from the pillow, stained with tears. “I don’t! I never needed them, not one! I don’t care—I don’t! None of them are important!”

Geralt rushed forward and took Jaskier in his arms. Jaskier struggled, beating at his chest, and refused to be coddled. “No!” he wailed. “Don’t comfort me, I don’t need it! I don’t want it! I will not be pitied!” But for his hard words, he clung to Geralt’s armour, sobbing against his shoulder. “It’s unnecessary. It’s just a bunch of poetry. Useless poetry and songs.”

Jaskier pulled away, Geralt’s hands trailing from his back to his shoulders as he sat up. Geralt held him there before he could retreat more. Before he could think twice of it, Geralt leaned in, his hands cupping Jaskier’s face on either side.

“Vese—”

Something warm and wet fell onto Jaskier’s lashes. He heard a shaky breath, felt the warmth of it upon his face. Another hot tear fell into his other eye and he blinked in surprise, for it was not his own. He sat perfectly still in shock, blinking the falling tears away.

“They were never useless,” Geralt said. “They were always important—all of them.”

Jaskier twitched, raising his head by instinct up to look at the man who held him now. “You were—!”

“I’m sorry. For not speaking before. For … not speaking then. After. And for saying what I did that day.” He wiped the tears beneath Jaskier’s eyes away, an expression of pain twisting his hollowed features. “If I’d not sent you away—I don’t know what’s become of you, but I might have—I could have tried to prevent it. You would still have your sight.”

Jaskier covered Geralt’s hands. “No, Geralt. This is none of your doing. You can’t—”

A loud bump from the hall startled him. Jaskier turned at once to look.

“Ciri,” he breathed.

Ciri had a finger to her mouth and was glaring up at a tall man. They both cowed back, being caught. Jaskier looked between them as Geralt’s hands slipped away. He stood, walking toward them. He looked at Ciri, gaping, their eyes perfectly aligned. Jaskier fell to his knees before her and took her hands without fumbling.

“Ciri,” he said. “You’re so … my good gods, you’ve grown.”

All were still as he reached out, touching her face as though she were made of glass. He smoothed her hair away, taking all of her in. He laughed, new tears falling as he pulled her close and crushed her in his arms. “You’re so beautiful!” he cried. He stroked her hair, cradling her against him as tight as he dared. “And you!” He looked up at the witcher in the hall, reaching out to him and taking his hand. “Which one are you? Say something now, quickly. Let me hear your voice and know you.”

“Eskel,” he answered. And then Jaskier was up on his feet, pulling him into another embrace.

“Eskel!” Jaskier cheered. “Eskel, you look even more heroic than I ever imagined! Oh, let me look at you. Oh, oh! Lambert! Vesemir! Where are you, come forward!”

He dashed into the hall, only to turn on his heel for another look at Eskel, for just one more eyeful of Ciri. Over her shoulder, he saw Geralt sitting there on the bed, his yellow eyes wide, the tears still clinging to his chin.

“Oh,” Jaskier whispered. “Oh, I see. I see.”

He walked forward, gliding a hand beneath Geralt’s jaw. He touched his eyes with his other hand. Carefully, he wiped the last of Geralt’s tears away. It dangled, a little drop at the tip of his finger and he brought it close. He closed his hands around it, cradled them to his chest.

Geralt stood slowly before him. And he smiled.

Ciri tugged at Jaskier’s shirt, her head turned away politely. She cleared her throat and said, “Jaskier? Lambert and Vesemir are on their way up. And you’re … well, you’re not at your most presentable.”

Eskel averted his eyes, his back turned to the scene, however touching. “You might want to get a bit more dressed. And quickly,” he added, for Jaskier was standing in his smallclothes.

Jaskier snorted. “All of you, turn away for decency’s sake! We’re having a moment, here.”

“And what about me?” Geralt asked. “Shall I look away?”

It was nothing but empty jest and Jaskier smiled. “No,” he replied. “No, you’re looking where you’re needed. But I suppose to be fair …”

He clapped a hand over Geralt’s eyes. He leaned forward, whispering against Geralt’s lips. “There. Now no one can see. No one … but me.”

There were no witnesses to that first kiss. It was a secret Jaskier kept for himself.

However, the second, third, and forth had quite a startled audience, as Geralt and Jaskier both fell deaf to the clatter of footsteps in the hall. Ciri took it upon herself to usher the others from the room, explaining on the way. After all, with the curse lifted, she no longer needed to be Jaskier’s eyes. His mouth, however, was currently occupied.

-

Send me a drabble prompt!

[memetaped]

star trek: deep space 9 taken from the tv show.

come on, let’s get you home. 

looks like you need a new bandage. 

it’s good to see you got your appetite back.

you’re lucky you only got singed.

i need to know that you’re here, safe. that way, a part of me will always be safe, too.

get your hands off of me, before i do something i’ll regret.

we’ll see each other again soon. that’s a promise.

whatever it is you’ve been through has taken its toll.

that boy’s life is in our hands, and i won’t let anybody give up on him.

there are too many ways to get into serious trouble here.

get some hot chocolate and tell me about it.

you can channel your feelings of aggression in other ways.

this is important. you and i. things change, but not this.

you’re a great boy, you know that?

you have to leave me here and go on by yourself.

but the thing about dreams is, if you talk about them, they kind of go away faster.

now that kid is here under my protection, and i swear, if you do anything to hurt them, i will make you regret it. is that clear?

everyone has to have someone to confide in, someone to hear their stories.

my heart is too big.

the boy’s in a lot of trouble.

everything’s gonna be all right, but you have to try and stay awake for me.

if you were hurt, i’d leave you behind.

hold on, i’m not finished with you.

my dear, you should not be here.

it’s just a nosebleed.

hey, who said anything about being scared?

everyone went out of their way to look after me.

it takes a lot of courage to admit you’re wrong.

you run now, i won’t be able to protect you.

give me that before you hurt yourself.

i don’t need counseling, or relaxation, or time to adjust. i just want to be left alone.

get out.

and i am gonna pray, because i don’t know what else to do.

care for a root beer?

i’ve always loved you. even when i hated you.

before you volunteer too quickly, understand what you’re getting into.

do not hug me.

mom?

i’m not afraid, papa.

you’ve been so kind to me.

i’ve said my piece. sorry for butting in.

you know, why don’t we just call it a day? you obviously have other things on your mind.

i feel sick when i eat. i have pains in my head, in my chest.

you keep moving around, you won’t need any nurse.

i’ve known nothing but violence since i was a child.

what the hell has gotten into your head?

so, now you’re hiding things from me?

i think i could handle some soup.

save your strength

a sharp knife is nothing without a sharp eye.

so, my young friend, what do you think we’re looking at?

confession is good for the soul.

i’m gonna stay here, take care of the wounded. that includes you.

that’s a very personal question.

is this some kind of joke?

look at me. i need to know you’re going to be all right.

hold on, i’m not finished with you.

continually distracted, depressed, and agitated.

you always tighten your brow just a tiny bit whenever you’re about to ask a question.

it’s so small even i can’t stand up in there. look, i’m developing a slouch.

the one good thing about going away is coming home.

you don’t want me hanging around here? fine. i’ll do my thinking someplace else.

i don’t know who’s going to hear this. i don’t even know if i’ll be alive by the time this log is recovered.

we have rights, including the right to be as stubborn or thickheaded as we want.

i know it’s too difficult to speak right now. just rest.

you might say it came to me in a vision.

what are you doing up? you’re supposed to be in bed.

i’ll miss you.

and you’ve got a lot of nerve complaining about being cold when you’re the one wearing the jacket.

the last thing i want is to become a burden to you.

rudeness will get you nowhere.

okay? i’ve forgotten “okay.”

keep your eyes and ears open, follow orders, and try not to get in the way.

it’s not a trick, it’s a choice.

that’s how i think of you. and maybe that’s why sometimes, it’s hard for me to relax around you.

it’s a treatment, not a cure. it’ll prevent hallucinations, take the edge off the depression, but that’s all it’ll do.

you know, that was a very ugly thing you just said.

right now, my head is swimming in bloodwine and i’m going to bed, and so should you.

i’m a little tired. didn’t get much sleep last night.

i appreciate your concern, but i’ll grieve in my own way, in my own time. 

we’ve come to care about what happens to these people.

i know that you’ve been working with the maquis, and right now, i don’t care.

are you some kind of anarchist?

when you take someone’s life, you lose a part of your own as well.

home! i want to go home!

besides, i could never live with myself if something happened to you.

now we either freeze to death or starve to death. take your pick.

isn’t there someone you can talk to? someone you trust?

that’s right. it’s okay. everything’s going to be fine.

take my word for it, you’ll survive.

i don’t know about you, but it’s past my bedtime.

do you want to come color with me?

look, i’m not asking you to like me or to be my friend. i’m asking you to join me, to fight at my side.

sealing the entranceway was a risky thing to do. you nearly brought the whole ceiling down on yourself.

i can’t feel my legs.

“a needle in a haystack” wouldn’t do this job justice.

you ought to get some rest.

don’t deny the violence inside of you. only when you accept it can you move beyond it.

make sure to put your plate in the replicator, sweetie.

you know, it’s attitudes like that that keep you people from getting invited to all the really good parties.

i feel like someone just walked over my grave.

we need to get you to the infirmary.

enough. you’re pushing yourself too hard.

if that’s how you remember it, you must’ve hit your head harder than i thought you did.

you should take a break. you’ve been working nonstop for days.

well, you tried being alone and it hasn’t done any good. so maybe it’s time to stop brooding and start talking.

are you part of my family?

my leg is broken.

i’ve been looking all over for you.

you’re suffering from a severe form of amnesia.

speak up for yourself while you’re here, okay?

things that would send cold chills down your spine and wake you in the middle of the night.

i’m the one who should be struggling to stay conscious. i’m the one who’s in excruciating pain.

not just a bad dream – bad memories.

are you two fighting again?

i don’t want your sympathy and i don’t need your advice!

you stay a while longer if you want to, but you have to promise me, when the time comes and i tell you to go, you’ll do it.

look, i know it’s too late for an apology. but for what it’s worth, i’m sorry.

why don’t you go to your quarters and lie down for a while?

everyone keeps looking at me. they’re afraid of me.

i’d never felt more alone in all my life.

i’m half-frozen. i haven’t eaten for days. my muscles won’t work anymore!

what you experienced was an artificial reality, an interactive program that created memories of things that never actually happened.

what could be more important than dom-jot?

i’m not sleeping. i’m checking my eyelids for holes.

i’ve found that when it comes to doing what’s best for you, you humanoids have the distressing habit of doing the exact opposite.

you’re going to give yourself indigestion.

speaking of pain, this is probably going to hurt.

i never thought i would say this to you, but you are listening to your heart, not your head.

would you please go on vacation and get out of our hair?

you should take things easy for a while. 

i wish there was something i could do. some way i could promise you that everything is going to be okay.

i’ve done some things i’m not proud of. 

i want to stay with you.

my weakness is i’m too generous, too forgiving.

oh, this is one stubborn infection. how long have you had it?

just to “speak up for myself”, i’m feeling a little betrayed here.

the best way to survive a knife fight is to never get in one.

you can annoy me, bait me, question my very existence. but in the end, we both know i’ve won.

i haven’t seen one of these since i was a kid.

it’s a good weapon – solid, simple. you can drag it through the mud and it’ll still fire.

i’m sorry, i hope i haven’t offended anyone.

little children do that.

you know, eventually, you’re going to have to stop talking and deal with this.

if you come with me, you can be a soldier again.

i still wish you’d given me a little more warning.

you can’t expect me to cure it overnight.

i used to dream about you coming to save me. that’s what kept me alive.

you’ve never had those feelings. you don’t know what it means to really care about another person.

let me put it another way. i don’t want to play cards, and even if i did, i wouldn’t want to play with you.

what’s next? do you want to apologize to me? express your sympathy?

i think you went to your quarters last night and you tossed and turned in bed, because you knew some of the things you said to me concerned me.

you’ve got all the emotions of a stone. no offense.

because i have the bad habit of telling the truth even when people don’t want to hear it.

i’m always suspicious of people who are eager to help a police officer.

for as long as i can remember, i have always been an outsider.

you were wounded. try not to move around.

terrorists don’t get to be heroes.

i’ve never needed a friend more than i do right now.

i cried for you. i missed you so much.

we need to stop the bleeding. we better get you up to the ship.

i’m not afraid of you.

for the moment, why don’t you relax? try not to be so tense, take it easy.

we don’t belong in this time. we’re from the future.

you federation types are all alike. you talk about tolerance and understanding, but you only practice it towards people who remind you of yourselves.

now, i think we should concentrate on getting you comfortable with this weapon.

out there, there are no saints, just people – angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with the federation’s approval or not.

yeah, i just banged my head on something.

it’s life. you can miss it if you don’t open your eyes.

i should have known you’d develop feelings for these people you’ve been living with for the past few years.

there’s nothing you can do. um, i just need some time.

i’ll teach you. it’s a very simple game.

you don’t deserve it. nobody does.

and you want to know why you don’t scare me? because i’m already more scared than i’ve ever been in my life.

oh, please. i’m suffering enough without having to listen to your smug federation sympathy.

i know what it’s like to worry about a child.

last night, it sounded like a takaran wildebeest was tromping around up there.

do you remember my face? even a little?

between you and me, those people have every right to defend themselves.

there’s a time for levity, my young friend, and a time for genuine concern.

why? why do you care so much?

i have to save you from yourself.

just because a group of people belong to the federation, that does not mean that they are saints.

life is yours for the taking. all you have to do is reach out and grab it.

no one on this station is better than anyone else. we’re all equal.

that’s why i came to you, because i knew you’d protect me. you will protect me, won’t you?

just because we don’t understand a life-form, doesn’t mean we can destroy it.

oh, we’re all very good at conjuring up enough fear to justify whatever we want to do.

it’s an expression of affection that you find difficult to accept.

look, i just don’t want anything to happen to you.

as your friend, i have to tell you i’m worried about you.

have i ever told you how much i hate that smug, superior attitude of yours?

and as for bedside manner, i’ve known nicer voles.

you’re the terrorist. you tell me.

i repaid kindness with blood. i was no better than an animal.

you don’t know what it means to care about someone, do you?

i’ll try to keep my problems more quiet next time. 

are you sure you’re all right?

oh, i slept like an alvanian cave sloth.

just watch your back. you’re in danger.

the thing i don’t understand is why you pretended to be my friend.

i have to say goodbye to you.

[saeyoungchoismaid]

Hanahaki Disease

Pairing: Asmo x gn!reader Genre: nsfw themes in the beginning, angst, fluff Warnings: listening in on others having sex and masturbating is briefly and vaguely mentioned in the beginning. Mentions of blood. choking, suffocating, ‘dying’ Summary: Many choose to forget their love. You don’t know if you have that option. Word Count: 5.8k  ObeyMAX day: July 10 - Asmo 

Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from unrequited love. Flowers begin to bloom in your lungs, feeding off of the tissue, and using your nutrients as its own. If your feelings aren’t returned, the flowers will continue to grow until they suffocate you. The only cure, besides having the love returned, is to remove the flowers from your lungs. However, if you go through with this procedure you will lose all memories of your love. Many choose to forget, you don’t think you want to make that choice. 

You clutch your pillow tightly as you listen to the moans and all other sorts of lewd noises leave Asmo’s room. You know it’s Asmo room for a multitude of reasons. One, the succubi has apparently never heard of using their indoor voice and is just saying Asmo’s name like a mantra. Two, your room is directly next to his room, per your secret request to Lucifer. You’re now regretting that request. 

Before you can even think of any more reasons, which there are plenty of, you hear the succubi scream in pleasure which means they are probably cumming for the third time. It’s quite annoying actually. Mostly because you’re hating yourself for getting turned on. On one hand, you're sick to your stomach and can’t stand to listen to them. 

On the other hand—well, that hand is currently shoved down your underwear. You can hear the way Asmo is moaning and grunting, his bed squeaking with each movement. Yeah, you’re pretending that your hand is him above you making those noises. It didn’t take long for you to start moaning softly, your body’s temperature growing as your pleasure does. 

Amazingly enough, you and Asmo cum at the same time. Well, you’re assuming so. His moans got higher pitched and louder before slowly drifting off. You pant and open your eyes to find your dark ceiling, the cold room starting to creep over you. 

Your eyes fill with tears as you go limp, your hand just resting inside of your pajamas as you cry. You eventually get out of bed to clean up, knowing you won’t be able to go to sleep feeling all sticky. This doesn’t stop you from crying. The longer you cry, the worst you feel. 

You’re in the shower when it first happens. You start to cough violently, your tears going from sad, self-loathing tears to lack of oxygen tears. You lean against the cool tile as you practically cough up a lung, your body shaking in fear. 

Something then falls past your lips and lands wetly on the floor of your shower. 

You don’t even notice it at first, too busy trying to regain air into your lungs. Did you cry so hard you puked? You look down to find that the water is trying to carry something pink to the drain. You blink a couple of times before rubbing at your eyes. Maybe your vision is just blurred? Is it blood?

Once you rid your eyes of the rest of your tears, you bend down to get a better look. You still aren’t completely sure what it is, so you gently pick whatever it is up. You unfold the wrinkled object and then realize it’s a petal. 

Your immediate reaction is to try to figure out what else it could be. A flower petal doesn’t make sense. Why in the world would it be a petal? Exactly. It wouldn’t. 

You finish up your shower quickly after that and swiftly get out, bringing your petal out of the shower with you. You set it onto the counter and then wrap a towel around your body, staring intently at the puny thing. 

Your next reaction is trying to figure out why you would’ve coughed up a petal. You tried reasoning with yourself. Maybe Mammon is pranking you again and put a petal into your food? But that wouldn’t explain you coughing it up. Maybe Lucifer used a spell to do this? But that doesn’t make sense either because he wouldn’t do something that would cause you harm. Maybe Solomon did a little magic? He doesn’t seem like the type to do something like this either though. 

You sigh and hang your head into your hands, trying to think of any reason as to why this happened. It just leads to you worrying more though. What if you cough up more? How will the guys react? Should you even tell them? 

You groan and decide to just deal with it in the morning. You do your after shower routine before going to bed, staring at your blank wall with a heavy frown on your face. It took awhile for you to fall asleep but you eventually managed to do it. Somehow. 

“Good morning, my handsome brothers and lovely (Y/n),” Asmo greets as he walks into the dining room for breakfast. You keep your head down as you roll your eyes, trying not to bring attention to yourself.

But, of course, just like every morning, Asmo swoops down to kiss your cheek before taking his seat beside you. You don’t reply like you normally do though. You just keep your head down and remain silent. Asmo would’ve noticed if it weren’t for his brothers chiming in. 

Satan noticed though. 

“Ugh, I hate how chipper you are,” Belphie groans from his seat. Levi snorts and smirks at Belphie before turning it towards Asmo. 

“He’s only so chipper because he got laid last night,” he says while chuckling. Mammon instantly gags and rolls his eyes. 

“Don’t remind me. They kept me up all night. I even debated on making a deal with a witch to get my hearing to stop working.” 

“That’s a great idea! Then, you wouldn’t hear us talk about you,” Asmo singsongs. They then start to bicker per usual. Being reminded of last night only makes you feel sicker. You nibble on your breakfast, feeling your appetite disappear with each word that leaves Asmo’s mouth. 

Suddenly, you start to cough just as harshly as you did last night. You quickly grab a napkin and cover your mouth, your eyes filling with tears as you hack away into the white cloth. Satan is quick to stand up and come behind you, ready to do the Heimlich maneuver when you raise your hand to stop him, your coughing slowly coming to a halt. 

You look down into your napkin to find another sopping petal, the sight of it adding weight to your already heavy shoulders. You quickly crumble the napkin up, not wanting anyone to see what lay inside. 

“(Y/n), are you okay?” Satan asks, placing his hand onto your shoulder. His question makes all the others abrupt with questions of their own. You wipe at your watery eyes as you nod your head, clearing your throat before speaking. 

“Yes, I’m fine. All of you calm down. My food just went down the wrong pipe. I’m alright,” you reassure with a warm, but fake, smile. Everyone relaxes at your words, making you relax as well since you weren’t caught. 

“I’m not very hungry anymore though. Beel, you can have my share,” you say sweetly, giving him a genuine smile as you slide your plate over to him. He always makes you feel all mushy and happy. It’s just who he is. 

He does that little chuckle of his in response as he happily takes your plate from you. “Thank you, (Y/n). I’m glad you’re okay,” he replies sweeter than candy. You ruffle his hair a bit before you look over at Lucifer. 

“Is it okay if I stay home today? I’m not feeling too well.” Well, it’s not a lie but it’s not for what they’re thinking. He instantly nods his head as he stands. 

“Yes, of course. That must’ve been a fright to choke like that. Do you want me to stay home with you? Do you need anything?” You smile at him now, feeling your chest swell a bit for how much he cares. 

“No, no. You have to go see Diavolo today for an important meeting. I’ll be fine. I just have a bit of a headache now,” you say as you gently pat his shoulder before waving to the brothers and making your departure. 

After school, there’s a knock on your door. You don’t feel like getting up from your moping party, so you just tell whoever it is to come in. You look over at the door to find Satan, a small frown on his face. 

“(Y/n), I…” he trails off, looking around your room instead of looking at you. You sit up at how serious he appears, fear starting to crawl inside your mind. 

“It’s okay. You can say whatever it is you have to say,” you say sweetly, sending him an even sweeter smile. He looks over at you and you can physically see his body relax at this. He slowly walks over to your bed and sits at the foot of it. 

“(Y/n), what’s really going on? While I was at school, I was thinking about this morning and I discovered something. You barely even touched your food after Asmo came in. You were staring down at your plate and picking at your food until you started choking. You didn’t choke on food, did you?” he says softly. 

You stare down at your blanket, mentally cursing Satan for how smart and observant he is. He caught on so quickly. Too quickly.

“No, I didn’t choke on food. If I told you the truth though…” you trail off just as he had done earlier. He decides to copy you as well. 

“It’s okay. You can say whatever it is you have to say,” he whispers, gently taking a hold of your hand. He then adds on, “You can trust me with anything. You know that, right?” You look up at him then, a dumb smile on your face. 

“It’s both a blessing and a curse to have you as a best friend,” you mumble, almost feeling like crying. He laughs and gives your hand a squeeze, nodding his head in agreement. 

“I agree. So, what’s going on?” 

You go quiet at his question, debating on telling him the truth or not. But, of course, he can also pretty much always tell when you’re lying. You decide to tell him everything, from taking the shower when it first happened to this morning. He listens intently and doesn’t interrupt, waiting to speak until you’re done speaking. 

“You have the Hanahaki Disease,” he replies like it’s obvious. Your brows furrow at this new information, trying to recall anything you’ve learned about this disease. You’ve never heard of it though.

At your obvious confusion, he starts to explain. “Basically, you’re in love with a certain someone and since they don’t return your love, to your knowledge, your lungs are growing flowers, or something. I’m not completely sure about all the details. I read a book on it forever and a half ago. I’d have to do more research on it.” 

You nod your head, relaxing and feeling yourself smile at having such a perfect best friend that will help you through this. Your smile fades though when you see his dark expression. “What aren’t you telling me?” you whisper. 

He stays silent for a moment before speaking in the softest voice you’ve ever heard from him. “As I said, I don’t know all of the details…” he trails off to gather his thoughts before continuing, “but, if I’m remembering correctly, it can be fatal. There is a cure though.” 

Your rising good mood suddenly plummets at this news. 

“Fatal?” you mumble, your throat constricting at the thought of dying because of your stupid crush on Asmo. That airhead is going to get you killed! And for what? 

You don’t realize you start crying until Satan starts wiping the tears off of your cheeks. “Shh, hey. Don’t cry. Why are you focusing on the bad? I said there’s a cure. I’ll leave and go do research on this. You’re not going to die, (Y/n),” he soothes, pulling you into a hug. You take a deep breath of his calming scent and nod your head, closing your eyes. 

“Okay. Thank you. You’re the best,” you mumble into his chest. Your face vibrates as his chest rumbles with his laugh. 

“You bet I am,” he replies playfully. 

It didn’t take long for him to come back with answers, several books crowded in his arms along with a frown. “Well, that can’t be good,” you say softly as you sit up on your bed, which is where you’ve been hiding out from everyone. 

“So, I was right. Hanahaki Disease can be fatal but there’s a cure. You’d have to get surgery to remove the flowers from your lungs or else you’ll suffocate to death.” Your brows furrow at this, seeing that he still looks apprehensive and maybe even angry? 

“What else? There’s something else. I can tell,” you say softly. 

“Well, you can get the flowers removed but if you do, you’ll forget about the person you love. You’ll have no memory of them,” he says softly. Your heart squeezes at the thought of not remembering Asmo. 

“So, I can’t do that.” 

“(Y/n)-”

“No, don’t ‘(Y/n)’ me. I’d rather die then forget A—him. He’s my love. I don’t…”

He sighs and walks over to your bed and sits down beside you, wrapping his arm around your shoulders. Your head flops down onto his shoulder closest to you, a frown hanging heavy on your face as tears prick at your eyes. 

“You can just say it’s Asmo. Everyone knows,” he whispers softly to you, bringing his hand up to comfortingly rub your back. You turn your head to cry into his chest, your breathing starting to become labored. 

“Everyone except for him,” you sob, your whole body shaking. You cry for a while, holding Satan tightly as he holds you just as tight, if not tighter. Once you’ve cried your heart out, he speaks up again. 

“Why don’t you just confess to him? I think he likes you,” he says as he pulls away, using his thumbs to wipe at your cheeks. You shake your head and grab his wrists to pull his hands away from your face. 

“There’s no way I’m going to tell him. You know him. He brings someone home practically every other night and-” Your cut off by something forcing its way into your throat, causing you to cough and hack until you get the petal out. You spit it out into your hand, panting for air and letting your face cool back off. 

“(Y/n), I’m serious. Look at you. You’re coughing up multiple petals a day. If you keep this up, it’ll go from every couple of hours to every couple of minutes until you’re choking on them and not being able to breathe,” Satan says gravely, his own eyes starting to sting as he thinks about you dying in front of him without him being able to stop it. 

You smile softly at him and cup his cheek, rubbing your thumb along his cheekbone. “Hey, calm down. We’ll figure something out, okay? I’m sitting with the smartest man in the Devildom,” you soothe, taking deep breaths with him to help him calm down. 

“(Y/n), I’ve already read a handful of books and they all say the same thing. Your love either has to reciprocate your love or you have to get the flowers removed from your lungs. There’s no other option. We don’t even know how long you have,” he pleads quietly, tears starting to leak from his eyes. 

You sigh and shake your head, bringing your other hand to run through his hair, just as he had done for you. “Hey, don’t cry, okay? I’ll talk to...him. Alright? I’ll do it for you,” you promise. This makes him relax before he pulls you into another hug. 

“Thank you, (Y/n),” he mumbles into your ear. 

Later that evening, you're laying in bed and trying to coerce yourself into falling asleep which isn’t playing out so well. All your mind can do is play out scenarios of your confession to Asmo. What if he laughs in your face? What if he shoots you down without hesitation? All you can think about is negative outcomes. You can’t even imagine him returning your feelings. 

But how could you? It’s obvious he’s not into you. Why would he be when he can have anyone he wants? 

Next, your brain liked to play out the scenario of you choking to death right in front of everyone without being able to do anything. Your eyes start to sting with the want of tears, your fears slowly starting to consume you. Before you can think better of it, you quickly jump out of bed and run out of your room. The cool air of the big house hits your bare legs as you run through the hall. 

You gasp for air as you reach his door, abruptly knocking on it as you lean against the wall next to it. He’s quick to open the door, looking at you with wide eyes. 

“(Y/n)? What’s wrong? Are you choking again?” Satan asks as he swiftly takes you into his arms. You shake your head as you start to cry into his chest, your whole body shaking violently. “Shh, it’s okay. I got you,” he reassures, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as he pulls you into his room. He sits you down on his bed, squatting down in front of you once you’re settled. 

“Can I stay here?” you just barely whisper. You feel like a child who had a nightmare and is afraid of the shadows that lurk in the dark. Then again, that’s pretty much exactly what is happening. He instantly nods his head in agreement, smiling up at you as he soothingly rubs his hands through your hair when he stands up. 

“Of course. You don’t even have to ask,” he reassures. He then leaves the room for a moment before coming back with extra blankets and a pillow. Before he can walk past his own bed, you gently grab his wrist. 

“I, um—you should sleep on your bed. I’ll feel bad if I kick you out of it,” you whisper, slowly starting to calm down more. He smiles more at you and sets the pillow and blanket onto the bed. 

“Are you comfortable sharing then? Because I’m not letting you sleep anywhere else other than a bed,” he replies as he sits down beside you. You nod your head, sniffling and wiping your tired eyes. 

“Yeah. I was, um, actually wondering if we could…” you trail off, your throat constricting a bit. 

“Hey, c’mon. It’s me. You can speak freely with me,” he whispers, rubbing your back. You take a deep breath, nodding your head as you work up the confidence to ask him. 

“Can we cuddle? I just...I’ve never done it before, and it would make me feel better that you’d be able to feel the signs if I started choking,” you reply in the softest tone possible, staring down at your lap. You look up at him though when he starts to chuckle. 

“You’re too pure for this world. Of course, I don’t mind,” he promises, standing up to pull back the covers. He lets you crawl in first and get comfortable before tucking you in on your side of the bed. He then goes around to the other side of the bed and crawls in, making sure to be respectful of your boundaries and to let you come to him. Once he pulls the covers up his body, you slowly sidle over to him and tuck yourself into his side. 

Having your best friend here supporting you like this is so reassuring that you can’t find the words to thank him even if you tried. 

“Thank you,” you say simply, wishing you could say more. You can hear the smile in his voice when he replies. 

“Don’t mention it,” he whispers back before you both fall into a comfortable silence and eventually drift off to sleep. 

The only way to describe the next morning is pure chaos. Apparently, one of the brothers saw you two embracing in front of Satan’s room before he pulled you inside. 

They, of course, all assumed the worst. 

“What did you do to our innocent (Y/n)?” 

“Do I need to get my knife?” 

“Yeah, what did you—wait, Belphie. You have a knife?” 

“Satan, unless you two are dating, this is highly inappropriate.” 

And it just kept going. Asmo, for once though, is deadly silent. He wouldn’t even look at you two and just ate his breakfast. He didn’t give you your daily morning peck on the cheek either. 

Starting to get annoyed, you huff and roll your eyes before shouting over them. “Can you hooligans shut up for ten seconds and let me explain?” Successfully grabbing their attention, you continue. “I just had a nightmare and went to his room for comfort. Nothing happened, you pervs,” you explain in deadpan. 

You watch them all physically relax. Except for Asmo. He still seems wound up tight and ready to snap or break in half at any second. 

“Oh, thank god.” 

“Belphie, put your knife away.” 

“I shouldn’t have assumed the worst and jumped to conclusions. I apologize.” 

“Are you okay, (Y/n)? Was it a scary nightmare?” Beel asks, giving you some of his breakfast as an apology. This man is too pure to be a demon. You honestly feel terrible lying to all of them, especially him. Then again, it was basically a nightmare come true. 

“I’m fine, Beel. It was...actually terrifying but Satan helped calm me down,” you reassure the sweet man. He smiles softly at you and pours you some juice before you can do it yourself. 

“I’m sorry, (Y/n). That must’ve been awful,” Belphie says next to Beel. 

“And here we were throwing accusations at you two. I, once again, apologize,” Lucifer speaks up, bowing his head as he apologizes. 

You smile at them all and shake your head, moving your hands back and forth in front of you. “No, no. It’s okay, really. I understand why you all had your suspicions. I’m sure it did look bad.” You take this chance to look at Asmo who is still staring down at his breakfast as he slowly scoops food up to his mouth. 

You’ll have to ask him about it later. 

All the brothers, minus Asmo and Satan, continue to apologize though until breakfast is halfway over. Then, after that, you all finally relax and talk as you normally do. You’re glad because you didn’t know how many more apologies you could take. 

You’re walking towards your room after school when you hear Asmo yelling at someone. You pause by his door, not meaning to eavesdrop but you can’t help but to be curious. You jump out of your skin when the door flies open and out walks a succubus. They give you a dirty look as they leave, fully clothed and furious. 

You watch them for a moment before looking inside the room to see that Asmo is standing at the door, a deathly grip on his door knob. You clear your throat and give him a small smile. “Hey, I wanted to ask how you’re doing. You seemed a little tense at breakfast and…” you trail off, looking down the hallway to where the succubus just disappeared as they turn, “plus, that whole situation just happened so—”

“How about you mind your own business and leave me alone?” he snaps, cutting you off. Your head whips back to him, your jaw dropping as you stare at him. Did he really just say that? Maybe a side effect of the Hanahaki Disease is hallucinations? 

“What—”

“What are you, deaf? I said mind your own business! You’re always so nosey! What? Whoring around with Satan isn’t enough? Do you want to—” He stops in his tracks when your eyes start to fill with tears, his throat closing in on itself. Why is he yelling at you? You did nothing wrong. You didn’t spend the night with Satan because you wanted to sleep with him or something. 

He still has a chance. 

Before he can apologize though, you start to cough. He waits for you to stop so he can say how sorry he is but you just keep going. Suddenly, your coughing stops and there’s no sound escaping you. But why do you still look like you’re choking? 

“(Y/n)? What’s wrong?” he asks quickly, not sure as to what’s happening. Are you pranking him? 

Your face fills with color, becoming too dark for his liking. “Help! Someone help! Something’s happening with (Y/n)!” he screams at the top of his lungs as he wraps his arms around you. His touch sends the petal flying from your mouth and you get clarity for a moment before you start coughing again. 

He helps you to lay on the ground, seeing that your legs are shaking and going weak. Your eyes leak fat tears as you stare up at him, not being able to stop what’s happening. You should’ve just told him how you feel and tried to get him to fall in love with you. You barely got any time to even decide what to do though. How unfair is that? Maybe it’s because he yelled at you and you thought for a moment that he hates you. 

Satan is there within a few seconds, his eyes widening when he sees you choking. He knows how to do the heimlich maneuver, cpr, and anything else you could imagine but none of that will help you. He knows that but he feels his hands itch by his side to do something as he kneels next to you. 

“Why are you just staring at them? Do something!” Asmo screams, fearful tears welling up in his eyes. You continue to cough below them and spit out petal after petal, the petals growing in size with each one that leaves. 

“I’m sorry, (Y/n),” Satan whispers, holding your hand in his and giving squeezes to help soothe you. He hopes it’s soothing anyway. 

Asmo is beyond furious and devastated as he screams at his brother. “Why are you apologizing? Just help them!”  Tears fall down his face and land on yours, calming your coughing with each tear. Satan takes notice of this and wipes at his eyes to get a better look at you. 

“They love you! That’s why this is happening!” Satan shouts, seeing his other brothers race down the hallway towards all the commotion. When they arrive though, your airway is blocked once more and your face starts to grow dark. Asmo looks away from you to Satan, not understanding what he’s talking about. 

“What are you talking about?” he speaks his thought, his hands shaking as he pulls you onto his lap. They watch your eyes roll back into your head, your body slowly starting to grow still. 

“I’ll explain later! They’re in love with you and you don’t return their feelings! You—”

“I do! (Y/n), I love you! I promise I do! Ever since you got here, I’ve been head over heels for you!” Asmo sobs, his chest aching with the raw feeling. He’s never admitted it before. He always just told himself it was lust, not the other L word. 

They all look down to you, expecting you to breathe and wake right up with a bright smile. But you laid in Asmo’s arms completely still. Satan’s fingers go to your neck, his entire body feeling numb. “They have no pulse!” he panics, going up onto his knees to stare down at you. 

You’re supposed to be okay! Asmo confessed his love for you and you’re supposed to be healed! So why aren’t you breathing? Was he too late? Asmo starts to sob, already assuming the worst. Satan keeps staring at you, trying to find a loophole or an unknown answer. His other brothers stand around them and silently cry, not really sure what’s going on but knowing by your still body that it’s not good. 

Satan then sees the pink flowers deep in your throat, a gasping flying out of him as his hand goes to your mouth. Everyone watches as he shoves his hand into your mouth before struggling to grab something. He grabs the flower and retches it from your mouth, staring in awe and disgust as he pulls the flower free from your throat. An entire flower connected to a stem comes from you, your chest tugging a bit when Satan reaches a certain point. He yanks harder and the flower suddenly comes free, revealing roots that were stuck inside of your lungs. 

“Kiss them,” Satan whispers, hand dropping the flower by your body. The flower is covered in blood and spit, soaking the floor as soon as he drops it. Asmo doesn’t hesitate to kiss you, wanting you to live so he can do all the things he’s been dying to do. 

He places a delicate kiss onto your lips, the biggest weight imaginable leaving his shoulders as he finally gets to kiss you. He just wishes it was under different circumstances and that you could actually return it. Your lips felt cold against his but he could care less. Tears are still streaming down his face and landing on yours, sliding down your cheeks towards your hairline. 

His eyes snap open when your lips just barely move against his. He would love nothing more than to keep kissing you but that small movement had him pulling back. You gasp for air, your red eyes flying open. You cough and make them all panic that it didn’t work. But then your coughing stops and you’re just laying there and staring up at the ceiling while you get air into your desperate lungs. 

Your eyes then move to your love, new tears filling your eyes. Asmo thinks maybe you’re upset with him and that’s why you’re crying. It makes sense to him. You almost died because of him. 

“This is the happiest moment of my life,” you whisper hoarsely. Everyone immediately relaxes and even glares at you a bit for scaring them and then saying such a thing.  

“You’re such an idiot,” Satan cries, pulling you out of Asmo’s hold and into his own. You weakly return the hug, chuckling quietly to yourself. 

“But I’m your guys’ idiot,” you mumble, growing tired as soon as you get all the air back into your lungs and your heart has calmed down. 

“You should rest. I’ll explain to everyone what happened,” he says as he pulls away, looking to Asmo. He’s assuming that he would want to help you now that you two are an item. Well, he assumes you are. 

“I’ll help them. You can inform me later,” he says softly, gently taking you back into his hold. He brushes your hair out of your face, the softest look imaginable gracing his features. You smile tiredly up at him, leaning into his warmth. 

He then helps you up and starts to lead you to your room. “Can we go to your room?” you whisper weakly, feeling him instantly go back towards where you were laying. 

“Of course, my love,” he reassures, leading you to his open door. You look to Satan who picks up the wet flower with his already dirtied hand. 

“Wait,” you call out. It wasn’t as loud as you hoped but it still got all of their attention. “Can I keep it?” you ask. They all stare at you as if you grew a second head. You just keep your focus on Satan though who is studying you silently from the floor. 

“Yeah, of course. I don’t really know why you’d want it though…” he reassures as he gets off of the ground. You smile and lean into Asmo’s side, your eyes tracing the flower. 

“It’ll be a reminder that our love prevailed,” you say softly, warming all of their hearts up. Satan smiles at this and nods, sending you a thumbs up with his free hand. 

“I’ll clean it off for you and leave it in your room,” he reassures. You thank him before letting Asmo lead you inside and close the door behind him. 

“Do you want a bath?” he asks, leading you to the bed to let you sit down. You think about it for a moment, looking down at your body. You could use one, since your shirt has your spit and little drops of blood on it but you don’t want him to see you naked for the first time like this. 

You shake your head and weakly point at his closet. “No, I’m okay. Can I just borrow one of your shirts?” you ask unsurely. He instantly smiles and nods as he makes his way to his closet. 

“But, of course! I just know you’ll look perfect in my clothes!” he says cheerfully, starting to act more like his usual self. He pulls out a sweater and a pair of his boxers for you to wear. Lucky for you, you’re just in your uniform. You can easily get another school shirt to replace the ruined one. 

He walks back over to you and hands you the clothes, sharing a loving smile with you before walking back to his closet to get himself clothes. He keeps his back to you when he hears something drop to the floor, knowing it’s your clothes. 

“Can you...help me? It’s hard to lift my arms,” you say softly, a dark blush spreading across your cheeks. He turns to see you in his boxers and still in your bloody shirt, your bottoms on his floor. He shines a smile at you as he walks over to you once more, ready to assist you. 

“I’ll do everything I can to help,” he promises. He goes behind you and places his hands on your waist, silently asking if he can take your shirt off. You nod your head, letting him remove it for you. He keeps his eyes to the back of your head, knowing now isn’t the time to thirst over your body. 

He helps you pull the sweater over your head and get your arms through, kissing the side of your head when he’s done. “Sorry. It’s just hard to—”

“You don’t have to apologize. All of this is my fault anyway,” he reassures, standing up from the bed to get changed out of his uniform. He hears you lay down, turning to see that you’re giving him the same privacy that he gave you. You’re so precious. 

He quickly changes into something comfortable before swiftly going back to the bed, pulling his satin sheets and smooth covers over your delicate body before sliding in behind you. He then snuggles into your back, inhaling your scent as he closes his eyes. 

“It’s not your fault, you know,” you whisper, your voice the only sound in the quiet room. His brows furrow as he opens his eyes back up to look at the back of your head. 

“What? How can it not be my fault?” he asks confusedly.

“I’m the one who kept it to myself and didn’t tell you,” you mumble. He sighs and tightens his grip on you a bit. 

“Hey, don’t stress over it now. It’s all over. You’re mine and laying in my arms. I…” he trails off for a moment, steeling his resolve before saying the three words, “I love you.” He pushes his face into your hair as you reply. 

“I love you more,” you promise. 

┍━━━━━━━✿━━━━━━━┑ MASTERLISTS

More with Asmo 

Tag List: @mexicanmagick, @animefreak-247, @jungialo, @fanfictwarrior, @ohbbobeyme, @zeldan7, @niphredil-14, @gamelovers-posts, @virtualmemmecollector, @collarjessie, @officialdevorak, @katelynwithpaint, @buzzybeebee​ ✦ if you would like to be added or removed, comment or send an ask :)

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[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Can I request a senario where jade tries to calm down fem reader who is his s/o after a alchemy accident creates a fear gas that makes her see and hear her worst fear which is her being entirely alone. Like she calls out to people and no ones there to answer her calls, and she checks her phone but there are zero contacts. Jade gives her the cure but has to calm her down after thinking everyone just disappeared. I thought this might be a good request since Halloweens coming.

Halloween is known for its thrills, chills, and kills...but sometimes, loneliness is the most frightening scare of all.

Imagine this...

Hugging your knees to your chin, you stared down at your phone. Blue light painted your face, making you appear ghastly and hollow--like a ghost, like a shadow of your former self. A podcast on Magic History was playing, sending words flitting in and out of your ears, but your brain didn’t seem to register the meaning of any of them.

You busied yourself with scrolling through your MagiCam feed, then checking your inbox and text messages. Cater had recently tagged you in a photo, and Professor Crewel had sent out an email reminder about the exam next week. Your group chat with the other first years was, as usual, flooded. No doubt that Ace and Deuce were arguing yet again.

You saw it all, and yet you dared not to open anything, dared not to respond. If you did, those notifications would be gone forever--and who knows when the next will come, if they ever did? Those little flags--bubbles encasing a number of unread messages--kept you sane.

I’m not alone, you told yourself, squeezing the phone in your hands. Metal buckled against your firm grip.

Your attention never left the screen, not for one moment. You stared and stared and stared, until your vision seemed to blur, trying to will another notification to pop up. Something, anything. 

Tears pricked the corners of your eyes, and the drone of the podcast faded away into static.

“Oya, oya. How disobedient of you, (Y/N)-san.”

A presence materialized behind you, followed by the soft clinking of china. You glanced up from your seat to find Jade, bearing a tray laden with a teapot, cups, and finger sandwiches sliced into neat little triangles.

He set the tray down on a coffee table and plucked away your phone, turning it off and pocketing it.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“I do believe I advised you to avoid incessantly consulting your device,” he tutted, wagging a finger at you. “I will keep this for the time being, so that you may enjoy a stress-free snack.”

“B-But what if...”

“Have no fear. Your phone will not be going anywhere--and nor will I.” With a delicate smile, Jade pressed a sandwich to your mouth. “Eat.”

You shot him an incredulous look, but obeyed.

Your chewing did little to combat the encroaching, stifling silence--and you squirmed a bit, despite trying to focus on food.

“... How are you feeling now?” As the words fell from his lips, Jade set to pouring a cup of tea. A slow and steady stream accompanied his words.

You swallowed the lump in your throat.

“I-I’m... I’m still trying to get over it. It felt so real,” you murmured, your voice sounding tiny and insignificant. What remained of your sandwich nearly slipped from your trembling fingers. “I... I couldn’t hear anyone. I couldn’t see anyone. It was like I was the last person in Twisted Wonderland.”

Jade nodded, passing you a cup of tea. His reflection was painted in a solemn sepia. “Humans are social creatures by nature. There is no shame in fearing loneliness.”

You accepted--and you downed your drink in one swig before. You didn’t know what was worse--glimpsing your miserable expression upon the surface of the tea as you brought it to your lips, or the empty cup that remained after the fact.

Your grip on the cup tightened, knuckles going ghost white. Your fingers traced the rim, the cool feel of china grounding you.

“... Are merfolk ever afraid of being lonely, Jade?”

“Hmm.” He craned his head, contemplating. Only a heartbeat passed before his reply came. “While I cannot speak for all of my kind, I can say that there are times when that fear overwhelms me.”

“That’s surprising. You always seem so calm and collected.”

“I take care to ensure that there are no... witnesses, shall we say, for those few moments when I am not calm and collected.” His smile was now more weary. “You certainly gave me quite a scare, with all of that panicking. I thought  I had nearly lost you.”

“I had to scream, to see if anyone could hear me, to see if anyone would come,” you whispered, clutching her hands to your heart. “I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone.”

“I understand.” Jade’s eyes soften. “However... I do not think that either of us need to worry about loneliness anymore. After all, we have one another, do we not?”

“We do--we do, but... you might go away one day. Everyone might.”

“Listen to me, Angelfish.”

Jade reached across the table and grasped your hand in his, guiding it to his chest. Your fingers and palm found themselves plunged against fabric. And there, pulsating just beneath layers of clothing and skin, was the slow and steady thump-thump of his heart.

A blush crept up your face.

“Wh-What are you...”

He responded with nothing more than a sly smirk.

“Fufu. Can you feel it? My heartbeat, that is,” Jade asked, his gaze half-lidded and mischievous.

“Y-Yes.”

“And how does it feel?”

“A-Are you seriously asking me to describe something like this?!”

“Answer the question, my dear.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know? It’s just...there.”

“Then that is all the proof you need... that it is there,” Jade replied smoothly, removing your hand and planting a tender kiss upon it. “Come now, rid yourself of such negative thoughts. I am here for you, here and now--and in the end, that is all that matters.”

[thenamesseven]

Pairing: Jongho x reader

Genre: Romance, angst, jail au!

Warnings: Mentions of blood, not too descriptive but yeah, there’s some home made surgery in this chapter 🤣

Word count: 5.9k, this one is loooong

A/N: Another new chapter that brings us closer to the end! Hope you guys enjoy it!

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Standing in front of the stove, you couldn’t help but smile, staring down at the perfect yet fluffy pancakes you had been cooking for a few minutes now. Your tongue was poking out of your lips, a sign of concentration while teeth bit down on it gently right before one of your hands moved, slowly flipping an almost cooked pancake, leaving it on the pan for a little longer. 

You should have heard the ruffling of the bed sheets, the quiet steps around the room as he searched for something to wear, at least a shirt, since he didn’t like to walk around in just his underwear. You should have heard the door creak when he opened it or the way he usually yawned when he woke up, so loud, that instead of a husband it felt like you had a lion in your house. You just were so focused on the food you were preparing that none of those sounds told you he was awake.

In fact, it wasn’t until he walked in the kitchen and wrapped his arms around your waist from behind that you knew he was out of dreamland and back into the perfect reality the two of you had.  You welcomed the feeling of his warmth surrounding you, his natural scent drowning your senses and the feeling of a subtle bear brush against your neck when he went to nuzzle it. 

“(Y/N)” Jongho’s voice called your name but instead of a smile, the sound only brought a frown to your face. There was something in his tone that didn't make it as pleasant as always, he sounded scared…Urgent "(Y/N)!" He repeated, volume getting slightly louder, however, when you were about to turn around and face him to see what was wrong, his grip tightened, not allowing you to look at him "(Y/N)!" Jongho actually shouted. You started panicking, there was something obviously wrong in this situation but since he wouldn’t let you move, there was nothing you could do either. “(Y/N)!” Jongho’s voice turned slightly distorted, a sound that you’ve only heard in nightmares, the more you listened to his voice, the less it sounded like him. 

“(Y/N)!” You closed your eyes when he slightly shook you, your mouth opening to say anything that would get him to stop, that would get his attention but no words came out. “(Y/N)! (Y/N)! (Y/N)” You took in a deep breath, getting ready to try your best and shout, hoping that would work while he kept calling your name.

"(Y/N)!"

Right as you had been ready to scream your lungs out, you were brought back to consciousness when your name was called once again. Instead of shouting, your body desperately gasped for air loudly, as if you had been drowning. Wooyoung's persistent tries had ripped you away from your dream successfully, he had pulled you out of that nightmare.

Incredibly confused and still feeling too weak to mutter a word, you only glanced around, observing your new surroundings and trying to see where you were at the moment. Your vision was not completely clear but you could guess you were inside of a car, probably a vehicle that was carrying more people than the law allowed but that was probably the least of the guys’ worries after everything that had happened. 

"Oh thank God she's awake!" Wooyoung exclaimed with triumph when he looked down into your open eyes, keeping your head on his shoulder, holding you tightly against his body. Whoever was driving was doing it recklessly and he didn't want to take the risk of letting you fall down with that bullet still inside of you.

"(Y/N)! How are you holding up?" It was San's voice the one that asked the question but when you slightly lifted your head to look at his direction, you did not only see him but Mingi as well. 

A weak frown appeared between your eyebrows, too tired to freak out or make all the questions you wanted to ask "Apparently not too well, I'm seeing Mingi right there" You mumbled, your voice weak but clear enough for all of them to hear you. 

Someone laughed from the front seats, it took you a couple of minutes to figure out it had been Hongjoong "That's because he is sitting right there!" Yunho exclaimed amused. 

Mingi, as if sensing your extreme confusion, tilted his head so he could meet your eyes without San's head getting in the way. There was a small apologetic smile on his lips when you looked at him again with a bigger frown, one of his hands moving up to wave at you "Hi (Y/N), we have a lot to catch up on" 

You were about to open your mouth and reply to his statement, not even knowing what you could say in this kind of situation but the pain in your side was quick to shut your mouth just as quickly as you had opened it, only allowing you to groan in pain. Wooyoung tightened his hold around you, noticing how you tensed up in his arms while he reached out to brush his fingers through your hair, getting some of the strands away from your sweaty forehead. 

"(Y/N)" Hongjoong looked at you briefly through the rearview mirror, hands gripping the steering wheel as he tried to multitask, keeping half of his attention on you and half on the road ahead of him "Remember what happened back there?"

You nodded softly, trying to move as little as possible "Someone shot us, Wooyoung is also injured" You muttered glancing up at him, Wooyoung only shook his head, silently letting you know he was not in such a bad state.

"You want the bad news or the really bad news first?" Hongjoong asked with a small smile, trying to brush off some of the tension that was slowly filling up the car, making everyone’s chests heavy with pressure and fear. 

"No good news?" You asked frowning, either San or Mingi had the audacity to chuckle at your question. 

"Unfortunately no" Hongjoong replied seriously not even wasting a second to think about the possibility of sugar coating the entire situation for you "We suspect the bullet went straight through Wooyoung and landed in you" He said, deciding to deliver the news anyways, there was no point in delaying it more "We have to get it out of you" 

"Excuse me, what?" You asked, alarmed and tensing up again, which made another groan escape your lips. 

“We all have zero medical knowledge, you’ll have to stay conscious and help us get that bullet out of your body” Hongjoong explained again, not even talking slower since your brain would end up processing the words he was saying sooner or later.

“Don’t you have like, a secret doctor or someone that could help us out?” You asked as the entire car seemed to be spinning around, making your head hurt since you kept trying to focus your vision “Who cured Mingi’s stabbing?” 

“I did” San said “And I was hoping the entire time what I was doing was working because I had little to no idea of how to treat stab wounds that were so deep” He confessed, reaching up to scratch the back part of his neck as if he was an embarrassed child.

“It’s basically a miracle that I’m alive” Mingi joked, earning a slap on his chest from his friend that would have made everyone laugh if you and Wooyoung weren’t about to lose consciousness because of all the blood you were losing.

“You guys need a doctor…” You attempted to say but the words started coming out slurred, vision turning even more blurry. You were seconds away from passing out and by the way Wooyoung’s grip on you was turning slightly weaker, he was at his very limit as well.

“You watch too many gangster movies (Y/N)” Yunho joked from his seat.

You wanted to laugh at that, the comment had been kind of funny but only a smile brushed past your lips before your eyes closed and everything turned black for the second time.

By the look on Seonghwa’s face, Jaehyun could tell something in their plan had gone absolutely wrong. Sitting in one of those comfortable little leather seats he had in the corner of his office, nearby the shelves full of books he probably never read, the inmate watched his business' partner carefully, reading his body language. 

An amateur would have gone with the first impression and said Seongwha still had everything under control by the way he kept his feet crossed on top of the table, his body slouched back against the seat but someone as experienced as Jaehyun focused on the small details, the things someone would easily miss and he knew everything had taken an unexpected turn.

And not for the good.

It was the way his fingers tapped the desk in front of him at an unknown yet irregular beat, the way his breath seemed to slow down whenever the other person on the line talked, how he kept his eyes down while his mind was trying to calculate all the mistakes he would have to fix. This could be the first time Jaehyun would probably watch him lose his cool, he had thought that was totally impossible but you and your little games were managing to do that.

“Alright” He said, voice flat and lacking any kind of emotion “Call me if you find anything new, something that could tell us where they’re hiding” Jaehyun’s head popped up at the sound of that, finally confirming you and Wooyoung had managed to survive their trap somehow, which was incredibly surprising if he was completely honest.

Keeping his eyes on him, Jaehyun watched as Seonghwa hung up on the call, stayed quiet as he looked down at his phone for a few seconds and then placed it back down on the table. The inmate thought he would throw it against the wall but to his surprise, he controlled himself and didn’t break it.

“Two corpses, both males and none of them is Wooyoung” He said, keeping his eyes down on his hands as he kept them on his lap, nervously fidgeting with the clothes he was wearing, straining his mind for any kind of solutions “We’re fucked up”

“What are they? Cockroaches? How could they survive that?” Jaehyun scoffed, standing up from his seat since he didn’t feel that comfortable anymore. Even when he knew what the phone call was about, hearing Seonghwa actually say it out loud made it even more nerve-wracking. “Any places they could be hiding in?” 

“They vanished, gone, like they never existed” Seongwha pinched the bridge of his nose, not knowing if the situation was frustrating him or it was Jaehyun’s abundant questions what was making him get in such a bad mood.

“Then we’ll just have to make them come out” Jaehyun said, as he plopped back down on his seat, crossing one leg over the other comfortably. The solution had been there in front of them the entire time but the stress and tension weren’t letting them think properly.

“Well done Sherlock” Seonghwa scoffed, not one bit of amusement present in his sarcasm “How do we do that?” 

“You have the thing they want the most” Jaehyun replied smiling, staring straight into his friends eyes “It’s been here with us all this time and you’ll be able to get rid of all of them as soon as they come for it, as soon as they try to rescue their friend”

“Jongho” Seongwha whispered, as if it had been the biggest secret in the entire universe.

Little did they knew that no matter how low they talked, they could have never defeated the experienced ears listening from the outside. Yoongi had only been walking by on his way to his cell right after dinner, the guard accompanying him had been easily distracted, too quick to give his trust to him since after all, he wasn’t an inmate that usually caused trouble around. 

A sigh escaped his lips before he kept walking, not wanting to tempt his luck and get caught in the middle of something he wouldn’t be able to explain. Yoongi was definitely not one that got into other businesses, he just wanted to redeem himself and get out of this hell hole as quick as he could but, helping his cellmate wouldn’t hurt, right?

Someone needed to warn Jongho and that someone would have to be him.

It was the extremely bright light what brought you back to consciousness once again. At first, you had thought you were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel every book and movie talked about when it came to death although you were forced to open your eyes when you realized you couldn’t move away or closer to it. The first thing you saw was someone extremely tall, towering over you, holding the source of the bright light, making you flinch and close your eyes once again, too uncomfortable with so much brightness. 

“Mingi you’re going to burn their eyes with that!” Someone exclaimed, making the male flinch and move the light away from you without turning it off. It got better but it was still a bit too overwhelming for you.

“Well, that’s why they’re sleeping during surgeries! What the hell am I supposed to do!?” He replied, sounding frustrated.

“Turn that off! We have enough with the normal light” San said from somewhere, your vision was still too blurry to try and locate the guys.

“Mingi” Wooyoung groaned, his voice came from beside you, in fact, you only had to slightly stretch out your arm to be able to touch him. The male was surprised for a second, not having expected you to be so close and yet, when he turned his head and saw you were still conscious, he couldn’t help but slightly smile in relief. This was not over the both of you were still alive “Turn that off”

“Sorry, sorry”

As soon as the blinding light was turned off, the both of you could sigh in absolute relief, feeling slightly better as you waited for your eyes to adjust to the new illumination which was way lower but still bright, you felt way better if you kept your eyes closed.

“(Y/N)” Recognizing Yunho’s voice, you could only hum in response, letting him know you were listening to him. A cold, wet piece of clothing landed on your forehead, soothing some of the burning sensation running through your veins and cleaning the drops of sweat that had started to appear on your skin “Ready?” They were not wasting any time, which told you the situation wasn’t as good as you hoped it would be. 

“We need instructions” Hongjoong said serious, voice sounding like business. You couldn’t see his face right now but you would bet all your money on him being incredibly serious.

“Wooyoung first” You muttered, hearing him complaining beside you, probably saying something about how they should take care of your wounds first but he had saved your life or at least, risked his own to save yours so you weren’t going to put yourself before him “You guys need lots of towels, sterilized needles, thread and...Bandages….Yeah, bandages….” You whispered, voice quiet and low as you tried to keep yourself conscious and focused on the task. Although it was harder that it seemed to be, specially with the strong pain you kept feeling in your side.

“So we just sew the wound and that’s it for him?” San asked, walking around the table to approach him, Yunho moved the towel on your forehead, flipping it so the colder side would land on your heating face.

“Did the bullet go through him or did it just scratch him badly?” You asked back, head hurting, breathing turning heavier than it should be.

You heard some movement by your side and a painful groan escaping Wooyoung’s lips, you didn’t need to turn your head to guess San had probably tried to turn him around in order to check the wounds and damages the bullet had made.

“Scratch” He replied dryly, eyes still scanning his back and stomach to make sure, not seeing anything that could hint the bullet had actually gone through him “It’s not too big”

“Good, that means you won’t have to search for the remaining bullet pieces inside of him” You explained, quietly groaning when a wave of pain surprised you.

“Dammit Wooyoung, I wanted to play doctor and patient with you” San joked, scoffing as the ruffling that echoed in the room signified he was already starting to work on your instructions “Always wanted to be a surgeon but you know, had to be too smart and study way more than I wanted to, thank you for letting my dreams come true”

Wooyoung laughed at your side or at least tried to but ended up coughing and whining in pain, resulting in San moving faster so he could help him sooner “Fuck off San, we all know you’ve always wanted to kill a cop” Wooyoung joked in return, the guys chuckled around you, you tried to smile.

“That too but then Jongho and Miss Choi would kick my ass and that’s a fate worse than death” He replied, pausing for a moment before he spoke again “(Y/N), we don’t have time to boil water and sterilize the needles, is there anything else we can do to avoid infection?” 

“Pour whatever kind of alcohol you have around on the needles, the stronger, the better” You said quietly right before San ran away.

“Right, while San is helping Wooyoung out, tell us how we can help you” Hongjoong instructed once again, noticing you were already struggling with keeping yourself conscious and knowing that if you didn’t help them out during this, they would surely lose right there on their dining table “Yunho, get some more cold water”

“On it” You whined when the cloth left your face but understood Yunho had to move in order to bring it back refreshed and colder for you.

“I’m going to be a little trickier than Wooyoung” You warned with a small smile

“Girls are always more complicated, we all knew that already (Y/N)” Wooyoung replied from beside you, making the guys smile, it was amazing how they tried to keep themselves so cool and calm when they had two bullet wounded people laying on their dining table, one of them closer to death than life.

“I could sew his mouth as well, what do you think (Y/N)?” San asked, the smile on your face was enough of a reply, he knew you shouldn’t waste energy on jokes and save them to guide the rest of the group through this homemade surgery.

“Did someone see my wounds?” You asked quietly, looking at the two guys in front of you, assuming the taller one was Mingi and the one besides him, the one that looked smaller, Hongjoong.

“The bullet came through the side of your stomach, there is no wound on your back which probably means the bullet is still inside” Hongjoong replied, serious since he understood how complicated the situation was. If the bullet had hit anything important, there was nothing nobody could do, you were doomed. Yunho returned soon, placing the wet cloth on your forehead once again, keeping your eyes uncovered in case you wanted to open them “We tried to move you as less as possible, the blood loss slowed down a while ago but you’ve still lost a bunch of it” 

“Alright” You took in a deep breath, knowing what was coming, this was going to be a nightmare to go through but you would get out of it alive, you had to “You guys will need a knife, one that can cut meat well, something as similar as possible to a scalpel...Some tweezers, towels, needles and thread”

“I do not like how this sounds” Yunho muttered, making you smile a little.

“Do you think I do? It’s time to put our big kids’ pants on, it’s either this or letting me die” You explained quietly, noticing Mingi and Hongjoong were gone, probably getting everything ready..

“You’re not going to die” Yunho whispered as Hongjoong came back, carrying everything on his hands “We got this” 

“We got this” You whispered, taking in a deep breath and getting ready to narrate all the things they would have to do to get the bullet out.

Once dinner was finished, both inmates, Yoongi and Jongho were brought back to their cells, inevitably getting locked up again between the four walls they’ve been sharing for more than a couple of years now. 

Jongho knew something was wrong. 

Yoongi seemed fidgety and specially avoided eye contact with him, normally the male wouldn’t have this kind of behaviour since he was not one to be easily intimidated or since he barely got himself involved in anyone’s business. Although, anyone that wouldn’t know Yoongi would just assume he was awkward, one of those weirdo introverts that only kept to themselves but Jongho knew him better than that and he knew he had some information that could be severely important for him.

“Spit it already Yoongi” Jongho said with a small smile, not wanting to come off as rude or impatient to him, the older male looked tense enough, pressure was surely not welcome “You’re giving me the creeps man, what’s wrong? Do you need help with anything? Is Jaehyun bothering you?” 

If there was something that Yoongi admired of Jongho was how he always cared about the people around him no matter what his current situation was, for him, it was absolutely unbelievable how, despite everything he was going through right now, he wasted the time of his day observing and noticing there was something wrong with him.

“Jaehyun” Yoongi said his name quietly, praying nobody would listen to him if he didn’t want to be the next punching bag they’ve turned Jongho into “He’s planning to-”

“Jongho!” Jaehyun’s loud voice startled both males, making Yoongi shut up immediately, fear making him back track on his actions. He wanted to help Jongho, the poor guy didn’t deserve to go through all of this, even more now that he believed in those rumours that claimed he was completely innocent, that the charges he had been locked for were all a lie “Come out, we have to talk” 

Jongho stayed sitting on his bed, eyes moving from Yoongi to Jaehyun and Yeosang awaiting for him outside of the cell, the door slightly opened for him to get out “I don’t think we have anything to discuss” He said seriously, without any hints of movement from his part.

“Unfortunately, we do have stuff to discuss” Yeosang walked into the cell, taking his gun out and pointing it at Jongho “So stand up and do what we say, you really don’t want to get on our nerves tonight Jongho” The inmate looked at Yoongi, his cellmate for any hint, anything that could make him guess what he was going to say before Jaehyun arrived. But Yoongi only glanced down, avoiding eye contact between them once again, hearing how the guard gently pushed the younger male out of the cell against his will.

“Good boy” Jaehyun mocked as Jongho walked past him with Yeosang behind him. 

Before walking away though, Jaehyun turned around to look at Yoongi, closing the cell door to keep him locked in and avoiding any more surprises than the ones they’ve already had tonight. Yoongi met eyes with him, hands fidgeting with the thin blanket he had, his eyes carefully watching as Jaehyun lifted his hand, moving it closer to his lips and motioned as if he was closing an imaginary zipper that he had on his mouth. 

Yoongi felt a shiver run down his spine as the three of them walked away, steps echoing down the deathly hall.

The possibilities of Jongho never coming back were high enough for Yoongi to believe he was never seeing his cellmate ever again and he couldn’t do anything to avoid it.

“Bite harder” Yunho adviced and you simply did as you were told, muffling the sound of your painful screams as Hongjoong used the knife on your wound to make the gap wider in order to fit the tweezers and get the bullet out of your body. Your throat hurt from how much you were screaming, your body begged to be free as Mingi held your legs and Yunho your arms down, you knew you had to let them do this but it was involuntarily to want to make the pain stop, there was nothing you could do about it. Biting into the towel, you screamed once again as Hongjoong caressed your skin with the knife hard enough to make the wound bigger, sweat rolling down your neck in waves at this point.

“Almost there (Y/N), now I just have to look for the bullet” 

Hongjoong himself was starting to feel as if the entire world was spinning around him, despite being in a gang, he and the guys had never gotten themselves so badly injured and this was his first time operating somebody. Maybe you were right after all and they needed to invest some money in looking for a doctor that would take care of these situations. 

“There” San said, looking over his leader’s shoulder, seeing something silver and black in the middle of so much blood and things that looked like they belonged into the decorations of a horror movie. He couldn’t believe he was seeing the inside of your body, it was like he was definitely dreaming. “Isn’t that it?” 

“It is” Mingi said, looking as well before he looked away seconds after. He was not too strong when it came to this situations and he was sure he would end up passing out if he kept looking.

“Alright (Y/N), I’m going to take it out” Hongjoong instructed, you could only nod, feeling the energy in your body vanishing with each second that passed, consciousness and unconsciousness fighting to see which one kept you.

“Hurry” You whispered, alarming them.

“Uh, guys? I'm no doctor but I think she is losing too much blood” Yunho said alarmed, voice hurried as his eyes kept scanning your body full of red stains and wounds that would take so much time to heal.

“(Y/N)” Wooyoung, who had been quietly holding your hand this entire time, still too weak to move from beside you, called out your name, willing to catch your attention “(Y/N), open your eyes baby, look at me” 

Not knowing what else to do to keep yourself awake, you turned your head and looked at him, opening your eyes. Your vision wasn’t clear yet but you could obviously see how he was trying his best to hide his worry from your eyes, concern evident and fear shining in his expression.

“You need to stay awake, alright?” He asked, you simply nodded, too tired to argue with him at this point “For us, for Jongho” The mention of his name brought tears to your eyes, what if you died in here tonight? What if you were never able to see him again? 

“You need to tell him that-”

“You’re telling him yourself” He insisted, not letting you finish your sentence, knowing you would simply give up and try to get some rest if you passed the words full of love that you wanted to tell your now fiancee “I’m not telling him anything, not after he stole you away” His tone was playful,  Wooyoung wasn’t mad but he wasn’t lying either. You knew his feelings for you, he had always made sure you knew about how much he appreciated you but your heart had been long stolen by Jongho, even after he was locked in prison for a crime you committed ”By the way, now that we’re on topic, what did you see in that mess of a guy? Because man, other than the cool car he had back in high school I think I’ve been way better than him” 

You smiled at his words, knowing exactly what he was doing but wanting to play along for you, for them and for Jongho “He did have a cool car, I loved it” You said quietly, seeing his blurry smile, not noticing the tears that had started falling down your cheeks as you spoke “To be completely honest with you Wooyoung” You winced when you felt the cold tweezers brushing against your wound, the stinging alcohol making you hiss through your words “I don’t know how or when it happened, I don’t even know what it was exactly” You replied softly, holding onto Wooyoung’s hand tight, closing your eyes when the pain made you groan and tense up again. Yunho let go of one of your hands to clean the sweat on your face, soothingly running his fingers through your tangled hair “Our love just appeared out of nowhere, it was not surprising, it was not something I ever worried about like you see in those romance movies” You said quietly “We are a living bad boy-good girl cliche” A chuckle escaped his lips, his thumb tracing circles in your hand, the sounds around you becoming a little confusing, not clear “But I knew he would always have my back, we knew we were together without saying it outloud” The boys were saying something but you couldn’t hear it, your eyes were starting to close “It’s something there are not words to describe….I would just say he turned into the home I never had….He described himself as broken...As damaged….But Wooyoung….I can tell you without any doubt that he is the most caring and sweet human being I have ever met”

“(Y/N)?” Wooyoung’s voice echoed in the room when your eyes closed, a pain of wave surfing through his entire body when he tried to move “Guys?” 

“Sew her wound, come on” Mingi hurried Hongjoong, eyes glancing worriedly at your face.

“And I love him…” You whispered, not even realizing you were passing out on them “I love him more than life itself….More than anybody could imagine”

With a smile on your lips your body relaxed and too tired to keep fighting you just gave in, letting unconsciousness take away all the pain and dread you were feeling.

No one knew if you would wake up again.

Hours later, right when the sun was starting to come up, Wooyoung walked into the room where Mingi had been watching you over for most of the night. Sure had dozed off a couple of times but he had been paying attention to every single movement or thing you had done during the entire night. You still hadn’t woken up yet, your eyes had been closed since they had successfully taken the bullet out of your body but you were still breathing and mumbling some incoherent stuff during your sleep.

You were still alive and that’s what counts.

“Feeling better?” Mingi asked Wooyoung, eyes on you as the other male dragged a chair close to your bed, sitting down with the two of you, hiding the small hint of pain that gave away he was still not completely recovered .

“I’m alive, that’s what counts” Wooyoung replied with a smile, reaching out to gently brush some strands of your hair out of your face.

“I guess we’re even now” Mingi said with a quiet chuckle glancing at him “I still hadn’t had the chance to thank you properly for what you did that day” The taller male mumbled quietly, you could even say he was feeling kind of shy about it “You risked everything to get a stranger out of jail, not everybody would have done that”

“Not completely a stranger, I’ve known Hongjoong since Jongho got in jail” Wooyoung confessed, actually surprising Mingi since he didn’t know this piece of information “Nobody knew this, Hongjoong said the least people knew about this, the smaller the possibility of information getting leaked was so we kept it that way” Wooyoung explained looking at him “Even though Jongho and I didn’t get along too well in high school, he always took care of somebody really special for me, he even went to jail for her and I just had to help him somehow….It’s ridiculous but I felt like I owed him something for saving her that night when I couldn’t” Flashes of what happened the night your father was shot popped in his mind as he spoke with Mingi, the male clearing his throat to snap himself out of whatever trance he had put himself into. “I just saw the opportunity when it showed up, you could have died but if I hadn’t helped you get out of there, I think we both know you would have been dead by now” 

“Probably” Mingi said quietly “To be honest I consider a miracle that Jongho is still breathing, Jaehyun is really determined to follow Seongwha’s orders no matter the cost” 

“You guys will get him out of there soon, Hongjoong just have to make some calls to get ready and if God is on our side….Tomorrow morning we will all be safe and sound, away from this hell hole” Wooyoung said with a small smile

“Are you scared?” Mingi asked him, not to make fun of him but because he felt kind of scared as well.

“Of course I am” Wooyoung said gently, without hesitation, fingers playing with strands of your hair “But if we don’t do it, (Y/N) will get him out of there herself and I prefer taking all the risks than letting her do it” 

Mingi smiled softly, looking down at you before glancing at Wooyoung “You really love her, don’t you?” 

“Haven’t I been clear enough?” Wooyoung replied with a scoff, a small smile on his lips as he looked at the male “I would go through hell and back to keep her safe….Damn, I took a bullet for her” 

“You tried” Mingi said laughing, making Wooyoung laugh too. “To be honest, I think she loves you back, it’s just not the same crazy love she feels for Jongho….You’re actually quite important for her as well Wooyoung”

“I know” The male replied with a small smile, looking down at you as the back of his hand caressed your cheek “That’s why being in her life is enough, there’s nothing else I could ask for” 

“Mingi?” San poked his head into the room, interrupting their conversation “We gotta get moving, there are still a couple of things we need to do before tonight” 

Without hesitation Mingi stood up, patting Wooyoung’s shoulder on his way to the door “Tell her to forgive me for vanishing again when she wakes up” He said to Wooyoung, not knowing if this would be the last time they would see each other.

But Wooyoung shook his head as he looked down at his knees, not accepting the male’s proposition “You tell her yourself later tonight, you know I’m not one to pass on messages” 

Mingi could only smile and roll his eyes, nodding even though he knew there was a possibility of things going wrong and them not seeing each other again. His eyes looked at you one last time and he walked out of the room knowing hell was about to break loose and not even God himself would be able to get them out of the mess they were going to make.

Taglist: @guess--monster @cometoceantrenches @miatsubaki23 @lovelyvitamin @heroesfan101 @daintysan @t-tbinnie @shyshybabyy @little-precious-baby​ @bebetiny @mirror-juliet @btrombley13 @yukine-smx @wavetease @naphthalene-ball​

[maxineswritingcenter]

You Saved Me - Derek Hale x fem!reader part 7

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

Derek was alive. I let out a shaky breath as I used a tree to get back onto my feet. 

“Derek…” I whispered. He stood on the hill, his shoulders rising and falling as he slowed down his breathing. Even though my legs were shaking from almost being mauled to death, I started walking towards him. And the walk turned into a run as I made my way to him. I stopped just short of him. Our eyes met and all my fear was washed away by overwhelming joy. 

“You’re okay.” I grinned, “You’re alive.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. Derek slowly slid his arms around my waist, holding me close. He turned his head, his lips brushing my ear as he spoke. 

“We need to talk.”

-

After taking Scott home, Derek and him talked and agreed on something. They would work together and kill the alpha to cure Scott. I sent a quick text to Stiles to tell him I was alright and Scott was calm. 

Derek had offered to drive me home, the drive there was filled with his energy that I had never felt before, it was electrifying. I was just happy that he was alive. Once we were on the street the Stilinski’s lived on, I made him park a little bit back from the house in case Uncle Noah came home. 

“When did you start seeing it? The visions.” He asked, putting the car in park. 

“They started the night I last saw you. I am always looking through your eyes, feeling what you feel.” I leaned back against the headrest, looking at him. He seemed frustrated and upset. His lips were tight, but there was that look in his eyes that had made him look young and afraid. 

“What have you seen?” 

“I saw you talking to your uncle, you were agitated and felt lost. I saw you talking with this woman about your sister, you were angry and had so much guilt balled up in your chest. And I-… I felt the alpha attack you. I could not even describe the fear you felt then.” Derek’s hands were tightly gripping onto the steering wheel, it almost looked like he was blinking back tears. He felt weak, why I could feel that now I didn’t understand. 

“Derek, what’s happening? I don’t understand why I’m seeing parts of your life.” I turned fully in my seat. 

“It’s not uncommon among werewolves.” He said. 

“But I’m not a werewolf.” 

Derek shifted in his seat so he was facing me, “What it is… It’s a connection of two. Think of it like-”

“Soulmates?” I inserted the word.

He nodded, “But for werewolves it is supposed to happen after a mating ritual.” 

“I think I can imagine what that is.” I blew out a breath, “So… why me? Why us? If it’s not possible then how?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because high stress situations have been putting us together.” 

“Do you see visions of me?” I was really hoping he hadn’t been seeing me cry over him. 

“I have.” Crap. “The night the alpha attacked me and then tonight.” He paused and sighed, “I felt this intense pull in my chest to find you. You needed me to come to you.” 

“I thought I was going to die tonight. I thought that Scott was going to kill me.” I shook my head, “My luck is pretty crap.” 

“I found you each time, didn’t I?” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. 

“I guess you’re right.” I smiled and looked down at my lap, “Seems pretty inconvenient for you though. Saving me all the time.” 

“It’s not.” He reached over, tilting my face to look at him, “Whenever you need me, I will be there.” 

“I thought you needed to focus on finding the alpha, so that you couldn’t be selfish.” My breath hitched when he moved forward, pressing his forehead to mine. 

“It seems the universe had a different plan for us.” He paused, “I can’t promise you everything all at once. After we take down the alpha, after I have some time to come to peace with other things, then we could take the time to explore…whatever this is.” He leaned back in his seat. 

“That is, if those idiots don’t get me arrested first.” 

I chuckled a little, “They may be idiots. But they’re still just kids. No matter how many times Stiles tells me he’s a man, he is still a sucker for Spice Girls.” I unbuckled my seat belt, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek, “But you didn’t hear that from me.” 

Derek grinned and nodded, “Right of course.” His smile was so… it suited him to smile. After all the grim and stern looks, I wanted to be able to make him smile everyday. I closed the door, leaning into the window.

“Smiling suits you.” I stood up and patted the top of the car. He dropped the smile, and chewed on his cheek. 

“Just remember, if you need me, I’ll know and I’ll be on my way.” I nodded, turning away and walking home. 

-

Did I ever think that I would be in a car chase? Absolutely not. But was I in a car chase with Kate Argent with Scott and Stiles while Derek was on the run from Uncle Noah? Absolutely. I was in the back of Derek’s Camaro, headset on with a police radio scanner from the Stilinksi’s basement. It was an older model and out of use but it could still pick up radio. 

“They’re chasing him on foot, heading northwest.” I shouted to Scott, holding onto the radio as we raced through downtown. In pursuit was Kate Argent. 

“Faster?” Scott asked, gripping the steering wheel. 

“Much faster.” Stiles answered, watching out the back window. Scott seemed to go a little faster, but the other car was still catching up.

“Scott, I don’t think you’re grasping the concept of a car chase, here…” Stiles said nervously. 

If I go faster, I’ll kill us!” Scott shouted, clearly panicking. Stiles leaned forward.

“Well, if you don't go faster, they're gonna kill us!” Scott pressed down on the pedal, but Kate Argent and her team seemed to divert away and left them. 

“They’re gone.” A new message came over the radio: “All units, suspect is on foot heading into the Iron Works.”

“He’s in the Iron works.” I called, and suddenly my vision clouded.

Derek ran but was stopped by a flash bang, blinding him, shots rang out.

“And hurry, Chris Argent’s got him cornered.”

“How do you know that?” Stiles asked, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“I’ll explain later.” Scott turned sharply, stopping the car. Derek was behind a forklift, shots ringing out towards them. 

“Get in!” Stiles shouted. Derek hurriedly got in the car, Scott speeding off before he even finished closing the door. 

“What part of “laying low” don’t you understand?!” Scott said in an exasperated voice. 

“Damn it!” Derek growled, “I had him!”

“Who? The Alpha?” Stiles leaned forward, I pulled him back, pointing to his seat belt. He rolled his eyes but put it on. 

Yes!” He said impatiently, “He was right in front of me, and the friggin’ police showed up.”

“Whoa! Hey, they’re just doing their jobs-” Stiles defended his dad. 

“Yeah, thanks to someone who decided to make me the most wanted fugitive in the entire state!” He shouted to Scott. 

Can we seriously get past that? I made a dumbass mistake. I get it.” Scott said defensively. 

“All right. How did you find him?” Stiles asked Derek. 

Scott scoffed, “Can you try to trust us for at least half a second?”

“Yeah, both of us!” Derek glared back at him, making Stiles shrink back into his seat, “Or, just him. I’ll be back here.” Derek glanced back at me. I nodded for him to tell.

“Look, the last time I talked to my sister, she was close to figuring something out. She found two things. The first was a guy named Harris.”

“Our chemistry teacher?” Stiles was back leaning forward. 

“Why him?” Scott asked. 

“I don’t know yet.”

“What’s the second?”

“Some kind of symbol.” Derek pulled a piece of paper with a drawing on it. It looked like a family crest with a wolf and sun. Scott stared at it. 

“What? You know what this is?”

“I’ve seen it on a necklace. Allison’s necklace.” Scott looked back at the road. 

- 

I sat at my desk, getting some papers ready for tonight’s lacrosse game, when I heard knocking at my window. I turned quickly and sighed when it wasn’t, in fact, a murderer. Derek looked around and knocked again impatiently. I quickly opened the window and pulled him inside. 

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered, “My uncle is here, you know, the one that wants you arrested.” He grunted as he got up, closing the window and the curtains, setting a pile of books on my desk. 

“This was Stiles’ idiot plan so blame him.” 

“He was right, you are kind of a sour wolf.” I laughed, he was very unamused. 

“Okay, I’m sorry. Stay here, I’ll go grab you water and something to eat. You’re starving.” I turned to the door but stopped, turning back to face him. 

“How do I know you’re starving?” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. 

“Probably the same way I can talk to you like this.” His voice echoed in my head, I jumped and pointed at him. 

“Warning! Some warning would be nice!” I gave him a scolding look and went out into the hallway, quietly shutting the door behind me. 

As I was making Derek a sandwich, Stiles bolted through the door and upstairs. I sighed and finished the food, heading upstairs. 

As I got to the top, Uncle Noah came out from around a corner, “Hey Stiles!” He called and then noticed me, “Hey (Y/N).” He looked down at the sandwich, “I didn’t know you liked ham and…thick cut beef jerky sandwiches.” I looked down at the sandwich. 

“Uh yeah, I just figured out I liked it.” I grabbed the sandwich and took a bite. I hummed and chewed it, even though I rather spit it back out. 

“I’ll have to pick some up next time I’m out. My buddy at the station makes it.” I nodded and continued to chew. That would explain why it was heavy on the pepper. That guy should really stick to his day job.

Stiles mumbled something from his room as he came out. 

“What’d you say?” Uncle Noah asked. 

Stiles leaned on the doorway, “What? I said “Yo, D-Dad.”

Uncle Noah sighed, “Listen, I’ve got something I’ve got to take care of, but I’m gonna be there tonight. I mean, your first game.” He smiled 

Stiles nodded, “My first game… Uh, it’s great! Awesome. Uh, good!”

 “I’m very happy for you. And I’m really proud of you.” He said sincerely. If I didn’t have this terrible jerky in my mouth, I would be more emotional. 

“Thanks. Me too. I’m happy and proud of myself.”

“So, they’re really gonna let you play, right?”

“Yeah, Dad, I’m first line! Believe that?” 

“I’m very proud.”

“Oh, me, too. Again, I’m-” Stiles came forward, forcing Uncle Noah into an incredibly awkward, “Huggie, huggie, huggie…” 

“See you there.” Uncle Noah pulled away, heading downstairs.  

“Take it easy.” He said as he left. I waited until I heard the front door close to spit the mush back onto my plate. The jerky looked just as intact as it had when it went in my mouth. 

“Oh my god, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.” I went back downstairs and threw out that abomination and the rest of it that was in the fridge. For as long as I live, Uncle Noah will be bringing home that jerky for me to eat. But that was a sacrifice I was willing to make to make him happy. I made a different sandwich with edible toppings this time and made it upstairs to see Derek grumbling and broody as usual. I handed him the plate. He took it then sniffed the air. 

“What smells like death?” He asked. I covered my mouth. 

“Don’t ask, just know that it will never hurt anyone ever again.” 

-

After many rounds of tooth brushing and mouthwash, the death smell was extinguished. When I came back in, Danny from the lacrosse team was sitting at the computer with Stiles and Derek was sitting in the corner, reading. 

“You want me to do what?” Danny asked, “Hey (Y/N).” He greeted me before looking back at Stiles. I nodded and waved. 

“Trace a text.”

“I came here to do lab work– that’s what lab partners do.”

“And we will!” He paused, “Once you trace the text.” 

And what makes you think I know how?”

“I-I looked up your arrest report, so-”

“I-I was thirteen. They dropped the charges.” He said defensively. 

“Whatever.”

“No, we’re doing lab work.”

“Oh, my…” Stiles sighed, looking at the computer. I sighed and grabbed a book from the pile that Derek had. It looked old, the pages were yellowed. I turned to a random page and browsed, listening in on Stiles and Danny. 

“Who’s that again?” Danny whispered. Stiles looked back at Derek, then back to Danny. 

“Um, my cousin…Miguel.” He lied. Derek glanced up at them, then back to the book. I bit my lip to keep my giggles back. Derek’s eyes shot me a warning glance. 

“Is that blood on his shirt?” Danny asked. My eyes widened. I hadn’t realized it but his grey long sleeve shirt had spots of blood. 

“Yeah. Yes. Well, he gets these horrible nosebleeds.” Stiles looked back at Derek, “Hey, Miguel. I thought I told you you could borrow one of my shirts.” He looked pointedly towards his dresser. Derek closed the book on his lap and set it aside. He stood up, went to Stiles’ dresser and took his shirt off, revealing the triskelion tattoo between his shoulder blades. And it seems like I wasn’t the only one appreciating that it was off either. Danny was taking quick glances towards Derek. 

“So, anyway, I mean, we both know you have the skills to trace that text, so we should probably-”

“Uh, Stiles…?” Derek said, holding a button down shirt in his hands. 

“Yes?” Stiles asked innocently.

“This… no fit!” He said irritably, tugging the shirt. I covered my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut. It was cruel to be in this situation and not laugh.

‘Then try something else on!” Stiles turned back to Danny, “Sorry.” Derek found a blue and orange striped collared shirt. 

“Hey, that one looks pretty good, huh? What do you think, Danny?” Derek looked incredibly beyond pissed, but that anger was directed at Stiles so this just kept getting better and better. I was nearly in tears.  Was Stiles using Danny’s sexuality to his advantage? Yes, and we would have a talk about that later, but right now it was too damn funny.

“Huh.” Danny avoided looking at Derek, trying not to get caught staring. 

“The shirt?”

Danny looked over, “It’s… it’s not really his color…” Derek removed the shirt.

“You swing for a different team, but you still play ball, don’t you, Danny-boy?” Stiles whispered to him when they were both turned towards the computer. 

Danny sighed, “You’re a horrible person.”

“I know. It keeps me awake at night. Anyway, about that text…”

“Stiles!” Derek said, frustrated, “None of these fit!”

“I’ll need the ISP, the phone number, and the exact time of the text.” Stiles gave him the information and after some typing and clicks, “There. The text came from a computer. This one.” Derek and I came up behind the two after he found a dark grey shirt that managed to fit. 

“Registered to that account name?” Derek asked. Danny nodded. 

“No, no, no, no. That can't be right.”

“Scott’s mom?” I asked. Right there, Melissa McCall. Danny left soon after, a pink blush to his cheeks. Stiles walked him out. 

I grabbed my lacrosse bag, getting ready to leave to get to the game. Hopefully I could give Stiles a few minutes before Coach kicked him back to second line for being late. Derek stood in my path. 

“Was that situation funny to you?” He glared, tilting his head to the side. 

“Uh, after the fact, no.” I giggled a little, “But at the time it was really funny.” He wasn’t laughing. I cleared my throat. 

“Alright, I’m sorry. It wasn’t right of me to laugh.” I patted his chest, “But he was right, blue and orange are not your colors.” He grabbed my wrist, keeping my hand on his chest. 

“And what exactly are my colors?” His expression had softened. I smiled and hummed, thinking for a moment. 

“Dark red, burgundy. Greys. Maybe blue, just not that shirt. Never again.” I looked down, “You know it’s not Scott’s mom, right?” 

He nodded, “I know.” 

“And as much of a pain as he is, Stiles is like family to me. And I have this terrible feeling in my chest that something’s going to go wrong tonight.” I bunched up his shirt in my hand, “Please keep him safe. And you should be careful too.”

“It won’t take too long. We just need to get security footage.” 

“I’m serious, Derek.” I pulled my hand away, “I have a dark feeling. And I’m scared.” 

“And I believe you.” He reassured me, “I’ll make sure Stiles comes back in one piece. I promise.” 

I breathed in deeply, and let it out, “Okay.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss on my forehead. I really hoped that this feeling was wrong. 

-

I stood with Scott in the corner of the locker room. Or at least I think that’s where we were. Coach made me wear a blindfold to “protect my eyes from men”.

“Did you get the picture?” Scott asked, referring to the picture he had taken of Allison’s necklace that he stole.

“Yeah, I did, and it looks just like the drawing.” Stiles said. 

“Hey, is there something on the back of it? There’s gotta be something– an inscription, an opening, something…” Derek asked.

“No, no, the thing’s flat. And, no, it doesn’t open. There’s nothing in it, on it, around it, nothing. And where are you? You’re supposed to be here. You’re first line.”

“Where the hell is Bilinski?!” Coach shouted from his office. 

“Man, you’re not gonna play if you’re not here to start.”

“I can only buy you so much time, Stiles.” I said into the phone. 

“I know. Look, if you see my dad, can you tell him… tell him I’ll be there, I’ll just be a little bit late, okay?”

“Loud and clear.” I sighed. 

“Alright, thanks.” Stiles hung up the phone. 

I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head, “He’s not gonna make it. First game his dad shows up to and he’s not gonna make it.” I poked Scott in the chest, “You owe him big time for this.” I felt at the wall, making my way back in the ( I think) direction of Finstock’s office.

-

I sat in the office, fiddling with my thumbs when I felt it again. That painful fear in my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut. 

“Stiles, get out of there right now! It’s him! He’s the Alpha! Get out!” Derek shouted into the phone. He cursed and got out of the Jeep, running inside. His heart was beating fast and a terrible realization was going through his head. His own Uncle killed his sister. It had been him all along, how could he have missed it? Derek ran inside, punching the nurse that had been taking care of his Uncle and helping him in his crimes. She fell to the floor, out cold.

“That’s not nice. She’s my nurse.” I looked at the man who I had seen from the previous vision but now he was walking and talking and Derek was scared. 

“She’s a psychotic bitch helping you kill people.” I looked at Stiles, “Get out of the way.” 

“Oh, damn…” Stiles squeaked. Derek launched himself at his uncle only to be grabbed and slammed into one wall and then another. Peter picked him up by the throat and slid him across the room on his back. I saw Peter’s attention go back to Stiles. Derek pushed himself up, punching Peter in the nose. It didn’t seem to phase him. Peter headbutted Derek and kicked him in the stomach. Sending him back into another wall. Pain spread through my back. But Derek still stood up, spitting blood. He threw punches at Peter but they were dodged, he grabbed Derek’s wrist and bent it back, fracturing it. He went down to his knees. Peter then grabbed him and threw him through a pane of glass.

I gasped and sat back, holding my arm tightly. It felt like it was broken but it wasn’t my arm that had been broken. It was Derek’s 

Out of the field, Coach called for a huddle. 

“Scott.” I tried to grab his attention, but from the looks he was giving Jackson, it meant that he probably knew something. 

“Let’s go! Huddle up! Let’s go! Big night! Big night! get in here, (Y/L/N).” Coach pulled my arm into the huddle. 

“Ready? Say it so they can hear it! Hands in!” We all put our hands in the middle of the circle, “What are we?”

“WE ARE LACROSSE!” They shouted. 

“All right, take the field! Let’s go!” Coach sent them out. It was too late to tell Scott who the alpha was and there was no way I could slip away to help without Coach noticing. Derek was getting his ass kicked and there was nothing I could do to help him. 

“You gotta get out of there. Grab Stiles and run.” I thought hard, hoping that I could send my thoughts to him. I heard nothing back so my heart sank even deeper.

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

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Exothermic

Summary: Meet the original character, plagued by amnesia after an accident. But what if a certain deadly assassin is the cure for that? 

Warnings: softly NSFW... like, it could be worse? Little swearing

The sound of her own, slow footsteps was her only companion on this evening's stroll through the sterile, clean corridors. Though barely audible, the noise was almost deafening to her and yet it did not manage to stop her mind from reeling. Nothing around her seemed familiar, starting with her room and ending with the smell of the hallways. There was absolutely nothing that managed to jog her memory so far, and it irked her. Apparently, she was a member of the greatest team of heroes that walked the Earth, but every time she looked into their faces, her brain could not connect the dots. And worst of all, every Avenger had told her that they were not allowed to help her; that her amnesia had to fade on its own terms and that telling her the truth could make it worse in the end. So, here she was. Eight weeks after an accident where she had been thrown through a window on the first floor, discharged from the hospital because her wounds were healing nicely, yet she still did not remember anything from her past. Nothing, except for her name, age and powers, but even that information was given to her.

Alexandra, twenty-five, defender and healer – whatever that was supposed to mean.

Pressing her palms against her temple, she scoffed and rolled her eyes at herself. Nothing happened, just like nothing had happened since the day she regained consciousness. She had no clue how her powers actually worked, but if she was a healer, then why was she unable to heal her own brain? “You're so stupid”, she cried out, banging the balls of her hands against her already aching head. “Why can't you work? I just want to know who the fuck I am?!”

She rounded another corner, walking past half a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows when she stopped dead in her tracks. Something in the corner of her eye had caught her attention, something she was unsure had been there before. Nevertheless, it was something that spoke to her and for the first time in weeks, she felt a sense of familiarity warming up her insides.

Taking a chance, the tall blonde tried the door handle, happy to find it unlocked. After light brown eyes had scanned the area to make sure that she was alone, tentative feet slipped through a small gap, still wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her now. She had been walking these halls since she was brought home, but had never noticed a piano up here, or anywhere for that matter. Not even downstairs in the bar. ‘Too expensive’, the man who introduced himself as Tony Stark had said when she had asked. ‘The last one got destroyed by Ultron’, a muscular, tall, blond guy had added before receiving death glares from the rest of the group. Alexandra had no idea who Ultron was. How could she, if she was still unable to put the pieces of her own past back together? And what about her present? Did she even go by her full first name or did she prefer it was shortened to Alex? Or even Lexi? Did she like being an Avenger? How strong was her power, how strong was she? She did not know and they did not tell her. But she felt drawn to the piano, as if it was calling out for her and that feeling eased some of her frustration.

Carefully lifting the fall board and locking it in an upright position, shaky fingers pressed down a combination of keys that her brain did not remember, but her muscles certainly did. Muscle memory, she sighed. How could she remember this but not even the bare minimum of her life? Her most important muscle was not working the way it should. Slender hands pulled the matching black piano bench out from under the instrument and she sat down, her fingers gliding over the keys like second nature as her feet hit the pedals.

Suddenly, her mind flashed to a different time. A different piano was in front of her and perfectly manicured short, red-painted fingernails produced a tune she could not hear. But if Alexandra had to guess, she was reliving a tiny bit of her memory. Maybe, hopefully, this was the pivotal ingredient that she had been missing.

Closing her eyes, she allowed her fingers to work the way they knew how to, her vision not providing much help anyway. And as the melody filled the air and cautious fingertips became more confident of their skill, so did her feet. Alexandra was no expert in how muscle memory actually worked, but she could not explain what was happening right now any other way. Her mind drew blank on the names of the songs that she brought to life, and yet, somehow her brain knew what belonged together and when she transitioned to a new melody. So she kept playing, kept her eyes shut tight and let her emotions rage freely like a wildfire.

Alexandra was so lost in her creations, she did not register the other person entering the room, nor did she feel their presence. Her upper body leaned into the music, swayed with every crescendo and diminuendo. The music consumed her entire system, every nerve ending was accommodating to her trance as the cells in her brain sprang into action. Still, her fingers danced over black and white keys in the most beautiful pattern she had ever heard.

Natasha Romanoff was utterly captivated by the sight before her eyes, as mesmerizing and enthralling as ever. From the moment she had stepped into the room, she stood still and quiet, simply listening to the melody with a sad smile on her face. There was something magical about the way that Alexandra commanded the keys under the pads of her fingers and she was glad she had suggested buying a piano for the younger woman. It was minutes later that she slipped her ballet shoes on and tied the ribbons around her ankles, green eyes never leaving the figure behind the piano. Even as she pulled her red hair into a neat bun – years of practice making the need for a mirror unnecessary – her gaze was fixed on the musician, waiting. The assassin had noticed the slight change in the other hero's posture, the deeper breaths and the parted lips. She knew what was coming, long before Alexandra herself had figured it out.

Words formed in her head. If one were to ask her, Alexandra would say she did not know where they came from, her brain not remembering the song. But her heart did, even if it did not understand the meaning just yet. “Dancing around in the rain again.”, she sang, finding the lyrics to the accords she played. Her voice was soft and quiet, trembling with insecurity at first. 'Cause you said that I was my only friend. Playing with the flowers that I picked myself. Because I know they won't come from anybody else. Wrap myself up to warm my hands. From the biting ice that you made them stand.”

As her favorite voice filled the room, velvety and clear, Natasha began to stretch her tired muscles. Last week's mission had been tough on all of them, and the ache from multiple hits and countless falls still lingered in her bones. It could have been worse, but it also could have gone a lot smoother and with less injuries. Still, there was no pain that could stop her from being here, from dancing to Alexandra’s song. Not her bruised ribs and most definitely not her bandaged wrist – just a sprain, she told everybody.

Tears began to form behind her closed eyes. How could she remember songs but not her life? What kind of sick and twisted condition was this retrograde amnesia and why would it not let go of her? And while her fingers moved across the keys without any mistakes, and her feet operated the pedals below them, the first tears spilled down her cheeks. She just wanted to remember. “I'm still moving cities and I'm still causing storms. I don't know if you know this. But when I shoot I score. Took this pain inside of me, turned it into gold. I made this exothermic. Now watch my heart explode.”

Natasha's heart broke for the person, as it did every day since the accident. She had thought that the first few days had been the hardest, when no doctor was giving a clear statement whether or not she would wake from the coma. Then, when Alexandra did wake up but did not know who she was, did not recognize her, the agent's entire world fell apart. Adjustments had been made before the young Avenger had been released from the hospital, hushed conversations that would make everybody feel left out had become the norm around the blonde hero. But every look into Alexandra's sad eyes chipped away at the – usually put-together – assassin. Natasha shook those thoughts from her head as she carefully pushed herself onto her tip toes and raised her arms above her head, extending her index finger and pinkie into perfect position. Out of everything she had been trained in on her way to become one of the deadliest assassins in Russian history, ballet had always been her favorite and to this day, she still used dancing as a stress reliever.

Brown, teary eyes fluttered open and the music abruptly stopped. Her fingers halted over the keys, her mouth remained agape as she stared at the woman who was introduced to her as Natasha Romanoff. She thought she was alone, but there stood the beautiful Russian, dressed in tight black leggings, a matching form-fitting black bodice and a white silken skirt. “I’m-“ She pulled her fingers in, forming fists that slowly clenched and unclenched with every passing second, her heart rate speeding up to the same rhythm. Nervously chewing on her own bottom lip, she stared at her own hands and then back at the other woman. “Was I not supposed to be in here?”, she asked anxiously, Natasha’s intense green eyes seemingly staring right into her soul.

“Please don’t be scared”, the assassin replied. “This is your home, you can be in every room you want to be in, use everything you want or need.” Graciously lowering herself back onto her entire feet and resting her hands on her hips, the redhead tried reassuring her. “You should feel at home here.”

The words were mumbled, but Alexandra still caught it and scoffed. “And yet, everybody stops talking when I walk into a room”, the woman shot back, smoothing her palms over the long, honey-blonde braid and sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s not easy being me right now, whoever I am. But you did not deserve this.” Everybody around here had been nothing but amazing towards her, despite her condition. Sure, their conversations stopped or changed, but that did not mean that she was not included in whatever topic followed after. “I can go, if you want to-“

“Please don’t”, Nat said in a haste, stopping herself before she could say the name that lingered on the tip of her tongue. She took deep breaths, reminding herself that Alexandra’s memory was yet to come back. “Would you play for me?”, she asked quietly, her lips curling into a smile. “Your song was very beautiful and I would like to dance to it.”

The blonde eyed the assassin apprehensively. Was this a regular occasion? Did she used to sing for other people? “Damn it, you stupid brain”, she cursed under her breath, eliciting a light chuckle from Natasha. Thinking about the request for a moment, she finally agreed. “Only if I am allowed to watch you dance.”

“Always”, the redhead smiled, her body protesting slightly as she pushed herself into the releve pose. She steadied herself before finding Alexandra's eyes. “Ready when you are.”

As if nothing had stopped her in the first place, expert finger tips roamed over the keys, picking up where they had left off. Once again, the melody resonated in the air, but this time, Alexandra only had eyes for the gorgeous woman dancing for her. Every part of Natasha’s body appeared to be in sync with her music and somehow the blonde knew that this was not the first time she had twirled to this particular song. “Dancing around in the dark again. But I'm happier now than I ever was then. Feel my heart as it is ablaze. Making room for another in these better days. Days, days.” Forcefully pressing the keys into the instrument as the music became louder and more spirited, brown eyes followed Natasha’s every motion doing the same. She did not notice the two figures standing on the other side of the glass, staring and smiling at her.

Wanda sighed in content, listening to the sound of Alexandra's beautiful voice. She and Natasha always begged the young hero to sing for them, or at least play one of her favorite compositions for them. It helped with the stress after a long day of work. It eased their minds and both women knew that the same applied to Alexandra. “Do you think this will help her?”, the witch asked aloud, her Sokovian accent less prominent now that she was spending most of her time around Americans. Cocking her head to the left but never averting her eyes, she added, “Natasha could use a sliver of good news.”

Arms crossed over his chest, Steve observed as one of his oldest friends danced. He let out a long breath. “I really hope so. I don't know how long Nat can keep going like this. It's ripping her apart.” The super soldier truly admired the redhead for still walking tall. He was not sure he could do the same. “If this doesn't work, then I don't know what could, besides telling Alex the truth. And the doctor's strictly recommended not to do that. But-”

“But at this rate, our most deadliest and finest assassin is no use on missions”, Wanda finished his sentence with a soft nod while watching the Black Widow dance with an elegance unmatched by anything she had ever seen.

“I'm still moving cities and I'm still causing storms. I don't know if you know this. But when I shoot I score. Took this pain inside of me, turned it into gold. I made this exothermic. Now watch my heart explode.” Alexandra's vocal cords vibrated deep within her throat as her voice reverberated with every word she sang. Louder and louder. The keys molded to her every tap and she had to focus on keeping her eyes open. She never let Natasha out of sight, but as the song went on, it was harder and harder not to give in to the music and let her feelings take over. “Oh, watch me exo, o, o, o. Watch me exo burn this. I deserve it, ohh. I deserved this. I deserve it, oh! I deserve this, woah!”

The Russian's feet hit the parquet floor in a faster pattern now, her body spiraling with every pirouette. The position of her hands was immaculate, the satin skirt wafted with every turn and yet, every time she spun around, her eyes locked on Alexandra's. Watching the other woman play with such intensity, like nothing had changed in the past weeks, made her want to cry. But Natasha swallowed her emotions and danced until the blonde stopped playing. She came to a stop, her breathing ragged and the pain from her bruised ribs jabbing into her sides. Still, Nat regretted nothing.

Neither of them said a word or dared to move. The last notes had long since faded away, but they still felt connected through the music. An invisible bond both held onto, fearing that breaking the silence would involuntarily end this moment of peace.

It was Alexandra who moved first, carefully closing the fall board and rising to her feet. “This was nice, we should do this again.” The comment came with a smile. She had not felt this free in weeks and even though her memories did not return – she had hoped they would – the blonde felt a lot better. “Thank you for the dance, Natalia”, she said out of a habit she did not understand. Hearing the sentence, but specifically that name, falling from her own lips caused a chain reaction. She froze on the spot and went stiff as her brain was flooded with millions of memories from her past. Missions and fighting. Loki, Ultron. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America. The Hulk. Clint and Wanda, her brother Pietro. Vision. Her healing a gash on Natasha's temple. Natasha. Everything came back to her, and all at once. And as her brain completed the puzzle, everything began to make sense again. The last image she saw showed Natasha – her Natalia – in a simple white dress and with white flowers in her red, wavy hair as she was waiting for her on the grass behind the Avenger's compound. And then finally, she remembered her full name. Alexandra Romanoff.

Natasha gasped, her hand covering her mouth in shock. She had waited so long to hear her wife say her name again. No one ever called her Natalia, no one but Alexandra. “Sasha”, she whispered her lover's nickname, eyes filling with tears. With hesitant steps, she closed the gap between them. Soft hands cradled the blonde's face the second she was close enough. “I've missed you so much.” Her lips brushed against a tear-stained cheek, tasting the salt on the tip of her tongue. “Thank you, for coming back to me.”

Gently taking a bandaged hand in her left, Alexandra carefully lowered their limbs. Her wife appeared tough on the outside and would never admit to anyone how much pain she truly was in. But brown eyes saw right through the facade. It had been those very same eyes that had torn down Natasha's walls, stone for stone, when they had started dating all those years ago. A mellow light radiated from her, encasing both women in the warmest, white gleam. Her powers searched for every single one of Nat’s injuries, healing them one after the other. “I will always come back to you, моя любовь. Always”, she promised.

Just as she leaned in for a kiss, Natasha saw the two people outside of the room move slightly – of course her trained senses had picked up on their presence earlier, but she had chosen to ignore them. “FRIDAY? Please close the blinds”, she asked the Artificial Intelligence in her sweetest voice. A swoosh sounded through the room as the shades dropped from the ceiling almost all the way down to the floor, effectively blocking every curious onlooker. “Now we are alone.” Her voice was husky now, even lower than the usual rasp that was just so distinctively hers. “You didn't notice?”

Alexandra shook her head. “I was watching you.” Pale cheeks blushed a dark shade of red when their lips were mere millimeters apart, their foreheads touching. She chuckled. “Even when my brain was all chaotic and weird, I could not stop looking at you.” Nudging her partner's nose with her own, she inhaled Natasha's perfume. “I'm sorry it took me so long.”

The motion was barely visible as the red-haired woman shook her head. “It doesn't matter”, she whispered softly, stroking a few loose curls out of Alexandra's face and behind her ear. “What matters is that you remember now.” Finally pressing her lips against her wife's, she was immediately engulfed by the familiar warmth and love she had for the other woman. God, how much she had missed her.

Pale hands rested on either side of a slender hip, thumbs stroking the bone over the soft material of the dancer's outfit. The cutest little moans escaped her throat. This was what coming home felt like. Natasha was home. One of her hands slid lower, fingers fanning out over a firm bottom cheek as she smiled into the kiss. Tears of happiness ran down her cheeks.

“Don't cry, Милый”, Natasha whispered, wiping her lover's tears away with a gentle brush of her knuckles. “Please, don't cry.”

Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat, the blonde reconnected their lips. A dire need to be as close as possible to her wife was all she experienced in this moment. “Happy tears”, Alexandra assured between kisses, pulling the assassin even closer into her body. She relished in these moments, remembering how the redhead never let her guard down around anybody but her. It made every moment of intimacy even more special. “I love you.”

Her wife's breathless confession caused her heart to pound even faster in her chest. “I love you, too.” Strong hands moved to her lover's behind, cupping a cheek in each of them to hoist her up. She felt legs wrap around her waist as a squeal left Alexandra's mouth, followed by the most precious giggles. Natasha had to crane her neck now, due to the change in height, but it had always been one of her favorite things to do. “I love you so much.” A couple of quick steps later, a slim back collided with the wall behind the piano.

The kiss grew more heated, tongues danced to an unsung melody. Their hearts beat in sync, wanton lust overtaking both women. It took all of her willpower, but when she felt full lips suck on her neck, Alexandra let out a frustrated groan. She knew she had to put a stop to this for now. “I think we have a more suitable... room for this, Natalia”, she moaned, her voice dripping with desire. “Our room.”

Natasha hated to admit it, but her wife had a point. Their reconnecting deserved more than a quickie in the newly appointed music room. She pressed their lips together in one last heated kiss before carefully lowering the blonde back onto her feet. Both inhaled deeply to regain some composure and smoothed over their clothes. “Ready?”, she asked, reaching out her hand for Alexandra to take, her other one holding her sneakers and sweater that she had picked off the floor.

Fingers intertwined, they exited the room with mischievous grins tugging on their lips as they walked past Wanda and Steve who were engaged in a conversation in the middle of the hallway. But the couple did not pay any attention to them anyway, too absorbed in each other's presence. Throughout the entire way to their room, neither spoke a word. Yet, the silence was not uncomfortable.

“Everything is still as I remember it”, Alexandra spoke when she entered their suite and took a look around. “Even my slippers are still where I kicked them off before we had to rush into the mission.” Her leather jacket – a birthday gift from a time when they were engaged – was still draped over one of the chairs. She smiled lovingly at Natasha when she noticed another detail. “I see you've been sleeping in my shirts.” She was not mad about this; she could never be mad about this. Because if the roles had been reversed, the blonde would have done the exact same thing.

Natasha blushed lightly, shutting the door behind them and locking it with a twist. “They kept me sane”, she explained. “Some of them still smelled like you.” And if they did not, she always imagined her wife's unique scent on them. Coming up behind the blonde, the dancer looped her arms around a slim waist. “You are what keeps me grounded, but you were not with me. So this was the next best thing.” The truth was, nothing could ever compare to the real thing. She tightened her embrace. Delicate fingers moved a honey-blonde braid out of the way before soft lips began to caress the back of a creamy neck.

Turning in her wife's arms and instantly missing the touch against her skin, Alexandra nuzzled her nose against her lover's cheek. Her fingers found their way to the hair tie, pulling lightly so red curls could fall onto almost bare shoulders. “I missed the feeling of your hair between my fingers”, she breathed, burying her hands in silken tresses as she claimed crimson lips in a fierce kiss.

The air was full of sexual tension as both women tugged and tore at each other's close until either of them was left in only their underwear. Natasha unhooked her own bra first, knowing how much her partner enjoyed the view. When the garment landed on the floor, nimble fingers fiddled with the clasp of the necklace that held her wife's wedding ring until she finally slid it back onto its rightful place. She smiled brightly. “Much better.” Wasting no more time, the red-haired woman unceremoniously undid Alexandra's bra before moving on to the matching pair of panties. “I missed all of you”, she husked seductively in her wife's ear before nibbling on the shell of it. “Every. Single. Inch.” And as her hands were busy getting reacquainted with the blonde's naked skin, she maneuvered them towards their bed.

Alex could not stop the moans as they spilled past her lips between kisses. She tried dipping her hand into her wife's underwear but remained unsuccessful before she was pushed onto the mattress. As brown eyes opened, the irises shone with a passionate hunger. “Come here”, she beckoned, ogling her lover while Natasha stripped herself of the last article of clothing. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe. “Natalia”, she groaned, growing impatient.

Knowing that teasing was not an option right now, and that it would ultimately cause both of them to suffer, the assassin climbed into the bed. Dainty hands wandered upwards, over pale ankles and satiny legs. Skipping her wife's sex on purpose and provoking a growl when Alexandra noticed what she was doing, the redhead did neither budge nor stop until she was once again face to face with the love of her life. “Hi”, she breathed against kiss-swollen lips as the pads of her fingers playfully fondled her wife's round breasts. Skillfully tweaking rosy buds into pebbled peaks, Natasha licked the blonde's full bottom lip, asking to be granted access.

Her mouth parted on its own accord, as did her legs to welcome the warm body on top of her between them. She let her hands rove over the smooth skin of Nat's back while the assassin played her body like an instrument. When wet lips encased one of her nipples, Alexandra arched even further into the touch, her own caresses never stopping.

Natasha hissed as she kissed a path from one boob to the other, certain that her lover's fingernails left crescent shaped marks on her right shoulder blade and neck. Her wife's nickname followed the next gasp, “Sasha.” Grinding her body into the one beneath her own, her slick center was mere inches away from Alexandra's. “Promise to never leave me again”, she pleaded, her voice barely audible against full lips.

“Not willingly”, the blonde assured her and wrapped her arms around her wife, holding her close. She could not even begin to imagine how hard the last weeks must have been on the other woman. “Never willingly, my love.” With a gentle nudge – in a moment of Natasha's inattentiveness – she flipped them so that she was now on top. “My promise to you will always stand, my beautiful Natalia. I will always love you and I will always come back to you”, she said, reciting parts of her wedding vow as she kissed along a creamy neck and toyed with hardened pearls. “If you're lost, I will find you.” Natasha's body bowed below her when she let her fingers dance over her ribs. “I will forever be yours.” When she looked up, she found Natasha's watchful gaze staring right back at her. “And you will forever be mine.”

Sneaking her left hand between them as Alexandra's traveled past her stomach, both women moaned vociferously when delicate fingers flicked each other's clits the way only they knew how. The Black Widow relished in the fact that the blonde had ruined her for anybody else and that she had returned the favor with pleasure. “Let go for me, Sasha”, she whined just as two of her lover's fingers slowly entered her. Mimicking Alexandra's action, the redhead eagerly swallowed her wife's whimpers.

The blonde's orgasm was approaching quickly and she could feel the walls around her digits tightening as well. Rubbing her thumb over her wife's engorged, needy bundle of nerves, she quaked when the assassin did the same. “I'm close”, she warned, her voice merely above a whisper as she pressed her forehead against Natasha's.

“Me too.” She loved their slow dance of passion and lust. There was no moment that she got to spend with her wife that she did not cherish. But tonight weighed a lot more as both women felt like they were coming home after being gone for weeks. “Come with me”, Natasha groaned, capturing full lips with her own seconds before she tumbled over the edge and Alexandra followed suit right after.

As both came down from their climax, the blonde felt the light strokes of fingertips as they pushed loose strands of honey-blonde hair out of her face. A satisfied smile spread across her lips. Her body revelled in the afterglow, tingled all over with bliss and adoration for the other woman. Lifting her head, she got momentarily lost in her lover's green eyes. “I am so in love with you, Natalia.”

“You will never know how much I love you, Sasha.” 

[ontheblock]

it’s my mental illness and i get to chose which character is vent through❗️❗️anyway, i have been struggling with writing the ending of the second part of my latest patrick hockstetter request and since this has been sitting in my notes for a hot minute, i decided to post it. enjoy this little story absolutely nobody asked for<3

night terrors

no warnings ig- maybe alcohol

Summer never really was plagued by night terrors the way Morty was haunted by them. Whenever she did have a bad dream as a little girl, her parents let her cry it out unless she came to their room themselves. The rare times someone did come over was when Beth was blackout drunk and Jerry followed the soft wailing of his daughter to pet her head while he listened to her sob story of a nightmare. It never helped that Jerry basically coddled baby Morty whenever he woke up - a desperate attempt to even out the neglectful way they treated her first child because they were kids themselves. But all of Jerry‘s attempts were fruitless. Summer heard Morty whine and whimper almost every night through the drywall, even more so since Rick arrived. It was ironic for her to turn out fine with her mother’s neglectful ways. Jerry should’ve maybe considered listening to Beth more with Morty. Or maybe it was meant to be like this. Poor fucker. If his nightmares didn’t take form of bullies anymore it was definitely the looming danger of acid drooling monsters or aliens smart enough to conquer their planet if a self-proclaimed god in a lab coat fucked with them. Yeah, that sounded terrifying for a child. Or maybe the thing he feared most was more simple and childish - their grandfather who took out threats like that for breakfast. But tonight wasn’t a night like that. Summer didn’t wake up from Morty hitting his bedroom wall out of reflex. It was some faceless nightmare of her own that sent her lurching upright with a struggle for air. Whatever it was, she didn’t remember much aside from Jerry‘s face and a leathery hand reaching for her out of the black abyss surrounding her but she felt the aftermath of a sprinting heart and sweat sticking her tank top to her back. Her throat was dry enough to make her reach out to her empty bedside table. She never put a glass of water by her bed, but then again she never needed it.

Swiping back a stray hair, Summer pushed her blanket off to stand up on wobbly legs. She made her way over to the door, stepping over the creaky floorboard. The hallway was quiet but as she crept down the stairs, Summer noticed the flickering lights of the TV pouring out the living room. She had half the mind to blackmail Morty about watching TV on a school night but she definitely kept the info in the back of her mind for tomorrow’s breakfast as she avoided more creaky floorboards on her way to the kitchen. The moron even turned down the volume.

"Morty, I swear to god. Your nightly water trips are getting on my- on my last nerve."

Summer blinked once, twice to place the voice. The distinct alcoholic slur and the audible frown was familiar to her even in a sleepy state. And surely, it was Rick. Shuffling closer, Summer could peek over the couch‘s back to see her grandpa lounging in his oil stained wife beater, tinkering with a cube shaped hunk of metal. Like this she could see his hands at work, talented fingers coaxing loosened screws into their threads. He hissed a low "me cago en tu madre" when the phillips head slipped from the screw he was working on. Summer could make out the blue mesh of veins under the withered skin on the back of his hand. Rick really did have the hands of a worker - a mechanic or construction worker. They looked nothing like the office worker hands of Jerry, if he had even that. He seemed to sense her presence - if that was even possible - because his head turned to look at who he assumed to be Morty.

"Summer? What the fuck are you doing here?"

What was she doing here? She came for a glass of water but her throat was less parched now and something about her mysterious grandpa reeled her in like a damn fish. She took her bait and ran her clammy palm over the couch cushion by her grandpa‘s neck. "I woke up, obviously. I had a nightmare. No big deal." Her eyes pointedly stayed on Rick‘s hand holding a screwdriver or the coffee table with half a bottle of whiskey standing next to Rick‘s feet that he casually propped up onto the wood but she never met his gaze. Why was she even this honest? She could make some kind of excuse but it’s been months since her family showed interest in what she was doing. "Nightmare, huh?" Rick echoed her as if to taste the word on the tip of his tongue. Summer wondered if he had nightmares sometimes. She nodded, eyes finally flickering to his face. The TV casted lights and shadows on his old features. Right now he looked normal, not like that crazy scientist with a mean silver tongue that intimidated her the first time they met at the breakfast table. Summer was used to see the hollow green glow following Rick like a fucked up halo or even the zapping blue rays from devices that can both end and create wars. But now the angular features showed a different side. The soft studio lights of some late night show made him look like a regular addition to the family and it helped Summer release her tense shoulders for the first time in a while, like she didn‘t need to be sarcastic or indifferent all the time. A little voice in the back of her head told her that Morty could be his awkward idiotic self so why couldn’t she?

"Why are you up, grandpa?" She leaned her front against the couch back and kept her voice down just in case Morty did wake up again. "I‘m - bergh - well over the age of bed times. This piece of shit is m-more important." Rick averted his gaze and waved the cube in his hand. Summer hummed and reached for it only to have Rick shuffle it to his other hand and hold it out of reach. "Well, what is it? Can it, like, cause mass destruction or something? Or does it contain a totally freaky virus? Or—" Rick shushed his granddaughter and tossed the cube on the coffee table. "Calm your tits, Summer. It‘s- It‘s to cure Granorian crystals. The, the, the-" Rick rotated his hand as if to underline his search for the most simple explanation "-easiest planet to harvest them happens to have the most impure growth." His hand fell into his lap, the other one snatching the whiskey from the table. "You should go to bed. It’s Tuesday." Summer snorted but it sounded off. "Since when are you the responsible grandparent?"

"I‘m not." His gaze locked on the TV again and he knocked back a sip or two of liquor. "Just thought I get one night free of my annoying grandkids." Ouch. Rick delivered both praise and insults in the same gruff tone - not that he had many kind words to spare, save for Beth when he needed to get his way. "What do you need them for? Can’t you just get, yknow, earth crystals?" Rick belched after a deep gulp from the bottle and dismissively waved his free hand in Summer‘s general direction. "Don’t think about it. Do me- just do us a solid; go back to bed, Summer." Rick expected a bit of huffing and a snarky comment before Summer relented and went back upstairs but he saw her unmoving in his peripheral vision. Summer stared down at the couch cushion‘s seam as if it told her whatever kind of questions were important to a girl her age. Probably if that one guy in school liked her or not. Her fingers rubbed over a stain that looked like red wine her mother spilled last Christmas. "I don’t want to. It’s not like I can go back to sleep anyway. Not- It‘s not because of the dream or anything. Just-" Summer stumbled over her words to find any excuse that would save her the embarrassment of admitting she was a little scared to go back to sleep again. She bit the inside of her cheek when Rick cut her off with a long groan. "You really are Jerry‘s kid. You‘re- Y-You know dreams are just- bullshit hallucinatory experiences aaaaall the way up the hippocampus? It’s not- It’s imaginary, Summer. Just your dummy ape brain processing a bunch of shit while you’re asleep." Rick‘s tone was agitated while he gesticulated but he still scooted closer to the left, ultimately creating more space on the couch. Summer didn’t know where dreams came from, she wasn’t interested in it either but she silently rounded the couch to sit down next to her grandfather. Being this close, she would smell the faint whiskey breath and the Old Spice lingering around her. It was nice for once, calming even. "You know, I‘m not staying because I’m scared because that’s totally lame." Rick just grunted in some kind of indifferent agreement but Summer felt the need to clarify her decision even more. "I mean, it’s just a dream. I‘m not a loser like Morty. I don’t piss my own bed. That‘d be totally— gross." Summer turned back to Rick, fully expecting him to not even pay her any mind but when they locked eyes Summer finally shut her mouth. She never saw a look like this one on Rick‘s face. Not even around Morty - who was quite obviously his favorite grandchild and Summer reminded herself that she didn’t care about that.

Right now Rick‘s withered features looked almost soft even though the hard lines on his face didn’t even out at all. Maybe his resting face just looked mean like that - maybe he was frowning for so long that it became the default for Rick. But still, he looked almost fatherly. Summer‘s pathetic little attempt to look tough in front of the most powerful man she knew stirred something dead in his ribcage.

He remembered a tiny Beth sneaking into their old kitchen where Rick was fixing a leak in the sink. A single glance at his wrist watch told him it was time for Beth‘s nap because if Diane didn’t make her take one Beth would be tired and grumpy all evening. He tried to shoo her back to her room but only got a tantrum out of his daughter until he reluctantly set his task aside and laid down on the living room couch with Beth resting on his chest until Diane came back with their groceries.

"Yeah, sure. What - uhrp - Whatever." Rick looked back at the TV and Summer fell into his silence, her back sinking into the soft cushions. She barely followed the plot of whatever Rick was watching. It looked like some 70s war movie with bad explosions and subpar camera quality. Rick didn’t seem to be the type for nostalgia so it probably just happened to be on at this time of night. The dull colors made her lashes feel heavy again and she let her eyes roam the coffee table Rick still used as his footrest. The cube laid by his foot, forgotten until Rick needed to purify his drugs alien crystals. The whisky bottled left a wet little spot on the wood that she knew Rick wouldn’t wipe away. Jerry wanted to replace the table for a week now. Morty‘s latest comics were scattered on the other side of the table. He always left them in the living room because the idiot just has to get distracted two pages in. An unfamiliar pack of Newport Reds Non-Menthol caught her eye and Summer took a quick glance at Rick. If he noticed, he ignored it. Rick did always have the remnants of cigarette smoke on him but Summer never seen him with one before. There was probably a lot that Summer didn‘t know about her grandpa. She wondered how much her mom really knew about him.

The movie crept close to its finale when a warm weight sank onto Rick‘s thigh. He lowered the bottle from his chapped lips to find soft ginger hair draped over his khaki pants. He went still for a moment with his granddaughter‘s head on his lap. This was territory he hadn’t wet his toes in for decades. Rick wasn’t a stranger to the warmth of another body but this was tender and innocent, enough to take him back in time. He downed the last of his whiskey in one gulp and indulged in the hot rush that followed. The credits rolled on the screen while the bottle neck dangled from his bony fingers.

"How drunk are you right now?"

Rick hummed as if he was doing the math in his head before answering. "Wasted." He put the empty bottle on the fuzzy carpet and shimmied his feet off the table without disturbing Summer in her position. Not that he would admit that.

"So in the morning this didn’t happen?"

Rick took his sweet ass time eyeing Summer and weighing out an answer before he gave a low "yeah, Sum-Sum" and looking back at whatever commercial was on. If Rick ever was good at anything it had to be pretending. He could pretend for Summer just this once too.