#though i feel like... if i had come across this in a book already i would have made a post about it

[yupstillaghost]

✨️Halo & Horns🥀

Part 3

Erik Campbell x Pastor's Daughter Reader

Part 1

Part 2

Summary: Erik takes you out on your first real date (in true Erik Campbell fashion of course).

Warnings: swearing, unwanted flirting from a creepy guy, protective Erik, mentions of murder and gore (in the context of a horror movie), romantic Erik, Erik is absolutely whipped for you and the fluff is overwhelming.

Other: reader is wearing a dress and heels, no use of Y/N

Author's note: I was basically twirling my hair and kicking my feet writing this, so I hope you do too. Also, once again i am capped at 50 mentions per post so i am sorry if you did not make the tag list.

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You and Erik sat in the back of the tattoo parlor like two secret lovers hiding from any prying eyes. Well, you couldn't call yourselves lovers just yet. You felt as though your stars were aligned again to have Erik next to you. Being with him didn't feel awkward and your conversations never felt forced. Everything just flowed naturally when it came to interacting with him.

As you flipped through your sketch book together and showed him all your drawings, you explained to him how long it took you to draw each one and what you were feeling while drawing it. This of course led to Erik showing you some of his drawings that he has been working on for his clients or just for fun.

When you were looking through Erik's sketches, he was looking through yours, and he eventually came across the unfinished moth creature.

"Holy shit you really drew this?" Erik exclaimed, holding up your sketch book to show you your own drawing. You couldn't help but feel a twinge of embarrassment to see your half drawn creature.

"Ya, but it's not finished" you explained downheartedly. Having seen Erik's artwork, you felt like yours paled in comparison. You were starting to think that maybe showing him your work wasn't the best idea. He probably thought your sketches looked juvenile compared to his.

"What do you mean not finished? If it already looks this cool, I can't wait to see what it's gonna look like complete" Erik lit up, his eyes scanning the paper further. You blushed as you watched Erik stare intently at your drawing

"Please tell me you're doing something with this talent" he added while raising his eyebrows at you. "I'm an art major, actually," you beamed with pride "my parent's wanted me to major in religious studies, but art is really the only thing I ever wanted to do."

"Maybe we can put a tattoo machine in your hand someday" Erik said while nudging your shoulder with his teasingly. You chuckled at his words. You couldn't picture yourself being a tattoo artist, but you had to admit you always wanted tattoos yourself. You would have to wait till you were on your own first. If you came home with tattoos, your mother would fall into a coma, and your father would probably perform an exorcism on you.

Erik let out his own little chuckle as if he knew the reason why you found his words amusing. He then reached over and took your hand in his gently. You immediately paused and looked down at your joined hands. That swirling feeling in your stomach returned in full force. Erik went to retract his hand, thinking that he was coming on too strong again, but you took his hand back and intertwined your fingers with his.

He looked at you with parted lips and hopeful eyes. You gave him a shy smile in return and squeezed his hand. Internally, you were surprised with yourself that you wanted Erik this close. You realized that the more time you spent with him, the more you would let your walls down and allow yourself to feel his presence.

"I'm okay with this" you said to him, barely above a whisper. He gave you a closed lipped grin and squeezed your hand back, feeling content that he had the green light to hold your hand. Erik searched your face with his misty blue eyes and swallowed hard.

"Look Peach, if you couldn't already tell, I'm really into you," Erik confessed softly, "and if you want, i would love to take you out sometime." Your mouth went dry and felt your entire face heat up. You definitely knew that Erik was interested in you, but the verbal confirmation had your stomach doing backflips.

"Like, on a date?" you asked without thinking, immediately regretting your embarrassing choice of words. Erik smiled widly and started to giggle.

"No with a sledgehammer" he said with pure sarcasm. You let go of his hand and shoved him playfully as you giggled along with him, almost causing him to fall out of his chair.

"Yes, I wanna take you out on a date" he finally confessed after recovering from his fit of giggles. You took your bottom lip in between your teeth and looked down at the tattoo parlor floor. You would be lying if you said you weren't a little nervous about going out on a date with Erik.

Erik himself wasn't the issue. The issue was that you've never been on a real date. Every guy you've ever gone out with was carefully selected by your parents, and during the date, they would watch the two of you like a hawk. You weren't even sure what it would be like to go out with a guy alone. What you were sure of, though, was that Erik Campbell wanted to take you out, and you would be crazy to say no.

"I'm not opposed to the idea" you said, looking up at him with newfound mischief in your eyes "what would you want to do?" Erik tilted his head and stared at you fondly.

"We could go see a movie and maybe get ice cream after. There's a movie theater about 30 minutes outside of town" Erik suggested to you. You slowly nodded your head as you processed his words.

"This all sounds great, but how are we gonna pull it off?" You asked Erik, reminding him that going out won't be as easy as he's making it sound.

"Ever heard of sneaking out?" Erik answered your question with his own."I'll pick you up Peach, you just gotta get out of the house unnoticed." You took a minute to think it over. You could do it. You could sneak out and go on a date with Erik. You were just slightly annoyed that this was the only way you could spend time with him. But the way this unconventional yet beautiful man made you feel was what made all the secrecy worth it.

"Okay, Campbell. You can take me out" you said to him softly, "and just so you know, I'm really into you too." Erik smiled from ear to ear and threaded his fingers with yours once again.

"I kinda had a hunch when you blew off Bible study to come see me" Erik said through a chuckle. Your heart dropped when he mentioned Bible study and checked your phone in a panic. It was almost 10:00pm. You were so caught up in your own world with Erik, you lost track of time.

"Shit, it's late. I gotta go" you muttered, grabbing your sketch book and shoving it in your backpack. You quickly rose to your feet and made your way to the front of the shop with Erik following close behind. You stopped at the front door and turned around to look at him. You allowed yourself to take him in fully one last time, and then you gave him a small smile.

"Text me when you get back to your tower, Princess" Erik said in a gravely tone, offering you a smirk. You let out a single chuckle and a soft "bye Erik" before exiting the tattoo parlor and allowing the cool night air to greet you.

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You carefully put in the nicest pair of earrings you owned and spritzed both sides of your neck with your perfume. You looked and felt the best you've had in a while for your date with Erik. But you did start to wonder if you were overdressed for the occasion.

You analyzed yourself in your full-length mirror, feeling unsure about your outfit choice. Was a knee-length dress with a corset bodice and cap sleeves too formal for movie date? Were your kitten heels too much? You bit your lip apprehensively as you contemplated changing your outfit. Your hectic thoughts were then interrupted by your phone vibrating on your desk, indicating that you had a new text message. No time to change now.

You quickly peered over at your bed. Your pillows were meticulously placed under your covers to look like you were sleeping there, a classic move. It was 11:00pm and you knew your parents were sound asleep at this time. You adjusted the pillows one last time to make sure your makeshift decoy looked as realistic as possible. You then checked your phone to see the message was from Erik.

"I'm outside, Princess. Your chariot awaits" was the message you read that had you stifling a laugh. You walked over to your window and pulled back the lace curtains. Sure enough, there was Erik standing under the yellow glow of the street light next to an Audi Sedan that looked like it was straight out of the 90s.

You stood in front of your window and took a deep breath to calm your nerves. You never snuck out before, and you didn't think you would have to at your age, but there's a first time for everything.

You unlocked the window and opened the glass and screen wide enough for you to fit through. Luckily for you, your bedroom was at ground level, so you didn't have to worry about breaking an ankle trying to sneak out.

You slid out the window with ease, and you quietly closed it behind you. You straightened your dress out as you took one final look inside your bedroom. Everything appeared to be in order, so you turned away, and power walked over to Erik, your heels clicking on the pavement with each step.

"When I said sneak out, I thought you would come out the front door, not climb out your wind..." the end of Erik's sentence was caught in his throat when he saw you in all your glory under the street light. He looked you up and down and he let the word "wow" escape his lips.

You fiddled with the strap of your purse as you looked him up and down as well. You were starting to think he owned multiple pairs of the same black skinny jeans, considering this was the third time you've seen him wearing them. You also thought his combat boots must be his favorite pair of shoes.

He did have some added elements to his look though. The waistline of his pants was wrapped in a plain black leather belt. His black tee shirt, that had the name of a band you've never heard of on it, was tucked into his jeans. Lastly, he pulled the look together with a black denim jacket. His hair was a wild, dark brown mess as usual, and his earrings and septum ring caught the light of the street lamp above you.

He looked like his usual devilishly handsome self, but you couldn't help but notice how casual he was dressed compared to you. You averted your gaze from him and looked down at your shoes, rubbing your glossed lips together nervously. You then saw the tips of Erik's boots meet the tips of your heels as he gently took your hand in his. You peered up at him to see him smiling down at you.

"Pardon my French Sweets, but you look fucking gorgeous" Erik beamed unabashedly, lifting your hand and giving you a twirl so he could see all of you. You offered him a coy grin as you met his fond gaze.

"You look nice too" was all you could manage to say, and you internally scolded yourself for sounding like an idiot. Erik gestured to the car behind him.

"Shall we?" He said casually, his hand still holding yours. "We shall" you replied with a bright smile. In a complete 180 to Erik's bad boy exterior, he brought you to the other side of his car and opened the passenger side door for you. There, waiting for you in the passenger seat was a single red rose. You delicately picked it up by the stem and gave it a sniff, letting out a satisfied hum.

"For me?" You said quietly while internally scolding yourself again for not thinking of something better to say. Erik then fried the circuits in your brain by lifting your free hand to his lips and planting a soft kiss on your knuckles.

"Anything for the pretty lady" he replied while looking at you through his lashes. This man really would be the death of you. You didn't even want to think about how you would go on if things didn't work out between the two of you. Though Erik wasn't your boyfriend, you knew you would probably say yes if he asked to be. You would be a modern-day Romeo and Juliet...but without all the death.

You and Erik made the 30-minute drive to the movie theater with both of you exuding excitement and nervous jitters. You were going to a midnight showing of a new horror movie that Erik suggested you see. You weren't a horror fan by any means, but Erik seemed really excited about the movie, so you decided to put on a brave face and indulge him.

Erik's car was from the year 1996 and was obviously not equipped with modern technology. So he had a collection of CDs that he made himself, and he had one for every mood and every occasion.

During your drive, he put a CD in that had an array of different rock songs that were all about love. You figured he was trying to set the mood, which you found sweet.

You liked that Erik was showing you that he had a romantic side. The rose, the music, the way he held your hand the entire car ride. You knew he didn't have to do any of these things to get you to fall for him. Truthfully, you've been falling for him since you saw him in the kitchen at his house.

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The movie theater lobby was abuzz with people excited to see the same horror movie you and Erik came to see. The smell of buttered popcorn filled the air along with the chatter of all the movie goers. Erik took you to a corner across from one of the concession stands and gave you your movie ticket.

"I'm gonna run to the bathroom real quick, then we can get snacks before the movie starts, okay?" Erik said to you. You replied with a nod, and with that, Erik left you by yourself. It didn't take long for a man in a sports jersey with a bucket of popcorn to come up to you and try to start a conversation.

"Hey Cutie, that's a nice dress" the man complimented you as he looked you up and down and licked his lips. Your anxiety level went from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds.

"Thanks" you said timidly, looking off into the direction that Erik walked in and praying he would come back soon.

"You got a name, Sweetheart?" the man asked you as he leaned on the wall with his arm above your head. You looked at him with a fearful look in your eyes while he looked at you with hunger.

"Listen, I-I'm not really interested in" you tried to turn down the man, but he interrupted you as if he already knew you were rejecting him.

"Cmon, now don't be like that. I got all this popcorn here that I wouldn't mind sharing with a pretty little thing like you." You started backing away from the man, but he took a step closer. Suddenly, your view of the man was blocked by the back of Erik's denim jacket.

"Can I help you?" Erik said calmly, stepping in front of you to protect you from the creepy man. "Dude, get out of the way. Can't you see I'm trying to shoot my shot?" the man responded with an irritable tone.

"Ya well, you're trying to shoot your shot with my date, so no, i won't get out of the way" Erik continued with obvious annoyance. The man laughed as he sized up Erik.

"How does a little fucking punk like you pull a girl like that?" the man questioned while gestering to you. Erik laced his fingers with yours, and you instinctively grabbed his bicep with your other hand.

"Because I'm not a prick" Erik spat back. The man looked like he was about to give Erik a piece of his mind, but you tugged on his arm, signaling him to just leave it alone. Erik squeezed your hand as a way of showing you that he's ready to walk away and he took you over to the concession stand, leaving the creepy man in the dust.

After you got your snacks and found your seats in the theater, you began to feel anxious at the thought of seeing a horror movie on a big screen for the first time in your life. You've seen horror movies before, but you haven't seen very many, especially not in theaters. You felt your heart drop into your stomach when the lights dimmed and the movie started.

During the first half of the movie, your heart was beating out of your chest, and you clutched your bag of popcorn like it was your lifeline. If the movie had monsters, aliens, or any creepy creatures, you would have been fine.

You could handle seeing monsters on the screen. You had tons of drawings of them at home. But you were seeing a slasher movie. You found slashers a lot scarier than monsters specifically because it was more realistic. Anyone could be a killer, your best friend, your neighbor, your lover. The possibility of being murdered by a deranged serial killer is way higher than getting abducted by aliens or mauled by a werewolf.

You glanced over at Erik and saw him with a big smile spread across his face, giggling at the gore on screen. Since you were distracted by Erik, you missed the jump scare in the movie, but the theaters surround sound still got you.

You jumped out of your skin, your popcorn jumping out of the bag along with you. Erik turned his head to see you looking petrified beyond belief. His smile dropped, and he had a look of regret on his face for a moment. But then he smirked like he had an idea.

Erik wrapped his arm around your shoulders and pulled you in as close as possible. You looked up and your eyes met his instantly. You could feel his breath fanning over your face and you could see every defining shade of blue in his irises. Your heart was racing for a completely different reason now, and you forgot where you were for a moment.

"I got you Peach" he whispered to you in the dim auditorium, his words only meant for your ears. You took a deep breath as you rested your head on his shoulder. Erik gave your shoulder a light squeeze and then turned his attention back to the film.

You closed your eyes and allowed yourself to enjoy Erik's embrace. You zeroed in on the smell of Erik's cologne and the feeling of his shoulder softly rising and falling with every breath. You blocked out the sound of the actors on screen crying out for their lives and being brutally murdered so you could focus on Erik.

You felt him start to massage comforting circles on your shoulder. You opened your eyes momentarily to see him still watching the film intently, but it made your heart feel so full that he was still trying to comfort you through it all.

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Erik's initial plan after the movie was to take you to get ice cream, but he didn't take into account that no ice cream place would be open at 2:00am. So you both settled for prepackaged ice cream bars from the nearest gas station and laughed off Erik's flawed planning.

You sat in the car together eating the ice cream bars while one of Erik's CDs played softly in the background. While you enjoyed your frozen treats, you both had conversations about almost everything under the sun. Stories from childhood, goals for the future, likes and dislikes, your biggest fears, literally everything. Erik cracked off the wall jokes, and you both laughed till your ribs hurt. You appreciated his unusual sense of humor. In fact, you found it to be refreshing.

After the ice cream was gone and the laughs died down, you could no longer postpone the inevitable. Erik had to take you home. The ride back to your house was blanketed in a comfortable silence. But Erik didn't miss the way you held onto his hand like if you let go, you would float away.

Erik pulled up in front of your house and hesitantly let go of your hand to put the car in park. You searched his face with your sad eyes, looking for any sign that he didn't want you to go. You found your sign when Erik reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear and allowed his hand to linger on your cheek. You placed your hand over his and leaned into his touch, savering the feeling of his calloused palm on your face.

That wave of emotions you were feeling when you saw Erik in the tattoo parlor came crashing over you again, but this time, you didn't shy away from it. You lunged forward and kissed Erik on his cheekbone. When you pulled away, you saw your strawberry lip gloss stamped there on the face of a very stunned Erik.

"I had a good time tonight" you said softly, your voice laced with sweetness. Erik snapped out of his awestruck state and cleared his throat.

"Can I take you out again? Like on another date?" He stammered out, clearly still affected by your sudden kiss. You giggled at how cute he was while flustered, and you made a mental note to make him like that again in the future.

"What, you don't want to take me out with a sledgehammer?" You called back to his previous sarcasm from when he initially asked you out.

"No, because I learned tonight that you don't like slashers" Erik responded with a quick comeback. You rolled your eyes playfully at him, then gathered your things so you could get out of the car.

"Seriously though, do you wanna go out again?" Erik reiterated, his eyes staying glued to you. You offered him a fond grin as you twirled the rose he bought you between your fingers.

"Yes" you answered "but no more slashers movies."

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[minijenn]

The Ultimate Universe Falls Starter Guide!

Hey, you! You, reading this post! Have you heard about a fun little Gravity Falls/Steven Universe crossover fanfiction known as Universe Falls? Well now you have! Welcome to the club! This post is meant to introduce you to all things there is to know Universe Falls in one conscise place. Keep in mind that this post assues that you already are fully familiar with the plot and characters of each show individually, and will only really cover fic-specific things.

Now those of you who are already familiar with UF may be wondering, Jen, what is this post? Well, its mostly meant to be an introductory guide to help folks who stumble across my blog and may be interested in checking UF out, but are initially indimidated by it for whatever reason. It'll broadly introduce terms and concepts and characters unique to the fic, as well as connect you with valuable rescources to get the most out of all of the UF content there is to consume. So with that intro out of the way, let's get started!

What the Heck Is a Universe Falls Anyway?

Universe Falls is a silly idea I had back in 2015 (that's right, 10 years ago!) that aimed to combine the plots of Gravity Falls and Steven Universe into one narrative. The basic gist is that instead of settling in Beach City back in the day, the Crystal Gems make their base in Gravity Falls, intruiged by all of the strange creatures that live there. Hence we have Steven and Connie, who already live there, meeting and befriending Dipper and Mabel (who are spending the summer with their Grunkle Stan) to form a group fondly referred to as the Mystery Kids. Throughout the summer, they experience plenty of adventures, perils, life-lessons, and maybe even save the world a few times. You know, normal kid stuff. Mix in all of your favorite GF and SU characters, and you have a unique blend of the stories of both shows, melded together to create something that's both a little familiar and a little new, with plenty of unexpected twists along the way.

Vibe Check Time! What Can I expect?

When it comes to UF, you can expect... pretty much anything tbh. From tooth rotting fluff to the most devestating angst you've ever read, UF kinda covers it all. It has plenty of lighthearted, fun moments towards the beginning, but as we go along, things start to gradually get darker (much like they do in the canon of both shows). I will say, this fic is rated T for a reason, and its tags on Ao3 are fairly accurate. The main ones I should point out are harm to children, blood/violence, and emotional trauma. Generally though, I do try to keep to the vibes of both of the shows UF is based on, so that's mostly what you can expect.

Wait, Didn't You Already Write This Fic?

I did, again ten years ago. I stopped working on it around 4 years ago, largely due to burnout and a variety of other factors. But with the revival of the GF fandom thanks to the Book of Bill, I was struck with the inspiration to pick the fic up again last year! Hence we have what I refer to as "New UF". New UF is a revised version of the OG fic, rewritten from the ground up with a lot of the fat trimmed from it. I'm trying to get to major plot and character points as quickly as possible, so some might feel it has something of a quick pace, but I think it's just right, really, to keep the fic from feeling like its dragging its feet the same way it used to. New UF has frequent updates, each with their own accompanying artwork, so you can not only expect new content to read, but new content to feast your eyes upon too! A win win for everyone! (BTW before you ask, the original UF is still up; you can read it if you want, but I wouldn't encourage it. It's kind of a mess writing-style wise).

UF? UF2? UFF? Why so many UFs?

If you stick around my blog for any extent of time, you may hear the terms UF2 and UFF thrown around. UF2 stands for Universe Falls 2, UF's eventual sequel covering the second summer after UF. As UF1 ends after the events of Weirdmageddon on the GF side and roughly around the beginning of season 4 on the SU side, we still actually have a lot of ground to cover, and that's where UF2 comes in. Granted, since I'll be out of GF content to adapt by then, there's going to be a lot of really interesting original content that comes into play to look forward too, along with the rest of SU. UFF stands for Universe Falls Future, a sequel series set two years after the events of UF2 which covers the events of Steven Universe Future, but again, has plenty of original content of its own to balance things out. At the time of this writing, neither UF2 or UFF have been written yet, but rest assured I have both pretty much planned out completely from beginning to end because I'm just unhinged like that.

"Seasons"? Bitch, this is a fanfic, not a TV show.

I know lol. So let me explain. I categorize chunks of UF into what I like to call "seasons", mostly to keep myself on track. They don't really mean anything outside of various bundles of chapters that are close together. For instance, Season 1 or S1 of UF is everything from the start of the fic up to Mirror Gem and Waterfall Gem. S2 is everything from Irrational Treasure to Gideon Rises. And so on and so fourth. You can check out the full season list, and a full (semi correct bc its kinda always changing) UF chapter list here on the official UF wiki (btw, we have a Wiki).

Who are all these Blorbos?

So while UF mainly focuses on actual canon characters from both shows, it does have a small handful of original characters in more minor roles to flesh things out. You'll likely hear some of their names thrown out from time to time, so here are the major ones you need to remember:

Stepper and Maven: My babies! These two are probably pretty obvious, but Stepper is the fusion of Steven and Dipper and Maven is the fusion of Steven and Mabel. They both show up a handful of times throughout UF and I love them both dearly.

Dipevebel, Convenper, and Mabonnven: The "trifusions" as I like to call them. They're vairious combo fusions of our four Mystery kids (or MK): Dipevebel is Steven, Dipper, and Mabel; Convenber is Steven, Dipper, and Connie, and Mabonnven is Steven, Connie, and Mabel. We also have Stonipbel, who is the fusion between all four of them.

Aaron and Allison Pines: Dipper and Mabel's parents. We know nothing about these characters in canon, but fuck it, this is my house and I do what I want with them, so we have Aaron, who is kind of a bit of an anxious loser and a bit emotionally absent (while still caring about his kids) and Allison, who is super strict and kind of not the nicest person in the world. They're mentioned a handful of times in UF, but they don't actually show up until towards the end of UF2.

Stonemason: OK so this one requires a bit of an explaination and a bit of UF2 spoilers, so feel free to skip if you need to. The best way I can sum him up is to quote the UF wiki: Stonemason is a cybernetically enhanced human assassin created by Yellow Diamond with assistance from Bill Cipher. The first and only successful product of the Human Bioweapon Operation, Stonemason is a separate entity that is implanted in Dipper's mind, taking control of his body to undertake his orders to shatter "Rose Quartz" (aka). Stonemason makes his debut in Universe Falls 2, where he is a major antagonist for a majority of the fic." So yeah that's a lot, and if you have any questions about that, feel free to ask. Also, all that ^^^ is why Dipper has a yellow metal arm following the halfway point of UF2 in all art I draw post that point, basically his arm was amputated and replaced with a shapeshifting metal one. Ya know, like ya do.

Amber: Amber is a Gem who is related to the whole Stonemason arc mentioned above. She's created to basically be a nurse to humans in Yellow Diamond's human bioweapon program, and eventually ends up developing a close bond with Dipper, despite her assignment.

You mean these MK Poly? I sure do

Ok, so shipping is dumb. I think we can all agree on that right? Buuuuut it does lead to some pretty interesting character dynamics, hence why we see a little of it in UF. Namely between our starring kiddos. Before I continue let me make it extremely clear that there is no incestuous content of any kind in Universe Falls, that shit is fucking gross and I won't tolerate anyone claiming that I engage in that, cause I don't. As for the actual poly MK ship, essentially, its that all these kids (save for the twins, obviously) are in love with each other. So we get Steven x Connie, but also Steven x Dipper (Stedip), Steven x Mabel (Stebel), Connie x Mabel (Conbel), Connie x Dipper (Conper) and eventually even Pacifica joins the polycule too so there's really a lot of fun dynamics to be explored in there. Idk ya'll don't get too hung up on the shipping element here. Love is love.

AUs of AUs? That's a Bit Redundant don't ya think?

Maybe so. But Universe Falls does have a whole host of Alternate Universes to its made, some made by me, some made by fans and my friends. The main UF AUS are Reverse/Diamond, Swap AU, and Relativity/Gem Kids, but there's plenty more you can read up on here on the AU page over on the wiki.

Nice Art, you ask a fuckass AI to make it?

Absolutely not. All my art is drawn by yours truly. You can look through my past works here on my blog using the tag "Jen Draws" or check out my DeviantArt page.

How do I solve those Goddamn Codes?

Each chapter of UF has a cryptogram to accompany it, mostly just meant to carry the spirit of Gravity Falls and do some fun references and foreshadowing. Every code in new UF can be decoded using a keyword that's found somewhere in the author's notes at the start of each chapter, usually the word relates back to the chapter itself. As a bonus hint, this is the website I use to create all my codes, and you can decode them there as well: https://themysteryofgravityfalls.com/

Cool stuff. Where can I read this thing/learn more?

This is the part where I mostly just list off a bunch of helpful links and such for folks who want to read/explore UF. Starting with, where you can read it! I post all new chapters here on tumblr, but UF's main home is on Ao3 (though I do still crosspost to FanFiction.net for some goddamn reason). The links to the fic itself are listed below:

Universe Falls on Ao3

Universe Falls on FanFiction.net

You can also read up on all of the hot UF lore on the official wiki! Please note that this wiki is still very much a work in progress, and if you want to help us build it, please feel free to!

You can also check out my Discord server for more exclusive UF content and conversations! This is honestly the best place to check out all things UF, especially to get a pulse on what fans are creating surrounding the fic. I won't post the link here bc Discord links expire, but if you're interested in joining up, please PM for an invite!

Aw, we're already done? But I got even more questions!

Then feel free to hit up my inbox! It's always open and I'm always down to discuss UF with ya'll. With all that said, if you do decide to check UF out, I sincerely, wholeheartedly hope you enjoy it (and I hope it overtakes your every waking thought the same way it has mine lmao)

[gf2bellamy]

drunk — spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid x reader ( no use of y/n ) summary: spencer is drunk and is spilling things about your relationship content warnings: established relationship, drunk spencer, the team mocking them a/n: i've never had a sip of alcohol so if i made any mistake i'm very sorry honestly i just went of what i've seen in tv shows, movies and books

You sat nestled in the corner booth of the bar, sipping your soda. The ice clinked softly against the glass as you absentmindedly swirled the straw, half-listening to Garcia and Emily’s gossip.

Their conversation faded into the background, however, as your attention drifted elsewhere, specifically, to the two men across the room. Spencer, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, was talking at a rapid pace, gesturing wildly with his hands as Derek grinned at him, clearly entertained. Your brows furrowed as Derek slid another drink into Spencer’s hands. You sighed, not bothering to hide your disapproval. 

“What’s up with you?” Emily asked, her head tilting slightly as she sipped from her drink. 

“That.” You nodded toward the scene unfolding across the room. 

Emily followed your gaze just in time to see Spencer take another eager gulp of whatever Derek had handed him. A second later, Derek’s mouth dropped open before he burst into laughter, clapping Spencer on the back like a proud older brother. 

“Yeah… Morgan’s having way too much fun with drunk Spencer,” you muttered, narrowing your eyes at them. 

Spencer, completely unaware of your scrutiny, continued rambling, his hands moving faster than his words. Meanwhile, Derek's smile just grew bigger and bigger.

Garcia snorted. “Oh, come on, it’s adorable.” 

You weren’t sure if you’d call it adorable. More like mildly concerning. Because if history had taught you anything, drunk Spencer Reid was unpredictable, and God help anyone who had to deal with him when the alcohol finally hit its peak. And from the looks of it, the moment was about to happen or based on Derek's grin , has happened already.

“What is he doing?” you mumbled, eyes narrowing as you watched the two of them. You had a bad feeling about this. 

Garcia glanced at you with a smirk. “Sweetheart, we are at a bar. That’s what people do. You know… drink?” She gestured pointedly at your own glass. 

You scoffed, lifting your soda in mock acknowledgment. “Yeah, well, some of us have to drive,” you muttered before taking another sip. 

Before Garcia could quip back, you caught movement out of the corner of your eye. Derek had turned toward you, a slow, knowing grin spreading across his face.

Oh no. 

Your stomach dropped. “Oh god,” you muttered. 

Oblivious to what was happening around him, Spencer continued rambling, hands flailing dramatically. You watched, unamused, as Derek made his way over to you, his smirk growing wider with every step. Trailing beside him, Spencer was entirely oblivious. He barely paid attention to where he was walking, nearly stumbling into Derek at one point, but that didn’t stop him. 

When they finally reached your booth, Derek didn’t even bother with pleasantries. Instead, he kept his gaze locked on you, his grin downright devious. 

“You don’t say?” he mused, clearly continuing whatever conversation Spencer had been having, though it was obvious his real focus was on you.  Spencer finally seemed to register where he was, his hazy eyes flickering to you. He blinked, as if surprised to see you there. 

“Hi,” he said, his voice slightly softer than before. 

Before you could respond, he slid into the booth beside you, well, more like half on top of you. He scooted in so close that his thigh was practically draped over yours. 

You stared at him. “Hi.” 

He grinned, leaning in ever so slightly, the scent of alcohol and something distinctly Spencer clinging to him. His eyes, glassy but bright, studied your face with open admiration, like he was seeing you for the first time all over again. His curls were a mess, strands falling over his face, making him look even more disheveled than usual. You reached up instinctively, tucking a stray lock behind his ear, but he barely seemed to notice. 

“Seems like you’re having fun,” you murmured, shifting your gaze to Derek, who was watching the interaction with barely contained amusement. 

Derek simply shrugged. “Guess so.” 

You turned back to Spencer, who was still staring at you, completely dazed, his hazel eyes glassy and unfocused, like you were the most fascinating thing in the room. With a chuckle, Derek turned his attention to Garcia and Emily, leaving you to deal with your very drunk boyfriend. 

“You okay?” you asked softly, tilting your head as you brushed more of his hair out of his face. 

Spencer hummed in response, his eyes fluttering shut for a second before he blinked them open again. “Mhm.” 

You let your fingers linger in his curls, absentmindedly threading through them, and Spencer melted under your touch. 

“What were you telling Derek back there?” you asked, keeping your voice gentle, watching as his eyelids drooped slightly. 

He mumbled something incoherent before finally managing, “M’don’t remember.” 

Before you could press further, he sighed contently and let his head drop onto your shoulder, his body going slack against yours. Your hand was still tangled in his hair and you felt his breath fan against your neck as he let out another sleepy hum. 

Now Garcia and Emily were both staring at you, matching grins on their faces. You frowned. 

“What?” you asked warily. 

Emily’s smile widened. “Oh, nothing. It’s just… Spencer had a lot to say about you.” 

On cue, Spencer lifted his head from your shoulder at the sound of his name, his movements slow and a little clumsy. You turned to him, raising an eyebrow. 

His brows furrowed in concentration, as if trying to grasp onto a fleeting thought. “I remember now,” he said, dragging out the words, squeezing his eyes shut like that might help jog his memory. “I think.” 

You waited, not sure if you wanted to hear whatever was about to come out of his mouth. 

“I told them… about how much you like touching my hair,” he finally said, his voice a little too loud, like he was completely unaware of the fact that everyone was now hanging onto his every word. 

Your mouth fell open. “What?” 

You whipped your head toward Emily, Garcia, and Derek, who were all watching you with knowing smirks, looking way too amused for your liking. 

“Oh, and I told them about how you—” he paused, blinking a few times, “—always trace patterns on my back when you think I’m asleep.” 

Your face burned. 

Spencer, oblivious to your horror, continued, his voice dreamy and soft. “And how you always steal my cardigans, even though you claim they drown you and make you look ridiculous. But I know you secretly love wearing them.”

Derek let out a full laugh, shaking his head. “Oh, this is gold.” 

Garcia sighed dramatically, clutching her chest. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.” 

You groaned, covering your face with your hands. “Spencer, why—” 

He leaned in even closer, his lips nearly brushing your ear as he whispered, though it wasn’t much of a whisper at all, given his current state—“And I told them that you—” 

You slapped a hand over his mouth before he could say anything else. Spencer blinked at you, wide-eyed, and you felt his lips curl into a grin against your palm. 

“Okay, Spence, I need you to stop talking now,” you said firmly, your hand still covering his mouth. 

Spencer blinked at you, his hazel eyes glassy with amusement. Slowly , hesitantly , you removed your hand, watching him like he was a ticking time bomb. 

Then you turned to your friends. 

“Don’t,” you warned, narrowing your eyes as Derek parted his lips, no doubt ready to deliver some smart remark. 

Derek smirked. “But—” 

“Don’t say anything,” you groaned, already exhausted, cutting him off with a pointed look. 

Emily took a slow, deliberate sip of her drink, her expression entirely unreadable as she observed the chaos unfolding in front of her. Penelope, however, was a different story. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed, placing a hand over her heart as she looked between you and Spencer like you were her new favorite romance novel come to life. “This is adorable. I mean, we knew you were soft for our resident genius, but this?” She gestured at Spencer, who was still pressed against you, his head once again finding its way to your shoulder. “This is next-level domesticity.” 

You sighed, “I am never letting him drink around you guys again.” 

Spencer hummed sleepily against your shoulder. “M’not even that drunk.” 

Derek let out a loud laugh. “Oh, you so are.” 

Spencer attempted to lift his head in protest but gave up halfway and settled deeper into your side. “M’just happy,” he mumbled, and if your heart didn’t squeeze at that, you’d be lying. 

Emily set down her drink, eyes glinting with mischief. “So, what else does our drunk genius have to say about you?” 

You shot her a glare. “Emily.” 

Spencer, on the other hand, perked up slightly, as if the question had unlocked another memory. 

“Oh!” he said suddenly, lifting his head, a dreamy smile spreading across his face. “I also told Derek about how you always fall asleep on my chest when we watch movies, even though you swear you never fall asleep during movies.” 

Derek actually clapped at that one. “Man, you are so whipped.” 

You buried your face in your hands as Garcia gasped dramatically, reaching for Emily’s arm like she might faint. “They’re so disgustingly cute! .” 

Spencer, now clearly on a roll, turned his dopey, love-struck gaze back to you. “And I told them—” 

You groaned. “Spencer!” 

He grinned, resting his forehead against your shoulder. “Love you,” he mumbled sleepily. 

You patted Spencer’s thigh three times, a silent I love you, too, acting as if you weren't melting completely on the inside. You weren’t about to give your friends any more teasing material. 

“We’re going home,” you announced, realizing how sleepy Spencer was getting. 

Derek groaned dramatically. “Oh, come on. We wanna hear more.” His grin was absolutely wicked. 

At that, Spencer lifted his head slightly, as if he was about to continue his drunken confessions. You shot him a look, a playful but very clear don’t even think about it kind of look. “Spence.” 

His lips parted like he was going to argue, but instead, he let out a soft hum and dropped his head back onto your shoulder, completely surrendering. 

Derek laughed. "Man, he's totally wrapped around your finger."

You ignored him, instead rubbing soothing circles into Spencer’s back. His eyes fluttered closed, and he was half-asleep, his weight pressing into you completely. 

“One word about this at work,” you warned, shifting your gaze between the three of them, “and I’m never talking to you guys again.” 

Emily smirked over the rim of her glass. “Oh, sure. No words at work. Can’t promise about the PowerPoint presentation Garcia is definitely going to make, though.” 

Garcia gasped, scandalized. “Emily, you know me so well.” 

You groaned. “I hate all of you.” Derek chuckled, waving you off. “Nah, you love us.” 

Spencer hummed sleepily. “Mhm. Love them.” 

You sighed, adjusting him slightly. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get you home, Dr. Love-Confessions.” 

“Okay, come on,” you sighed, scooting Spencer out of the booth. He stood, well, wobbled, barely managing to keep himself upright. You steadied him with a hand on his arm as he instinctively laced his fingers through yours, clearly unwilling to let go. His drunken state had made him extra clingy, but you weren’t exactly complaining. 

Turning back to your friends, you gave them a pointed look. “I’ll see you all at work,” you said, voice laced with warning. “Where we’re only going to have professional conversations. Got it?” 

Emily smirked, raising her glass in mock agreement. “Oh, sure. Definitely professional.” 

Garcia let out a dramatic sigh. “No gossip whatsoever,” she said, not even trying to sound convincing. 

Derek just grinned, shaking his head. “Yeah, good luck with that.” 

Meanwhile, Spencer was barely paying attention to any of this. His eyes had glazed over, staring blankly into the distance as if lost in thought, or maybe just lost in general. You exhaled, already exhausted and thinking of calling in sick. 

“You,” you said, pointing a finger at Derek, “you get to pay for both our drinks.” 

Derek’s eyebrows shot up, realization dawning on him. “Whoa, hold up—” 

“Nope,” you cut him off immediately, shaking your head. “Not happening. You let him get like this, you pay for it.” 

Derek let out a laugh, looking at Spencer, who was still in his own little world. “Man, I didn’t force him to drink.” 

You shrugged. “Don’t care. Enjoy the bill.” You tugged Spencer’s hand, leading him toward the exit. 

“Bye,” he mumbled sleepily, barely loud enough to be heard. His steps were slow, and his body felt heavier against yours.

You pushed open the door with your free hand, the cool night air rushing past you. Spencer let out a quiet sigh at the change in temperature, his grip on your hand tightening just a little. Without thinking, you started tracing slow, comforting circles with your thumb over his skin. 

Spencer hummed softly, leaning into you as you walked toward the car. “Feels nice,” he mumbled. 

You glanced at him, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Yeah?” 

“Mhm,” he nodded lazily, his curls falling into his face again. “You always do that.” 

“I guess I do,” you smiled softly at your boyfriend, your heart warm as he squeezed your hand tighter. Spencer didn’t seem to notice how tightly he was holding onto you as you arrived next to your car. But when you tried to pull your hand out of his grasp, he made a small noise of protest, a soft whimper that almost made you stop in your tracks. 

“Spence,” you said gently, “I need to look for my keys.” 

His hand reluctantly loosened, but his gaze never left you. You opened your bag, rummaging through the contents, your eyes scanning for the keys. 

“You usually keep them in your front pocket,” Spencer mumbled, his voice barely above a whisper. 

You froze, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Oh, right.” 

Without missing a beat, you reached into your front pocket, feeling the familiar jingle of your keys. “Thanks, Spence,” you murmured, more to yourself than him, as you unlocked the car. You quickly moved to open the passenger door, holding it wide. “Okay, come on. Sit down.” 

Spencer gave you a sleepy, lazy look but you gently tugged him towards the car, your touch soft yet insistent. His steps were slow, and as he started to get into the car, you reached up to guide his head down so he wouldn’t hit it on the top of the doorframe. 

“Head down,” you instructed, your voice a little more authoritative than usual, though the affection in your tone made it clear you were only looking out for him.  Spencer let out a soft, obedient hum as he finally slumped into the passenger seat. His body collapsed back into the seat like a ragdoll, eyes heavy. 

“Good,” you said, closing the door behind him, watching as he settled into the seat, already half-asleep. As you slid into the driver's seat and closed the door behind you, you glanced over at Spencer. His head was resting against the seat, eyes shut, his expression soft and peaceful. You couldn’t help but feel a little bad for disturbing his rest. 

“Do you want to go to your apartment?” you asked quietly, glancing at him as you started the car. 

Spencer’s voice was barely above a whisper when he replied, “I wanna stay with you.” 

You paused, looking at him, his face relaxed, eyes still closed as if he were half in a dream. Your fingers itched to reach out, and you gently brushed a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. He hummed contentedly at the contact, leaning into your touch without even realizing it. You smiled softly, your heart melting at how utterly endearing he was. “Okay. We’ll go to my apartment, then.” 

You drove in silence for a few minutes, just listening to the soft hum of the engine and Spencer’s breathing. It wasn’t long before you arrived, and as you parked in your spot, you glanced over at him.

He hadn’t moved, still in the same sleepy position, his head leaning against the seat. 

“Spence,” you said gently, turning off the car. “We’re here.” All he did was hum in response, barely acknowledging you. 

You sighed softly, knowing this was going to take a little effort. Stepping out of the car, you closed your door quietly before making your way to the passenger side.  When you opened the door, Spencer was practically asleep, his head resting against the seat, lips slightly parted. He looked so peaceful, you almost felt bad for waking him. 

“Spence,” you muttered, reaching out to touch his shoulder lightly. He didn’t budge. 

You frowned, leaning in slightly, careful not to hit your head on the car frame, as you gave his shoulder a firmer shake. Still nothing. 

“Spencer,” you said a little louder, this time with a touch of amusement in your voice. Finally, he stirred, cracking one eye open lazily. 

“Hi,” you greeted with a soft smile, watching as he blinked sluggishly. 

He let out a slow breath, rubbing his face with one hand. “We’re here?” he mumbled, voice thick with exhaustion. 

“Yeah,” you chuckled. “Come on, let’s get you inside.” 

Spencer groaned lightly, shifting in his seat as if even the thought of moving was too much effort. You reached for his hand, squeezing it gently. “I’ll help you, but you have to stand up, Spence.” 

With a deep sigh, he finally nodded and let you pull him to his feet. He swayed slightly, and you immediately steadied him, wrapping an arm around his waist. 

“Whoa there, genius,” you murmured, adjusting your grip. “Let’s not face-plant in the parking lot.” 

Spencer huffed out a sleepy chuckle, leaning into you more than he probably realized. “You’re warm,” he muttered. 

You rolled your eyes, but your smile never faded. “Yeah, well, let’s get you inside where it’s actually warm, okay?” 

“Okay,” he mumbled, his voice barely above a whisper as you guided him inside the building. He leaned into you slightly, his steps slow and heavy. As you waited in front of the elevator, you tapped your foot lightly against the tile, watching the numbers slowly descend.  Then, out of nowhere, Spencer spoke again, his voice soft but certain. 

“I like you a lot, you know that?” 

You turned to look at him, surprised by the sudden confession, but the sincerity in his hazel eyes made your heart melt. His gaze was a little unfocused, heavy with sleep and alcohol, but the emotion behind his words was crystal clear. 

“I know, Spence,” you said, smiling warmly as you reached up and brushed his curls away from his face again. It was something so simple, yet something you always found yourself doing. He leaned into your touch instinctively, his body seeking out your warmth. 

The elevator doors finally slid open with a ding, and you gently tugged his hand to lead him inside. As soon as the doors shut, Spencer sighed and rested his head on your shoulder, his body completely relaxed against yours. 

“You smell nice,” he murmured, his voice muffled against your jacket. 

You let out a soft laugh, wrapping an arm around him for support. “Thanks, Spence. You smell like alcohol and bad decisions.” 

He chuckled sleepily, barely lifting his head. “Bad decisions? No, no. Liking you is the best decision.” 

Your heart skipped a beat, and for a moment, you just stared at him, warmth spreading through your chest. Even drunk and barely coherent, Spencer Reid somehow managed to be the sweetest person alive. 

The elevator doors opened, and you shook your head fondly, guiding him toward your apartment. “Come on, Casanova. Let’s get you to bed before you pass out in the hallway.” 

Spencer let out a hum of agreement, still clinging onto your hand like he never wanted to let go. 

You let go of him just long enough to unlock the door, pushing it open before guiding him inside. As soon as you shut it behind you, Spencer immediately reached for you again, clinging onto you like he had no intention of letting go. 

You sighed fondly, helping him shrug off his jacket while he clumsily toed off his shoes.

“Okay, Spencer, just a couple more steps,” you encouraged, wrapping an arm around his waist as you led him toward your bedroom. 

When you reached the bed, he sat down heavily, sighing as his body sunk into the mattress. His eyes scanned the room, though they were hazy with sleep. “I like your room,” he mumbled, as if just realizing where he was. You smiled softly, watching as he flopped back against the pillows, his head sinking into the plush fabric. 

“Me too,” you murmured, standing by the edge of the bed as you watched him. 

Spencer’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment, but then, with a small, sleepy smile, he peeked up at you again. 

“You know… I think my favorite thing about your room is that you live in it,” he said, his voice thick with exhaustion but filled with sincerity. Your heart swelled at the unexpected sweetness of his words. 

You shook your head with a soft laugh, brushing his curls out of his face once more. “You’re such a sap when you’re drunk, Spence.” 

His smile grew just a little. “M’not drunk,” he mumbled, already halfway to sleep. “Just in love.” 

You felt warmth spread through your chest as you pulled the blanket over him, watching as he relaxed further into the bed. 

“Go to sleep, Spencer,” you whispered, but the smile on your lips never faded. 

[pomegranatelifethis]

Sister

The Wayne Manor was a fortress of brooding intensity, except for one glaring anomaly: you. Y/N Wayne, younger twin to Damian Wayne by a measly two hours, were the antithesis of everything the League of Assassins had tried to forge into your brother. Where Damian was disciplined, you were lazy. Where he was stoic, you were a walking smile. And where he thrived on pain and perfection, you’d rather nap on the couch with a bag of Cheetos.

It was the first day of summer, and the Gotham heat was already unbearable. The Batfamily was gathered in the Batcave for a mandatory training session, orchestrated by Bruce Wayne himself. You, however, were sprawled across a rolling chair, spinning lazily, your Robin suit half-unzipped to reveal a tie-dye T-shirt underneath.

“Y/N, get up and join the sparring session,” Bruce’s voice echoed, stern but tinged with the exhaustion of dealing with you for sixteen years.

You grinned, kicking your feet up on a console. “Pass. My muscles are on vacation. Besides, I’m morally opposed to sweating.”

Damian, mid-kata with a katana, shot you a glare that could curdle milk. “You’re an embarrassment to the Wayne name. Get up before I drag you.”

You blew a raspberry, unfazed. “Try it, Dami. I’ll cry, and then Alfred will make you feel guilty with his disappointed eyebrow.”

Tim Drake snorted from his computer station, while Dick Grayson, ever the peacemaker, tried to mediate. “Come on, Y/N, just one round. It’s good for you.”

“Nope!” you chirped, popping a Cheeto into your mouth. “Pain and I broke up years ago. We’re not getting back together.”

Jason Todd, leaning against a stalactite, laughed. “Kid’s got a point. Why suffer when you can eat snacks and vibe?”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Y/N, you’re a Wayne. You need to be prepared—”

“For what? A villain who challenges me to a nap-off? I’d win.” You winked, and even Damian’s scowl twitched into something less murderous.

Despite your antics, Damian was fiercely protective. He’d never admit it, but the idea of you getting hurt—or even mildly inconvenienced—made his blood boil. You were his twin, his responsibility. The League had trained you both, but you’d rejected their ways, choosing laughter over lethality. Damian, though, saw you as a fragile flower in a world of thorns, even if you were more like a weed that thrived in chaos.

As the training session wrapped up, you skipped out of the Batcave, humming a pop song. Damian followed, because of course he did. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

“To the kitchen. Alfred’s making cookies, and I’m gonna steal the dough.” You flashed a mischievous grin.

“You’ll ruin your appetite,” he muttered, but he trailed you anyway, like a grumpy shadow.

In the kitchen, Alfred was indeed baking, his apron pristine despite the flour everywhere. You leaned over the counter, batting your eyelashes. “Alfred, my favorite human, can I have a teensy bit of cookie dough?”

Alfred’s eyebrow arched, but he handed you a spoonful. “Only because you asked politely, Miss Y/N.”

Damian scoffed. “You’re spoiling her.”

“Says the boy who hides her from every mission,” you teased, licking the spoon. “I’m not a baby, Dami.”

“You’re reckless and weak,” he shot back, but his tone softened. “You need to take this seriously.”

You rolled your eyes, hopping onto the counter. “Lighten up, twin. Life’s too short to be so… you.”

That night, after everyone had retired, you sneaked into the library, a place you rarely visited unless you were hiding from chores. You weren’t looking for anything specific, just bored and curious. That’s when you found it: a dusty, leather-bound book tucked behind a shelf, its cover etched with strange symbols.

“Oooh, spooky,” you whispered, giggling. You opened it, expecting boring Latin or something equally dull. Instead, a puff of golden dust exploded in your face, making you cough. “Gross! Who booby-traps a book?”

The room spun, your vision blurred, and the last thing you heard was your own voice muttering, “Well, that’s not good.”

---

When you woke up, everything was… big. The library floor loomed like a football field, and the bookshelves towered like skyscrapers. You tried to stand, but your legs felt weird—short, furry, and way too many. You glanced down and screamed, except it came out as a high-pitched *mrrrow!*

You were a cat. A small, fluffy, black-and-white cat with big, bewildered eyes.

“Oh, come ON!” you tried to say, but it was just more meowing. You scampered to a mirror, your tiny paws slipping on the polished floor. The reflection confirmed it: you were adorable, with a white patch shaped like a heart on your chest and whiskers that twitched with every emotion.

“Okay, Y/N, don’t panic,” you thought, pacing in a circle. “You’re a cat. This is fine. You’ve handled worse. Like that time you accidentally set off the Batmobile’s alarm.”

Your first instinct was to find Damian. He’d know what to do, even if he’d lecture you for eternity. You bolted out of the library, your new body surprisingly agile despite your human self’s aversion to exercise. The manor was a maze, but you followed the scent of Alfred’s coffee to the kitchen.

Damian was there, sipping tea, looking as grumpy as ever. You leaped onto the counter, skidding into a bowl of fruit. Apples rolled everywhere, and Damian’s eyes narrowed.

“What is this creature doing here?” he demanded, glaring at you.

“It’s me, you idiot!” you yowled, but it just sounded like an angry cat. You swatted at his hand, and he recoiled.

“Disgusting beast,” he muttered, reaching for you. You dodged, because if Damian caught you, he’d probably lock you in a cage “for your safety.” Instead, you jumped onto his shoulder, nuzzling his cheek to get his attention.

“Stop that!” he snapped, but he didn’t push you off. His eyes softened slightly. “You… remind me of someone.”

“Wow, rude,” you thought, but you purred anyway, hoping to charm him. It didn’t work. He set you on the floor and called for Alfred.

“Pennyworth, there’s a stray in the manor. Remove it.”

Alfred appeared, eyeing you with curiosity. “She’s rather charming, Master Damian. Perhaps she wandered in?”

“She’s a nuisance,” Damian said, but he kept glancing at you, like he sensed something familiar.

You decided to lean into your new form’s potential for chaos. You knocked over Damian’s tea, sprinted across the counter, and dove into a pile of flour Alfred had set out for baking. The kitchen erupted in white dust, and Damian’s shout of “YOU LITTLE DEMON!” was music to your ears.

--

The next few days were a blur of mischief. As a cat, you discovered you could get away with almost anything. You shredded Jason’s favorite leather jacket, blaming it on “natural instincts.” You hid Tim’s USB drive under the couch, watching him tear the manor apart looking for it. You even napped on Bruce’s Batcomputer, leaving a trail of fur that made him sneeze for hours.

Damian, though, was your favorite target. You’d sneak into his room, knock over his sketchbooks, and curl up on his pillow, knowing he’d be torn between kicking you out and secretly finding you cute. He named you “Shadow,” which you found hilarious since it was so close to your actual codename, Dusk.

But Damian was also the most suspicious. He’d stare at you, muttering about how your eyes were “too intelligent” for a cat. He even set up a camera to catch you doing something “unnatural.” You thwarted him by batting the camera off the table, because screw surveillance.

The rest of the Batfamily was smitten. Dick cooed over you, calling you “the cutest vigilante ever.” Tim built you a tiny cat-sized Batmobile, which you promptly used to chase Alfred’s vacuum cleaner. Jason fed you scraps of his burgers, declaring you “the only sane member of this family.” Even Bruce, the stoic Batman, let you nap on his lap during briefings, though he’d deny it if anyone asked.

Your human absence, however, was causing problems. Damian was frantic, tearing through Gotham to find you. He interrogated everyone, from Alfred to the mailman, and even hacked into your phone, only to find it dead in your room. His overprotectiveness was in overdrive, and you felt a pang of guilt every time you saw his worried face.

You needed to turn back, but the book that caused this mess was written in a language you couldn’t read (not that you could turn pages with paws). You tried to communicate, but your attempts—scratching “HELP” into a table or meowing Morse code—were dismissed as “cute cat behavior.”

---

By mid-summer, you were enjoying cat life a bit too much. You’d discovered you could sneak into the Batmobile and hitch rides to Gotham, where you’d terrorize pigeons and steal fries from food carts. But your antics were drawing attention. A local news outlet dubbed you “Gotham’s Mystery Cat,” and suddenly, every villain from Catwoman to the Riddler wanted to claim you as their mascot.

Catwoman, in particular, was obsessed. She scooped you up during one of your city adventures, cooing about how you’d be her “perfect partner in crime.” You hissed and clawed, but she just laughed, petting you until you begrudgingly purred. Damian, who’d been tracking you (because of course he was), showed up in his Robin suit, demanding your return.

“She’s not yours, kitten,” Selina purred, holding you up.

“She’s not yours either!” Damian snapped, and you could’ve sworn he was jealous. He snatched you back, cradling you like you were made of glass. “Stay away from my… cat.”

You wanted to laugh, but you also felt a surge of warmth. Damian might be a pain, but he cared. A lot.

Back at the manor, you decided it was time to get serious about turning human again. You sneaked into the Batcave, where Tim was analyzing the book. He’d figured out it was tied to an ancient curse, but the reversal spell required a “willing heart” and a “sacrifice of pride.” You had no idea what that meant, but you were pretty sure it involved groveling, which you hated.

You pawed at Tim’s keyboard, trying to type a message. All you managed was “IAMYNFIXME,” but Tim’s eyes widened. “Wait… Y/N? Is that you?”

You nodded frantically, purring for emphasis. Tim cursed, calling for the others. Within minutes, the Batfamily was assembled, staring at you like you were a science experiment gone wrong.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Dick asked, scratching your ears.

“Because she’s an idiot,” Damian said, but his voice cracked with relief. He picked you up, holding you close. “You’re never leaving my sight again.”

---

The reversal spell was tricky. Bruce and Tim deciphered that the “sacrifice of pride” meant admitting vulnerability, something you and Damian both struggled with. You, because you hated looking weak. Damian, because he was, well, Damian.

In the Batcave, with the family gathered, Tim read the spell aloud. You sat in a circle of candles, feeling ridiculous as a cat. The spell required you to “speak your heart,” but since you could only meow, Damian had to do it for you.

He knelt beside you, his face a mix of embarrassment and determination. “Y/N… you’re my twin. My responsibility. I’ve always protected you because… because I’m scared of losing you. You’re not weak, even if you skip training. You’re strong in ways I’m not. I’m… sorry for underestimating you.”

You stared, stunned. Damian, admitting he was scared? That was the sacrifice of pride, all right. You felt a tear slip down your furry cheek, and you nuzzled his hand, purring softly.

The candles flared, the room glowed, and suddenly, you were human again, sprawled on the floor in your tie-dye shirt and Robin pants. “Well, that was a trip,” you croaked, grinning.

Damian tackled you in a hug, then immediately shoved you away. “Don’t ever do that again!”

The Batfamily erupted in laughter, relief, and teasing. Dick ruffled your hair, Jason handed you a burger, and Tim promised to burn the cursed book. Bruce just nodded, a rare smile tugging at his lips.

---

The rest of the summer was less magical but just as chaotic. You went back to your lazy, smiley self, but you made a small effort to train with Damian—not because you liked it, but because you wanted to show him you could. He, in turn, eased up on the overprotectiveness, though he still hovered like a grumpy hawk.

You and the Batfamily had countless adventures: stopping a Penguin heist, pranking Tim with glitter bombs, and convincing Alfred to let you throw a manor-wide water balloon fight. Through it all, you realized how much you loved your dysfunctional family, even if they drove you nuts.

On the last day of summer, you and Damian sat on the manor’s roof, watching the sunset. You leaned against him, munching on Cheetos. “So, twin, admit it. You kinda liked having me as a cat.”

He snorted. “You were a menace.”

“But you loved me anyway,” you teased, nudging him.

He didn’t reply, but his arm slipped around your shoulders, and that was answer enough.

[dante-mightdie]

long awaited part three of lowselfesteem!reader and simon

part two

invisible clothes

that’s what you called them, the rags you don when you have to integrate with the general population but you would much rather not be noticed. clothing that is so bland that it isn’t nice enough catch an eye but not hideous enough to catch any negative attention

you had told simon about them once, when he called you out on wearing them every time you stepped out in public, including your dates with him. especially since he knew you had a very elaborate wardrobe with a tailored sense of style

clearly they aren’t invisible enough to hide you from johnny’s guilty eyes from across the store aisle. you sigh when he comes up to you, tapping your shoulder to get your attention. he shifts uncomfortably on his feet

“I know ye probably hate ma guts, lass but ye should ken that simon shut down all of that bet talk after your first date. Ah just bring et up to annoy ‘im.” johnny says, with a nervous chuckles at the end. you don’t laugh alongside him

“okay, fair enough. look, he’s miserable without ye! he comes to the pub just to get pished and mope about how he fucked it all up with ye.” johnny continues, a pleading look in his eyes, “he’s supposed to he coming by to drop off some things of yours tomorrow. just hear him out, please, lass.”

you roll your eyes at him, continuing to grab what you need from the shelves in front of you. not even bothering to look him in the eyes when you finally begin to speak

"why should I? why am I always expected to think of other people even when they hurt me? you and simon didn't think about me or my feelings when you made your stupid bet. neither of you stopped to consider that I was just a person who simply wanted to be left alone." you say with a scoff, "he'll be lucky if I don't slam the door in his face."

johnny shifts on his feet, looking down at the floor since he feels too uncomfortable to look directly at you, "fair enough. take care've yerself, hen."

you bite back tears as you watch him skulk off in the corner of your eye. you stand there for a few more minutes, staring at the stacked shelves in front of you to distract you from the war raging inside of your head

-

it's late at night, nearly midnight, when there's a knock at your door. you let out a sigh, already knowing who was disturbing your doomscrolling at this hour. and when you open the door, you see him. you’re brooding prick of an ex-boyfriend. he at least has the decency to look guilty, like a dog caught ripping up the couch cushions

except he wasn’t a dog, he was the love of your life. and your heart isn’t so easily replaced like a cushion. though he definitely treated it like somewhere to rest his head

“hey.”

you scoff, you’re not sure why. there isn’t anything inherently wrong with what he said but it still annoyed you. he annoyed you. with his stupid stormy eyes and his stupid jokes and freckled shoulders that you used to connect like dots late at night

“just give me my stuff and go, simon. don’t have time for this bullshit.”

he doesn’t flinch. he saw that hit coming, and sometimes you gotta let them swing at you especially when you know that you deserve much worse

the exchange is quick, a box with small memories passed over to you. a couple items of clothing, a book and some toiletries. before you can slam the door in his face, he jams his heavy boot into it

“wait… love, I… there’s somethin’ else. I never gave it to you but it’s yours. got it for you and I’ll never give it to anyone else.”

the glare you give him only falters when he places a small velvet box in your hand, he pauses the speech you can definitely feel coming on. looking at you expectantly to open it. you do, waiting for him to laugh at you when you find nothing in there. ridicule you for even thinking he would consider making you his wife

but all he does it look on solemn, the beautiful ring twinkling as a devastating reminder of what could have been

“I kno’ I ‘ave no right to ask. I wouldn’t insult you like tha’ lovie. you can hate me, I deserve it. but you don’t deserve it. I won’t let you hurt yourself over what I did. you deserve to know the real extent of how bad I fucked up. maybe it’ll help to look at tha’ ring and know that I’ll spend the rest of my life having to know I lost the woman who should be my wife.”

there’s no chance to respond, not like you’d know what to say anyway,

“I’m sorry.”

and then he’s gone.

[moonstruckme]

hi my love i’m obsessed with all your works and this is my first request!

poly! marauders and cuteness aggression. like maybe reader coming home a bit tipsy from girls night and just seeing her boys and losing it. grabbing remus’ face and just kissing all over his cheeks, gnawing on james’ biceps and playing with sirius’ hair or tracing his tattoos.

Hi lovely, thank you for requesting!

cw: alcohol

poly!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 589 words

You leave a trail of things down the hallway that you swear you’ll pick up in the morning. Your bag, both shoes, your jacket. There’s no time to put any of it in its proper place, not when you know your boyfriends are all cozy and waiting for you in your bed. Everything else is secondary. 

The moment you get your eyes on them, it’s already too much. Remus is reading while Sirius chats to a nearly-asleep James, and you don’t know whether to scream or hug them or burst into tears. One feels more socially acceptable than the rest. 

A grin spreads over Sirius’ face as you crawl clumsily up the bed, so you go to him first. 

“Hi, baby.” You smear a kiss over his lips, burrowing your hands in his lovely, silken hair. It smells like his conditioner, smokey and heady and just slightly sweet. You wish you could snort it up into your nose like a drug. 

“Hi, baby,” Sirius says back at you, amused. “Did you have a good night?” 

“No,” you lament, though you think you might have enjoyed it at the time. 

Impulsively, you move to Remus, clambering across James to get on your quietest boyfriend’s lap. He’s already set down his book, so there are no barriers to your whims as you take his face between both hands, squishing his cheeks up and kissing them all over. You think you can hear the other boys laughing somewhere beyond your lovesick haze. Remus’ skin grows warmer with each ardent press of your lips. 

“None of you were there,” you go on. It’s impossible to articulate the full extent of this injustice. “You were here, being so lovely and perfect and lovely without me.” 

“That’s lovely twice.” Remus seems to recover somewhat from your surprise attack. His hand comes to rest in the middle of your back, a touch just for touch’s sake. “How much have you had, dove?” 

You make a petulant, whiny sound, burying your face in his neck. There will never be enough of them, your lovely boyfriends. Or maybe it’s that they’re enough, but you just can’t get enough. Regardless. You’re doomed to remain just on the brink of satisfaction. 

“Enough to know that I missed you a lot,” you say pitifully. 

“Awe, babydoll.” James’ laughter is at odds with his compassionate tone. “Come here, m’love.” 

This sounds like a grand idea to you. You wish they’d simply all squish together so you could lay your affections on them one by one, in rounds. 

James puckers his lips as you approach, readying for a kiss, and so is taken entirely aback when you forgo his face entirely. 

“Oh, well,” he says as you suck a hickey on his bicep. “I feel properly objectified.” 

You’re too pleased with yourself to be sorry. He flexes playfully, eliciting a string of giggles from you as you latch on tighter. 

“Do you think she’s been drugged?” you hear Remus ask. 

“Dunno.” James’ tone is fond. His big hand lands on the back of your head. 

“No, I sort of get it,” says Sirius. The mattress dips slightly, and then you feel him plant a wet kiss on your shoulder. “You just need to get it out of your system, yeah, sweetness?” 

You hum in affirmation. You wrap your arms around James’ middle, squeezing tight. 

“I love you so much,” you mumble into his skin. “I’m gonna kill you.” 

Your boyfriend’s frame rumbles with laughter. “Okay, lovie,” he says indulgently. “You go right ahead.”

[solsticehymns]

liar, liar: oneshot

james potter x f!reader / fluff / romcom vibes / truth serum shenanigans

summary: James Potter doesn’t mean to confess his feelings. Or overshare. Or humiliate himself in front of the girl he’s in love with. But when a truth-telling potion takes hold, he doesn’t really have a choice.

a/n: recently rewatched liar liar. EXCELLENT MOVIE. even though jim carrey’s face makes me irrationally angry, the plot is so good and heartwarming. this fic was heavily inspired by those vibes, and kinda just that 90s romcom vibe in general! really hope you love it <333 xoxo, sunny ☀️🌻💞

wc: 3963

"You know," Sirius began, his voice thick with scrambled eggs, "if they can't manage to cook bacon properly, they really shouldn’t be serving it at all. It’s practically criminal."

Remus, barely glancing up from the Daily Prophet, replied with practiced indifference, "You say that every morning."

"And every morning, I’m still right," Sirius said, stabbing at a charred piece of bacon with melodramatic flair.

James Potter, seated between them, was only marginally involved in the conversation. The bulk of his attention—an alarming, disproportionate amount—was focused a few seats down the Gryffindor table, where you were nestled beside Lily Evans with a steaming cup of tea cradled between your hands. You laughed at something she said, a sound so soft and clear that it reached him easily over the low hum of breakfast chatter. James didn’t even hear the joke. The moment you smiled, his brain short-circuited—something sparked, overloaded, and went still.

He lifted his goblet of pumpkin juice, took a slow sip, and set it back down carefully. A droplet slid down the rim, clinging to his finger. He wiped it away absently, still looking at you.

There was something specific about mornings and you—a quiet kind of softness. Your hair was still slightly tousled from sleep, your oversized jumper hung loosely on your frame, and your hands gripped the mug as if it anchored you to the table. You leaned in, laughing again, and the sound caught in James's chest like a hook.

You weren’t trying to be radiant. That was the worst part. You didn’t angle for attention—you just had that gravitational pull, the kind of beauty that rearranged a room without asking permission. And James was, academically speaking, utterly and irreversibly besotted.

This wasn’t new. It had been happening slowly, over months—maybe even years. A quiet, resigned sort of yearning that made itself at home beneath his ribcage; a second heartbeat. He realized he was in too deep when he stopped fantasizing about declarations and started yearning for the ordinary. Sharing a table in the library. Catching your eye across a hallway. The occasional accidental touch that felt far too meaningful.

He’d made peace with the ache. As long as he got to see you every day, he could live with it.

Peter nudged him with a mouthful of toast. "Did you finish the Transfiguration essay?"

James’s jaw tightened. He was about to deliver a casual, harmless answer. Something that passed as effort.

Instead, what he said was, "Didn't even open the book."

Silence.

James blinked.

What the hell?

He hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t even consciously thought it.

Remus slowly lowered his newspaper. "Come again?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "That’s not the James Potter we know and grudgingly tolerate."

James felt a prickling heat crawl up his neck. He tried again.

"I meant to, but I got distracted. By a leaf. Or a bird. Something shiny. I don’t know."

The words tumbled out uncontrollably. He slapped both hands over his mouth, a feeble attempt at containing the damage. His cheeks were already burning, and his eyes darted around as if he could chase the words down and pull them back.

Don’t speak. Don’t even breathe, he warned himself.

Sirius grinned, delighted. "Did you just involuntarily confess to procrastinating?"

James whispered, horrified, "I didn’t mean to. It just—happened. Like my mouth’s operating on its own."

Remus's smile faltered. He looked mildly concerned now.

Before anyone could respond, your voice cut through the moment.

"Did you hit your head this morning, Potter?"

You were looking at him, bemused, your head tilted slightly. You were clearly unaware that James was in the middle of a full-blown crisis.

He turned toward you with the intention of brushing it off—something witty, something safe.

His brain screamed: Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it—

"You're the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen and I think about your smile at least three times an hour."

Dead silence.

Your eyes widened.

James felt as if someone had suddenly electrocuted his nervous system. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

You blinked, once, then twice, and let out a breathy, incredulous laugh. "Right. You definitely hit your head."

You stood, tucked your book under your arm, and offered him one last look—a half-smile, curious and a little amused. An unknown emotion flickered in your expression before you turned away.

Gone.

James’s hand froze mid-air, toast still suspended as if caught in a still photograph.

His stomach plummeted.

Across the table, Sirius collapsed forward, laughter shaking his shoulders.

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly regretting every decision that had brought him to this moment.

Peter leaned in cautiously. "Mate, what the hell was that?"

James turned to them slowly, wide-eyed and pale. "What did you do?"

Sirius beamed and gestured vaguely to the cluster of goblets in the center of the table. One still held a faint swirl of orange juice.

"This," he said reverently, "is the single best moment of my life."

James’s voice came out sharp and panicked. "Tell me. Now."

Remus hesitated, fidgeting with the edge of his paper. "We might have… accidentally tested something. On you."

James stiffened. "Tested what?"

Sirius leaned back smugly. "The pumpkin juice. We brewed a variant of Veritaserum last night. Just for fun. You drank the one we spiked. Or maybe it was the goblet next to it. Jury’s still out."

"Lucky you," Remus added, not meeting James’s eyes.

James dropped his toast. It landed butter-side down with a soft, tragic thud.

He didn’t blink.

"Oh," he said flatly. "Fuck."

James spent the subsequent hours engaging in a masterclass of avoidance tactics. He deliberately skipped lunch, took unnecessarily long routes between classes, and at one point, concealed himself behind a seventh-floor tapestry for seventeen excruciating minutes while you stood just a few feet away, engrossed in conversation with Dorcas Meadowes.

It was not dignified. But then again, dignity had abandoned him somewhere between blurting out "you're the most beautiful person I've ever seen" and letting his toast fall like a tragic Victorian heroine succumbing to fate.

Remus assured him that the potion’s effects would wear off by mid-afternoon. James clung to that prediction like a drowning man to driftwood, crafting mental versions of the day in which he might make it through without hemorrhaging any further fragments of pride. Yet with each step he took toward the next class, doubt clawed at him—what if the potion lingered just long enough to obliterate his remaining social capital? The uncertainty scratched under his skin, carrying a similar feeling to an irreversible hex.

Sirius, on the other hand, made it his personal mission to test the serum’s potency every fifteen minutes.

"Prongs, mate, how do you really feel about Filch?"

"He smells like cabbage and despair, and I once dreamt he chased me with a ladle."

Sirius erupted into delighted laughter.

James groaned into his hands. "This is it. I’m going to die of Veritaserum-induced emotional exposure."

"You’ll survive," Remus said, although his tone suggested he was still conducting the risk assessment in real time.

They scraped through Herbology with minimal disaster. James uttered only one vaguely mortifying remark—"She hugged me once and I still think about how she smelled"—which he managed to reframe as a Weird Sisters lyric. Barely.

But Transfiguration? That was a catastrophe waiting in slow motion.

With exams approaching, McGonagall had declared the day a review session, which in practice meant organized chaos. Students clustered at scattered tables, muttering incantations under their breath, cross-referencing spellwork, and trying not to Vanish their self-respect alongside practice objects. James sat toward the back. You were near the front, half-turned toward your group so that he could see the slope of your shoulder and the line of your smile when you laughed.

You were surrounded by Lily, Dorcas, and Marlene—quills scratching, parchment rustling, the occasional gasp of horror as someone’s Vanishing Spell rendered an entire desk legless. James was meant to be revising. Instead, his hand trembled and his heart pounded like it had something to prove.

His notes were illegible. The phrase "turn to smoke???" appeared multiple times, alongside a sketch of a teacup that looked suspiciously like it was weeping. His quill tapped an erratic beat against the parchment.

Across from him, Sirius arched an eyebrow, already grinning.

"So," he said, low and gleeful, just loud enough, "how exactly do you feel about her again?"

James didn’t even look up. The words left him instinctively.

"She’s a walking daydream, and I’ve got about four essays overdue because of her face."

It echoed.

Not quietly. Not subtly. It was loud enough to carry over to three tables in the vicinity

Heads turned. Someone choked on a cough. Sirius bit his fist, shaking with the effort not to fall off his chair.

James froze.

His entire body went rigid—quill suspended mid-air, lungs locked in his chest. It was as if the very fabric of time had paused to acknowledge his downfall.

Then—movement.

You paused mid-sentence. Lily tapped your shoulder with subtle urgency. Dorcas leaned in, her expression intrigued. Marlene glanced over her shoulder with the kind of grin reserved for front-row seats to emotional train wrecks.

You listened. Blinked slowly.

Then—deliberately—you turned.

The entire table held its collective breath.

Your gaze found James’s like a targeting spell—brows raised, eyes wide. Not offended. Not amused. Just... intrigued. Like you'd heard something strange and didn’t know what to do with it yet—but wanted to.

James wanted the floor to open beneath him and deliver him mercifully into the void. He briefly entertained the idea of self-immolation.

But then—you smiled.

A small one. Tentative. Surprised, maybe. But not dismissive. Not cruel.

You turned back around, and chaos resumed. Lily covered her mouth. Dorcas said something that made Marlene snort into her sleeve. Whatever it was, it was very clearly about James.

James stared at the back of your head, wondering if it might offer a second chance if he looked hard enough.

Sirius was wheezing. Remus had buried his face in his hands. Peter knocked over his inkpot in the ensuing shockwave.

James slumped forward with a groan that seemed to exit his soul before his body.

He was, by every available metric, completely and irrevocably screwed.

He had barely taken ten steps from the classroom when a voice behind him called out.

"Potter."

He turned too quickly—jerky and obvious—and almost collided with you as you stepped directly into his path.

You didn’t flinch. You simply stood there, arms folded loosely, head tilted, gaze calm and inquisitive. The corridor had mostly emptied by now, the background noise reduced to the distant echo of footsteps and muffled voices behind heavy wooden doors.

James’s heart performed a complicated sequence of flips before lodging itself somewhere uncomfortably near his throat.

You met his eyes with an unreadable expression—curious, composed, lightly amused. Like you’d opened a door and were standing on the threshold, waiting to see if he’d walk through it.

"Quick question," you said, tone airy but precise. "Was that... about me?"

His mouth opened. Instinct surged to the front of his mind—sarcasm, a joke, maybe even a clumsy attempt at denial. But his thoughts lagged just behind his reflexes, and before he could intercept them, the words had already spilled out.

"Yeah," he said plainly. "And by the way, you’re absurdly pretty. Like—genuinely hard to function around. Painfully so."

Silence fell with the weight of a dropped textbook.

You blinked. Once. Then again.

James stood frozen, every synapse in his body firing off simultaneously, as though his nervous system couldn’t decide between fight, flight, or faint. His ears were burning. His hands twitched at his sides, completely useless.

Finally, you let out a soft laugh. It wasn’t cruel, or mocking. Just surprised. Genuine.

"You’re strange, Potter."

James flailed—just barely—before shoving his hands into his pockets like it might prevent further disaster.

"No—I mean, not in a creepy way. Or, alright, maybe slightly weird, but not bad-weird. I just think you’re... brilliant. And kind. And I notice when you wear that jumper with the rip in the sleeve because it makes you look comfortable. And I should probably stop talking now."

You looked at him for a moment that stretched longer than it should have. Not unkind. Not amused. Something else—curious, thoughtful. As if you were seeing him clearly for the first time and hadn't yet decided what to make of it.

Your lips curled slightly.

You tilted your head. Evaluating. Deciding.

Then, finally, you smiled.

It was mischievous and warm, soft-edged and self-assured—the kind of smile that could level a person without trying.

"See you in Charms, heartthrob."

You turned and walked away with unhurried confidence, like you knew exactly the mess you were leaving in your wake.

James remained rooted in place, too stunned to move, like the rest of his body hadn’t caught up with what had just happened.

Crunch.

Sirius appeared beside him, seemingly conjured out of thin air, munching loudly on an apple with the casual demeanor of someone watching a soap opera.

"You’re done for, mate," he said cheerfully. "She’s gonna marry you."

James emitted a sound that hovered somewhere between a gasp and a wheeze.

Sirius thumped him on the back with unearned confidence. "Better start writing your vows."

Charms was an unmitigated disaster.

James had spent the walk to class muttering desperate prayers to any higher power that might take pity on him. Maybe Flitwick would assign partners alphabetically. Or by wand length. Or perhaps he’d adopt some arbitrary sorting system blessed by divine chance—anything to keep James from sitting next to you.

No such luck.

The universe, as it turned out, had a cruel sense of humor.

You slid into the seat beside him, entirely casual, like his whole nervous system hadn’t just tried to exit his body at the sight of you.

“Hi,” you said simply.

“Hi,” he replied, voice cracking like a prepubescent banshee. He cleared his throat. “Hi.”

You tilted your head slightly. “You doing alright?”

He gave a thumbs-up. Then immediately regretted it. Who does that?

Sirius, two rows back, made eye contact and mimed a halo over his head.

Flitwick launched into a lecture on the Cheering Charm, but James only caught every fifth word. Something about “light-hearted energy” and “proper wand movement,” none of which applied to the doom currently devouring his insides. His palms were damp. His quill was trembling slightly. His knee wouldn’t stop bouncing under the desk.

You leaned closer, one elbow resting casually on the table as you peered at his parchment.

“Is that supposed to be a diagram of a wand or a tree?”

James blinked at the mess of lines he’d drawn. “It’s—neither. Abstract art.”

You grinned, wide and easy, and he felt it as a punch to the sternum. His heart lurched so hard it practically knocked the air out of him. You had no idea what that smile did to him—how it short-circuited whatever logic he had left.

You turned your attention back to your notes, but your voice was light. Curious. Teasing.

“Do you always talk like this to girls, or just me?”

James didn’t even have time to panic.

“It’s just you. Always been you.”

The words hit the air like a dropped pin in an empty room.

You blinked.

He stared at the table, mortified. His ears burned. He could feel Sirius’s psychic scream of glee from two rows away. He’d said it. Out loud. He’d said it out loud.

But you didn’t laugh, tease, or mock, as he had feared.

You only looked at him. Really looked at him.

Your expression held something quiet. Not surprise. Not pity. Something gentler—measured and soft. A flicker of understanding that warmed rather than burned.

James’s breath snagged in his throat. His fingers curled slightly around the base of his quill as he struggled to keep himself grounded. For one agonizing, wonderful moment, he thought he might cry—out of embarrassment, yes, but also because the moment was real.

And then—

You turned back to your wand.

Said nothing.

Your cheeks were slightly pink, your smile just barely visible as you bent over your parchment again. But you didn’t move away. You didn’t laugh it off. You stayed close, like the moment didn’t scare you the way it terrified him.

James blinked in the echo of it—your kindness, your quiet acceptance—completely undone.

He didn’t hear a word Flitwick said for the rest of class.

After class, James moved quickly—too quickly—trying to pack his things before reality caught up with him. If he kept his head down, avoided eye contact, and exited fast enough, maybe he could outrun the emotional catastrophe he’d spent all day teetering on.

But you didn’t leave.

“James.”

His name stopped him cold. Charms book half-shoved into his bag, his spine went rigid.

Your voice was quiet—not sarcastic, not amused. Measured. Sincere.

He turned slowly, bracing for the worst. You were standing a few feet away, arms loosely crossed, your bag hanging off one shoulder. There was nothing smug about your posture. If anything, your presence felt... gentle. And somehow, that made it harder to bear.

Your expression was hard to read, but it held no sharp edges. There was a softness in your eyes, something patient and open, like you were holding back the question that had been building all class.

“Are you okay?”

The simplicity of it landed with an almost disproportionate weight.

Because you meant it.

James blinked, unprepared. His brain scrambled to summon a joke, a quip—something light enough to float him out of this moment.

But the truth arrived first.

"No," he said. "Not even remotely."

The honesty stunned him. It left his mouth before he could restrain it, like the words had slipped from a part of him he couldn't control. He winced as soon as it was out.

Desperate to recover, he backpedaled.

“I mean—I’m not sick or dying or anything. Just…” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Emotionally compromised. Mildly feral. Truthfully unwell."

He offered a crooked smile. It held, barely.

Your brows lifted. Not out of judgment, but consideration. You looked at him like his words were puzzle pieces you were quietly fitting together.

“Truthfully, hm?”

James looked away. Embarrassment bloomed hot across his face.

It was absurd how much weight that single word carried. He fiddled with the zipper of his bag as if the act could insulate him from further exposure.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me today,” he muttered. “My filter’s gone. I think something and then—I say it. And somehow, it’s always when you’re standing nearby.”

Still, you didn’t laugh. You didn’t mock. You didn’t flinch.

Instead, you took one small step closer.

And then, without saying anything else, you reached forward and gave the sleeve of his robes the gentlest tug. Just once. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t performative. But it said everything: I see you. I’m still here.

James swallowed hard. His throat tightened, but this time not with panic. Something else. Something quiet. Something close to relief.

You turned and walked away, unhurried, the last rays of afternoon light catching in your hair as you rounded the corner.

The classroom was silent now.

James stood motionless for several seconds before lowering himself into the nearest chair like someone had been holding him upright all day and finally let go. His bag hung off one shoulder, forgotten. His hair fell into his eyes.

He tipped his head back and groaned—long, dramatic, utterly defeated: “I am so fucking doomed.”

The Gryffindor common room was silent—eerily so.

James had barely stepped through the portrait hole when he sensed it. The stillness felt curated, like a scene hastily arranged moments before he entered.

He pivoted to leave, but Sirius materialized in his path, smiling with far too much innocence to be trusted.

“Where are you off to, Prongs?”

James squinted. “Nowhere. Anywhere. Just—not here.”

“Perfect,” Sirius chirped. “Come sit.”

Before James could object, Sirius ushered him toward the fireplace with the gentle coercion of someone leading a lamb to slaughter.

That’s when James saw you.

You were already seated on the sofa, legs folded beneath you, a forgotten book resting in your lap. The firelight danced across your features, softening the angles of your face in a golden glow.

James froze. "You planned this."

Sirius thumped him on the back. "Me? Never. Just a wildly convenient coincidence, right?"

You raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Well, would you look at that,” Sirius said, clutching his chest like he was moved to tears. “Two of my dearest friends. Alone. In the same room. Under the same roof. By sheer happenstance.” He turned to you. “Don’t mind me—I’ll just be over here, not spying and definitely not listening in.”

He took a single, dramatic step back.

“Actually, no. I should go. Destiny awaits.”

James whipped around. “Sirius—”

“Good luck!” Sirius called over his shoulder, already ascending the stairs. “Also, feel free to profess undying love! Or don’t. But you probably should.”

The portrait hole sealed behind him.

James turned to face you. You had closed your book.

“That wasn’t subtle,” you said.

James exhaled and dragged a hand through his hair. “Not even a little.”

You rose, slow and deliberate. Arms folded—not defensive, but inquisitive.

“One question,” you said. “Why?”

James blinked. “Why...?”

You softened your tone. “Why have you been acting so strange today?”

That was all it took.

“I was dosed with a homemade version of Veritaserum,” James admitted, words tumbling out. “Sirius and Remus spiked my pumpkin juice this morning. For fun. That’s why I’ve been blurting things I’d normally take to the grave. Especially around you.”

He hesitated. Took a breath.

“Even so—I meant every word.”

You didn’t interrupt.

James’s voice quieted, like he was running out of room in his own chest.

“I don’t think I’ve ever outright lied to you, not really. It’s more that I’ve been pretending. Like saying 'morning' without letting it mean anything. Sitting near you and pretending I wasn’t waiting for you to notice.”

He let that hang between you.

“I can’t believe it took a bloody potion for me to admit I’m in love with you. I think I’ve known for ages. Maybe since third year, when you lent me your notes and smiled like I hadn’t just failed spectacularly. Or maybe fifth year, when you hexed Mulciber for picking on that first-year and shrugged it off like it was nothing. I’ve carried it for so long it stopped feeling urgent. It just became part of me.”

The fire crackled. James stared into it, hoping he would vanish.

“I didn’t plan to say that either,” he murmured under his breath.

You studied him.

Then, voice barely above a whisper: “You’re in love with me?”

He nodded, completely genuine. “Madly.”

And when you kissed him—softly, surely, like you’d already decided—James forgot how to stand still. One hand found your waist like it had always known where to go; the other hovered, then gently cupped your cheek, as though the moment might dissolve if he wasn’t careful.

Your lips were warm and real, and James felt his entire body lit with quiet flame.

You kissed him like it hadn’t scared you off. Like maybe it had pulled you closer.

When you broke apart—just enough to breathe—your forehead pressed against his.

“You really are strange, Potter,” you said.

James let out a shaky laugh. “You kissed me anyway.”

You smiled. “I suppose I like strange.”

And for once, James Potter didn’t need to speak. But if he had to, he’d spend the rest of his life figuring out the right words for you.

By morning, Remus and Sirius had double-checked the potion’s timeline. It had likely worn off sometime around Charms.

Everything after that? All James.

☀️🌻 masterlist

[sarahscribbles]

𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐞𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐱 𝐟!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝐅𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟗𝟑𝟓

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐦𝐞! 𝐇𝐢! 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞: 𝐈 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢. 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐈 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐦, 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. 𝐁𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞.

𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Loki is the first person you look for when you finally step off the Quinjet. You’re aching and so exhausted that your limbs feel leaden, but both things become so utterly insignificant compared to reuniting with the love of your life. 

It doesn’t take you long to find him - leaning back against the frosted glass doors that lead to the Landing Bay, he emits an air of complete indifference to the scene around him, but, unfortunately for him, you can read him better than your favourite book. It takes less than a minute to register the tense set of his jaw and the faint dark circles marring his pale skin, along with the way his arms are wrapped protectively around his torso. 

He’s barely holding it together. 

All around you, the landing pad is a happy buzz of relieved conversation as the team reunites - something each one of you feared might never happen when the Quinjet suddenly went off the radar for four days - but it isn’t time to add your own voice to the stories. Not yet. 

Right now, all that matters is comforting the man who looks like his world has fallen apart. 

It’s a feeling you’re all too familiar with. The mission had been five long weeks deep in Malaysia - five weeks of yearning for Loki in a way you didn’t know was possible. You ached for the feel of his body wrapped around yours as you slept, ached for his soothing embrace when you came down with some strange bug on the third day, ached for his gentle kiss when the fear of failure overwhelmed you. You had counted down the days until the mission was over, craving Loki in the way a drowning man craves air. 

Then the Quinjet had gone rogue on the return to New York, and your blood had turned to ice when faced with the very real possibility that you might never see Loki again. 

Blinking back tears you toss your bag carelessly to the ground, caring little as to whether you see the contents again, and weave your way easily across the landing pad to where Loki is still standing. His eyes never leave you and he gives little away, but when you finally reach him it’s impossible to miss the slight quiver of his lower lip. 

“Hey,” you say as casually as you can. “What was it you said before I left? Something about making sure the mission wasn’t boring without you?”

It’s a weak tease, bad enough that you even cringe a little, but it’s the best your exhausted brain can come up with. After four long days of fearing the very worst, you’re barely able to comprehend that the love of your life really is standing right in front of you - it’s not the cruel taunt of a tortured mind nor a delusional hallucination. Loki is right there gazing at you like you hung the moon, like you’re the answer to every prayer his lips have ever uttered. You can feel your heart start to thunder wildly in your chest, almost as though it recognises that it’s finally being reunited with its other half, and every last inch of you aches to gather him into your arms. 

But, before you can even move, Loki is already gathering you into his. “Beloved girl,” he murmurs, burying his face into your hair while curling a large hand around the back of your head. 

The scent of him wraps around you like a blanket - amber and ginger and the clean smell of his soap - and your body sags gratefully into his familiar touch. You’re home. You’re finally home. “I’m ok. I’m ok, love,” you say, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist and running a soothing hand along the length of his back, just as eager to comfort him. 

Loki’s answer is to hold you tighter, breaking your heart as he does. He’s lost so much already, more than most people would deem fair, and for four terrible days, he thought he had lost you too. You continue to stroke his back, both a reassurance and a comfort, giving him all the time he needs. His heart beats steadily against yours, coaxing you further into his embrace, and he responds with a firm press of his lips to your hair. 

“Do you have any idea what you put me through?” His deep voice rumbles in your ear. He means it as a tease, you know that - an attempt to mask the turmoil of the past few days, but the slight tremor in his voice betrays his fear. 

You pull back just enough to see his face and those beautiful green eyes that are shining with tears. “I told Tony to take a left,” you reply, giving him a tiny smile. The quirk of his lips tells you the panic is receding, but slowly. “I’m never going to leave you, Loki, not by choice. I promise,” you assure him, taking his face in your hands. 

He leans into your touch, eyes briefly fluttering closed when you stroke his cheeks. “Darling girl,” he says quietly, pulling you back against his chest. “I swear to you now, should I ever lose you again, I will look for you until the stars fall out of the sky. There is no crevice of the universe I will leave unturned until I find you again.”

He presses his lips firmly to the crown of your head - all warm and soft and sweet - and you say a silent prayer of thanks to whatever powers brought you back. 

Back to Loki.

Back home.

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[brookghaib-blog]

Loose Ends

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x reader

Summary: Y/N and Bob meet at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, both struggling with addiction. They form a deep bond that slowly grows into love. When Bob suddenly disappears, Y/N relapses and falls apart. Months later, Bob returns, determined to help her heal. Together, they face their pasts and find hope and love in each other’s arms.

Word count: 11,6k

Warning: Drug addiction, depression, self-esteem issues, sexual themes, suicidal thoughts

Note: Based on this request! I'm back for a bit, responding to the requests, just a reminder that I don't respond to the messages on the box to keep them in order and to read them, I do read everything you send me, and if I feel like your idea it's not meant to be written by me, I'll tell you!

--

The folding chairs creaked beneath restless bodies, the stale scent of burnt coffee and old books clinging to the small community room like ghosts of relapses past. It was just another Tuesday night, but for Bob Reynolds, it felt like his first day on Earth. The fluorescent lights were too bright, the circle of strangers too close, and every eye felt like it was boring straight through his skin.

He didn’t want to be here. But he didn’t want to be anywhere else, either.

Bob sat hunched, his fingers twitching in his lap. His knuckles were red, cracked from the cold and the endless clenching of fists that used to hold glass pipes. He hadn’t spoken to anyone when he walked in. Just nodded awkwardly at the man with the clipboard and found the nearest empty seat. He could feel the tremors under his skin, the echo of a chemical hunger that had hollowed him out for years. It was his first meeting. The beginning of something he didn’t quite believe in yet.

She was already there when he walked in.

Y/N sat across the circle from him—her back straight, hands resting neatly in her lap, a calmness in her posture that said she had done this before. She looked…clean. Not in the way the program used the word, but in a way that radiated control. Confidence. She was beautiful—he noticed that instantly, though guilt pricked the edge of the thought. Her hair was tucked behind one ear, her eyes sharp but gentle, scanning the room like she was watching for someone who might need saving.

She didn’t look at him.

Not at first.

When it came time for introductions, Bob’s voice almost gave out. His throat burned with dryness and shame. “I’m Bob,” he managed, eyes fixed on the floor. “And I’ve been clean for… three days.”

The silence that followed was heavy but not cruel. It was filled with understanding, a quiet solidarity. A few nodded. One man said, “Keep coming back.” Bob barely heard him.

But she looked at him then.

Y/N’s gaze lifted, met his like a flicker of light through a crack in a door. Something sparked—just for a second. Not recognition. Not sympathy. Something gentler. Something that could have been hope, or maybe just human connection.

After the meeting, people filtered out in quiet pairs and solitary steps. Bob lingered, unsure of whether he should leave or stay, his hands shoved into his hoodie pocket like they might keep him from falling apart. He didn’t notice her approach until she was right in front of him.

“Hey,” she said softly, a small, almost hesitant smile tugging at her lips. “First meeting?”

He blinked. Nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“I figured. You did good.” Her voice wasn’t patronizing. It wasn’t fake. It was just… kind. “Three days is still three days. That’s something.”

Bob shifted, a bit uncomfortable. “Thanks.”

She extended her hand. “I’m Y/N. I’ve been clean for three months.”

He stared at her hand for a moment before taking it. Her grip was firm but warm. “Bob.”

“I know,” she smiled again, gently teasing, “you said that earlier.”

His face flushed. “Right. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, and he could tell she meant it. “I just… wanted to say hi. First meetings can feel like hell. Thought you might want someone to talk to.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Part of him did want to talk—scream, even—but the words didn’t come easy anymore. Not after the meth, not after the years of silence and paranoia, not after everything he’d lost.

But her kindness… it didn’t ask for anything. It didn’t probe. She was just there, steady and unflinching, like she knew what it was like to come in broken and be too afraid to admit it.

“I appreciate it,” he said finally. And he did.

She nodded. “Maybe I’ll see you next week?”

He almost said “I don’t know.” Almost said “probably not.” But then he caught the faintest trace of something in her eyes—something haunted. Like maybe she hadn’t really come back to these meetings just to stay on track. Maybe she was here because, like him, part of her still longed for the high. Still dreamed of it, teeth grinding in the night, heart racing at phantom memories.

“Yeah,” he said instead. “Maybe.”

She left then, offering him one last soft smile before disappearing through the double doors.

Bob stayed behind a few more minutes, staring at the spot she’d stood. The ghost of her warmth lingered like a handprint on his chest. For the first time in months—maybe years—he didn’t feel entirely alone.

And for the first time since the meth left him hollow, he wanted to come back. Not just to stay clean.

But to see her again.

It started with short glances after meetings—awkward smiles, mumbled goodbyes. Y/N always sat three chairs from the front, her posture perfect, her clothes crisp and clean like she’d stepped out of a magazine ad for recovery itself. She was the kind of person people imagined when they thought of someone who had “made it out.”

Bob… wasn’t.

He always sat in the back. Always kept his hoodie on. Always looked at the floor when he spoke—if he spoke. Most weeks, he didn’t. Most weeks, he just listened. But he watched her. Not in the way men stared at beautiful women, though God, she was beautiful. She had a glow to her—not from makeup or hair or skin, but from something inside her. A steadiness. A quiet strength. Something that felt unreachable to someone like him.

He figured she wouldn’t even notice him. Why would she? She had her life together. She was healing. He was still trying to figure out how to stop shaking in the mornings, how to sleep without his skin crawling. But then, one night, she looked at him. Really looked. And something shifted.

But after every meeting, she walked up to him—confident, open, her smile soft but not pitying.

They talked, just a little, about the weather, the meeting, what he thought of the group. And he barely said more than two sentences, but she didn’t seem to mind. She carried the conversation with warmth and patience, like she knew what it was like to forget how to use your voice.

That was how it started.

Weeks passed, and the after-meeting conversations grew longer. Slowly. Naturally. She never rushed him. Never filled silence with noise. Just stood there beside him, sipping her tea or twisting her car keys in her fingers, letting the minutes stretch as he searched for the right words.

Then came coffee. Then a walk. Then dinner—sober bars, late-night diners, quiet sidewalks lit by streetlamps and the occasional hum of traffic.

They became friends.

Bob didn’t even notice how much he looked forward to her texts until he found himself checking his phone every few hours. She’d send him memes she thought he’d like. Songs with sad lyrics. Random photos of dogs she saw on her lunch break. It wasn’t flirtation—not exactly. It was something deeper. It was her letting him see the pieces of her life she still held close. And she let him into them, one bit at a time.

He couldn’t understand her sometimes—how someone so composed could be so kind to someone like him. She had a nice apartment with bookshelves and candles and a cat that hated everyone but her. She had a real job in a building with windows and desks and coffee machines that weren’t broken. She had friends who called her on weekends and inside jokes he didn’t get but loved hearing. To him, she was the kind of person who made surviving look easy.

But she never made him feel small.

He remembered sitting across from her at that booth in the bar, his fingers wrapped around a club soda, watching her pick at her napkin. Something in her was different that night—quieter, more distant. She wasn’t smiling. Not really.

“You okay?” he’d asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

She paused, then said, “Yeah.” But it didn’t land. Her eyes flickered toward the floor, and her fingers kept pulling the napkin into smaller and smaller pieces. Finally, she looked up and sighed.

“You ever wonder how I ended up at NA?” she asked.

Bob frowned. “No,” he said quietly. “But I bet a lot of people do.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Because you’re the kind of person people look at and think you’ve got it all figured out,” he continued. “You’re… steady. You show up. You laugh at people’s bad jokes. You hold your head up even when you’re having a shit day. You’re the girl everyone wants to believe gets out clean.”

Something cracked in her expression. A flash of pain. A memory rising too fast.

She leaned back, her drink untouched. The light caught her face just right—made her look like someone caught between the past and the present. Then she started to talk.

“I used to work at a club,” she said, slowly. “Not a dive. Not some hole-in-the-wall. This was elite. Velvet ropes, celebrities, champagne towers. Girls like me wore thousand-dollar heels and smiles that hurt by the end of the night. Rich men loved it. We were ornaments to them.”

Bob listened, silent.

“I had friends there. A boyfriend. We were the pretty ones, the ones everyone else envied. Coke was just part of it. Like perfume. Everyone used. Everyone smiled. Nobody asked questions.”

She looked down at her drink, eyes glassy.

“Then he started hitting me.”

Bob’s heart dropped. His grip on the glass tightened.

“Not with fists. Not at first. Just words. Isolation. Manipulation. He said I was his, that he was protecting me. From other men. From myself. I believed him.”

Her voice broke then, and she swallowed hard.

“He started using me. Stole from me. Made me feel like nothing without him. And when I was too broken to fight back, he left. Took my money, my name, everything. Ran off with some other girl who probably believed his lies the way I did.”

She laughed once—sharp and hollow.

“My friends? They turned their backs. One of them slept with him before he even left me. They all knew. They let it happen.”

Bob felt something ache in his chest. Not pity—grief. Anger. Empathy.

“And my job? The one place I thought I still had control?” She shook her head. “It turned ugly. Backroom deals. ‘VIP experiences.’ They called it empowerment. But it wasn’t. I was spiraling, and the only thing that felt good anymore was the coke.”

She finally looked at him, and there were tears she wouldn’t let fall.

“I didn’t want to feel. I just wanted to disappear.”

Bob reached for her hand, unsure at first. But when she didn’t pull away, he held it, firm and steady.

“You’re not that girl anymore,” he said, voice rough. “You got out.”

“Barely.”

“But you did.”

She looked at him like he didn’t understand. But he did. God, he did.

“You think I’m strong,” she whispered. “But I’m not.”

Bob shook his head. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

The silence between them stretched long after she finished speaking. The kind of silence that didn't demand to be filled, only understood. Bob’s hand was still loosely curled around hers, but his thumb had stopped moving. He was frozen in place, staring at her with this look—somewhere between guilt and awe, like he was still trying to understand how someone who had been through that could still look at him the way she did.

Then he broke.

It was quiet at first, a barely-there tremor in his voice. “I’ve been lying,” he said.

Y/N looked up, her eyes soft and tired. “About what?”

Bob’s throat tightened. It felt like trying to swallow glass.

“I’m not… clean,” he whispered. “Not really. I mean—I go to the meetings. I want to stop. God, I do. But… I haven’t. Not fully. Not yet.”

He couldn’t look at her. His shame was too loud. Too real. He kept his eyes on the table, watching the condensation drip from his untouched drink onto the wood. He was bracing himself—for disappointment, disgust, maybe even pity. He didn’t know which would hurt more.

But Y/N didn’t flinch. She didn’t pull her hand away. She didn’t move at all.

“I know,” she said quietly.

That made him look at her. His eyes were wide, startled, and for a moment he looked almost like a child caught sneaking out of the house.

“You… knew?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I figured it out a while ago.”

Bob’s face fell. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because,” she said gently, “I know what that shame feels like. I know what it’s like to wake up every day telling yourself this is the last time—only to fall right back into it by sunset. I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and hate what you see, but still not be able to stop.”

She paused, her voice growing softer, like she was afraid it might crack. “I knew because I used to be you.”

Bob blinked fast, trying to keep the tears from spilling. His throat burned, and the knot in his chest tightened with each word she spoke.

“I used to show up to meetings high out of my mind,” she continued. “Sat in the back row with sunglasses on, nodding like I understood recovery while my brain was still buzzing. I smiled when people clapped for my fake milestones. I told everyone I was clean because I wanted them to believe I could be.”

A shaky breath escaped her. “But I couldn’t even believe it myself.”

Bob felt his shoulders slump. The weight of everything—the guilt, the pretending, the fear—pressed down on him like a thousand bricks. But somehow, her words made it feel just a little bit lighter. Not because she excused him. But because she understood.

“I hate who I am when I use,” he said. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Y/N leaned in, her voice almost a whisper. “You’re still in there, Bob. He’s still in there. You’re just lost right now. And that’s okay.”

“It doesn’t feel okay.”

“I know,” she said. “It never does.”

He looked at her, his eyes glassy, his hands trembling slightly. “I thought if I got clean, you’d finally see me as someone worth knowing.”

Her face crumpled—not with pity, but something deeper. Something closer to heartbreak.

“I already see you,” she said. “I see how you listen to people when they talk, even when you don’t say much. I see how you text back with full sentences, like you’re trying so hard not to sound messed up even when you feel like you are. I see the way you show up—even when you’re still using. You’re trying. That means something.”

Bob looked away, ashamed all over again. “Trying doesn’t feel like enough.”

She reached out, her hand brushing his cheek. “It is. Right now, it is.”

And then, without asking, she pulled him into a hug. It wasn’t gentle or careful. It was desperate—like she was trying to hold together all the broken pieces of him before they fell through her fingers. And Bob, whose body hadn’t been held without expectation or violence in years, melted into her.

He let the tears fall. Quietly. Messily. Into her shirt, which smelled like vanilla and rain. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t rush him. Just held him tighter, like maybe if she held on long enough, he might start believing in his own worth too.

“I’m scared,” he whispered into her shoulder.

“I know,” she said. “Me too.”

They stayed like that for a long time—two recovering souls on the edge of something raw and fragile, holding onto each other in a world that didn’t offer many safe places.

Bob didn’t know what would happen tomorrow. If he’d relapse again. If he’d lose this fragile thing growing between them. But in that moment, with her arms around him and her voice steady in his ear, he felt something he hadn’t in a long time:

Hope.

Even if it was cracked and trembling.

--

From that night on, something shifted.

She was there. That was what mattered.

Sometimes it was subtle—a soft text before his meetings, “You’ve got this. Even if you don’t feel like it.” Other times it was more direct. Sitting beside him when the urge itched under his skin so badly he thought he might peel it off. Making tea in her little kitchen while he shook on her couch in the middle of a sleepless, twitching night. She never asked for explanations. She never recoiled from the ugly.

She just stayed.

Bob didn’t know how to thank her, not really. Words felt too small for the way she seemed to see through all the rot and wreckage and still come closer. He hadn’t had that before. Not when he was sober. Not when he was using. Not even before he broke into pieces. Most people ran. But not her.

She stayed.

He lost his apartment two months later.

The landlord had already been breathing down his neck for weeks. Bob had stopped opening his mail, knowing each envelope only echoed his failures in ink and numbers. The eviction came quietly. There wasn’t even a real fight. Just a cold knock on the door, a brief, awkward interaction with a man who wouldn’t make eye contact, and a few garbage bags of his life left on the curb like they were waiting for the trash collector.

He didn’t have anywhere to go. He didn’t even call anyone. He just sat on the sidewalk for what felt like hours, his arms wrapped around his knees, a duffle bag pressed against his chest like a shield. The sky went gray and then darker, and he didn’t cry. He just shut down.

Y/N found him like that.

She didn’t say “I told you so,” or ask why he hadn’t called. She just stood over him, arms crossed, a bag of groceries still dangling from her wrist. Her eyes softened the second she saw his face.

“Come home,” she said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Home.

That word hit harder than he expected.

It wasn’t a big place, her apartment. Just a one-bedroom tucked into a quiet neighborhood that smelled like old leaves and coffee in the mornings. Her couch wasn’t comfortable, and her shower leaked sometimes, and her fridge hummed too loudly—but it was safe. It was warm. It was hers. And when she opened that door for him, Bob felt like she was opening it to something bigger than just a place to sleep.

She gave him a key a few weeks later. Not with a big speech or anything. She just placed it on the kitchen counter beside a fresh mug of coffee and said, “Figured it might be easier than buzzing me in every night.”

Bob held the key in his hand for almost an hour before he worked up the nerve to put it on his keychain.

Time passed in fragile, unsteady weeks.

He helped around the apartment—washed dishes, cleaned windows, tried to make himself useful in small, quiet ways that wouldn’t make him feel like a burden. Y/N never made him feel like one, but the weight lived in his bones anyway. He couldn’t help it.

Eventually, she helped him find another job. It wasn’t anything fancy—a delivery driver for a small company on the edge of town—but it paid enough for groceries and gave him something to do that didn’t involve pacing and self-hate. On the days when the cravings got too loud, he’d text her mid-shift and she’d send something back fast. A joke. A memory. A stupid meme. Something to tether him.

He told her once that her words were like sandbags during a flood. She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just hugged him.

Over time, their routines melted together.

He cooked when she worked late. She made playlists to help with his insomnia. They sat on the floor together on Sunday mornings, sorting laundry and talking about nothing in particular. She showed him old childhood photos once, laughing at her awful middle school haircut, and he caught himself smiling so hard it hurt. He hadn’t smiled like that in years.

They still went to meetings together. Sometimes he didn’t want to. Sometimes he said he was tired, or too anxious, or not in the mood. She never forced him. But she always asked if she could drive him anyway. And somehow, her presence always made it feel a little easier.

Bob started counting the days.

Not just his clean days—though he did that too, quietly, afraid of jinxing it—but the days with her. The ones where he woke up to the smell of her shampoo and the soft creak of her kitchen cabinet. The ones where they watched old movies on her laptop and fell asleep side-by-side on the couch, legs tangled like roots.

He didn’t call it love. Not yet. He didn’t think he was allowed to.

But he called it safe.

And for someone who had lived most of his life either chasing the high or drowning in the aftermath, safe felt like the rarest, most impossible thing in the world.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when she was asleep and everything was still, he’d look at her—curled up on the edge of the bed, one hand under her cheek, breathing softly—and wonder what he’d done to deserve any of this. The softness. The safety. Her.

He didn’t know the answer.

But he hoped—desperately, silently—that whatever it was, he could hold onto it a little longer.

They both remembered that day. The moment it shifted—not with drama or confessions, not with a kiss or tears—but with something quieter. Softer. The kind of shift that feels like the slow blooming of spring after a long, bitter winter.

It was a Saturday.

The kind that starts already warm, with golden sunlight leaking through the windows before either of them stirred. Y/N had woken first, barefoot on the creaky floorboards, hair a sleepy mess, moving like someone who didn’t feel the need to rush. Bob followed soon after, drawn to the smell of coffee and the sound of toast popping up from the kitchen. It was simple. Easy. The kind of morning people write poems about—not because it was extraordinary, but because it was still.

They ate breakfast on the balcony. Two mismatched mugs. A chipped plate between them, loaded with scrambled eggs and strawberries, toast buttered to the corners like she always did. The city murmured beneath them—distant laughter, someone walking their dog, a child shrieking joyfully two stories below. A car honked, then another. Life rolled on steadily, like background music.

Y/N was leaned back in her chair, her legs tucked under her, head tilted back with her eyes closed. Her face was bathed in sunlight, and for a moment she looked untouchable. Serene in a way Bob had never known serenity. Her lips were slightly parted, like she’d forgotten the world and was letting the sun warm all the parts of her she usually kept hidden.

Bob watched her. Not like he meant to. Not like he knew how to stop.

She was beautiful, yes. He always thought that. But there was something else about her in that moment. Something real. Not the kind of beauty that came from makeup or a pretty dress, but the kind that came from surviving. From healing. From being the kind of person who made a broken man feel safe again.

He sipped his coffee, trying to distract himself from the way his chest ached.

“This is nice,” he said quietly, more to the air than to her. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt… this peaceful before.”

Y/N hummed, the sound low and soft in her throat. Her eyes stayed closed. She didn’t need to see him to hear the weight in his voice. She knew what peace meant for someone like him—someone whose mind often felt like a battlefield.

“I like Saturdays,” she said simply. “It’s the only day people slow down.”

He looked at her, then. Really looked.

There was sunlight tangled in her lashes. A faint smile resting on her lips. Her skin glowing in that effortless way it always did when she didn’t care how she looked. She was… real. Right in front of him, not some dream or distant kindness, but here. Tangible.

She opened her eyes slowly, as if she’d felt his gaze. And when she looked back at him, it wasn’t casual. It wasn’t fleeting.

It was deliberate.

Like she was seeing him all over again.

Her expression shifted, just slightly—softening at the edges. And in a movement so smooth, so casual and intimate it stole his breath, she reached across the table and took his hand.

Not forcefully. Not nervously.

She simply lifted it and placed it gently on her lap. Her other hand settled on top of his, warm and still. Then, like nothing had changed, she tilted her head back again, letting the sun hit her face as if nothing in the world was worth worrying about.

Bob didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

His heart was beating so loudly he was sure she could hear it through his ribs. His hand, resting in hers, felt clumsy and awkward, like it didn’t know what to do with the sudden weight of tenderness. Her thumb brushed lightly over his knuckles, and that tiny movement nearly undid him.

He looked at her again.

And God, she looked peaceful.

His eyes traced every detail of her face—the soft curve of her mouth, the sunlight catching on the fine strands of her hair, the faint crease between her brows that never quite disappeared, even when she was relaxed. She was everything. She had been everything, and now she was here, holding his hand like it was nothing.

Like it was normal.

And something inside him cracked—not painfully, but openly. Like a locked door finally swinging inward. He felt it happen. Felt the ache in his chest rearrange itself into something terrifying and warm and real.

He was in love with her.

Not in the loud, desperate way he’d felt about people before. Not in the chasing-highs, clinging-to-anything kind of love. This was different. This was the kind of love that crept in when you weren’t looking. That grew roots under your skin while you were busy surviving.

He didn’t say anything. Neither did she.

But that silence was full of things. Full of knowing.

The sunlight stretched across their hands, warm and gold. The sound of life continued beneath them—cars, people, wind through leaves. But none of it mattered. Not really.

Because in that stillness, with her thumb brushing his skin and his heart thudding in his chest, Bob realized what had changed.

--

Being in love with someone you know isn’t yours wasn’t just painful—it was paralyzing.

Bob never made a move. Not once. But neither did she.

They both danced in that unspoken space between friendship and something more, circling around each other like they were afraid to touch the glass. A look held just a second too long. A brush of fingers that lingered. Long walks in silence that said too much, and late-night conversations that always stopped just short of the truth. The kind of closeness that felt like a secret.

Y/N wasn’t dumb. She felt it. She saw it—in the way he watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking, in the way his voice softened when he said her name. She wasn’t imagining the weight in the air when he sat too close, or how her heart quickened when his hand brushed hers and he didn’t pull away.

She wanted him.

God, she wanted him. And maybe it wasn’t logical or safe or even the right time—but love never listened to reason.

So she planned something.

Just for him.

She spent days thinking about it—what she would cook, what she would wear, how she would decorate the table, how she would finally, finally tell him. Not in some dramatic, tear-filled moment. Not with trembling hands or grand speeches. Just something real. Something warm and quiet, like the way they’d grown close in the first place.

He liked lasagna. She remembered him saying it once, half-laughing over some bland cafeteria food, admitting it was the only thing his mom ever made that felt like home. So she made it from scratch. Spent hours on it, hands dusted in flour and cheeks flushed from leaning over the oven. She lit candles—real ones, not the battery-powered kind—and strung up warm lights in the kitchen so everything looked golden and soft. A single bottle of white wine sat in a bucket of ice—because he never liked red, said it was “too bitter, like medicine.”

She even made a cake. Small and simple, chocolate with vanilla icing, and piped onto the top in slightly messy, trembling letters were three words she’d rehearsed a thousand times but never said: I love you.

The clock ticked.

6 p.m. came and went.

Then 6:15.

7:00.

She didn’t panic at first. Maybe he lost track of time. Maybe he was caught up in something. Maybe he was just being Bob—flighty and quiet and a little scattered when his mind took over.

But then 8:30 arrived. The lasagna was cold. The wine sweat into the tablecloth. The cake sat untouched, the words slowly blurring as the icing melted in the heat of the flickering candles.

She stared at her phone.

No texts.

No missed calls.

No excuses.

Something in her chest started to turn. That creeping kind of worry that starts in the stomach and climbs. Maybe something happened. Maybe he got hurt. Maybe he was using again. Maybe he was lying somewhere in a hospital bed or curled up in some alley trying to remember his name. Maybe he was dead.

Her mind spiraled.

She grabbed her phone again—called this time. Straight to voicemail. Again. Again. Again. Each unanswered ring was like a punch to the ribs.

By 10 p.m., the worry became something else. Something sharp. She stood there in her kitchen, surrounded by the dinner she made in his name, and felt something in her begin to crack. Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. Not yet.

She told herself maybe he’d show up. Maybe he’d knock on the door, stammering and apologizing, saying he got caught somewhere or panicked or forgot—but that he cared. That he wanted to be here.

But it never came.

And when the candles began to flicker low, and the silence got too loud, she finally gave up.

She made her way toward her room to grab a jacket—planning to go out and look for him, even if it meant driving through every alley and knocking on every shelter door. Her heart was a thunderstorm in her chest. Her thoughts screaming. She just wanted to see him. To know.

Then she saw it.

Sitting there on her bed.

A piece of paper—ripped from one of the journals he used to scribble in when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. Her name wasn’t on it. There was no date. But the moment she saw it, she knew.

She walked over slowly, her hands shaking before she even touched the paper.

It wasn’t long. Just one sentence, scribbled in a hurried hand that barely looked like his.

You don’t deserve this. I’m sorry.

That was it.

No explanation. No goodbye. Just a wound left open on her bedspread, in the space where she had once dreamed of him waking up beside her.

The paper fell from her hand.

And then she cried.

Not the pretty kind of crying. Not the kind with delicate tears and soft sobs. It was the ugly kind—the kind that split her open from the inside, pulled a scream from her throat that she buried into her palms because she couldn’t let the neighbors hear. She sank to her knees on the floor, arms wrapped around herself like it was the only thing keeping her together.

He was gone.

And the worst part wasn’t even that he left.

It was that he believed she didn’t deserve him. That he couldn’t let her love him. That he thought the best gift he could give her was his absence.

And she would’ve taken him broken. She wanted him broken. She loved him broken. But he never gave her the chance.

The lasagna sat untouched.

The wine lost its chill.

The cake slowly collapsed under the weight of the words she never got to say.

And Y/N, alone in a house full of candlelight and cold food, sat in the ruins of the future she tried to give them.

Losing Bob didn’t feel like a heartbreak.

It felt like death.

A quiet kind of death. The kind that doesn’t come with sirens or funerals, just silence. A sudden stillness in her chest, like her heart stopped beating the moment he left, and never remembered how to start again.

At first, she tried to be strong. She told herself that she was used to pain. She'd survived worse. She’d crawled out of hell once before—out of abuse, betrayal, withdrawal, shaking in cold sweats on cheap apartment floors. She had survived so many versions of herself that died in the dark.

She told herself she could survive this too.

But it didn’t take long to realize that she hadn’t just loved Bob.

She had fallen for him. Tripped and tumbled and crashed headfirst into something raw and consuming and real. She hadn’t seen it coming—not in the quiet mornings on her balcony, not in the way he said her name, not in the long, wordless car rides. But somewhere between those moments, it had happened.

And when he disappeared, it felt like someone had torn out a part of her and left a bleeding hole in its place.

She tried not to spiral. God, she tried.

She went to her meetings. She smiled when her sponsor checked in. She told her friends she was fine, that she was just tired, just busy, just needing space.

But every time she walked down the street, she looked. Every alley. Every shelter. Every bench with someone sleeping under a thin blanket. Every set of shoulders hunched low, every man with blond hair or slumped posture. Her eyes scanned faces like a prayer, like maybe he would just appear, just be there, as if the universe could feel how much she needed him to still exist in it.

Every time her phone buzzed, her heart leapt. And every time it wasn’t him, it sank deeper. And deeper.

Nights were worse.

She’d sit in the same kitchen where she once set out candles and wine and cake and a stupid little lasagna, and she’d stare at the empty chair across from her and ache. Ache in places that weren’t physical. Ache in memories that hadn’t even had a chance to happen. Her mind filled in the blanks—what he might’ve said if he’d shown up, how he would’ve looked smiling across the table, how his hand would’ve felt in hers if he let himself stay.

But he didn’t stay.

He left.

And with that single note, he shattered her belief in being enough. In being someone worth staying for.

The worst part? She didn’t even blame him.

She knew what it was like to feel like poison. To believe that your presence only infected the people who cared. Bob had been fragile, so delicate in his guilt and fear. He wore shame like skin, like every good thing that touched him was going to rot from the inside out.

But even knowing that didn’t dull the sting. It didn’t stop the nightmares. It didn’t stop the longing.

And longing—it’s dangerous.

It’s quiet at first. A whisper in the back of your mind. A thought you tell yourself to shake off: Where is he now?

But it grows. It grows until it becomes obsession. Until your fingers start to shake when you see a syringe in a movie. Until your throat tightens when someone says the word “meth” at a meeting and you think of his face. Until your mind starts to scream just to feel anything again, because loving him was something, and now you feel nothing.

She lasted three weeks.

Three weeks of pretending.

Three weeks of smiling and lying and checking her phone like it might still save her.

And then she relapsed.

She didn’t remember making the choice—not really. It wasn’t a grand decision. It was a moment. A crack in the armor. A single bad night where the world felt too quiet and her heart felt too loud and she thought: Just once. Just something to make this stop.

But addiction doesn’t take “just once” as an answer.

It came back like a flood. Like it had been waiting for her, just behind the door, and the second she opened it, it crashed over her and pulled her under.

And with the high came the silence.

And the shame.

And the slow realization that she had lost not only Bob, but herself.

She started canceling meetings. Ignoring friends. Skipping work until her job sent a warning email. She stayed in bed until the afternoon, curtains drawn, phone face-down on the nightstand. She hated herself. She hated the weakness. She hated that all it took was love—just love—to unravel everything she’d worked so hard to rebuild.

She’d told herself she didn’t need anyone.

She had her life together.

She had her own apartment, a good job, sobriety, control.

And she lost it all for him.

And still, even as the drugs blurred her mind and numbed her pain, she found herself crying in the middle of it. Crying for the way he said her name. Crying for the way he looked at her that last morning on the balcony, when the sun lit his face and his hand sat warm in hers. Crying because maybe, just maybe, he had loved her too.

But she would never know.

Because he was gone.

And she was no longer strong.

And the cocaine didn’t fill the hole. It just made it harder to breathe around it.

She thought she was better than this.

She thought love couldn’t break her.

But it did.

And now she was just another ghost of herself, whispering “I love you” to an empty bed, and trying to remember who she was before she let someone in.

--

Bob had imagined this moment a thousand times.

He’d practiced what he would say on flights, in mirrors, in the shower, in dreams. He’d imagined her face when she saw him again—maybe surprised, maybe angry, maybe even relieved. But never this.

He stood at her door with a sick feeling in his chest. Four months. Four months of silence, four months of guilt rotting him from the inside out. Every day, he woke up with her name in his mouth. He should’ve stayed. God, he should’ve stayed.

When the door finally opened, Bob braced himself.

But nothing could’ve prepared him for her.

Y/N stood there like a shadow of the girl he left behind.

So thin—painfully thin, her cheekbones sharp, collarbones jutting out beneath a baggy shirt that hung off her frame like a flag of surrender. Her skin had lost its glow, pale and dull, with purple rings under her eyes like bruises of exhaustion and grief. Her hair was a tangled mess, thrown up haphazardly like she hadn’t touched it in days. The light in her eyes—the one that used to make him feel human again—was gone. Just hollow, glassy, and so very tired.

And her apartment… it was chaos.

Pill bottles on the table. Empty glasses. Dishes unwashed in the sink. Blinds closed tight against the sun. It smelled like stillness and sleep and stale air. Like a place where nothing lived, only lingered.

He stepped back like her pain had hit him physically.

“Y/N…” he whispered, stunned, his voice cracking on her name.

She blinked at him like she didn’t believe he was real. Her mouth parted slightly, chest rising and falling as if she’d forgotten how to breathe.

Then her lip trembled. And she began to cry.

Not soft, cinematic tears. But ugly, shattering sobs. Her whole body shook as she clutched the door frame for balance, the sound ripping out of her like it had been waiting—building—for months. A scream with no voice.

“Don’t—don’t look at me,” she whispered between sobs, covering her face. “Please don’t look at me like this…”

He stepped forward instinctively. “Hey—no, no—Y/N, please—”

But she flinched, not away from him, but from herself. Her shame was a weight, choking her, burying her. “I—I was doing so well, Bob. I had it under control,” she choked out. “I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you that I loved you, and that I believed in you, and you left—and I—I thought you died—I thought you were dead or you hated me—”

“I didn’t hate you,” Bob interrupted, tears filling his own eyes now, voice hoarse. “I never hated you. I hated myself.”

She looked up at him finally, really looked at him—his cleaner face, clearer eyes, steadier hands. And then came another wave of tears. She sank down right there on the floor, knees to her chest, sobbing into her arms. “I relapsed,” she confessed in a broken whisper. “I fell apart without you. And I hate that. I hate that I needed you so badly. I hate how weak I am.”

Bob dropped to his knees in front of her, overwhelmed by the wreckage—wreckage he caused. He touched her face with trembling hands, wiping the tears as they kept falling. “You’re not weak,” he said. “You’re not.”

She shook her head. “I was strong. Before you. Before I—before I loved you.”

Bob’s heart cracked wide open.

“I thought I had everything,” she went on, broken and breathless. “I thought I didn’t need anything else. And then you walked into that stupid meeting, and I felt something. And I didn’t know how fast it could all fall apart. How fast I could fall apart.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bob whispered. “I thought I was protecting you. I thought walking away would stop me from ruining your life. I didn’t realize I already had.”

She buried her face in his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her like he never wanted to let go again. Her body was small against him, fragile, shaking with all the tears that never had a place to go until now.

“I’m clean,” he said against her hair. “I did it. I got better. I wanted to be better. For me. But also for you. Because I knew that if I ever came back, I wanted to stand in front of you and say it honestly. That I fought through it. That I made it.”

Her hands clung to the fabric of his jacket like a lifeline.

“I don’t care,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “I don’t care that you left. I just wanted to know you were okay. I looked for you. For months. Every street corner. Every man with your exact same hair. Every time my phone buzzed, I hoped—God, I hoped—”

Bob kissed the top of her head. “I should’ve come back sooner. I’m so sorry.”

She cried harder, but her arms wrapped around him now, pulling him closer, like even if she couldn’t forgive him yet, she couldn’t bear to let him go again.

He sat there with her, on the floor of the life she’d been drowning in. And he didn’t try to fix it. He didn’t offer empty promises. He just held her. Held her and cried with her and let the silence between them say all the things they couldn’t yet.

--

He didn’t wait.

The moment he had her in his arms—shaking, thin, breaking—Bob couldn’t hold it back anymore. The words came in a rush, tumbling out between gulps of breath and trembling hands. He told her everything.

About Malaysia. About how he ran, numb and wild, not knowing where he was going, only knowing that he had to disappear before he destroyed her too. About the facility, the experimentation, the people who found him, used him, saved him, controlled him. About what they made him—what he became.

She listened with wide, disbelieving eyes as he spoke of strength he never asked for, powers that tore at his mind, a glowing blue rage that lived inside him like a second heartbeat. The violence. The void. The silence that followed every mission.

“I’m not… just Bob anymore,” he whispered, forehead pressed against hers, voice cracking. “They call me something else now. Sentry. Some hero with power that terrifies the people who made me. But I still feel like me… like the junkie who walked into that meeting room trying not to die. I still feel like the man who forgot how to breathe until you looked at him.”

She stared at him, dazed, her fingers tightening on the sleeves of his coat. Her thoughts were spiraling—circling like vultures around her mind. He was back. And not just back—transformed. Elevated. Resurrected in some impossible way.

The man she loved walked out broken and came back untouchable.

And she was still here. Still small and wrecked and ashamed and relapsed. Her chest felt tight. She didn’t know whether to fall to her knees in worship or scream. Her sobs returned—not because of what he said, but because of what it meant.

“You’re a hero,” she whispered, voice thin and hollow. “And I’m nothing. I couldn’t even make it four months without you. I—” Her voice cracked. “I was doing so good, and I lost it. You went and fought demons, and I couldn’t even fight a line of powder.”

Bob shook his head violently. “Don’t do that. Don’t.”

“It’s true.”

“No,” he whispered. “No, Y/N. You don’t get to erase everything you were to me. You saved me. You gave me a bed when I was sleeping on floors. You made me my favorite meals. You held my hand when I thought I didn’t deserve to be touched.”

His eyes burned.

“And you never asked me to be anything other than a man trying his best. Why would I ask you for more than that now?”

She bit her lip so hard it bled. The tears kept falling. Her voice was barely audible when she spoke again. “But now you’re strong. And good. And whole.”

Bob laughed—choked, broken. “I’m not whole,” he said, almost angry. “Jesus, Y/N, I’m barely keeping it together. I might be glowing and flying and doing missions, but none of it makes sense without you. I still wake up in cold sweats. I still hear the cravings sometimes. I still see your face in every crowd. I still talk to you when I’m alone.”

She looked at him like she couldn’t believe it.

“I thought I lost you forever,” he breathed. “And when I saw you tonight, when I saw what happened… I realized I downplayed my place in your life. I thought I was the weak one. But we needed each other. We need each other.”

Her body was trembling again, shaking like something inside her was coming undone.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to carry me,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be your burden now.”

“You were never a burden.”

“But I am now—”

“No, you’re mine.”

He reached for her hand, placed it on his chest, where his heart was beating wildly.

“You gave me your love when I couldn’t even love myself. Now it’s my turn. Let me take care of you. Let me remind you how strong you are. Let me fight with you.”

She collapsed into him, arms tight around his torso, sobbing against his chest. Not just for him. Not just for herself. For all the time they lost. For the cake that went cold on the table. For the lasagna uneaten. For the mornings he didn’t see her basking in the sun. For the way love didn’t save either of them—but could now.

He didn’t ask her to stand. He didn’t demand anything.

He just held her.

Kneeling in the wreckage of her life, in the ashes of their broken time, holding her like she was still precious—still whole—even if she didn’t believe it yet.

“I’m here,” he whispered into her hair. “And I’m not leaving again.”

--

He didn’t give her much time to argue. Not when he saw the way her hands still shook. Not when he found the stash she didn’t even remember hiding behind her bookshelf. Not when he saw how she cried in the middle of the night—not from pain, but from absence. Her own. The absence of herself. The one she used to be.

So he asked her to come with him.

Live with him temporarily. Stay in the Watchtower, up in the sky, far away from the street corners and bathrooms and apartment ghosts that called her back every time she blinked too long.

He told her he wanted to keep her close until she was ready to find her own place in New York again. That it wasn’t forever—just until she could feel safe breathing again.

And she said yes.

Not because she believed in herself. But because she believed in him.

At first, it felt like a fever dream.

The Watchtower wasn’t made for someone like her. It was too sterile, too futuristic. Glass walls, strange lights, the hum of technology and power beneath every floor tile. But Bob was there. That’s what mattered.

She became seriously co-dependent—something she’d once told herself she would never allow again. But it wasn’t like with her ex. It wasn’t fear that tied her to Bob. It was need. It was how he looked at her and didn’t flinch. How he made coffee exactly the way she liked it without asking. How he stood in front of her when her hands curled into fists and her chest threatened to explode from the phantom need for a high.

Bob was her gravity.

He found her a job—one she didn’t even apply to. He pulled strings with Valentina, she didn’t know he had. A quiet, well-paying assistant position with flexible hours and no questions asked. The kind of job you only get when someone with serious power wants you to heal.

She hated how easy he made it. How the roles reversed.

At first.

She hated how he caught her when she was falling apart and didn’t scold her. Didn’t tell her to be strong. Just held her, even when she screamed. Even when she tried to hit him. Even when she told him she hated herself, hated this, hated how her body still wanted it. Hated how her blood still sang at night.

He’d just put his forehead to hers and whisper, “I know. I know. I know.”

Free time was dangerous. It always had been.

So Bob made sure she rarely had it. If she wasn’t working, he’d find ways to fill the hours. He’d drag her to the gym, even if she only sat on the mat and watched him lift. He took her on quiet walks above the clouds in the Watchtower, showed her the world from a view few people ever saw.

When the sun rose above Manhattan and she stood next to him with tired eyes, he’d whisper, “We’re still here. That’s a win.”

Some days were okay. Some days they even laughed.

Some days she forgot the weight in her bones and remembered what it felt like to be alive. On those days, she’d smile in the mirror and wonder if it was the beginning of something. But it was always followed by a crash.

And when the crash came, she’d scream at herself.

Because she still wanted it. Still ached for the cold powder and sharp sting. And what kind of monster misses the very thing that ruined her?

But Bob didn’t let her spiral alone.

He knew. He knew.

He’d pull her into his lap, even when she pushed him away. He’d wrap her in a blanket and play music she liked, or just sit in silence and let her sob against his chest. He didn’t fix her—he stayed. Which meant more than anything.

And she started leaning on the others, too.

Turns out, the team—misfits and freaks and weapons, all of them—was good for her.

Yelena would sometimes drop by the tower and plop on the couch with popcorn and zero small talk. “Let’s watch something bloody,” she’d say. “Nothing romantic. Romance is a scam.”

Alexei told awful dad jokes and made her soup when Bob was away, pulled against his will from her by Valentina. She didn’t ask what was in the soup. She didn’t want to know.

Even Walker, gruff and distant, once gave her a protein bar and said, “You look like shit. Eat something.”

Strangely, it meant the world.

But she still struggled.

She still felt like she didn’t belong in the sky, didn’t belong next to someone who glowed when angry, who people whispered about like a god.

And Bob would catch her staring sometimes. He’d take her hand and press it to his chest.

“You got me sober,” he’d remind her.

“You weren't when you left, it wasn't me, and I’m not even one week sober yet.”

“You will be.”

She’d cry again, every time.

Because maybe—just maybe—she believed him.

--

She felt herself becoming better.

It wasn’t dramatic. There were no fireworks, no moment where the clouds suddenly parted and she woke up healed.

It was slow. Raw. Grueling.

It was the kind of better that came with shaking hands and silent sobs in the shower. The kind of better that meant she didn’t throw up every morning from withdrawal anymore, but still woke up screaming from the dreams. The kind of better that looked like finally holding down breakfast, or laughing once during a dumb movie Bob put on just to see her smile.

There were still days—horrible days.

Days where she’d stare at the sky through the Watchtower windows and think I can’t do this anymore.

Days where her chest tightened and her fingers itched and every molecule of her blood screamed for one more hit, one more line, one more second of peace—even if it meant death.

And those were the nights Bob found her on the floor of the hallway, her knees to her chest, whispering things like:

“I ruined everything.” “I should’ve died months ago.” “You shouldn’t have come back for me.”

And Bob—quiet, patient Bob—would always get down next to her. He didn’t always say the right things. Sometimes he didn’t say anything at all. He just held her. Let her break. Let her be broken, without judgment.

“I’m here,” he’d murmur into her hair, voice shaking. “Even if you can’t love yourself right now, I do. I’m not leaving.”

He made it impossible to relapse.

Not just by removing access—though he did that, completely. The Watchtower had no hidden corners. No dealers. No temptation. He even kept her medication locked, except for what she needed. Not because he didn’t trust her, but because she asked him to. Because she couldn’t trust herself yet.

But more than that—he made it impossible because he gave her reasons to stay.

Every time she got through a hard day, Bob celebrated it like a victory. Every tiny step—making the bed, going to work, brushing her hair—he noticed. He noticed, and that made her want to try again. Want to show up again.

And after months of darkness, she was finally starting to believe in something again.

Believe in him.

Believe in herself.

That’s when she started planning.

It had to be perfect.

Because the first time—when she tried to confess, with the candles and lasagna and wine and the cake that said I love you—he never showed. She’d found a letter instead. Four words that shattered her: You don’t deserve this.

And now, months later, after everything they’d been through, she still remembered the ache of that night. The humiliation of sitting in a chair for hours, watching the lasagna go cold. The cake untouched. The lights flickering softly over an empty table.

But she also remembered how it hadn’t ended there. How he came back.

So this time, she wasn’t afraid.

She asked the team first. Told them the truth—well, most of it. She asked if she and Bob could have a room in the tower for the evening. Just a few hours. A quiet space, uninterrupted. “I want to do something for him,” she’d said. “Something honest.”

Yelena had raised an eyebrow and said nothing—but handed her a lighter for the candles. “Don’t burn the place down.”

Alexei had beamed like a proud uncle and muttered something in Russian that sounded suspiciously like “About time.”

Even Walker gave her a dry nod and cleared the space without question.

No one said no.

She remade it all.

The lights, soft and golden. Candles flickering across the shelves and windows. The air smelled like rosemary, garlic, and hope. Her old lasagna recipe—the one he always said was better than any five-star restaurant—bubbled in the oven. She found white wine again, because he didn’t like red, and she remembered everything. She even made the cake.

But not the same one.

This time, instead of “I love you,” it said in messy pink frosting:

“You came back. So did I.”

She set the table. Two plates. Two glasses. The weight of it all hanging in the air like a heartbeat.

She wasn’t wearing anything fancy. Just a soft, simple sweater he once said made her look peaceful. Her hair still damp from the shower, cheeks flushed from nervous energy.

She wasn’t the woman she used to be.

But she was here. She was trying. And that had to count for something.

When Bob walked in, he stopped cold in the doorway.

He looked at her.

Not just with surprise.

But with everything.

With four months of absence. With every regret he carried like an anchor in his chest. With all the love he never said out loud and all the apologies he had whispered to himself in the dark.

“You... did all this?” he asked softly.

She nodded, heart thudding.

“I know it’s not perfect. But—” her voice cracked, “—I’ve been thinking about this since the day you left. And I never got to say it. Not really. But I love you. I still love you. Even after everything. Even now.”

Bob looked at her like she was the only thing left keeping him alive.

Then he walked forward—slowly, carefully—and cupped her face in his hands.

“I never stopped loving you,” he whispered. “And I promise… I’m not leaving again.”

--

The movie flickered on the screen in front of them, but neither of them was really watching.

Bob sat propped up against the headboard, a soft grey t-shirt clinging loosely to his chest, a pair of worn joggers sitting low on his hips. Y/N was curled into his side, one of his old hoodies hanging off her frame, sleeves too long, hair tucked messily behind one ear. The room was dim, bathed in the gentle glow of the screen and the golden spill of the hallway light leaking under the door.

Blankets were tangled around them, warm and grounding. Bob’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, his hand resting calmly against her ribcage, feeling every quiet breath she took. Her head was nestled beneath his chin, the smell of her shampoo—lavender, faint but familiar—lingering between them.

They had finished the lasagna hours ago. Cleaned up the dishes while teasing each other about who burned the garlic bread (it was him). Shared cake and laughter, both of which came softer now, tentative, but real. It felt like something out of another life. Something they thought they’d lost for good.

A promise once made in a kitchen full of hope was finally being fulfilled—in the silence of a bedroom, in the safety of arms that didn’t let go.

Bob had waited years for something like this. Years for this kind of peace. For the slow, steady heartbeat of someone trusting him enough to fall asleep against his chest. For a night that didn’t end in pain or running. For a girl like her to look at him and still choose him, even after seeing all of him—torn, addicted, lost.

He hadn't expected what came next.

Y/N shifted beside him, pulling back from the cradle of his chest to look at him. Really look at him.

Her hand came up to his cheek, cradling it. Her thumb brushed against his stubble, her eyes searching his like she was memorizing him all over again.

“Y/N?” he asked, voice hushed, as if afraid he’d scare her off.

But she didn’t answer.

Instead, she leaned forward—and kissed him.

Soft at first. Gentle. Almost like a question. A breath between them, mouths barely touching, her lips tasting of frosting and fear.

Then she kissed him again—harder.

And Bob felt his whole body shudder.

It was everything he had ever wanted. Every quiet longing. Every moment he’d spent staring at her when she wasn’t looking. Every time he’d held her hand and wished it meant something more. Every night she cried in his arms and he ached to tell her how much he loved her but didn’t dare ruin what little they had.

And now—here she was.

Kissing him like she knew what he meant to her. Like he was more than her sponsor, more than a friend, more than a haunted past. Like he was hers.

Bob didn’t waste a second.

He kissed her back.

One arm curled around her waist, the other hand tangled in her hair, pulling her impossibly close. Her body pressed against his, warm and trembling. Her breath hitched as he deepened the kiss, years of restraint melting into a single desperate moment.

She gasped into his mouth, breaking the kiss, only to whisper against his lips:

“I love you, Bob.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She didn’t even try to hide them.

“I love you so much,” she choked, fingers still on his cheeks. “And I don’t care what happens next. I just needed you to know. You saved me. You saved my life.”

Bob’s hands trembled as he pulled her back into him, wrapping her up in his arms like he could shield her from every wound she still carried.

“No,” he murmured into her shoulder, his voice thick with emotion. “You saved me. You remember what I was? I didn’t think I had anything left to live for until I met you. You gave me hope again. You made me fight.”

She pulled back, her eyes locked with his—wet and red and devastatingly alive.

“I almost gave up,” she admitted, her voice barely audible. “When you left... I was already holding on by threads. And then you were gone and I thought I’d imagined the whole thing. I thought I wasn’t enough for you to stay.”

He shook his head furiously, his own eyes shining now.

“I didn’t leave because of you,” he said. “I left because I didn’t think I deserved you. I was still so fucked up, still using, and you were everything pure and kind in my world. I thought if I left, maybe you’d find someone better. Someone whole.”

“I didn’t want someone whole,” she said. “I wanted you.”

Their breath lingered in the space between them, shallow and soft—like a secret.

Y/N could still taste him on her lips, the echoes of their kiss reverberating through her chest. Bob hadn’t moved far from her. His hands were still cradling her waist, his forehead pressed gently to hers, and in that quiet lull between kisses, between confessions, she felt something fragile blooming—something terrifying and beautiful.

She kissed him again, this time slower. A sigh escaped her lips as her fingers slid up under the hem of his shirt, feeling the heat of his skin. Bob leaned into her touch, his mouth meeting hers in deeper waves now, their hearts thundering in sync. And when she tugged at his hoodie—her hoodie, technically, the one she’d stolen weeks ago that still smelled faintly like him—he raised his arms without hesitation, letting her lift it over his head.

She pulled back, eyes trailing down his torso—and gasped quietly.

He had changed.

The gauntness she once knew was gone. In its place were strong arms, broad shoulders, and a chest sculpted with quiet power. His abs—defined, real—moved with every breath he took. His body told the story of someone who had survived, someone who had clawed his way back to life. It was strength built on pain, on discipline, on love.

“You...” she murmured, brushing her hand over his stomach, “you look so different.”

His hand reached for hers, gently interlacing their fingers. “I feel different,” he said. “I had to become someone I could live with again.”

She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the sudden twist in her chest.

Bob looked like he had been forged from fire—meanwhile, she still bore the ashes.

She bit her bottom lip, hesitating. Her arms, still hidden in her oversized hoodie, tightened slightly around herself. Though she had been clean for weeks, her body hadn’t yet caught up. Her cheeks were hollow. Her skin still looked too pale in certain light. Her clothes hung loose. She hadn’t gained back the weight. And standing there, across from someone who had reclaimed his life so completely, she suddenly felt small again.

She looked away.

But Bob noticed.

“Hey,” he said softly, cupping her face and turning her gaze back to him. “What’s going on?”

She hesitated. “I just... I’m not like you right now. You’re... strong. You got better. And I’m still—” Her voice cracked. “I still don’t like what I see.”

His brows furrowed, and for a second, something sharp flickered in his eyes—not anger at her, but heartbreak. He leaned in, kissing her forehead with reverence, then trailed his lips down to her cheek, and finally, her mouth.

“I’m in love with you,” he said, pulling back just enough to look at her. “Not the version of you you think you have to be. You’re not broken, Y/N. You’re surviving. And that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Tears threatened to rise, but she let them stay where they were. Bob’s hands slid down to the hem of her hoodie, hesitating.

“Can I?” he asked.

She nodded.

He lifted the hoodie slowly, carefully, as if he were unwrapping something precious. As it slipped over her head, she looked away, vulnerable, exposed.

But Bob didn’t let the silence linger. His eyes never wavered, never darted away. He took her in like she was a masterpiece.

“God,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful.”

And then he kissed her collarbone. His lips warm, soft, trailing to her neck. His arms wrapped around her back as he pulled her into him, his body heat surrounding her, grounding her. His mouth brushed the spot behind her ear, her shoulder, her jaw.

“You don’t have to hide anymore,” he whispered.

She let her hands rest on his back, feeling the firmness of his muscles, the warmth of his skin. He was solid. Steady. And she was safe.

As they undressed the rest of the way—slowly, reverently—there was no rush, no hunger born from lust. Only devotion. Only the aching need to be close, to feel what they had both feared they’d lost.

Bob’s hands never stopped reassuring her, tracing her spine, cradling her face, holding her as if she were made of gold. His voice was a balm, murmuring soft truths against her lips, over her chest, along her ribs, keeping his thrusts steady and soft, almost afraid to hurt her.

“You’re perfect.”

“I love you.”

“You saved me.”

And somewhere between those whispers and the heat of skin on skin, she stopped trembling. She let herself feel his hands without shrinking from them. Let herself be kissed without fear. Let herself be loved.

Because she did love him.

And he loved her.

And for the first time in a long time, that was enough.

They made love quietly, sweetly, like two people who knew what it meant to lose everything—and were finally brave enough to take it back.

They stayed tangled beneath the blankets. Y/N rested her head on Bob’s chest, listening to the rhythm of his heart—steady, strong, unwavering. His fingers traced gentle patterns on her shoulder, his breathing syncing with hers.

Neither of them said much.

They didn’t need to.

[novascharms]

no thoughts, just rafe eating his study-till-i-drop girlfriend out to help her destress :)

the gentle knock on your door barely registers. "mom, i'll eat later tonight," you call out, voice clipped but trying to stay calm. it’s the third time you’ve said it, and the second you hear the door open, frustration prickles at your already frazzled nerves.

except it’s not your mom—it’s rafe. he stands in the doorway with his gym bag slung over one shoulder. “later tonight, huh?” he murmurs, an easy smirk tugging at his lips. with a gentle thud, he drops the bag just outside your door and steps inside, nudging the door shut behind him with his foot.

for a moment, your stress falters. the weight in your chest shifts, replaced by something lighter—relief, maybe even the hint of a smile. but it’s fleeting. you shake it off, glancing back at your biology book. “i have a lot to do,” you mutter, your tone softening despite yourself. “how was practice?”

he doesn’t answer immediately, just walks over to your bed, sits down, and kicks off his shoes. when he finally speaks, it’s in that low, casual drawl of his. “sweaty.”

you glance up and notice it now—his slightly damp hair curling at the ends, the faint sheen still clinging to his skin, and the subtle, clean scent of soap that lingers between you.

when you don’t respond, his brows pull together slightly, and he shuffles closer to you. instinctively, you tuck your knees to your chest, resting the weight of your textbook on your thighs to give him space.

“you should eat,” he says, his voice quieter now, laced with something tender. “you’ve been at this all day.”

he’s probably right, but the thought of pausing—of stepping away when you’re so far from finished—feels impossible. your pen moves almost mindlessly across the page as you scribble out another note, your lips parting to respond. but before you can, your notebook is snatched from your lap in one smooth, effortless motion.

“rafe,” you snap, reaching for it immediately. he holds it just out of reach, his grin soft but teasing.

“rafe, i’m not joking,” you warn, leaning forward. before you can try again, his lips meet yours, cutting off your protests with a kiss.

“you’re gonna burn out,” he murmurs against your mouth, his tone gentle but firm.

you pull back slightly, just enough to glare at him, though the frown on your face is more instinct than true frustration. “you haven’t even seen me during exams,” you mutter, the memory of those sleepless, frantic weeks flashing briefly in your mind.

“not looking forward to that,” he says with a quiet chuckle, still pressing faint, featherlight kisses to your lips.

you don’t stop him this time. instead, you find yourself watching him—watching the way his face softens as he leans into you, the way his eyes flicker between yours and your lips, the way his touch feels so deliberate, so careful.

“want me to help you destress?” he asks softly, his voice low and warm.

you blink at him, curiosity flickering in your eyes. “help me… destress? how?”

his hands trail down your legs, his touch light and teasing. “you had tights on this morning,” he notes, almost absentmindedly.

you nod slowly, your voice barely above a whisper. “they weren’t staying up… i took them off.”

his gaze lowers, and before you fully register what’s happening, his hands are gently parting your legs. your breath hitches as the air shifts between you.

he starts slowly, pressing soft, lingering kisses to your thigh, his lips warm against your skin. you let out a deep, shaky sigh—a sound that seems to rise from an exhaustion you hadn’t even realized you were carrying. each kiss feels deliberate, a quiet offering of care and something deeper, something unspoken.

he works his way lower, inch by inch, his lips grazing the sensitive skin of your thighs until he pauses. his eyes lift to meet yours, and his voice comes soft, almost reverent. “can i?”

you nod, breathless, unable to form words. the need simmering in his gaze feels like it could burn right through you, and the anticipation makes your skin hum, every nerve alive and aching for his touch.

his eyes drift down to your cunt that you know is drenched right now, before he’s even done something and the thought of him having you this undone before he’s even touched you is really sad.

when he tugs on the sides of your panties, you freeze for a moment—quiet realization of what’s about to happen and for a second, you’re afraid, afraid of something this new. his gentle eyes are immediately finding yours. “you trust me?” he asks and you know the answer is yes because you say yes without even thinking about it.

“good cause i won’t hurt you, sweetheart..” he’s lightly tugging on your panties, pulling them over your legs until they’re at your ankles and then he’s tossing them to the side. they’re simple white cotton ones and you find yourself wishing you atleast had those sexy, lacy ones.

“you promise?”

“cross my heart,”

he’s properly buried between your thighs now and the first lick along your folds has you gasping and fisting your freshly washed sheets. “you’ve got the prettiest pussy i’ve ever seen, baby..” when his tongue flicks against your drenched cunt, you let out a moan that is downright embarrassingly loud. before the noise can travel, rafe’s hand is flying to cover your mouth and you’re left muffling against his palm.

“as much as i’m dying to hear you moan my name, that’s a risk we can’t take right now, hm?” he murmurs and you assume that’s a sign that he’d go easy on you, you assume that since your parents are currently two floors below you and rafe cares about what they think, he wouldn’t go overboard.

you assume wrong.

“rafe!” you cry out against his palm, head tilting back as he shoves his tongue between your lips. your back is arching off the bed as your one hand holds onto his wrist that’s covering your mouth while the other is gripping rafe’s hair for dear life.

you were completely under the impression that the way his tongue was kissing and flicking your hole and folds was the pinnacle of all of this and you could imagine yourself cumming from just that in the next five minutes.

but then he’s licking from your hole to your clit and the moment his tongue makes first contact with your clit, your eyes fly open and your brain goes completely fuzzy.

“that’s it, baby, lemme make you feel good..” he’s muttering, mouth still right on your clit and you can hardly focus on his words, can hardly focus on much else but the pleasure that seems to be intensifying with every second that passes, “p-please..! i’m..i—“ you’re stuttering, eyes glossy in this almost fucked out state and you’re not even sure what you’re trying to say, what you want. you want something, need something.

“i’ll take care of you. i got you, babygirl.” you want to move, want to push against his mouth or push your hand against the back of his head to pull him in but your body feels too weak. all you can do is let out these muffled, shaky cries against rafe’s palms as he ate you out like it was his very last meal.

your whole body is trembling, a thin sheen of glistening sweat covers your forehead and you swear you can see stars right on the ceiling of your bedroom. rafe’s tongue is relentless, tirelessly lapping and licking at your clit, sucking it into his mouth and you’re losing focus, can’t think straight anymore. your eyes are rolling back as you attempt to push your mound against his lips.

you shudder when the pleasure only intensifies, “gonna cum for me, pretty girl?” rafe’s murmuring against your clit and you’re nodding frantically, “mhm! m’ gonna cum…gonna c-cum..!” you know it’s coming, can feel something pushing against you, pushing you over the edge and you’re about to spill.

rafe doesn’t stop, doesn’t even slow, just devours you no matter how hard you’re pulling on his hair because you’re about to cum and it’s gonna be all over him and the humiliation of that would kill you.

“rafe! s’ too much!” you gasp and somehow, rafe knows just what to do, just which way to flick his tongue because not a moment later, your toes are curling, fingers tightening in his hair, back arching off your sheets and you’re coming all over his face, slick gushing out as you cry so loud he has to stuff your mouth with his fingers to keep you quiet.

he only removes his fingers after a second and then he’s rising up from between your legs while you lay there, head on your pillow, in this almost dream-like state, trying to catch your breath.

“all good?” his voice is soft, slightly out of breath but steady compared to your shallow pants. you nod, still catching your breath, as he leans over and grabs a tissue from the box on your nightstand. his movements are slow, careful as he cleans you both up, the gentle press of the tissue against your skin making you hyperaware of the moment.

it’s only when you shift slightly that your eyes flicker downward, catching the unmistakable bulge in his sweats. a rush of heat floods your cheeks, and you sit up slowly, your movements hesitant. “you—”

he follows your gaze and shakes his head immediately, cutting off your words before you can finish. “nah, don’t worry about me,” he says, his tone easy but resolute. he leans forward, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead, the warmth of his lips grounding you even as your thoughts spin.

still, your eyes drift back to him, lingering a second too long. the idea settles in your chest, insistent and new, and before you can second-guess yourself, your hand starts to reach for him.

he catches your wrist gently but firmly, halting you in place. “no.” his voice is low, the single word laced with finality. his thumb brushes against the delicate skin of your wrist as he holds it, his gaze steady on yours. “go eat.”

you blink up at him, torn between frustration and a quiet determination. “i want to help you,” you murmur, your voice soft but unwavering, the words carrying more weight than you intended. your eyes meet his, defiant, even as your pulse races.

he exhales a small laugh, tilting his head until his forehead rests against yours. his lips brush yours, featherlight, a whisper of contact that leaves you yearning for more. “not today,” he says softly, his voice dropping to a near murmur. “go eat.”

his words leave no room for argument, but the tenderness in his tone eases the sting of his refusal. reluctantly, you shift off the bed, your legs unsteady as you make your way toward the door.

snippet from 'teach please me' series.

[brokenmenswhore]

a proposition: a return | poly!marauders

#4

pairing: poly!marauders x fem!reader (james, remus, and sirius, featuring alecto, dorcas, evan, lily, marlene, and mary)

warnings: smut (MDNI 18+), voyeurism

a/n: if you’ve requested to be on the taglist but didn’t get tagged, check the taglist at the bottom to see if your account is unlinked, and if so check your settings to make sure i can tag you! i added everyone’s @ even if it didn’t let me tag an account to it. also i don’t have it in me to proofread 17 times anymore sorry for any errors

a proposition: masterlist

────── ☾ ──────

When you approached the girls, who were seated around their usual Gryffindor table after class for a study session, you were immediately thrown by the unfamiliar face among them.

“Y/N! Come sit!”

Lily’s usual excitement shone through as she patted the empty spot on the bench next to her. You tentatively sat down, hoping someone would introduce you to the unfamiliar person, but she was occupying the group too much to even take notice of you.

“And they call the bin a trash can. I mean talk about being literal, right? I swear, if one more person over there called something by the exact descriptor of what it was, I would have thrown a book at their head.”

The table chuckled at her story.

“Marlene, this is Y/N,” Lily chimed in once the girl was done speaking.

Marlene turned her head toward you, scanning the visible portion of your body before landing on your face. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you responded, flushed and uncomfortable.

“So you’re a part of this group now?” Marlene asked completely unprompted.

You were slightly taken aback. “Yeah, yeah, I guess.”

“Well you either are or you aren’t.”

You stared at her for a moment, unsure of how to act. You had never met this person, and now she was snapping at you. “I am.”

Instead of responding to you, Marlene turned to Lily and said, “I thought this was a set thing? Since when do we let new people in?”

“God, Marls, it’s not like there’s a rule book,” Dorcas said.

“We literally all agreed, Dorcas,” Marlene bounced back.

“And we all agreed to include Y/N,” Lily smiled, refusing to include herself in the tension of the conversation.

“I didn’t,” Marlene responded, leaning on her elbows over the table in a confrontational stance.

“You weren’t here,” Dorcas fought.

Marlene took a deep breath before grabbing her books and standing up. “I’ll see you guys later,” she said, exiting the Great Hall in a huff.

You looked around in hopes that someone, anyone, would explain to you exactly what just happened. Instead, the table stayed quiet, refusing to acknowledge any of it as they continued studying.

You were too nervous to ask, so you pretended like nothing happened as you pulled out your books.

The next day, in between classes, you ran into Sirius in the library. You were met with two consecutive free blocks, which allowed you time to study. Sirius, on the other hand, just didn’t feel like attending charms.

“Aren’t you usually in class right now?” he said, catching you browsing through the shelves of books.

“Mhm.”

“You’re skipping?”

“I have it free today.”

Sirius furrowed his brow as he studied your face. It was unlike you to be so dry in your answers.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you said, engrossed in your own thoughts about Marlene and her reaction to you. You hadn’t realized how you were speaking to Sirius.

“Wanna sit for a second?” Sirius said, nonchalant as if your answer wouldn’t phase him.

“Sure,” you shrugged, approaching a nearby table.

Sirius sat across from you, studying your face as you tried to arrange your books. You peered up at him for a second, noticing his gaze but pretending you didn’t.

You thought about speaking, but weren’t capable of acting as though you weren’t bothered. If this person was part of the group, surely Sirius knew her already, so you decided to test it out.

“Marlene’s back, you know,” you said, as if you were completely in the know about everything regarding this mysterious new person.

“I know,” Sirius responded, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

You waited to see if he would elaborate any further, but he simply sat there, smoking his cigarette, staring at you.

“I didn’t even know she existed until this morning,” you said, “is there a reason no one told me? She was pretty cold to me.”

“That’s just Marlene,” Sirius brushed it off. He seemed as if he didn’t want to talk about it, but you couldn’t stop yourself from pushing it.

“Where has she been? I’ve never seen her before,” you asked.

Sirius sighed. “She spent a year at Ilvermorny.”

You were getting frustrated from how little information Sirius was giving you. He was strategically only answering your exact question, and only doing so in the most concise way possible.

“Why?” you pressed.

“Wanted a year away,” he said.

You sighed. “Sirius, you’re not giving me much.”

Sirius sat upward, leaning his elbows on the table and smiling in amusement at your interest. “Why so curious?”

“Just wondering what happened is all.”

Sirius saw the intrigue on your face and caved. “She took a year away from here after a bunch of drama happened. She was falling pretty hard for someone in our group and that person wasn’t really the monogamous type. They got in a huge fight, the whole group was there- it got really messy. She couldn’t take it anymore and decided to transfer schools. Guess she’s back now,” he finally explained.

“She wasn’t supposed to come back?”

“I have no idea. She only told Dorcas she was leaving. That’s the only reason we all knew.”

You nodded your head, flipping through the pages of a textbook as if this new information meant nothing of importance to you.

“So she left the group?”

Sirius sighed. “She left the school, Y/N. I don’t think anyone expected her to show back up.”

“So she never officially left the group.”

“Why would it matter?” Sirius smiled, “you jealous of her or somethin’?”

“What? No,” you said, “I just didn’t know this person existed and she was a real bitch to me earlier. Just wondering why.”

Sirius leaned an arm over the table and put his hand over yours. “You have nothin’ to worry about.”

The gesture was unlike Sirius, but you appreciated it nevertheless, and you smiled at him to show it.

────── ☾ ──────

“So you’re in this now, hm?”

You, startled by the sudden voice, whipped your head around to see Marlene McKinnon jogging to catch up to you in the hallway.

“Yeah,” you said as you continued on your route to class.

“What’s so special that you’ve got Sirius Black asking for you to join? You that good of a lay? The whore of Hufflepuff?”

You stopped on your tracks, wiping stray hairs out of your face as you huffed, “what?”

“I just mean, Sirius isn’t really one to pick and choose,” she said, sizing you up, “you must have gotten a glowing endorsement from someone. Let me guess, Remus?”

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” you brushed her off.

“Sirius Black wouldn’t invite a lower-year virgin into our little group,” Marlene said, “he just wouldn’t. So fess up.”

“This is insane,” you said, turning forward and beginning to walk again.

Marlene stepped in front of you, cutting you off as you nearly walked straight into her.

“I have class,” you stated dryly.

“You won’t last, you know,” Marlene started, “once the shiny new toy gets played with a few times, they’ll get bored and throw it away.”

“What’s your problem?” you said, surprising yourself with your confrontation. Being in this group was making you more confident in yourself.

“Don’t have one,” Marlene said, “just trying to get the scoop, since I was so rudely left out.”

“I have class,” you repeated.

“Oh, don’t let me stop you, but I should warn you that those boys don’t tend to stick with the good girls.”

“That’s too bad, since I’m already in the group,” you fought back, sick of her insults.

“For now,” Marlene said, smiling triumphantly and she stepped to the side.

You shot her a look before walking off.

────── ☾ ──────

When you’d confided in Dorcas how Marlene had been treating you, you didn’t anticipate that she would become quite so enraged, pulling you around and collecting all the members of your group until you were all together.

Fuming, Dorcas finally took a seat.

“What’s goin’ on?” James asked.

“A good ol’ Dorcas summoning,” Evan joked.

Dorcas sat in silence, nostrils flaring as she stared at Marlene.

“Well?” Marlene said, legs and arms crossed, “what is it?”

“Have you been threatening Y/N?”

Marlene immediately threw her hands up. “What am I, on trial? Fuck this.”

She began to stand, but Sirius stood as well. “Sit down,” he said, and she sighed, but did as she was told.

You were taken aback by how serious he was being. You hasn’t even told him what Marlene said to you.

“I didn’t threaten her,” Marlene said.

“So you didn’t tell her she’s a toy we’ll all get bored of playing with?”

The heads in the room all turned to Marlene. “Why does it matter? If she can’t handle being part of this, then she shouldn’t be a part of it.”

“You can’t just bully her out because you’re jealous.”

“Jealous of what, Dorcas? Hm? The fact she’s in the goodie two-shoes house?”

“Guys,” you tried to chime in, but it got lost in the tension.

“Oh, you know what,” Dorcas spat.

Dorcas and Marlene both stood, their voices growing louder and louder.

“No, I don’t. Tell me Dorcas, what the fuck do I have to be jealous of? Some young little girl who doesn’t even know how to fuck?”

“Guys,” you tried again.

“Why did you even come back, Marlene?” Dorcas retaliated.

“What, you didn’t miss me?”

“One day you’re my best friend, and the next you just leave a note like ‘oh! I can’t do it anymore and I’m transferring to America, bye!’ and I’m just supposed to jump up and down in joy when you suddenly decide we’re worthy enough to have you back?”

Marlene plopped back into her chair. “This is bullshit, I’m not doing this. Did you really call us all here just to yell at me in front of everyone?”

“No,” Dorcas said, “I called us all here to vote you out.”

The room stilled for a moment before Marlene scoffed. “To vote me out?”

“Guys!” you finally yelled, and it caught their attention, “can we please calm down?”

“You wanna vote me out? Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m not kidding you.”

Marlene and Dorcas stared at each other, intensity in their eyes as Remus finally tried to calm the situation down.

“Marlene, things are a little different than when you were here before,” Remus said, “I think it’s only fair that you’re either okay with that, or you’re out.”

“Oh yeah?” Marlene replied, “and what’s different? Besides the Huffle-slut.”

You threw your hands in the air, exhausted of Marlene’s inexplicable hatred toward you.

“Well, for starters, are you over him?” Remus asked.

Marlene stared at Remus blankly, almost as if she was trying to think her way out of answering, but couldn’t.

You looked around the room, but everyone was too focused on Marlene’s answer to provide you with any explanation. You couldn’t help but feel left out of something.

“Yeah,” Marlene shrugged.

“I don’t believe you,” Dorcas said.

“Go cry about it,” Marlene spat.

“Stop, fuckin’ hell,” Remus sighed, “are you or are you not okay with Y/N being here?”

“Clearly I’m not, mom.”

Remus huffed and stood up. “Well, fuck this, I’m done trying,” he said, walking over to the ashtray and flicking embers off the butt of his cigarette.

The room stilled, everyone unsure of what to do.

“You guys shouldn’t have agreed on anyone new without me,” Marlene spoke up.

“Bloody hell, you were gone, you fucking idiot,” Dorcas said, “and we had no reason to think you were coming back. What were we gonna do, send an owl? Fuck off.”

“Can she even fuck?”

“Give it a rest, Marlene,” Sirius spoke up.

“No, I wanna know. Can you fuck?” she said, turning to you.

Your eyes widened. “I’m not dignifying that with an answer,” you stated.

“Prove it.”

“Prove what?”

“Prove that you can fuck like a big girl.”

You looked around the group in disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“Pick someone here, and prove it.”

“Marlene, come on, shut the fuck u-“

Sirius was cut off by Marlene pressing on, “pick someone and let’s get on with it, Hufflepuff.”

A feeling shot straight to your core at the thought of having to fuck someone in front of the entire group. You were too worked up.

You looked up at Remus, who had been your obsession and your safe person thus far, and waited to see his expression. Marlene noticed your attention turn to him.

“Remus it is,” she said, moving the coffee table away from the center of the room, “hurry up. Let’s go.”

“I don’t think-“ Remus started.

“You know what? Fuck you, Marlene,” Dorcas said, rushing over to you.

Dorcas leaned down and kissed you hard, the kiss full of intensity and fire and anger. You were startled, but quickly started to kiss her back. This was your group, not hers anymore. If she wanted to see you fuck, she’d get a good show before she was kicked out.

Dorcas dropped to her knees in front of you. She propped one of your legs up against the armrest on the side of the couch.

Dorcas propped up your other leg and pushed it toward James, who was sitting right next to you. “Hold her, will ya?” Dorcas said.

James nodded, taking hold of your right leg.

With your legs widespread, your skirt bunched up at your waist.

“You consent?” Dorcas asked.

You nodded your head yes.

Dorcas wasted no time pushing your underwear to the side and diving in, flattening her tongue against you and moving up and down.

Your head tilted backward as you sighed, your eyes squeezed shut as you tried not to focus on the several pairs of eyes on you. You leaned onto James, trying to somewhat hide your face in his neck,

Dorcas was someone you’d always assumed would be rough in the bedroom, and she was angry and worked up over the Marlene situation, however, you were surprised by how soft and gentle she was being. You knew it was intentional for you.

She was in no rush, moving her tongue slowly against you. You thought of something Lily had told you previously: Girls give better head because they know what truly feels good.

You whimpered each time Dorcas swirled her tongue particularly well, and James lightly rubbed his thumb across your leg, comforting you on top of the pleasure.

“Jeez,” Evan spoke from across the room.

Marlene slouched in her chair in a huff, her eyes fixed on everyone else in the room, trying to gage their reactions to you.

You let out a light squeal when Dorcas began to trace around your hole with her finger, alerting you of an oncoming intrusion.

She slowly slipped one finger inside of you, again in no rush as you softly moaned at the sensation. Her mouth never detached from you as she began to pump her finger in and out of you.

James stroked your thigh with his fingers as he watched Dorcas eat you out, occasionally kissing the top of your head to remind you that you were okay. He also just wanted the validation of feeling included. James liked to feel needed.

Everyone was watching intently, turned on by the sight in front of them. Marlene was focused on everyone else, and Sirius took a drag of his cigarette every time James leaned in to kiss your head.

“Shit, I-“

You spoke so low that only James could hear it. James tapped Dorcas to warn her that you were about to come, and instead of following through, she stood up and backed away from you.

You instinctively closed your legs, remaining in your comfortable position against James.

“That wasn’t shit,” Marlene said, “you really want that in here?”

“Who said we were done?” Dorcas spat back.

Dorcas grabbed Remus’s arm and pulled him over to the empty space on the rug where the coffee table used to be.

Remus looked at Dorcas expectantly, but she just raised her eyebrows and gestured toward the floor.

Remus threw his hands up. “Yeah, it’s a nice rug.”

Dorcas sighed and pushed his shoulders until he was kneeling on the floor.

“You could have just fuckin’ told me where you wanted me, damn,” Remus said.

“Y/N?”

You were still slouched into James, trying to calm your breathing despite your core being on fire from the abrupt stop to your pleasure. “Mhm,” you vocalized.

When you didn’t receive an answer, you forced your eyes open to see the entire room staring at you.

“Think you’re needed down there, angel,” James whispered to you, nodding toward Remus.

You took a deep breath. You dropped to your knees and sat in front of Remus. He leaned in to your ear and whispered, “I’m gonna take care of you, baby.”

He kissed your cheek before he adjusted himself to a lay, sprawled out against the rug and waiting for you to sit on him.

You adjusted your legs around his waist, grateful Dorcas didn’t take your skirt fully off. You were still clothed and modest to the group.

“Remus doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” Marlene said.

“Don’t you speak for me, I’m doing just fine down here,” Remus said, placing his hands behind his head as he watched you in amusement.

You blindly undid Remus’s belt, pulling it off of him as you began to unbutton his jeans. Remus pushed his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his already hard cock.

You began to pull your underwear to the side, but a voice stopped you.

“No no,” Marlene said, “fuckin’ amateur. Don’t you know Remus needs a little something first?”

You knew she was just messing with you and trying to prove that she knew everyone better than you, but you felt like you knew Remus above everyone in the room.

But, if she wanted a show, you’d give her a show.

You slowly backed up on your knees until you were between Remus’s legs. You remained on your knees, allowing your ass to stick upward and your skirt to fall onto your back, exposing your backside, as your hands found Remus’s cock.

You looked to Lily, who had taught you the little you knew so far, and she nodded at you so as to say “you got this.” Her approving nod gave you confidence.

You licked a stripe from the base of Remus’s cock to the tip before sinking down on the entire length. Remus was large, too large to fit entirely in your mouth without deepthroating, but you didn’t care. You were running on pure lust, anger, and adrenaline.

Remus was looking down at you, but when his tip hit the back of your throat, he slammed his head back against the floor, a satisfied moan leaving his lips.

You pulled away almost entirely before sinking back down again, deepthroating him once more.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Remus sighed.

You swallowed in uncomfortability at the feeling of his cock in your throat, which only added to his pleasure.

“Bloody hell, you can see him in your throat, Y/N,” Lily said, “do that again.”

You looked up at Remus, who looked down to see what Lily was talking about. You swallowed again, and Remus could see the slight bulge of his cock in the top of your throat.

“Holy fuck.”

You pulled away and began to suck him normally, maintaining a steady rhythm. You couldn’t taste all of him without deepthroating, so you used your hand to account for the base of his length.

You looked up at Marlene, who scoffed and looked away as you kept your gaze on her, evidently showing her your confidence and ability as you sucked off Remus.

Marlene looked around the room and saw everyone’s eyes trained on you. Sirius adjusted his position in his seat, and James was nearly salivating.

“Okay, enough, get to it then,” Marlene said.

You pulled off of Remus, making a show of wiping your lower lip as you moved upward until you were sitting on top of Remus.

His hands found your waist without hesitation. He was lost in pleasure and lust, eager to feel you again.

You pushed your underwear to the side and held onto Remus’s length with one hand, positioning it at your entrance.

You slowly sank down, watching Remus’s face for any uncomfortability, but he was immediately just to happy to be inside of you that he pushed his hips up.

You gasped at the sudden feeling of a thrust, and Remus snapped open his eyes and looked up at you.

“You okay?”

You leaned down and kissed Remus. “Fuck me, Rem.”

Remus used one hand to hold your hair as he pulled you back into a kiss, and the other hand gripped your waist to hold you in place as he began to fuck up into you.

You dropped your head into the crook of his neck, and he held your head there, happy to have a few moments where he was the only one who could hear your small whimpers and whines. James was right: he did enjoy being special to you.

Dorcas knelt beside your bodies and wrapped her fingers in your hair, pulling back until you were seated up. She tugged at the bottom of your shirt, pulling it up over your head. She then unclasped your bra and pulled the straps off of your arms.

She hungrily kissed you, keeping you sat up so that your body was on full display for everyone in the room.

She kissed down from your neck to your breasts, sucking on your nipple as you threw your head back in pleasure.

You felt a sudden pang of embarrassment, but it was quickly gone as you looked to your right. Alecto was pressing her legs together for dear life, Evan was holding a pillow between his legs, and Sirius was staring you dead in the eyes.

You stared back for a moment, matching his eye contact. He coughed on cigarette smoke, something he never did as a veteran smoker, but continued to look back at you.

Your attention was pulled by Dorcas, who kissed you again as Remus’s thrusts grew harder and faster.

You moaned out as you threw your head back, trying to lift your hips in rhythm with Remus, but he was thrusting a little too fast for you.

Dorcas noticed, and she crawled behind you, kneeling on the floor as she held your body against hers, ensuring you remained seated upward and on display.

She kissed the side of your neck, sucking on a sweet spot as you closed your eyes and allowed yourself to get lost in the pleasure. You tried not to think about Marlene or the voyeurism, but just to be present in the moments of pleasure.

Your moans grew higher in pitch until you began to clench around Remus.

“Fuck, Remus, I- shit, I can’t-“

“No fucking cop outs,” Marlene said.

Embarrassment flooded your cheeks. Saying it was hard. “I- I’m-“

“Merlin, Y/N, please say it,” Remus spoke through erratic breaths below you.

You took a deep breathe. “I- I’m gonna come, Remmy, please-“

Remus snapped his hips hard, hitting your sweet spot and causing you to come with just a few more thrusts. Dorcas held you through your high, causing your legs to shake and your body to nearly convulse from the intensity as Remus came in succession.

You blinked your eyes open, trying to catch your breath as Dorcas kissed your temple and stood up.

You wiped sweat from your forehead and looked down at Remus, who put his hands behind his head again and smiled up at you.

“Stay there as long as you like.”

You giggled and leaned down to kiss Remus as Dorcas gave you back your shirt.

With Remus still in you, you pulled your shirt over your head and looked at Marlene, eyebrows raised.

“Good enough for you?” you grinned.

Marlene shrugged, clearly bothered. “Nothing I couldn’t do better.”

“I beg to differ,” Remus sighed, “not a lot could top that.”

You leaned down and kissed Remus before carefully lifting your hips and sitting back on the floor. You knew better than to try to stand.

Remus took a moment before covering himself back up, and you both sat on the floor with your backs against the couch. No one said anything.

“Didn’t think you could get any hotter, but fuck was I wrong,” Evan said.

“Are you always the horniest one in the room?” you joked.

“I don’t know, is he?” Marlene said, turning toward Sirius.

Sirius flicked embers into an ashtray. “Meaning?”

Marlene’s voice was not as confident as before. “You seemed to enjoy the show.”

“Oh, come on, Marlene, don’t start shit right now. You got what you wanted, you saw her fuck. You in or out?”

Marlene looked around the room, and everyone was focused on her. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.

“I’m already in. I never left the group,” she said dryly.

“One more shot,” Remus said, and Dorcas tried to speak up in protest, but Remus shushed her. “One more shot, but if you pull any shit, you’re out.”

Dorcas threw her hands in the air. “You come and suddenly you’re in a nice mood?”

“Y/N?” Remus said, looking to you, “that seem fair?”

You looked up at Marlene. She was clearly insecure about someone in this group, and if she left right now, you’d never find out who. Regardless, you didn’t feel like drama. If she stayed, whatever.

“Whatever.”

────── ☾ ──────

taglist: @alixmarauders @riddlemenottsluttyslytherin @twilightlover2007 @hcqwxrtss123 @queerndepressed @prongs-wolfstar-marauders @flowersarcute @remussbitch @ch4rlotte35 @alwaysanundertone @urfavhanna @donovorita28 @randomcreator-09 @joey-hoey @chronically-sh-ana @pinksmellslikelove @blvebanisters @aaronhotchswife @roseblack1864 @chaevvonders @champomiel @the-flaminhos @ilovesugurugeto69 @sammyreid @treefairy-28 @aza-writes @made-for-oliverwood @kaileygirl444 @livslifeonline @hi172826 @greyeyedmockingbird @prettylittlewrites @st0rmzi3 @butterchicken06 @yarri0 @camslut7 @ilovewhiteboysforlife @bibblemiluvr @moonyxstars @charlxzagzy @maxinehufflepuffprincess @yejiswifex @maverickgalathynius @bmyva1entine

[nottswitch]

— if you’ve been nice, you get…

─────────────── 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐲 & 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭. ─

summary: during your trip to hogsmeade, you decide to pop into the famous honeydukes for some sweets. who would’ve guessed that your best friend would find the sight of you with a lollipop so enticing?

pairing: bsf!fred weasley x reader

cw: 18+ smut, friendship without boundaries, oral (m receiving), semi-public sex, praise, slight gagging, candy play, cursing

wc: 1.5k

a/n: for all my fred lovers out here!! let us all indulge in some sweetness <3 and dick

⟡ navigation ; m.lists ; fred m.list ; kinkmas 2024

────────────────────────

The atmosphere inside of Honeydukes was everything you could expect from this time of year – despite it only being the beginning of December, the students already started feeling the holiday spirit. The shop was filled to the brim with what felt like the entire Hogwarts, from rowdy squealing first-years to the seventh-years who still had a soft spot for sweets despite pretending to be too cool for that. Hogsmeade residents groaned and huffed, trying to squeeze between the buzzing bodies, irritated beyond belief about Hogwarts students flooding the village once again.

You were standing next to the shelf filled with different lollipops, absently browsing, because you already had one in your mouth – a long green stick flavored apple and cinnamon, just right for the Christmas atmosphere filling the space around you. Your mind was drifting, and you didn’t even notice someone approach before a pair of strong, long arms wrapped around your shoulders from behind, encircling your entire form.

“Merlin!” you exclaimed, immediately knowing who that was – you could almost feel the cheeky grin against the back of your head.

“Just Fred would do.”

His voice was just as cheeky as his smile when he pulled away a bit, easily turning you around to face him. You were ready to retort with a snarky remark, as you usually would, but something stopped you, something that was as familiar as it was unexpected – the look in Fred’s eyes. The way they weren’t looking into yours at all. The way they were fixed firmly on your lips, currently wrapped around the tip of the green lollipop.

“Mhm,” you hummed to yourself, tilting your head to the side a bit as you took in the situation. You felt like you could read your best friend’s thoughts in real time, as if they were being broadcasted in a running line right across his face. And you didn’t mind the implication. Not at all.

“I see you’re being smart right now,” Fred made a remark, the grin on his face turning into an understanding smirk. He wasn’t shy about his obvious desire, on the contrary, he wanted you to see it. He also knew that you, being a good little friend, wouldn’t say no – you would even encourage it, being the tease that you always were next to him.

You chuckled, deliberately sucking on the lollipop this time, the wet sound of the candy going in and out of your mouth filling the close proximity between your faces.

“You wanted something?” you asked, pretending to be clueless, even though you knew you weren’t going to keep the act up for long – Fred had this effect on you that seemed to mirror your own on him, and his playful yet undeniably hungry gaze was doing wonders to warm up the space between your legs right now.

“Oh, come on, hun.” Fred rolled his eyes, an amused chuckle escaping him. “We both know exactly what I want. And, may I add, what you want as well.”

It was your turn to play annoyed, because he was, of course, as right as always; over the years of friendship as close as the one you shared, he learned to read you like an open book that he didn’t even have to open – it laid exposed right in front of him.

“Where?” was your only question, your eyes briefly darting around the stuffy, crowded room of Honeydukes. Fred followed your gaze, biting the inside of his cheek as he thought of a solution. A moment later, a smirk grazed his lips again as his eyes fell somewhere behind you.

Without another word, he grabbed your hand and started leading you away from the shelves, shamelessly pushing through the endless number of students blocking your way – he was too damn impatient. Your steps stuttered after his long ones, your fingers gripping the lollipop stick so that it wouldn’t fall to the floor – you had plans for the candy, after all.

The tiny space Fred squeezed you into looked like some kind of a utility room, but the lack of space was the last thing on your mind at the moment – not like you’d need much of it anyway. Once the door was locked thanks to him casting a spell, Fred leaned against the wall, looking at you expectantly; as much as he liked enjoying you and your body to the fullest, now was not the place or time. You instantly understood him – and you didn’t protest. Sinking down to your knees, you ran a hand over his thigh, ending up right on the straining bulge between his legs. Fred groaned, his mouth parted as he looked down, catching the sight of your face right next to his already aching cock, your lips wrapped seductively around the lollipop.

“Gonna be a good girl, huh?” he murmured, his voice breathless yet still containing the playfulness that never seemed to leave it even for a moment. “Come on, love.” He gently nudged your head closer to his crotch, and you followed his touch, nuzzling your face against his clothed length, feeling how hard and ready he was, all for you.

Your hand swiftly moved to unzip his trousers, pulling them down along with his boxers just enough to free his member. It sprung free from the confines, immediately staining the hem of Fred’s jumper with precum, which made you chuckle at his eager state. The lollipop left your mouth with a pop, and the hand holding it wrapped around the base of Fred’s cock, holding the candy right next to it. Fred raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting this particular direction, but the words died in his throat when you took him in your mouth, your tongue swirling around his tip and the tip of the lollipop at the same time.

“I knew you were a little freak, love, but this…” He was cut off by his own moan when he felt the pressure of the candy against his dick as both were suddenly shoved into your mouth. “…Shit!”

He had to muffle himself with the sleeve of his jumper, because the way you made him feel threatened to expose you to everyone currently swirling around the Honeydukes shop. You hummed around him, feeling your lips stretch at the corners from the lollipop significantly adding to his thickness. The saltiness of his precum mixed with the sugary sweet taste of candy, creating a completely new yet strangely welcome sensation.

You started bobbing your head up and down, only able to take half of Fred’s cock due to the lollipop being in the way. Fred didn’t seem to mind – the added pressure of the candy seemed to make up for the lack of your usual technique. You pulled away for a moment to drag your tongue from the base to his tip again, slurping up the sticky, sweet and salty liquid that was formed by your saliva. You spat some of it back into his cock and the lollipop, lowering your head once again to continue the job.

“Making a mess of me, huh?” Fred moaned out, glancing down and seeing drool running down your chin, slimy strings dripping down onto the floor underneath you. “Such a good girl, love. Such a good fucking girl.”

His praise encouraged you to increase your pace, your head moving even more enthusiastically. You could feel a generous amount of liquid filling your throat, making you gag a bit as the sweetness of the lollipop tickled your glands, but it didn’t make you stop at all. You knew Fred was close – from your position on your knees, you could see the way his eyes fluttered close every so often, the way his chest heaved deeper and faster than usual. Your tongue swirled around the tips again, your cheeks hollowing out as you sucked them in, creating more friction between the sensitive flesh and the hard, sticky surface of the candy. Fred’s hand gripped your hair without actually moving your head – he just needed something to hold onto.

“Fuck, love,” he raggedly breathed out as his cock ended up pressed between the inside of your cheek and the lollipop once again. “Gonna– F-fuck!”

He didn’t have time to warn you; you felt his length twitch in your mouth as the hotness of his cum hit the back of your throat, mixing with the saliva gathered there and making you gag again. Your lips trembled a bit around him as you swallowed, slowly lapping up the remnants of his release and the significantly thinned out candy. Fred’s head fell back against the wall, and he let out a breathless chuckle, his eyes darting down to your wet, fucked out face.

“Gonna have to get you some more of those, yeah?” he murmured, taking the lollipop out of your mouth and placing it in his, a teasing smirk appearing on his lips. You scoffed in response, giving his thigh a light smack. You knew he liked what had just happened, though, and you didn’t mind giving him another sticky treat.

[bunny-1111]

Whoopsie - Theo Nott x clumsy!reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Fluff + slight angst

Description: You can't help your clumsiness, but when you land with a bruise on your face, you're reminded that your boyfriend Theo really hates to see you hurt.

...

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the dimly lit corridors of the Slytherin dungeons, each step clumsy and uneven. You weren’t exactly the most graceful of creatures, but today had reached new heights of disaster. It was one of those days when the universe seemed to be playing tricks on you—making every doorframe, stair step, and corridor seem like an obstacle course designed specifically for you to fail.

And fail, you did.

It had started innocently enough. You had forgotten your Charms textbook in the dormitory, and in your haste to retrieve it before your next class. The last thing you needed was detention from McGonagall for being late or forgetting your book, and you were sprinting down the corridor. Too fast, too distracted, and—

BAM.

Your face met the hard, unyielding brass of the doorknob. Pain radiated through your skull, and you stumbled back, clutching your nose. "Ow, ow, ow," you hissed under your breath, blinking back the sudden tears that sprang to your eyes.

By the time you had made it to the mirror in the girls’ bathroom, a glorious bruise was already blossoming across your cheekbone and the area around your eye, swelling quickly and turning an alarming shade of purple. You groaned. Great. How were you going to explain this to anyone? Even worse, how the hell are you going to explain this to Theo?

You decided to skip class altogether and carefully make your way to Madam Pomfrey.

You managed to slip into the common room unnoticed at first, pulling your hood up in a futile attempt to hide the evidence of your clumsiness. But, of course, it didn’t take long for someone to notice. It was Theo, he always noticed everything about you, no matter how much you tried to downplay it.

“Baby, why weren’t you in class, Enzo ended up taking the seat I saved for you and Merlin he chewed my ear off about Quidditch being fixed last Saturday,” he rambled on.

Don’t reply, don’t look up, you thought to yourself. It was impossible; this was happening right now.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, voice low and alarmed as he crossed the room in quick strides, his hand gently lifting your chin. You felt the warmth of his fingertips against your skin, but his expression was anything but warm. His brow furrowed in concern, soft brown eyes locking on the bruise that marred your face.

"I’m fine!" you blurted, though the words came out far too high-pitched to be convincing. You tried to pull away, but Theo wasn’t having it. His grip on your chin tightened ever so slightly, his thumb brushing against the edge of the bruise with a gentleness that made your chest tighten.

“Who hurt you?” His voice was low, barely more than a whisper, but the intensity in his tone made your stomach flip. His eyes searched yours, dark and stormy. Theo wasn’t the type to raise his voice in anger. No, his was the kind of quiet fury that built up slowly, seeping into the air like a cold, creeping fog.

"I did," you confessed, trying to laugh it off, but the tension in the room was suffocating. You could feel his anger brewing, and you knew what was coming next.

“I’m fucking serious, don’t lie to me!” Theo snapped, taking a step back as if putting some distance between the two of you would help him calm down. His hands clenched into fists at his sides as he began pacing, his jaw tight. “There’s no way you did that to yourself.”

“I did!” you repeated, trying to sound more convincing this time. Rubbing your hand quickly against your bruise. Not a good idea, as you instinctively winced at the touch. “I ran into a door. A doorknob, to be exact. It’s not that serious, Theo,” you try convincing.

Theo froze mid-step, staring at you like you had just said something utterly ridiculous. Which, to be fair, you probably had.

“A doorknob?” he repeated slowly, his eyes narrowing as if he was waiting for you to take it back, like it was some kind of joke. But when you just nodded, Theo let out a long, frustrated breath, running a hand through his hair. He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re telling me… you smashed your face into a doorknob?”

“Yes,” you mumbled, feeling your cheeks heat with embarrassment. God, you wished the ground would swallow you whole.

“It's embarrassing already, alright? Leave me alone,” you huff.

Theo stared at you for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether or not to believe you. Eventually, he sighed and dragged a hand down his face, turning away abruptly. “Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath before storming off, leaving you standing there with a gnawing pit in your stomach.

Theo didn’t go far. He was in the common room, pacing like a caged animal, still visibly agitated. His eyes flickered over the other Slytherins lounging nearby, most of whom had noticed his outburst but said nothing. That didn’t last long.

“Oi, what’s got you in a twist, Nott?” Blaise called from the couch, a lazy smirk tugging at his lips. Beside him, Draco looked equally intrigued, lounging back with his arms crossed.

Theo glared at them but didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to look at you again, his jaw still set in that hard, unyielding way. The others followed his gaze, and it wasn’t long before the topic of conversation turned toward your rapidly bruising face.

“Wha- what the hell happened to her eye?” Blaise was the first to ask, looking genuinely confused as he gestured toward you.

“She said she ran into a door,” Theo growled, clearly still not convinced.

Draco, who had been staring at you with a mixture of concern and amusement, furrowed his brows. “Wait, what happened to who’s ey-?”

Before he could finish his question, Mattheo, who had just entered the common room, cut in with a dramatic, “Holy shit! What happened to your eye?” His tone was a mix of shock and humour, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of your injury.

You could feel everyone’s eyes on you now. Heat rushed to your face as you tried to explain yourself once again. “I fell,” you say quickly, raising your hands in a placating gesture, as if that would make everyone drop it and move on.

But of course, they didn’t.

Mattheo raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. “You fell? Into what, a troll?”

You huffed, crossing your arms over your chest. “I ran into a doorknob, okay? I wasn’t paying attention, and it just… happened.”

Blaise let out a low whistle, his smirk widening. “You really need to work on your coordination, love.”

You rolled your eyes, though the action hurt more than you expected, causing you to wince. Theo, noticing the movement, shot Blaise a glare that could have frozen over the entire Black Lake. “It’s not funny, Zabini.”

“Hey, I’m just saying…” Blaise shrugged, holding up his hands in mock defence. “You know, we could get you a helmet or something, just to be safe.”

"We should wrap you in bubble wrap", Pansy joins in laughing

You groaned, burying your face in your hands. “I’m fine, really.”

But the conversation was far from over. Despite your protests, the teasing continued—though most of it was good-natured. Still, you couldn’t shake the feeling of Theo’s eyes on you, watching every movement, every wince. He hadn’t said much since his initial outburst, but you could feel his worry like a tangible weight in the air.

Eventually, the others got bored of the topic, and the common room returned to its usual low buzz of chatter. You took a deep breath, thankful for the reprieve, but when you glanced toward Theo, you saw that he was still tense, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he watched you.

“I’m going for a smoke,” he stated as he stormed out of the common room. Well, we’ve done it, stressed him to the point of smoking. You thought he’ll be back soon, sinking deeper into the couch.

Later that night, when everyone had dispersed to their dorms, Theo found you sitting by the fire, absentmindedly poking at the flames with a poker. He sat down beside you without a word, the warmth of his presence instantly comforting. For a while, neither of you spoke, the crackling of the fire filling the silence between you.

Finally, Theo broke the quiet, his voice low and careful. “You really need to be more careful.”

You looked at him, your heart giving a small, traitorous flutter at the concern etched into his features. “I know.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair again. “I hate seeing you hurt.”

There was something in his voice that made your chest tighten. You smiled softly, nudging him with your shoulder. “It’s not that serious, Theo. It was just a stupid accident.”

He didn’t respond right away, his gaze fixed on the fire. Then, after what felt like forever, he turned to look at you, his expression softening. “Promise me you’ll be more careful next time.”

You chuckled, leaning your head against his shoulder. “I promise.”

Theo wrapped an arm around you, pulling you

closer. “Good. Because I don’t think I could handle seeing you like that again, seriously.”

You gently kiss him, as you make your way towards his dorm, he wraps an arm around your shoulder, everything seeming good again.

That is until you tumble over your own feet, almost meeting the floor, but this time, Theo was there, tightening his grip on you, catching you before disaster could strike for the second time today.

You laugh as he stares at you, eyes widening. He cannot believe you actually fall over your own feet. He softens with a deep sigh.

“What am I going to do with you, my clumsy girl?” he laughs himself, kissing your head.

Author note: um like 4 theo fics posted in the last 24 hours.... getting that grind LMFAO

[thesweetestofdreams]

black cat confessions

poly!marauders x reader

warnings: patching up bruised knuckles very pg allusions to violence

a/n Times are tough so please enjoy a sleepy drabble with a slightly whimsical reader who will always defend her boyfriends

“Hello gorgeous, where’ve you been?” James asked as you came into the boys’ dorm. It wasn’t like you to be so late, unless of course a portrait got to talking. You could never turn down a good story, no matter how many times you heard it. 

“Detention,” you said. This garnered the attention of all three of your boyfriends. Remus set down his book, he had been trying to read instead of worrying about you, and Sirius ceased spinning his wand in his hand. James sat up from where he was laying on his bed. Oblivious to their shock you dropped your bag onto the floor.

“Detention?” James asked at the same time Sirius said “You’re joking.”

“Yeah,” you said, sounding almost as confused as they were. 

“May we ask why?” said Remus abandoning his book. 

“Well Barty said that black cats were bad luck, which is rather rude.” You fell onto Remus’s unmade bed, arms flopping on either side of you. 

“And how did that turn into detention for you?” Sirius asked as patient as could be, a trait reserved almost especially for you.

You rolled onto your stomach yawning as you rested your chin on your hand. “I told him that was hardly true but he wouldn’t give it up.” You were interrupted with another yawn. “Then he said the worst bad luck was black dogs. You could never be bad luck, Siri.”

Sirius could pretty much feel himself melting. James, as endearing as you were, was practically on the edge of his seat ready to find out what on earth their sweet girl could do to warrant detention. Remus was getting tired just looking at you and he had to fight the urge to join you where you lay.

“Well then he started talking about werewolves and of course he had nothing nice to say and he was looking right at me, so I punched him.” Just like before you were completely oblivious to the shock your statement caused. 

“You punched him?” Remus asked, and despite your tired eyes being closed you could hear the smile in his voice. The boys shared a conspiratorially prideful look. 

“He wasn’t mad. I think he thought it was funny.” 

“Sounds like he had it coming,” Sirius said, fully in agreement. 

“Professor Slughorn was mad though,” you mused.

“Merlin, what I would have given to see his face.” James laughed at just the thought. 

“I bet he went red head to toe,” Sirius added. You smiled in tired amusement. The sound of their laughs made your chest buzz, warm and full. 

“Punching people hurts,” you said looking down at your hand.

The energy of the room shifted as the amusement died down. Remus was already making his way to you, pulling your hand into his lap as he sat on the bed next to you. You didn’t fight him. He tsked at the sight of your knuckles and your fingers were dry and cracked. He turned them over in his hands ever so gently. 

“Slughorn made me wash all of the potion bottles,” you offered in explanation.

James wordlessly pulled a small first aid kit from Remus’s nightstand, while Sirius grabbed a set of pajamas they kept for you. Caring for eachother was a well practiced routine. It was an achingly good feeling to be taken care of. 

Remus spread dittany over your knuckles and any deep cracks, careful never to press too hard. James pulled off your shoes, and Sirius turned down the lights grumbling softly to himself when James reminded him of an early morning quidditch match. 

“You can sleep with me then,” Remus whispered loudly, teasing as he softly wrapped a bandage over your knuckles.

“Now this is just torturous,” Sirius groaned from his bed. James threw a pillow at him across the room. “I’m keeping this.” 

After some coaxing from Remus, you summoned enough willpower to stand and change into your pajamas. From across the room, you saw James dive into bed with Sirius who held the pillow above his head. James pinched at Sirius's waist earning a withering look from him that quickly dissolved into lazy smiling kisses. 

Finally you were lying in bed with your head on Remus’s chest. You could hear his heartbeat thump beneath you, the steady rhythm and warmth lulling you to sleep better than any lullaby. You weren’t helped by the slow circles he drew into your back. 

“Thanks for defending me, brave girl,” Remus said into your hair. 

Fighting a yawn you said, “you would have done the same for me.”

He would have done worse for you, and he would spend the rest of everyday grateful for the love he’s found.

[gurugirl]

[3] It's Good to Be King | mean king!harry

MAIN MASTERLIST

Series Summary: Harry, a handsome, but ill-mannered new king, bound by tradition, must select a queen, and against all expectations, he chooses Y/n, a street beggar. Now, Y/n finds herself caught between the gilded cage of royalty and the cold, harsh simplicity of her past, navigating a court shocked by her presence and a king who revels in the scandal of it all.

Note: Harry is mean/uncouth in this, though things do get better. He doesn't treat anyone around him with much respect at all. Expect to not like him much at first. Also, this is set in the 1800s England, and while not completely historically accurate, I did my best to keep it as accurate as possible.

Ch. 3 Word Count: 8,749

Ch. 3 Warning: Harsh physical treatment, descriptions of extreme poverty, discrimination, humiliation, some light petting, inspection kink (light), corruption kink, mention of parental death (let me know if I missed any!)

It's Good to Be King Masterlist

. .

Y/n had learned that the king had been called away to tend to a minor land ownership dispute in a village that was a day's ride away. He'd be gone for five days as long as there were no unexpected postponements.

When Phoebe told her, Y/n couldn't pinpoint exactly why she felt so wistful. She knew he was a cold, bad-mannered person, so she shouldn't have expected him to speak to her about his departure beforehand. But to feel the tight stretch in her chest that he didn't tell her himself… that was perplexing.

Their interactions over the last few weeks she'd been at the castle had been not more than fleeting. They'd had dinner together a few times, and one evening he went to her room with a gift for her. He didn't let her open it while he was present, but before he left, he placed his hand on her hip when she was wearing only her chemise and said, "This, I much prefer. I shall have another fig tart sent to you this evening."

He squeezed at her skin, his fingers indenting into her newly very slightly softer hip. She understood him to mean the small bit of weight she'd put on was what he preferred.

The gift he left her was a beautiful gold brooch bearing the kingdom's royal coat of arms carved into the center, adorned with sparkling purple, red, and amber jewels. On the back, it was engraved with the name of Harry's deceased mother, the late Queen.

She forced a smile as Phoebe poured hot, fragrant Ceylon into her teacup. "He'll be gone five days? The wedding ceremony is in two weeks. Let's hope nothing delays their return."

"Two weeks already is it?" Phoebe said, lifting the porcelain lid from her breakfast platter. "Are you scared?"

She nodded. "Yes. But I've no choice. My family finally has everything they've ever wanted here. My sister, Dell, cried last week when she tasted the citrus soufflé we all had for dessert. I can't do anything to ruin this. Even if he is the devil."

A dashing devil.

"I believe he's fond of you. He's a cad, but I've seen him look at you when you're not paying attention. Everyone has."

Y/n smiled down at her plate. She only pretended not to be paying attention, but she knew his gaze on the curve of her neck and brushing at her lips when she'd look the other direction. Crude, maybe, but he did show her something about her body she'd not soon forget.

In fact, it had come quite in handy once her bedroom was quiet and she was settled into her down blankets with a book full of wanton stories in her lap. The guilt she'd felt the first few times she'd reenacted what he'd shown her soon turned into a craving she daydreamed of at the most inappropriate times.

Just as then, while Phoebe stood by watching as she ate her breakfast.

"Have you eaten?" Y/n asked.

"Not yet."

"Would you like a biscuit with butter?" Y/n placed a biscuit on a small dish and gestured at the chair across from her for Phoebe to sit.

"It's meant for you, Y/n."

"Of course it's meant for me, but I'd like you to have some. You're my friend. Please, sit with me."

Phoebe offered a gentle smile and pulled the chair out to sit. "Thank you."

Y/n had begun offering some of her food to Phoebe during the mornings when no one else was around. Her friend always denied the initial offer but eventually wound up giving in. In fact, it seemed to be easier to get her to sit with Y/n by the day.

She'd also begun taking etiquette classes twice each week in preparation for the wedding and being seen in public with the king. The council advised that she needed the extra work. Harry left it up to Y/n whether or not she'd like to go. She decided to take the classes but quickly regretted that choice. The governess was harsh and easily angered.

Y/n had the feeling that her teacher didn't like her one bit, despite her best efforts to charm her. In fact, she got the idea that not many appreciated her presence in the castle at all. So she often preferred to stay in her room or her sisters'.

"Have you ever kissed a boy before?" Phoebe asked as she dotted the edge of her lip with her napkin.

"I have. But it was just with a friend because I was curious. And only once."

"Was it Lane? The one you told me about who likes his drink?"

She nodded. "Yes. But I'm sure he liked it more than I did. What about you?"

Phoebe smiled shyly and looked behind herself toward the door, as if anyone could hear them through the heavy, solid wood. "I might have last night…"

Y/n sat her fork down and leaned forward. "What do you mean? With whom?"

"You swear to not tell anyone?"

"Phoebe, you know I would never tell anyone your secrets. Was it Niall? It was Niall, wasn't it?"

The look on her friend's face when she spoke the name of the guard told Y/n everything she needed to know. She'd had a suspicion about the pair a couple of weeks prior when she spotted Niall winking at the girl, and the way her face shaded in pink was a clue as to how she felt about it.

A sudden knock on the door had both girls looking at one another in surprise. Phoebe quickly stood and walked toward the door with Y/n right behind. When she pulled the door open, there, standing in her doorway, was the Lord Mayor, and two men with him.

"Miss Y/n Y/l/n, you will come with us at once," he said, looking behind Phoebe at the queen-to-be.

"What is this about? Is the king okay?" Y/n asked, placing her hand over the broach he'd given her.

"You and your family are not welcome here in the castle any longer."

"What? I don't understand! Is there not—"

One of the men stepped in, pushing Phoebe to the side, and grabbed Y/n roughly by her arm. "Come!"

As she was pulled away from her room, the new guard, Niall, stopped the procession before they got too far. "Halt!"

"Move out of my way at once, guard!"

"My loyalty lies with the king and his orders. Unhand Her Majesty at once!"

"The King's duties fall on me when he's away. This is my command. Move to the side."

"Then you leave me no choice but to send word to King Styles to notify him of your trespass."

Y/n felt her arm yanked as she was dragged down the stairs. She screamed when another set of hands was on her middle, pushing, and then she spotted her sisters, parents, and grandmother already near the entrance, surrounded by men.

"Let me go! You needn't grab at me!" The men didn't listen. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, she was pushed until her knees and hands hit the stone floor just off the carpet. But she had barely a moment to take a breath when she was again being grabbed and hauled upward until she was standing next to her mother.

The Lord Mayor stepped in front of her and reached forward. Y/n gasped when she felt him yank at her dress and then realized he'd pulled the brooch off. "Take them away."

Niall called out before Y/n and her family were directed to load into the horse cart that had been waiting for them at the front of the castle. "King Styles will receive word tomorrow. Do not fear, madam."

Two guards hung on the sides of the cart, and a driver at the front controlled the two horses pulling it, as Y/n and her family clung to the wooden benches inside so they didn't fall. People stood and watched as the cart was pulled out of the castle gates and toward the slums of their overcrowded rookery.

"What's happened, Y/n? What did you do?" Her mother bellowed dramatically.

"I don't know what happened. This wasn't the king's orders."

"Those men were atrocious. Grabbed my toast right from my hand!"

The townsfolk were staring, laughing, and some spat as they passed them by. She was far less worried about her family's reputation than she was about the rude behavior of the middle and noble classes. Y/n may never hold influence or power, but she was a human, and she deserved fundamental decency. She'd always believed everyone did.

Until then. Those people mocking her were the lowest of the low.

Being carted out of the castle in a buggy meant for livestock had been done on purpose. It was meant to be a spectacle. It was meant to humiliate. But it only made her angry. For the first time since she'd met the king, she understood him, in part. Understood his need to cause a stir and disrupt the comfortably spoiled bourgeoisie. Now she understood why he didn't like any of them.

. .

"Your Majesty, I have an urgent message from the main castle guard. Y/n Y/l/n and her family have been removed from the castle without your permission. The Lord Mayor took it upon himself to act as regent in your stead and made the decision to banish them from the castle grounds. Your presence is requested at once to deal with the matter."

Harry had never been so furious in all his life. He'd led an army in war and dealt with enemy soldiers who spat in his face, and had never been treated with such a lack of respect as this. He'd only been gone for two days, and already he had his own men conspiring behind his back. It was in direct defiance of Harry, and that just would not do.

He had no choice but to abandon his purpose and return right away. The land dispute matter could wait. Taking care of the Lord Mayor and everyone involved could not. He bid farewell to his company and left the moment he mounted his steed with his men in tow.

A day's ride across the expanse of Thornekeep and the surrounding villages was tiresome. Harry had been looking forward to more rest before he was to return, but now he had to forgo the gin and the hearty meal that was being prepared for him so he could deal with the unruly cast of characters he'd left in charge of the castle in his stead.

If he'd been a hair more cruel than he was, he would have forced the horses to push through until exhaustion. But he relied on the steeds to safely give him transport, and rest was necessary for the animals, just as it was for him and his men.

And as upset as he was about being disrespected, he was more concerned about Y/n than anything. She was his responsibility, and it was no secret that she and her family were not happily welcomed into their new roles. But he certainly hadn't expected this.

The following day, when he arrived to town just outside the castle, it felt as though everyone suddenly retreated back into their homes. As if even the townspeople knew they'd done something wrong. The vendors and workers averted their gazes.

Pointing in the direction of the town square near where the Lord Mayor lived, Harry looked at two of his men who were riding with him. "The Lord Mayor, go and collect him. Bring him to the private chambers closet off the long gallery. Make him stay there and wait for me. You," he said as he looked at Fred, "Get the covered stagecoach and have Alfred drive it directly to Y/n's home. We will be bringing them back to the castle at once."

Harry and the guard traveling with him rode deeper into the town, where the slums sprawled with wet, muddy roads, buckets filled with slop, decrepit living quarters, and street drunkards. There, the people stared intently. They stopped in their tracks and watched as the king rode by on his healthy, strong steed, with his armoured guard behind him. It was the first time he'd ever gone into the rookeries, where the poor lived and worked (if they could find work).

"You, sir!" Harry shouted at a man carrying what looked to be a heavy sack over his shoulder. The man stopped and narrowed his eyes at the king. "Can you tell me in which direction Y/n Y/l/n lives?"

"Oy…" The man dropped the sack at his feet and looked around himself. "I know 'o no such name."

"She's a woman of 20. Has a father called Peter and her mother Lettice."

"Peter and Lettice… Peter Y/l/n…" He rubbed at his chin and chewed the inside of his cheek. "I might know it."

Harry sighed. He knew the spiel. The man was expecting some kind of payment for information. Directing his horse to step closer to the man, Harry looked down at him with a frown and could smell the stench coming from him. "If you know it, tell me then. If you do, I'll let you continue on your journey unharmed."

The man shrugged. It was worth a shot. "Across from the mill. There's a graveyard at the top o'the lane. Four or five tenements down. B'be careful o'the pigs. They've not eaten."

The smell, as Harry traveled deeper into the overcrowded and filthy streets, was almost unbearable. Every five or ten yards was a bucket overflowing with excrement. He'd always known these places existed, but to see it with his own eyes (and to smell it)… he was appalled. The kind of squalor the destitutes lived in was barbarous.

When they arrived at the rundown tenement across from the mill, Harry jumped from the horse and gave the lead to his guard before sloshing through the filth to step up onto the rotted boards of the platform. He knocked on the door with the loose frame and stepped back as someone opened it up right away.

"Who's that?" The old woman stumbled back a couple of steps and clutched her hand over her heart. "The king! The king is here!"

"M'lady, I'm looking for the Y/l/n family. Are they here in this tenement?" Harry held the door open and stepped inside. The main room was dingy and damp and smelled of stale food and unwashed bodies.

"By god!" The woman sat down on the benchtop and inhaled deeply like she'd been given the scare of her life. "The king is here!"

A young man came down the stairs and looked from Harry to the old woman. "We can 'ear ya! Enough!" The man removed his floppy hat and lowered his head. "Your Highness. To what do we owen'ya th'honor?"

"I'm looking for the Y/l/n family. I've heard they live here."

"Right y'are. Lemme find 'em."

Harry scraped his eyes around the space, and while it wasn't as filthy as things appeared from outside, it was unfit for any human. The woman gasped as she pushed herself to stand and mumbled something he couldn't hear, nor did he care much. She seemed to be half out of it, gin drunk perhaps.

The ceiling was caved in at the side of the common area, where it appeared there was some kind of unworking, rusted stove. The wooden floors were soft under his feet, and the walls stained with moisture.

"King Harry?"

He turned quickly when he heard Y/n's voice. She made her way down the stairs, followed by her three younger sisters. "Y/n. I've come for you and your family. I received word about the situation and came as quickly as I could."

She clasped her hands behind her back and nodded. "Yes. It was humiliating. But we're used to being treated as such."

"You and your family are to gather your things quickly. A carriage will be around soon to bring you back to the castle."

"We were told we were not welcome there."

"The Lord Mayor will be dealt with forthwith. But what he says is irrelevant. My word is final. You will come back to the castle, and we are to proceed as before."

Y/n nodded slowly and motioned for her sisters to go back up to their quarters. "That is fine. Would you like to come up?"

She could see it in his posture and the expression on his face that he was not well in that room. The stench could get to anyone, but at least in the small space where they lived, it was tidy and much less foul. So he followed behind her up to their floor, and she let him into their room.

And it was indeed just a room. Pallets of cloth and feather, and straw were strewn over the floor where he assumed they slept. In the corner was a bench piled with random things: cups, bowls, sacks, a couple of books, a lantern, a tin of fish. In another corner, there was a tin bucket full of charred things, the wall behind it black from soot. He imagined it was their source of heat, like a fireplace.

Lettice and Peter were already standing in wait, their faces like those of young children awaiting permission to play with their new things. They bowed their heads. "Your Majesty," Peter said.

"Nan," Y/n said softly as she bent down to put her hand on her grandmother's shoulder. She'd been sitting in a chair, asleep. The old woman startled and looked at Y/n like she was some kind of horrible intruder.

"Nan, look…" Y/n motioned toward Harry, and the old woman blinked her eyes slowly.

"We're saved? He's come for us. Thank heavens!"

There weren't many things to gather. Harry hadn't imagined their living space as such. He figured a multi-room flat, nothing extravagant, but at least a home with space to cook and use the WC. But there was none of that. No running water, no private space, and no comfortable things to lie upon at night. How could anyone live like that? And that there were seven people all crammed into that room? He couldn't imagine it.

There was a double knock on the door before it was opened. Everyone turned to look as a young man stepped inside. "What's this then? It's true!" He grinned at Y/n and then lowered his head. "Your Majesty."

Y/n stepped in next to the man and put her hand on his arm. "This is my good friend Lane. He was there with me, the day you came to me."

Harry looked the dirty fellow up and down. "Yes, I remember Lane."

He watched his wife-to-be whisper something to the young man, and then Lane turned to look at her with a brief nod as he ran his hand over her wrist. There was no time to challenge what had just happened or to ask what was said and why someone else was touching her like that when Alfred had finally arrived with the covered carriage.

Once Y/n and her family were loaded into the carriage, Harry and his guard led the way back to the castle. He'd seen a lot of things in his life, but he had not been prepared to see the rookeries up close like that. He'd seen the outskirts of impoverished neighborhoods in other kingdoms and towns and but never in his own. Shock might be too heavy of a word for the way it made him feel, but it was close.

He ordered three footmen to take Y/n's family to their quarters and give them whatever they would like to eat (as well as draw each of them a bath) while he went with Y/n and Phoebe to bring her to his chambers. "You'll stay in my room from here on. Your room will still be open for you, but I'm not satisfied for you to be there all night alone."

Y/n was still struggling to wrap her mind around the events of the last few days. Niall had told her to expect the king to come and get her, but she doubted that he really would. She imagined it was easier for the king to take a more suitable wife. A woman used to that life with a higher status. Someone the proletariat would prefer.

She was thankful that he did, though. She'd gotten used to some of the small luxuries (and big) that the royal castle afforded them all. Mostly, she missed her privacy and the comfy bed.

"Have her wardrobe brought over, a warm bath drawn, and whatever she'd like to eat," Harry said to Phoebe, who quickly got to work.

Y/n kept quiet as she watched the king open up his balcony and drape the lace curtains to the side before he poured two glasses of gin and handed her one.

He gulped his portion in one go as she sniffed her glass. "Go on. Drink it. You need it more than I do. Feel free to have as much as you like."

"Thank you."

"You should not have to thank me. This should never have happened. I will deal with the Lord Mayor and see what kind of punishment the council allows. I just ask that if you leave this room, have Phoebe and Niall with you."

She nodded. "Of course."

"I've made arrangements for a formal announcement of our engagement. Day after tomorrow, we will have a public appearance to announce to the whole of the kingdom that you will be the Queen Consort. No one can then deny that I've selected my wife, as it seems they've all done."

He paced toward the open balcony and put his hands on his hips. "I will be gone til late. I have much to do. Please use my room as if it were your own."

Y/n eyed the bed and then shifted her gaze back to the king as he stepped toward his door. "I'm grateful that you came to get us. I'm indebted to you, My Lord."

He sniffed and looked down at his feet, hand on the knob the door. "Yes. You are."

. .

Y/n woke up to the sound of pouring water. Slowly opening her eyes, she found Harry sitting next to the fire, sipping hot tea and reading something intently as a man stood over the large tub in the king's room. She couldn't remember when she'd fallen asleep, but it wasn't long after her warm bath and the big meal she'd eaten.

She wasn't sure what to think exactly. The last few days had been quite dramatic and unusual, then with the king barging into their meager home to bring them back to the castle... He'd returned for her when he didn't need to. He had no allegiance to her or her family, so it was a bit of a surprise that he seemed so insistent that she come back with him.

"My Lord. Your bath is ready."

The king looked toward the man and pushed himself up from his chair. "You are dismissed."

Y/n blinked and watched as the man left the room, and Harry stepped toward the bath to touch the water. He looked tired. She wondered what time he'd returned to the room. When he began to remove his clothes, she thought to look away, imagining he didn't realize she was already awake.

But she remained still and kept her eyes on his frame until he was stark naked, despite her internal scolding to look away. The urge to keep watching was much stronger than her polite reasoning to avert her eyes. His body appeared to be that of a hard worker, with solid muscle and a sturdy build. It had never been a doubt in her mind that he was well-formed, and now she had proof as she watched flexing, dense muscles as he stepped into his tub.

"You may join me, if you like."

His voice startled her. She hadn't realized he was aware that she was awake, watching him. Pushing herself to sit up, she pulled the blanket to cover her state of undress. He'd seen her before in just a chemise, but she still had the sense that it was wrong to bare herself to any man like that.

"Don't be shy with me. I've already tasted and smelled the juice of your quim and you've just seen me naked. Come."

Y/n gulped at the memory of Harry's hands on her body as she let out uncontrollable noises when he'd touched her. Then the aftermath of the forbidden shame as she watched him taste her offering. The lingering thought of the way he'd jutted his pink tongue out to lick at his fingers had her surging with heat.

"My King… It's improper—"

"Now don't start with that again. I say what's proper and what's not, and you disobeying me is improper."

Slowly, she moved the cover from herself and slid her legs to the edge of the bed. Harry had not yet looked in her direction, which she was thankful for as she wrapped her arms over the thin material that clung to her breasts and stepped closer until she was just next to the tub.

He looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot, and the fatigue in them was evident. "Well, if you're not going to join me, at least sit." He patted the wide stone ledge of the tub as he kept his eyes on her.

Trying her best not to stare into the water, she shifted her gaze toward the fire and sat down where the king had told her. His broad chest rose and fell tiredly as he stretched his strong arms along the top of the tub. She looked down at his fingers, the distance of only 7 or 8 barleycorns away from her thigh. So close he could touch if he stretched his middle finger toward her.

"I didn't foresee the kind of difficulty I'd encounter in keeping you. I knew some would disagree with my choice, but to have been interrupted in my work and so blatantly disrespected… We will not be making that mistake again."

"I'm sorry, it was—"

"Stop." He spoke loudly, his voice carrying a harsh edge. "Do not apologize for concerns you did not create. I have chosen you, and that's final. The Lord Mayor will have to come to terms with his punishment, just as I will have to come to terms with my lapse in judgment. I take responsibility for that egregious failure. But I'm not happy about it."

Y/n kept quiet. She'd seen the king raging mad the moment he stepped into the castle the evening prior, and while that anger had not been directed at her, she felt it as if it were. So part of her still felt like she'd done something wrong. And it was becoming clear to her now that her place as queen was not going to be an easy one. She was not beloved by the kingdom. She was a disgrace to the monarch and tradition.

"Next time I have to take leave, you'll come with me. I don't believe we have any choice in the matter. You're my responsibility."

She gently placed her palm down on the cool stone and watched as he dragged a cloth over his chest. "When do you leave next?"

"Not until after we're wed. And once you become pregnant, all of my duties away from the castle must be delegated to someone I trust. We can't risk anyone trying to hurt you again."

As he wetted his skin and wrung out the damp cloth, she glanced over his shoulder and up his neck to his structured jawline. She imagined his babies would be very pretty. The out-of-place thought surprised her.

"I wish I weren't such a burden, My King."

He dipped the rag into the water and looked up at her as he leaned forward. "You're my burden. I chose it. I bear it. It's what I want. I could very well pick another who's more suitable. Easier. More docile. But I don't want that. I want you."

It wasn't romantic. Not at all. So why did her heart skip a beat when he'd said it? He'd admitted she was a burden. She was not easy, and she was not docile.

"I'm trying to be more docile. I'll learn."

He waved his arm as water dripped from his skin. "No. My mother tried to be compliant and docile, and look where it got her. The moment she surrendered her will was the moment she was sentenced to death."

Shaking her head in confusion, Y/n leaned forward and dipped a finger into the warm water. "What do you mean? The queen died from consumption. That was what we were all told."

"And she would still be alive today if she had kept a grip on her spirit. But she allowed my father to take it from her. He took her charm, her wit, and her will. Consumption took her because she allowed herself to surrender. It was her death sentence."

She had wanted to run her hand over his back in a soothing gesture, but she thought better of it. It was possible he was no longer mourning the loss of his mother and that he wouldn't want her touch even if he was. The queen had been gone for many years.

"I loathe to bring this up right now, but I feel it's important to say. I'm worried that the brooch you gave me, the one that belonged to the queen, is gone. The Lord Mayor took it from me when he removed me from the castle."

Harry's face darkened as he turned to look toward the door. "Did he now? If it's gone, he will pay a heavy price in the form of losing his title. That's theft and punishable by law. But I have a feeling it's still in his possession. I will have it back to you by tomorrow, and if not, I will buy you a new one."

"I'm very grateful to you, My King. You returned so quickly. My sisters are very happy here."

He looked at her face, and his irises burned a trail down the front of her chemise. "And you? Are you happy here?"

She looked down at her lack of clothes and shifted forward so that her breasts were less visible under the thin fabric. "I am. We all are. My family and I."

"Here…" He held his hand toward her, the wet cloth in his palm. She took the rag from him, and he repositioned himself so his back was facing her. Y/n understood that he was requesting her to take the cloth to his back to help him wash.

She hesitantly moved her hand toward his back, as if touching him would set her to flame. But once the damp rag was pressed into his shoulder, he sighed, and she realized that touching him wouldn't hurt her at all. It had been silly to think it would. Running it across his back, she noted the smooth skin and firm muscle that defined his sturdy figure. Plunging the cloth down into the water along his spine, she allowed herself to take him in. The backs of his arms and neck, the curve of his shoulder, and the breadth of his frame…

"If you joined me in the tub, this would be much easier."

It was true. If she were sitting behind him in the water, she'd have easier access to him, but that would require her to remove her garment. When she didn't answer, Harry turned to look at her as he leaned back into the tub until his shoulder was pressed into her thigh. "Keep going."

"Your back is hidden. I can't reach—"

"Then here." He took her hand with the cloth and pulled it over his chest. The new angle of him, his back to her as she leaned forward and slowly ran the rag along the solid muscle of his pectorals, felt quite salacious. But she continued wiping and cleaning him. When he leaned his head back against her thigh, she gasped and paused her motions.

He laughed, his eyes closed. "Oh, mouse… Calm yourself."

She slowly began to rub over the skin of his chest as she looked down at his face. His features were tranquil as he moaned, the lower she dipped the rag. She had no intentions of dragging it too low, but he seemed to be enjoying it as she ran it over his stomach.

Glancing down further, she could make out something dark between his legs, and then the member attached to him as it swayed with the water's movement. It was indecent of her to be looking, but her curiosity was acute. And besides, she'd seen it before already. She knew what he looked like, and right then, it seemed so harmless as it was distorted beneath the surface of the water.

"Lower."

Y/n blinked, casting her sight back to his face. She hesitated to bring the cloth lower against him, but figured she didn't need to go that low. There were other areas she could clean, other spots she could run the rag against. So she leaned in further and wiped down to his hip and the top of his thigh.

He let out a breathy groan and spread his legs the slightest. "Good."

She smiled at the praise. She was doing something right for once. Trailing the cloth to his other hip and down to the top of his thigh, he rocked his hips upward and moaned. When he turned his head, rolling it over her thigh, she felt his warm breath sneaking under the cloth of her chemise.

The moment was entirely too intimate. Harry was quite amenable in that moment, and the way he had used her thigh as a pillow felt sweet. Something about how tired he seemed and the way his eyelids were closed as he puffed out shallow breaths made her body heat. She didn't understand why she was responding to him that way.

But then he lifted an arm out of the water and reached behind himself, his hand pressed over her thigh, and then he squeezed as he moved his palm up to her hip. Her light colored chemise wetted under his touch, and she could see her skin coming through the damp material. She watched as his thumb gently ran along the bend of her thigh.

"My Lord…" She didn't know what she was to say, but she knew she had to say something. Anything… "You're getting my clothes wet."

"Then take them off."

She swallowed and lifted the rag away from him. "That's—"

"Improper? Is that what you were going to say?" Harry pushed himself from his spot in the tub and turned to look at her directly.

He pulled at her hip and grinned as she dropped the rag into the tub and gasped. She loved how it felt to have his hands on her, but she was too embarrassed to admit it as she writhed away from him and stood from the tub to step away.

The King leaned forward against the tub, his elbows on the spot she'd been sitting. "Where are you going?"

"I'm… You're the devil!" She said as her body thrummed with wanton heat.

He let out a loud laugh and felt something slick under his palm. Looking down to the stone, he stitched his brows together and drew a finger through the moisture before he brought it up to sniff. He dropped his mouth open in surprise as he looked at her. "Little mouse… This is not water. Come here at once and let me see."

"No." She looked away from him as she clutched the back of her chemise. She knew very well what it was, she just hadn't expected it to seep through the linen down to the stone. She'd only recently begun to understand the mechanics of how her body reacted to being aroused ever since Harry showed her the way she could make herself feel.

"Yes." He spoke firmly, his green eyes boring into her body as her chest heaved. "Come here and we'll take care of this for you. Now I see why you're so pent up. You need a release, don't you? It's been a hard few days for you."

She shook her head and looked down at her bare feet. She was doing everything she could to be a good girl, to do the right thing by God. But the king, whom she was certain was the devil himself, tempting her, made it unimaginably hard to keep righteous.

"Have you been taking good care of your little leaky spout like I showed you?"

She let out a wobbly noise and closed her eyes to pretend that question had never been uttered.

"I think you have. You very much enjoyed it when I showed you how to touch your little coo. Has it been good? I'm sure you were unable to whilst back at your tenement, but certainly you know well the kind of joy it brings when you have privacy."

She swallowed, the sound clicking loudly in the room. "No."

"Yes. Come here."

Opening her eyes, she let her sight trail over his arms and his face as he leaned into the tub so casually. Like what he was saying wasn't unscrupulous. He was so well-favored in looks that it almost wasn't fair. How was she to remain a proper lady?

"Was it me you thought of when you touched yourself?"

Shaking her head, she quickly glanced away. It was hard to maintain eye contact when she was lying.

"No? Then Lane? Your friend? You thought of him?"

Setting her eyes back on his, she shook her head. "No! Of course not!"

He smiled. "You don't fancy him then?"

"Never. Not like that."

"What about me? Do you fancy me, Y/n? Be honest. I can already tell when you're not being forthright. You can't even look me in the eye when you answer falsely."

Her skin felt like she'd fallen into a patch of stinging nettles as he kept his eyes on her. He'd figured out her little signal. She was no good at lying. But she didn't want him to have the satisfaction of knowing how he made her feel deep down.

"I want you here now. Come sit or I'll get out and force you to."

Still clutching the back of her chemise, she stepped forward slowly until she was next to the tub. Harry reached up for her hip and pulled. "Sit."

Y/n placed her hands down on the ledge and sat, but Harry pulled at her again until her legs were in the water and the bottom of her chemise was wet. Her heart was galloping in her chest as he placed his hands on her thighs. "You're going to be my wife. Yes?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"That's right. You're mine. So when I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it for me. I don't ask much of you, Y/n," he spoke as he ran his hands up and down her thighs, then hooked his thumbs under the hem of the material and brought it upward to her mid-thigh. "You needn't worry much about anyone else asking you to do something. Just me. Yes?"

She nodded again and watched as his thumbs pushed upward under the chemise over her skin and she thought she would faint.

"What did you eat last night?"

"Uhh… roasted potatoes and cream, salted fish, bread and butter, apples."

He smiled at her as he paused his hands at the top of her thigh, and she felt her whole body flush in embarrassment. If he lowered his sight and peeked, he'd see her full quim she was sure.

"Good. You're eating well. And you slept well too, I presume?"

She nodded, trying to keep still so he didn't conclude how much she was affected by his hands on her.

"You like this."

Blinking, she turned her sight to the table with the water pitcher without answering.

He laughed softly and ran his thumbs along the curve of her thigh where it met her hip. "That's a yes. And what about this?"

She felt his fingers press into the flesh at the inside of her thigh as he pulled and spread her legs. She looked down quickly and sucked in a sharp inhale at the sight. It was lewd for him to see her like that. And yet… She was curious.

"Keep going?" He looked up at her, an eyebrow raised.

"I don't know…" She gulped.

"You don't know? Then, how about I just keep going until you say stop? Yes?"

She nodded. "Okay."

He shifted his gaze further down to her privy parts, and she closed her eyes when she felt his thumb slide against her crease. He hissed, gripping her thigh harshly as he inspected her bits and moved in closer to get a better look.

"Very pretty, little mouse." She felt his thumb slip down further and softly massage until there was a little intrusion. She opened her eyes and watched as the tip of his thumb disappeared into her hole.

Snapping her thighs closed, Harry shot his eyes back up to her and removed his fingers. "Stop?"

It hadn't hurt her, but it was the embarrassment that had her shying from his touch. "I… I don't know. It's… not right."

"What's not right? The way a man and woman enjoy one another? Is that what's not right? Why would God go through the trouble of making humans with parts that can find pleasure in touch?"

"I think it's just meant for the sacrament of marriage."

"So, stop, then?"

She looked down at her legs dangling into the water and wished she were more bold like the girls she'd read about in her stories. The ones who'd found their lovers before they were wed and allowed themselves the indulgence of pleasure.

Harry gently wrapped his fingers around the space just above her ankle. "Look at me, mouse."

She looked into his green eyes and felt like she was being torn apart by her conscience. She'd never wanted to give in to her carnal pleasure as much as she did with Harry. And she never imagined that a man like him would defend her honor more than once. He was crude and undisciplined, but there was something tender, just for her, underneath the cold and pompous performance.

"Do you know why your little coo gets all wet like this, if not for the enjoyment of the act? It's human nature. It's how we were made. You do not need to be shy with me. If you want it, you can have it. As you've seen before, God will not smite you for such a thing as this."

The skin on her ankle where his hand was gripped felt warm, and it sent a wave of wicked craving through her insides. She wanted to reach toward him and push the curl from his forehead and slide her finger down his prominent nose over his plush pink lips just to see what he'd feel like under her fingertips. She wished she were brave enough to slip into the tub with him and fall into the temptuous ways of a dauntless woman.

He released her ankle and stood from the water, his strong, denuded body wet and dripping before her. She glanced only briefly at the organ hung heavy at her eye level before tilting her head back to look up at him. He bent as he took her chin in his hand. "What is it that you want? Tell me now."

She shook her head. "I don't know. I'm confused."

He puffed out a laugh and let go of her chin before he stepped from the tub. "Aren't we all, Y/n? No one really has the answers. Everyone is confused. You just have to learn to speak up for what you want most and hope that it wasn't the bad choice. No one can guide you but yourself."

She turned to watch as he pulled a robe over his body and walked toward his balcony. What did she want most? What if it was the bad choice?

Pulling her legs from the water, she stepped from the tub and guardedly followed behind him, the bottom half of her chemise soaked, which sent a chill over her heated skin. She stopped at the balcony door and coasted her eyes over the view of the castle garden with its fountains and tall trees. In the late spring, it would be a lovely place to stroll through, she thought. Harry was leaned into the stone railing, the tips of his curls in his damp hair already drying from the cool air whisping through it.

He was the sort of man who women whispered about. Both because he had such a rakishly handsome face (and form) and because he had the most brutish devil-may-care attitude. It made him quite a fascinating attraction. But the current of care he had for her underneath his thoughtless exterior was what drew Y/n's curiosity the most.

"You may do with me as you please. Make the decision for me. I won't say no." It took everything in her to spit the words out.

He turned and placed an elbow over the stone to lean into as he looked at her, his head cocked to the side as if she were a peculiar creature. "That does not please me. Indeed, I do not like being told no, but even worse is when I'm told yes and it's a lie."

"Then yes. I want to know. I may as well learn. Not just to please you but to discover my own pleasure."

Pushing himself from the stone, he blinked in surprise, a ghost of a smile turning the edge of his lip upward. "Then tell me what it is you want. Speak plainly."

She glanced behind her at the bed and then back at the king. "I'll… I could lie on the bed, and you could touch me again. Maybe…" She looked down and felt every atom of her being light up with scorching embers. "I'd like to feel your kiss."

She hadn't even noticed that he'd stepped in front of her until she saw his bare feet standing before her. Lifting her head upward to meet his gaze, she could have melted from the warmth on his face. "I haven't kissed you yet, have I?"

Harry placed his wide palm on her frozen cheek, and she closed her eyes. He hadn't kissed her, but the tender touch had her skin sizzling and her heart racing. "You haven't yet kissed me. No."

Blinking her eyes open to look at him again, she watched his irises smooth across her features and drag over her lips slowly as his thumb slid down her cheekbone. "Then we must remedy that mistake."

She'd been kissed before. Lane had been drunk, and she gave in to his persistent bickering to shut him up and to sate her own curiosity. It was hard and dry and smelled of gin and ale and sweat. It hadn't been what she imagined a kiss should be.

So, when Harry nudged his nose against hers, and she felt his hand soft on her hip, she knew it before he'd even closed the gap between their lips, that this would be the kind of kiss she'd always daydreamed of.

She felt his breath over her lips, and his fingers squeezed her skin as his thumb dragged gently at her temple before he pressed his smooth mouth to hers, and the noise of her doubt was silenced. She hadn't even realized that her hands were clutched over the fabric of his robe at his chest, like he would drift away as if in a dream if she didn't hang on tight.

He opened and closed his lips around hers in soft, careful motions, and she stepped closer, beckoned by the pull of his hand at her side. She parted her lips to mimic how he was kissing her, and he moaned into her mouth. She had no time to be startled by the moan and that it signified his delectation, when she felt the wet tip of his tongue lave over her bottom lip before he pulled it into his mouth gently.

Oh god! She was wrong about everything! He didn't need to confess an undying love or obsession that was not there. He only needed to kiss her for her body and her mind to relent to him. It was delicate and confident, prurient and genteel… it was bewitching.

Did one truly not need the magical bounds of love to bloom in rapture from a kiss? Her skin and her blood and the nails on her fingers and toes were all vibrating with the kind of sensation that she always assumed only happened when a soul had found the one it was predestined to.

His hand slowly pushed away from her face and wound to the back of her head as his other reached across her lower back until she was flush against his chest. Her heart fluttered so rapidly at her brazen reach, her hands moving upward of their own accord until she'd pushed her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.

Even with the chilled wind whipping over her thinly clothed frame, her blood burned hot. If he took her then and laid her in his bed and claimed her virginity, she thought she'd not say no. Because what was this? Why was the subtle unanchoring of her morals and her posture on right and wrong suddenly categorized as a lie and a truth? The thick veil of deception was quickly trampled by just a kiss. What else would she soon uncover?

When he parted from her, he did not remove his hands, but he set his gaze against hers with a soft wonder that carried over to his features. Slowly, she pulled her fingers from his hair and placed her palms on his shoulders, all in silence. Was he in awe just as she was? Surely not.

But his delicate touch at the back of her neck was an homage to something profoundly affectionate. It had all been unexpected. Perhaps even for him.

"I have much to do today, else I'd remain here with you. It's nearly ten, breakfast will be served promptly. We'll call for Phoebe to help you dress and begin your day."

He stepped away, and it was then that Y/n could feel the harsh wind cutting through the linen to her flesh. She stood, confounded, as she watched the king walk back into his room to dress himself. Frozen in her spot, she let her mind wander to her childhood when she used to play pretend that her prince had found her. He'd sweep her up, take her away, and they'd fall madly in love and rule the kingdom together. Was it something she'd somehow foreseen, or was it just the silly imagination of every young girl who wished for something better?

Confounded, maybe, but Y/n was armed with a new awareness, a definite truth that she hadn't been privy to before. That even those who mean well can tell a lie, and truth can be found in the most unexpected ways. It was an awakening for her to see the way her heart could soar, as if God himself had elicited it. And right then, her heart was in flight like a bird that knew the way it must go with an instinct that directed its path. It was not God that guided the way. It was her.

. .

Chapter 4 >>

. .

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[literary-dolly]

pride & prejudice

jason todd x fem!reader

word count: 11.3k warnings: ANGST, pining, enemies to lovers, violence, violence against reader, arguments/fighting, alcohol, murder

When you first meet Jason Todd he seems to be nothing more than an entitled asshole, but as the seasons change, you begin to realise maybe you were wrong about him. (Loosely inspired by the book/film Pride & Prejudice)

Winter

“Honestly, I can’t wait for you to meet him, I can’t believe you haven’t already.”

More often than not, it was endearing to hear Babs talk about her boyfriend. You would think that Dick Grayson had hung the stars in the sky the way she sang his praises. It almost made you sick, the way her eyes would get moony as she practically recited poetry about his charms, his kindness, and occasionally, his body.

She was right though; you and Babs had been friends for as long as you could remember, it was absurd that you were yet to meet her long-term boyfriend. Phone calls and photos hadn’t really been enough to capture a true image of him, who he was and what he stood for. Babs meant the world to you, however, and you were determined to meet the man who had crashed into it so suddenly.

‘Suddenly’, you’d believed, until she’d informed you that he did in fact used to be the Robin to her Batgirl. You’d barked out a laugh at the time, there was nothing sudden about the relationship in that case – Babs had been pining over him for as far back as your mind would stretch. 

It had been a rocky few years for your relationship, your time at Gotham University had separated the pair of you, forcing you to become little more than a library recluse, drowning in books on any given day. Babs had been equally as busy, rebranding herself as Oracle and working so diligently with the Bats most days until the sun came up. It was never anything less than an honour that Babs had trusted you with her identity, the identities of most of them – she’d claimed it couldn’t hurt to have someone like you, a journalist, on the inside if needs be. Deep down, you knew she just wanted to have someone to talk to about it who didn’t dance around every evening in a spandex suit.

Degree finished and countless more hours on your hands, Babs had welcomed you back with open arms, your relationship immediately rekindling to a mirror image of what it had been in your youth. Even Jim had been ecstatic to see you, pulling you into a bear hug when you’d appeared on the doorstep.

This is how you ended up where you are now – nursing a drink in some shitty Gotham dive bar as Babs practically vibrates beside you, anticipating the arrival of her beloved. As hard as it is to resist the urge to wallow in the dingy, depressing lighting, it’s difficult to remain glum with your best friend so excited at the mere prospect of her two favourite people finally meeting. You’d resolved to try and make a good impression, working your utmost to disregard of any animosity you held for excruciating small talk.

“Oh, there he is! Dick!” Babs calls, waving a hand out enthusiastically. Dick saunters over to the table with a million-dollar smile plastered across his cheeks. The images hadn’t done him justice and you can’t help but feel proud of her as he materialises in front of you. He was, admittedly, hot. Jet black hair swooped almost too perfectly against a seamless California tan, defined muscle decorating any visible parts of his physique. Peppy, is the word that comes to mind, and instantly you can see how a man like Dick Grayson would have enraptured your friend so.

“Nightwing,” you whisper, all tongue in cheek as he settles at the table, “Nice to finally see the face behind the mask.”

So much for a good first impression.

You don’t miss the way Dick’s smile falters for just a second or how his body seems to go rigid – or the soft slap Babs throws against your shoulder. It’s amusing to watch, as Dick and Babs eyes flicker in silent communication, Babs offering him a delicate smile to let him know that you were trustworthy.

Clearly, otherwise you wouldn’t know in the first place.

Babs, out of nothing other than good manners, repeats your name to Dick as soon as it becomes apparent you aren’t going to offer it up out of goodwill any time soon. She throws a teasing smile in your direction before adding, “She’s always like this, it’s been a blessing and a curse over the years.”

In spite of your brashness, Dick extends his hand politely, flashing you a stark white grin and a bemused look, “It’s nice to finally meet you. You may as well of been hiding behind a mask too up until this point, ya’ know?”

Begrudgingly, you shake it. It’s frustrating, how difficult it is to remain prickly against all of his oozing charisma. Disarming is what it is, with how quickly his demeanour seems to be crumbling your defences – you can imagine Dick Grayson is a man used to being adored.

Ice broken, the conversation begins to flow smoothly, allowing you to slowly loosen up with every passing phrase. Dick politely asks about your time as a student, making it clear he’s listened diligently to the scraps of information Babs had no doubt given him, and you give him the same courtesy of asking about his day job as opposed to his night one. As your eyes travel between the couple in front of you, you can’t smother the flicker of warmth that makes its home in the pit of your stomach; they look good together, and anyone with a working pair of eyes could see they were absolutely smitten.

“Oh, Babs, I hope you don’t mind, I invited Jason. He’s been a bit down in the dumps recently. Thought a bit of socialisation might do him some good.”

Instantly, you throw Babs a scrutinizing glare, trying to assess if this has all been some ruse to set you up with some random her boyfriend has decided would be a good fit for you. Instead, all you see on her face is genuine surprise, if not a smidge of happiness.

“Of course, Dick, Jason is always welcome – I’ve tried to tell him the same.”

As if on cue, the bar door slams open, ricochetting against the wall behind it. A man who could only be Jason, based on the way Dick and Babs’ faces light up, seems to practically storm in, stopping sharply on his heel to survey the room before his eyes finally land on you.

Naturally, the first thing there is to notice about him is his sheer size, towering over you, your companions and likely everyone else in the bar as well. But its more than that, the way he seems to fill the space, not just with the throes of muscle that seem to be a constant cycle of tensing and relaxing down his neck, arms, jaw – but through an aura, glowering, almost dark. The hair on his head is such a shadowy black it’s striking even in the dim light of the bar, but what’s even more noticeable is the tendril of white that curls its way forward to rest on his brow. His features, you think, wouldn’t be amiss on some kind of Greek statue, distinct and severe. What catches your attention the most, however, is the deep frown etched into his brow, matching seamlessly with a similar snarl of disgust on his lip – you’d think he’d stepped into a sewer with the repulsion that seems to emanate off him.

Without even an acknowledgement, Jason simply marches over to the booth and plants himself in the only empty space directly beside you.

“Jason! I’m happy to see you, in person anyway. How you feeling?” There’s an impossible degree of kindness in Babs’ voice, you think, for a man seemingly so vehement at even being here in the first place. Your impression isn’t helped by the curtness of his response.

“Fine.”

“Jay, you want a drink from the bar? I was just going to –”

“No, I’m not planning on staying long.”

You have to bite your cheek to stop yourself from admonishing the man for his sheer rudeness, his nerve to come blazing into your evening and sap every smidgeon of happiness out of the room without a care in the world. Concern is written plainly across Dick and Babs’ faces, but you can’t pretend to share the same sympathies. To you, Jason seemed to be nothing more than a dickhead with an attitude problem.

“Jason, this is an old friend of mine,” Babs offers him a smile, “I think the two of you would get along pretty well.”

“Oh great, a friend,” Jason’s words are practically lethal, “How on Earth should we celebrate such a momentous occasion?”

“I’m guessing it’s not one you get to celebrate much,” the words spill out of your lips before you can stop them, nothing more than a quiet mumble, but Jason’s head snaps to the side in an instant. There’s a fire that rims his greenish eyes, and there’s not much more that you can see in them other than downright murder. His fingers begin to lighten from his chokehold grip on the table in front of you.

“Who are you and why are you talking?” Jason bites, eyes quickly returning to the chip in the wood you wouldn’t be half surprised if he created with the intensity of his stare.

“Oh, you know, nobody you should care about. By all means, take centre stage. You’ve practically done it anyway.”

Dick’s voice comes out nervously, a hand scratching the back of his head, “Easy, guys.”

“I’ve sat down and said fuck-all,” Jason spits, “I’m not the one making bitchy comments about guys I don’t even know.”

“Bitchy? What is this 1813?” You turn your body to face him directly, edging on shouting. You try to ignore the flutter of regret in your stomach when he does the same, his figure casting a shadow across the entirety of, well, you.

“Well, I like to think of myself as a pretty modern guy but if the shoe fits.”

“That’s enough,” Babs’ voice is swift and severe when it rises, and Jason must be familiar enough with her to know to snap his mouth shut as you do, the pair of you shuffling back to how you’d been seated before. “We’re trying to have a nice evening, not start a war. Jason, why don’t you go get a drink at the bar?”

“I said I don’t want a fucking –”

Babs sends him a particularly pointed look, at which Jason seems to huff and hoist himself out of the booth. Dick is quick to follow, sliding out and trailing in the footsteps of his counterpart.

As soon as they’re out of earshot, you practically lurch forward to Babs, “Who the fuck is he and why –”

“You need to calm down,” Babs’ voice is as stern as it had been only seconds before, and you’re fairly certain you can feel your jaw drop.

“I need to calm down? I need to calm down? Babs he –”

“He’s my friend. Whether you like him or not,” her voice softens ever so slightly, and she reaches across the table to grasp your hands, “I understand he can be difficult, but so can you. He wasn’t being any worse than you were.”

You can’t muster the words to form an answer, instead opting to slump down into your seat with a few breathless grumblings. You cast your eyes over to the boys at the bar, and based on the way Jason’s shoulders are hunched forward, you can imagine he’s getting a similar tirade from Dick. That thought comforts you at least.

When they return, Dick slots himself next to you with a bubbly smile, Jason collapsing opposite him next to Barbara. There’s an awkward silence that seems to engulf the table, until Dick’s eyes begin to shine as he starts on the story of some thug he’d arrested the other day and the chaos that followed. It’s almost manageable like that, Dick happily chittering away as Babs listens intently, leaving you and Jason to glower in silence.

It’s brief, but for just a second, your eyes meet Jason’s. It’s only as you look up from the table that you realise, he’s staring, and you can’t help but feel a little burned by his gaze. If anything, you would say its apologetic, and ever so slightly longing. You watch as his lips part, almost as though he’s about to say something, but instead he just reclines back in the seat, crossing his arms over his chest and ripping his eyes away to stare at the poker table across the room.

The rest of the evening continues in that stead, and as time ticks over you find it easier to edge yourself back into the conversation, offering up small stories or observations of your own. To your surprise, even Jason pipes up every half an hour or so, mostly to offer some snide remark that sends Dick and Babs into a fit of giggles.

The four of you stay until the bar closes, a worker coming to awkwardly rush you out onto the street into the smoggy Gotham night. Babs and Dick turn to chatter to each other hurriedly, no doubt trying to orchestrate where they would be staying this evening, leaving you and Jason to stand awkwardly to the side swinging on your heels like petulant children.

Eventually, Babs sighs and turns to the pair of you, a stern look in her eye, “I need to go home with Dick to check out a case he’s been working on, I promised him I would a few days ago.” She pauses before turning sharply to Jason, “Can I trust you to walk her back home without starting a fight?”

“I don’t want him to know where I live!” You throw your arms up in exasperation, “I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Wow,” Jason’s chuckle is bone-chillingly dark, “Charming. I’m charmed. Truly.”

“You’re not walking on your own,” Babs snips, before tempering, “I’m sorry. I forgot about this, but it’s important. Please can you do me a favour and just go with him.”

“Do I get any say in this?” Jason quips, back half turned to the conversation.

“No, you don’t,” Babs replies firmly.

It’s not long after that Dick and Babs depart, Babs offering you what seems to be a look of both sympathy and warning as the car pulls away from the sidewalk, leaving you and Jason alone in the silent early morning air, refusing to even cast a glance in each other’s direction.

The only word to describe the walk back is painful.

It’s completely silent, bar for your mingled breathing, and the occasional call of directions on your part. Not a glance is shared, the pair of you pacing side by side without any acknowledgement of the other. You have to pretty much jog to keep up with Jason, who if he notices, does not seem to care.

Time seems to drag impossibly slowly until you reach the door of your apartment building, and you swallow your pride as you turn to face him. He seems to recoil slightly as you meet his eye, clearly not expecting such a direct confrontation.

“Uhm, thank you,” you sigh, almost defeatedly, “I wouldn’t really have wanted to walk back on my own. And,” you pause, scrubbing a hand over your face, “I’m sorry, for how I acted in the bar.”

Just as before, you watch as his lips part ever so slightly, like there are words bubbling on his tongue attempting to fight their way forward. His eyes almost seem frantic as they flitter up and down over you with a confused kind of scrutiny.

Then he turns and walks away.

You don’t stop watching him until he disappears around the corner at the end of the street, not once turning to check if you’re still stood gaping like a fish behind him. The rage that burns through your veins is hot and fast, and you nearly slam the door off its hinges as you make your way into the building.

Never before have you met such an arrogant, entitled, rude caricature of a man. Not one who would so shamelessly put on the performance Jason had this evening. It was foolish of you, you think, to believe that the two of you could have come to some kind of level-footing.

As you climb into bed, attempting to quieten the anger that seems to course through every limb, there is only one desire that twists in your stomach.

To never see Jason again.

Spring

It was only so long, really, until you got invited to a Wayne gala.

Babs had requested you come as her plus one, seeing as Dick was (naturally) invited regardless. It had taken no shortage of begging on her part, pleading and harassing you with various different threats and promises until eventually you’d lapsed and agreed. To most, you can imagine, it would be a great honour – but you can only seem to focus on the way your toes seem to be splintering against the heels that had been dashed away into the back of your closet until exactly three hours ago.

The beauty of Wayne Manor cannot be understated, with its grand archways, decadent furniture and collection of gargoyles crooning mercilessly overhead. It reeks of an almost sterile air of perfection, not a single decoration out of place, every member of staff working diligently and only answering with a set of perfectly rehearsed responses that you were certain had been tailored to every possible whim. It’s a battle with your more inquisitive nature to venture beyond the contained room in which the party takes place, longing to explore the vast halls and the secrets that must be embedded within them.

Bruce Wayne does moonlight as a bat, after all.

Babs had been by your side for the first hour or so, pleasantly making your introductions to the wealthy of Gotham, many of whom you’re sure could skyrocket your career forward with nothing more than a click of their fingers. You try your best to be pleasant and accommodating, laughing at their jokes and basking their minor achievements in glowing praise. It’s deceptively easy, at this point, to slip into your professional persona, the voice echoing from your throat one that you can barely recognise as your own.

You can see Babs becoming impatient at your side, longing to go and mingle with a few others across the room who you could hazard a guess were some of her more super friends based on the way they lingered around Dick Grayson. You’d been assured that Dick was typically the life of an event of this calibre, enrapturing guests with his charms, but instead he had been left fairly stationary by a leg break in two places, wincing from his spot in the corner as his cast pokes out the bottom of his suit trousers.

“Go,” you’d huffed with a giggle, “Go see them. I’m going to get a drink anyway.”

“I won’t be long,” she assured before barrelling away. It was sweet, the way Dick’s eyes seemed to light up when he saw her approach.

Without Babs at your side, however, it seems impossible to mix with the elites. To them, you are nobody, and without an ‘in’ into their conversations, you may as well be dressed as one of the wait staff. You opt instead to haunt the walls, trapsing round the shadows of the hall with a flute of champagne in hand that seems to empty itself far too quickly.

“I can show you where they keep the bottle, if you like,” a gruff voice calls out from beside you, and your stomach twists when you realise that it’s Jason, slotting himself between you and the wall. He looks, well, good. His suit is clearly tailored, as you would imagine it would have to be for a man of his stature, and there’s a loose red tie knotted somewhat haphazardly around his neck. In any other context, it would scream of laziness, but somehow, he seems to make the whole affair work for him.

“That’s oddly generous of you, you feelin’ okay?” You keep it curt, barely sparing him a glance and instead keeping your eye fixed on the couples swaying about the dance floor.

“That’s oddly presumptuous for someone who doesn’t actually know me at all,” Jason’s words lack the bitterness they had the evening at the bar, instead dripping out like smooth velvet, and seemingly somewhat amused.

“I think I know enough to make a judgement on your character,” you quip, downing the last of your champagne and placing it politely on the tray of the closest waiter with a quiet ‘thank you’.

“Is that so?”

“It is, I’m afraid.”

“Dance with me.” It throws you for a loop when he says it, offering a hand out at your side. He looks somewhat amused as you must stare at him like he’s grown a second head, but still waves his fingers insistently.

Speechless, and albeit a tad shaken, you take his hand as he guides you to the dance floor. It’s swift as he spins you to face him, a hand settling loosely on your waist. You swallow a gulp before bringing your own to settle on his shoulders, and as the music starts up again the pair of you begin to sway in tandem. You’re certain he must be able to feel how tense you are beneath his palms, but if he does, he doesn’t mention it.

“I’m…” he starts, clicking his head to the side in frustration, “I’m sorry. For my behaviour that night. It was… rude.”

“It was,” you agree, not faltering at the sharp look he sends your way.

It takes him a few seconds to find the words, and you almost feel pity for the way he seems to struggle. Eventually he lands on, “I’m not known for my first impressions.”

You bark out a laugh at that, startling some of the other guests beside you. Jason’s eyes seem to widen in shock, but when they settle there’s no contempt in them.

“You can say that again,” you pause before adding, “But I appreciate your apology.”

He does little more than grunt in response, as the pair of you continue to rock back and forth. You would have expected it to be awkward, given your previous encounter, but you can feel yourself beginning to relax into his hold. He still appears tense, and you can feel his fingertips biting ever so slightly into your side, but there’s nothing about him that would suggest any kind of animosity.

“No offense,” you hum, just quiet enough for only him to hear, “What are you doing here? This doesn’t exactly scream of your scene.”

He chuckles lowly, spinning you in sync with the rest of the crowd, “No, it’s not. I usually avoid these things like the plague. I’m doing it to keep the old man off my back.”

“The old man?” You question, throwing Jason a quizzical glance. He too, looks confused at your admission.

“My old man. Bruce Wayne.”

You pretty much stutter to a stop on the dance floor, staring up at him with wide eyes. You’re not sure how it hadn’t clicked into place until this very moment, what with Nightwing being the one to introduce the pair of you – but you had never for a second considered that this Jason could be that Jason.

“You’re Jason Todd?” It comes out as an exhale, and Jason casts an obvious glance in your direction.

“Aren’t you meant to be a journalist? I thought you’d figured that out already.”

“No, I’d heard the news that you were…” you falter, watching as he seems to brace for the words that follow, “back from your, ah, imprisonment. That was what they said in the papers, correct?”

The look he throws in your direction is a grateful one, despite the shared knowledge that you both know what really happened to him. Babs had told you the bare bones of the story. It was enough to know that the man in front of you had travelled all the way from the grave to be here tonight.

“Me and Bruce have our differences,” Jason offers, and it’s the bluntest you’ve heard him all evening. A warning, not to press any further. You decide that it wouldn’t be the smartest idea to divulge your knowledge that this revelation would also make the man in front of you Gotham’s infamous Red Hood.

The two of you continue to dance for the next few songs, making casual but polite conversation amongst the crowds. Scarily, you begin to feel that his company might not be so deplorable after all when he dares to crack the odd joke or two, developing a sneaking suspicion he may be genuinely sorry about what had happened at the bar.

“Okay,” you huff out, sinking forward into him ever so slightly, “I think I might have to call it quits on the dancing for this evening. My feet feel like they’re about to tear in half.”

He doesn’t reply but instead guides you towards the edge of the room on his arm with more poise than you’d have thought him capable of, allowing you to perch down on a chez-lounge and give your tired body a brief reprieve. You sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes until Jason lets out an awkward cough.

“Look, I have to go and talk to some people,” he almost cringes as he says it, and it’s near enough a look of abject horror on his face, “But… thank you, for the dance.”

“Thank you,” you reply earnestly, meeting his eyes with as tender a look you can muster. Under your glance, he seems to mellow, the corner of his lip even quirking up ever so slightly.

“I’ll… I’ll catch you around,” He bumbles, “Maybe even see you later.”

“I would like that.”

And with that he’s gone.

You feel the loss of his presence almost instantly, and the emptiness that accompanies it is what surprises you most of all. You decide to stay put for the time being, most of the socialites so drunk at this point that they couldn’t object to your own lack of decorum without blatantly highlighting their own.

You remain perched for at least half an hour, grateful for yet another glass of champagne that gets thrust in your direction. You’re fairly certain you can make out Babs across the room, Dick draped dramatically across her wheelchair with an exuberant smile. The time passes fairly quickly as you glance over the hall, people-watching with the ever so slight buzz of alcohol muddying your thoughts.

“You might have just taken the best spot in the room,” a deep timbre echoes out from beside you, and of every person in the world it could have belonged to, you weren’t anticipating it being Bruce Wayne.

“Mr. Wayne,” you shoot up instantly, cringing at the way your ankle rolls in your heel. He only lets out a deep chuckle before motioning for you to sit again, occupying the spot next to you with his looming presence.

“I must admit,” he begins, all smile, “I was unfamiliar with your work before you appeared on my guest list, but you are indeed, incredibly impressive.”

You can’t do much to fight the blush that rises on your cheeks, “Thank you, uh, sir. That’s very kind. I’m only just starting out really, but it’s an honour to know my work has been recognised.”

“You will come to me,” he places a warm hand on your shoulder, “that is, if you need anything. Any friend of Commissioner Gordon and his family is a friend of mine.”

“That’s very kind of you, thank you,” you confess, wishing you had been slightly more sparing with your alcohol consumption in the past few hours. That being said, there was no part of your evening plans that had involved chatting with Bruce Wayne himself.

You dare not mention his other career path, not to his face. Not when you couldn’t be sure if Babs had divulged such information or not. Not that she needed to, he probably knew anyway.

“I must confess,” Bruce sighs, a tired smile drawing on his features, “I do have other motivations for coming to speak to you.”

“Oh?”

“I couldn’t help but notice you were dancing with my son earlier,” Bruce begins with a tut, “I get so little from him. I figured I would inquire about his, ah, connection with you instead.”

“Oh, oh, no,” you burst out almost too eagerly, “Me and Jason? This is only the second time we’ve ever met.”

“Is that so?” Bruce questions, a curious quirk on his brow. It only makes it all the more sudden when a stormy disposition seems to cross over his features, “In that case, I suggest you keep it that way.”

There’s little you can do to mask the confusion on your face at his remark. Sure, Jason had been more than a little rude on your first encounter, but he’d been nothing other than pleasant to you this evening. You weren’t unfamiliar with the Red Hood and his methods, under no illusions regarding what Jason was or wasn’t capable of.

“May I ask why you say that Mr. Wayne?”

“Ever the journalist,” Bruce hums, “My son has turned himself into a man not to be trifled with, and in that effort has made himself an outcast to both me and my family. I am aware you know of my family’s activities, Miss, and as a result you no doubt know of his. However, it is not Jason’s choices that bother me most, it is the pain that he inflicts upon those around him.”

The question stutters out of your mouth before you can stop it, not even sure you wanted the answer, “What is it that he’s done? To your family, I mean.”

Bruce doesn’t open his mouth to answer but instead nods to Dick now tucked away in the corner of the hall, struggling to steady himself on his broken leg. To most, Dick’s smile would be enough to ensure them that he was okay, but your multiple encounters with him at this point are enough to let you glimpse the pain in his expression.

“Jason tends to be destructive, and as much as I try to guide him, I’m beginning to fear there isn’t much else he knows anymore. It isn’t the first time he’s done such damage, and it won’t be the last.”

It’s sickening, the way that the universe chooses that moment for you to lock eyes with Jason, leaned against the bar. Swiftly as a growing forest fire, his eyes are a quiet smoulder when they lock with yours, only to grow into a blaze at the image of Bruce sat next to you. You feel at an impasse, two sides of you being tugged in opposite directions.

You look away from Jason quickly. If what Bruce was telling you was true, you had no reason to spare him a glance. Hurting Dick meant hurting Babs. Hell, Dick was a friend, and you couldn’t stand for the idea of someone hurting him either. A spin on a dance floor and a few uptight compliments wouldn’t change that.

“My advice, if you would take it,” Bruce sighs, beginning to stand, “you seem like an intelligent young woman, and you have a bright future ahead of you. I would make an expressed effort to stay out of Jason’s sights in your shoes, I fear it is not a particularly safe place to be.”

Your conversation ends fairly abruptly after that, Bruce shaking your hand and slipping you a business card with a reminder that he would be keen to help with your career given the opportunity. It’s difficult not to trust him, with his warm smile and kind words – you find it almost impossible to believe that his speech couldn’t have been without some kind of merit.

“So, you finally met him?” Babs wheels next to you when Bruce is out of sight, pressing a teasing elbow into your side. Her face seems to drop when she scans across your own, your turmoil clear as day, “Hey, you okay? What did he say to you?”

“Oh, nothing too crazy,” you snap yourself out of it, “Just work, really.”

The look that Babs gives you is enough for you to know that she doesn’t quite believe what you’re telling her, but your saviour appears in the form of Dick Grayson, hobbling over to join you with sweat practically dripping from his brow.

“Congrats,” he slaps an arm around your shoulders, positively beaming, “You just survived your first Bat interrogation.”

The two of them continue to chatter for a few minutes, and you can’t help but scan the room for Jason himself. It’s an odd sensation, and you can’t pinpoint why exactly you care where he is, but you can’t seem to settle without setting your sights on him.

You rejoin the conversation just as Dick turns to face you, “…Anyway, we were thinking of heading back to mine to chill, we’ve done our bit. Bruce can’t complain. Obviously, you’re more than welcome, we just need to find Ja – ”

“Actually,” you plaster on the brightest smile you can concoct, “I’m really not feeling too good. Definitely had a bit too much champagne. I might call it a night, I have work tomorrow, you know.”

“That’s fine, I get it, I get it. We can drop you back home –”

“Honestly, it’s fine, I think I’m just going to call a cab. Thank you though, it’s been a wonderful evening.”

You can only hope that Dick and Babs will chalk your eagerness to escape up to the alcohol as you make your departure, rushing to collect your bag and coat as quickly as you can in stupid fucking heels. As soon as you’re out of the hall, you peel them off your feet and set off at a brisk pace to try and get out of Wayne Manor as quickly as possible.

Until you collide headfirst with what may as well have been a wall, with how stiff and unyielding it seemed to be.

Jason stares down at you with an emotion you can’t quite name, and you’re reminded of just how big he really is. How imposing it would be to see him, clad in a red mask, glaring down towards whoever might be his latest victim. You think about what Dick must’ve felt, as his own brother battered him so.

“One final dance for the road?” He questions with a quirk of his lips, but you can see the nervousness in his eyes. It transforms swiftly into something else when you respond.

“No, I don’t think I will, actually,” you snap, pulling yourself out his way and continuing your mission towards the end of the driveway.

You’re thankful for the silence, that he doesn’t attempt to chase you or catch you in some kind of confrontation. You make it halfway down the drive before he finally calls out.

“What did Bruce say to you?” It’s quiet, and you can barely hear it behind you from the ruckus of the party inside. There’s something about it that pangs in your chest, but you steel yourself and continue walking, without even a glance behind you.

It’s only when you hail the cab that you turn around to face him, and unlike last time, he’s still there. Alone. Stood outside the manor with nothing other than hurt radiating off him. It’s surprisingly easy to turn away, ripping the car door open and slipping inside.

You climb over to the other seat so you don’t have to watch him as you pull away.

Summer

If someone had told you 6 months ago that you would be sat on the roof of Nightwing’s apartment building, surrounded by all sorts of metahumans and vigilantes, having a barbeque – well, you probably would’ve laughed in their face.

It’s hard to believe, as you’re reclined on a sunbed, cocktail in hand, best friend at your side while her boyfriend flips burgers in his, quite frankly, egregious Kiss the Cook apron, that things could be going so well. Bludhaven hadn’t ever been on your list of top holiday destinations, but basking in the hazy summer sun is more than enough to make up for it. It’s raucous, as you would expect many young superheroes crammed into a small space trying to cook a banquet of food would be, but the grouch within you can’t even seem to care about the chaos.

It’s jarring how well life seems to be going. Babs and Dick had pushed you to contact Bruce about working with Wayne Industries on some insider reporting, and the man himself had accepted your proposal with open arms. He’d even doubled the amount you got paid for the pieces as a ‘tip’, a token of thanks for your time dedicated to the cause. As a result, your writing had been the talk of the town since, and you had every major paper scrambling to offer you an exclusive contract.

You and Babs are closer than ever, and to your surprise, you’d integrated fairly seamlessly into their wider friend group as a regular staple of their gatherings. Sure, you were much quieter in comparison to the Titans and other various young heroes, but they seemed to enjoy your presence, nonetheless. You’d even spent some time at Wayne Manor with Dick and Babs, finally meeting the other members of the family after hearing about them in excess.

You’d run into Jason a few times.

It never failed to be an awkward encounter, often comprised of curt greetings and nothing more. Jason showed no signs that your rebuff had scorned him but, as expected, any trace of the warmth he’d shown you that night at the gala seemed to have disappeared promptly. You were just as cold, often refusing to look him in the eye on the rare occasion he would enter a room that also contained you. It was baffling, that he still had a place beside Dick and Babs and the rest of them, given the only increasing rumours you’d heard once being integrated into the super-community about his mistreatment of those closest to him. You’d never brought the topic up to either of your friends, primarily out of fear that they would attempt to see beneath your distain for something deeper – you didn’t have to mention it, they were ever lenient on Jason’s behaviour and seemed to welcome him with open arms at every opportunity.

Which is why you’re unsurprised, later in the evening when most of the heroes have gone home or out on their various patrols, that Jason appears on the roof next to Dick overlooking the city, a quiet conversation muttering between the pair. Your eyes catch him, Jason, for just a second as he turns ever so briefly to watch you sprawled out with a book in hand. Your eyes meeting is enough to drive him away again, jaw grinding as he turns to look forward.

Good, you’re glad your presence is enough to piss him off.

You continue that way for the next hour or so, tearing through your book until the words begin to blur into a splodge of ink on the page. The steady cooling of the dusky air is a welcome reprieve from the blazing sun, and it doesn’t take you long to drift off, your last waking feeling being that of your book dropping onto your chest.

It’s significantly later when you blink yourself awake again, the moon settled comfortably against the Bludhaven skyline. You instantly take note of the blanket that’s been draped over your body, curled between your fingers, and take a second to scan around the rooftop in search for any other waking body.

To your chagrin, the only figure that comes into view is Jason, sat with his legs dangling over the side of the building and a cigarette clutched tightly within his fingers. It’s almost picturesque, watching him inhale and exhale with a stream of smoke, the plains of his face framed by the moonlight. It strikes you that he’s likely in his element, perched on a rooftop shrouded in the darkness of the night, and it pains you to admit just how beautiful he looks.

Without even a glance in your direction, he simply chuckles mockingly, holding the cigarette up plainly for you to see, “Been trying to quit for months now.”

“Maybe you should try harder,” it’s snide and a bit pathetic and you know it, but you can’t seem to mellow the bite in your words. He simply laughs and returns to taking slow drags, barely even acknowledging that you had said anything.

Quickly, you begin to gather your things together, pulling the blanket tightly around your body as you make your way to the door back inside, wishing to be out of this awkward situation and less than stellar company as fast as you can.

It’s Jason’s voice that stops you, “You never told me.”

“What?”

“You never told me what Bruce said to you.” There’s an odd resignation in his words, and his voice remains remarkably even, not giving away any hint of whatever emotion was hidden beneath his words.

“I’m sure you can guess,” you huff out, drawing your hand away from the door to turn and face him.

Wordlessly, Jason hoists himself up from the side of the building and starts to make his way towards you. He stops a comfortable distance away, not enough to be an imposing presence, but so close that you can see his fingers fidgeting in front of him.

“I just want to know if what he said to you is what changed your mind about me,” Jason bites, “or if it’s always just been how you felt.”

“Why do you care about how I feel, Jason?” It comes out far harsher than you intended. He only scrubs a hand over his face in response, and you’re not sure if it’s a laugh or a whimper that crawls its way out of his throat.

“Do you really not see what’s going on here?”

“No, Jason, if I knew what was going on –”

“I like you, okay? I’ve tried my best to make it obvious, I really have. And trust me, I don’t want to, but I do. You’re beautiful, you’re talented, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks because you know who you are. I like how opinionated you are, everyone else in my life fucking dances around me like I’m about to explode – but you don’t. I was rude at the bar because I wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting you, and I tried to make it up to you at the gala and then Bruce –”

“Bruce told me the truth, Jason.” The fumbling words are all that you can manage, your brain spinning at the revelation that Jason had just laid bare in front of you. Everything feels jilted, and surprisingly the only feeling whirring around your chest that you can articulate is anger.

“I don’t know what Bruce told you,” Jason’s practically pleading, “But I just wish you would judge me on me rather than what everyone else has to say.”

“Jason. You don’t know me,” your words are slow, but it does little to soften the viciousness tainting them, “you think you can – what? Just waltz in after months of being rude and judgy and – and after hurting my friends and act like all of it was okay because you like me? I haven’t been able to judge you on what you have to say because you never talk to me!”

The warm summer sun is long gone now, replaced with a chilling breeze and an ever so slight smattering of rain. The only word to describe Jason is speechless, but you don’t miss the way his fists curl at his sides. You practically leap sideways as he spins round with a number of cusses, pacing back and forth with what at a glance seems to be pure anguish.

“Hurt?” He spits out, all venom, “Who exactly have I hurt?”

“Well, Dick, for starters –”

“Dick? Oh, of course,” Jason lets out a bitter chuckle, “Of course, I hurt the golden boy.”

“He had a broken leg!” You throw your hands up in exasperation, and in an instant Jason is on you, so close you can smell his smoky cologne and the lingering touch of burnt leather.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” It’s nothing more than a ghost of a whisper, and he’s so close you can almost taste the words on his tongue.

“Real romantic by the way,” you refuse to back down, instead only edging closer and angling your chin to lock onto his eyes blazing down into your own, “I like you but I don’t want to. I didn’t realise I was just so deplorable.”

The rain is blinding now, hammering down around the pair of you, eliminating anything in your eyeline other than him. You’re both soaked to the bone, locked in a standoff neither one of you is willing to back down from. His hair is flattened to his forehead, and his shirt has plastered itself across his shoulders – you don’t dare to consider what you look like, clad in nothing other than a blanket and casual swimwear. It’s only then that you register the jittering of your entire body, and you can’t pinpoint whether it’s the cold or the sheer rage coursing through your veins as the source.

Both of your heads tear to the side at the soft call of your name, the silhouette of Babs highlighted from the doorway back into the apartment. Squinting through the rain, you can make out the shock and concern marring her features, and you instantly jump back from your stalemate. Jason takes a similar course of action, turning on his heel to march inside without a second thought.

He makes it halfway before he stops and turns to stare at you.

“You shouldn’t just listen to everything people tell you. I thought you were smarter than that. There are two sides to every story.”

And then he disappears inside.

Autumn

All the glee of summertime had been quick to disperse. Life seemed to pass by in a blur: work had slowed considerably as Gotham herself seemed to ready for hibernation, you had moved to a different apartment, nicer but nestled significantly further away from everything you’d become accustomed to. Babs had taken on a lot more work with Batman which seemed to consume the majority of her waking life, and with the loss of her constant company went Dick Grayson too. You still texted daily, but in person visits had become disappointingly scarce.

You’d be a downright liar if you said in every spare moment that your thoughts didn’t trapse back to your encounter with Jason. It reeled like film in the back of your mind whenever your eyelids fluttered shut, a constant rerun of every minute detail – the way his hands seemed to ring, the flexing and rolling of his shoulders as he paced, the hurt in his eyes as you’d unleashed a tirade onto him on what was supposed to be a relaxing summer evening.

It was nothing more than professional curiosity, you’d told yourself, your desire to know more. To glean some kind of insight into the other side of the story that Jason had preached. It was in your nature, journalism and the like. However, it was much easier to pretend that the world had alienated you from the answer, forcing you away from your work and friends, than it was to admit that you had run away because you were scared.

Which is why it took months for you to finally ask Babs to meet up for a coffee, rather than her asking you. The air had begun to bite as you lingered in the street, longing for a familiar face, even the nip of the cold bringing back persistent traces of that night. A sigh of relief materialises in a faint cloud of vapour as Babs appears round the corner, throwing her arms out for a hug as soon as she’s close enough. It’s uncharacteristically awkward as you settle down at a table, Babs doing little to hide her expectant stare as the barista places your drinks down in front of you.

“What did you want to –”

“Jason.” The slight curl of her lip at your mention of his name is enough to throw you, her knowing look pressing forward into what feels like every inch of your body.

“What do you want to know about Jason?” Babs offers, tracing her finger around the rim of her mug casually. If the display is supposed to make you feel less under pressure, it does nothing to alleviate the hammering of your pulse.

Your brain goes blank. “Uhm – how is he?”

Babs seems unable to stifle the laugh that barks out, bringing her coffee up to her lips, “You invited me out for coffee to ask how Jason is?”

You take a deep breath and muster all you can to steel yourself, allowing a smidgeon of your work persona to bleed in. “That night on the roof. He said some things and – and I never got any clarification. I just have some things I need to know.”

“How come you’re asking me and not him?”

“I don’t think Jason and I are in a place to be asking each other deep and thought-provoking personal questions,” you wince as the words tangle themselves on your tongue, and you can’t subdue the simmering feeling of disappointment that seems to accompany them.

Babs’ pauses for a second, as if weighing in her options, before eventually letting out a soft sigh and offering you a tender look, “Go on, what is it you want to know.”

“At the gala,” you begin far too quickly, grimacing at your own eagerness, “Bruce told me that Jason was dangerous. I’d already figured out that he was, you know, but the way Bruce painted this picture. It was like Jason was a monster, like he chose to hurt everyone close to him. He told me that he broke Dick’s leg.”

“Jason did break Dick’s leg,” Babs states plainly, and you can feel yourself deflate, “Jason broke Dick’s leg to save him. Dick was trapped in rubble, and he was losing oxygen fast. He was, he would’ve, died if Jason hadn’t gotten there before any of the rest of us could. The only options were to break Dick’s leg – who was unconscious by the way – to get him out or leave him to suffocate.”

You’re practically speechless. Never before has your mind stuttered so suddenly to a halt. All you can seem to do is gape at Babs as her jaw seems to clench; anger wasn’t a familiar emotion in your relationship, but you had seen it enough to recognise it.

“Bruce and Jason have a fractious relationship at the best of times, and they were certainly not going steady back then. Bruce showed up and saw Jason manhandling Dick out of a collapsed building with a broken limb and assumed the worst. God, it was awful, only Tim could stop them fighting and eventually Jason just disappeared. The first time any of us saw Jason after that was the Gala, and that was only because he promised Alfred.”

“Did Bruce ever find out the truth?” You’re practically reeling as all of the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place, Jason’s distance from his family at the Gala, his hurt at your insinuations about him. You’d treated him atrociously and this whole time he was the one that had been hurt.

“We told him straight away. We told him as it happened. But Jason and Bruce have this blindness when it comes to each other, they can only see what they want to see. Bruce refused to hear anything other than that Jason had brought the building down and Dick with it.” There’s a rawness in Babs’ voice, and a pearly ring of wetness dampening her eyes.

“But I’ve heard so much about…” you pause, contemplating the weight of your words, “It’s not just Bruce. I’ve heard everyone talk about him and the things he does, like he’s some kind of sadist. Like he kills people for fun and –”

“Jason does kill, there’s no doubt about that,” Babs’ tone hitches slightly, shifting to something more resolute, “but it’s not just for fun or how he gets his kicks. He has an ethos, a system, the same way Bruce or Dick or any of us do. Agree with it or not, he’s trying to make things better in his own way.”

It’s a harrowing feeling, every synapse being excavated and laid bare, the devastating realisation that all was not as it had seemed. Jason had been right, you should’ve known better than to presume. “I’ve really fucked up, haven’t I?”

Babs wastes no time reaching over to take your hands in hers, some of the warmth returning to her gaze, “No, you haven’t. You acted on all the information that you had and that’s all we can do. But you can –”

“No,” your reply is instant, and Babs draws back in surprise, “I can’t. Not after all this. I’ve hurt him, I can’t imagine he wants me in his life. And I still don’t know him. I just –”

Babs calls your name softly as you begin to gather your belongings, hastily sipping down the last of your drink and scanning desperately for the nearest exit. She doesn’t attempt to say anything, just offers you an almost infuriatingly tender look. You quickly mutter your goodbyes, a small smile and a promise to text later, before rushing out into the Gotham traffic.

It had been easy to be so righteous, so comfortable in your position, but now every noise and sensation felt like a slap. A kick while you were down. It had been so simple to deny anything you had felt towards him, any kind of attraction, from your high horse; to look down and tell yourself that you had been wronged and anything you felt was out of nothing more than a lingering feeling of pity.

It’s overwhelming, the sensation of missing out on an opportunity, a friend, and maybe something more that made itself so scarce in your life to begin with. It’s shame, you think.

You can’t help but think that if you were Jason Todd, you would never want to see you again.

Winter

Gotham in the winter is a sight to behold: flickering lights casting a yellow haze over the murky skyline, the cold lick of the coast sneaking its way into the alleyways and street corners, an entire civilisation cloaked in a dreary blanket. It was much kinder from inside the warm glow of your apartment, staring out at the figures on the street below fighting against the elements.

Life had continued, as it always does. It had taken you some time to process what had happened with Jason, mourn the prospect of what could’ve been. Bruce had offered you a full-time position at Wayne Industries. You’d turned it down. Told him you wanted to ‘explore different avenues’ this early in your career, and in spite of the suspicious look he’d given you, he’d assured that there would always be a position for you if you desired.

Instead, you had taken a role at a local up-and-coming paper focussed on exposing corruption within Gotham’s elite. It was perfect, the hands-on kind of work you had favoured during your studies, and the success was already beginning to blossom. Babs and Dick had been nothing but supportive: you weren’t as involved with their ‘super-gatherings’ anymore, finding the whole group to be a tad overwhelming, but they still made time for you each and every week in the same dingy bar in which Babs had first introduced you to everyone.

Everything didn’t feel right yet, but it was getting there.

Being nestled in your apartment in the evenings alone didn’t feel so glum anymore, instead lighting a warm flicker in the bottom of your belly. You were working on a big piece, the biggest you’d written so far, scouring into the Falcone family and some of their more illegitimate dealings – papers sprawled across every available surface, a few stripes of ink now decorated your dining room table. You were certain you looked a wreck; sleep hadn’t come easy the past nights – you were in limbo. Until the article was published and in the public eye, there was little to protect you from anyone who had questions about what you were looking into. You’d even gone out and brought a gun. As a result, there was little that could drag you away from your laptop, a desperation to finish your work that felt somewhat like your life depended on it.

Which is why when there’s a hammering at your front door at 1am, it becomes difficult to breathe all of a sudden.

“Miss?” A gruff voice calls out, “Heard you had some interest in a friend of mine. I have some information that might be of use to you.”

As quietly as you can, you scramble for your keys. Dick had given you a small device, some kind of button, when you’d told him and Babs about your new job and its dealings – he’d assured you that as soon as you pressed it there would always be help on the way. It’s impossible to stifle the gasp of relief as you finally feel the tiny device roll between your fingers, pressing it down hard and watching as it illuminates your apartment in a soft blue.

“Miss? We know you’re in there,” the hammering gets much louder all of a sudden, and you dip down behind the couch, drawing yourself into a ball, “This can be much easier for you if you just let us in.”

From across the room, you can see your phone light up, and you thank the lord that you’d put it on silent – it’s Babs, you can see from the cheesy lockscreen of you draped across her lap after some raucous night out. The men, multiple of them now, continue to scuffle outside your front door as they no doubt contemplate the best method to enter and beat the shit out of you. You could make a run for the gun now, but if they came in you would be cornered in your bedroom, nowhere to escape to.

“Right, lady, you’re starting to piss me off,” A new voice calls out, “I’m giving you ten seconds to come out before we come in.”

Ten seconds is a long time for a vigilante, right? Normally, you’d pride yourself on your ability to think on your feet, but unfortunately the only course of action seems to be waiting out the storm. The idea of leaping out the window dances across your mind briefly, but with no fire escape and a 40ft drop it wasn’t the most thrilling concept. Quickly, you reach out and snatch your pen off the table – it was sturdy, metal, a gift from Jim Gordon when you’d graduated – it wasn’t sharp by any means, but with enough force it could definitely do some damage.

You grimace at the thought.

All at once, a barrage of sound erupts in your ears; the door swings open and groans as the hinges splinter bit by bit, the thundering of footsteps is instant, you can count one, two, three sets of steps against the creaking floorboards. It all happens far too quickly, one of them calling out a signal to the others that they’ve found you, and you’re hoisted to your feet, both arms held tightly by a brute on either one. You swing from side to side with as much force as you can muster, kicking out and screaming, relishing as you hear a deep groan from your right.

Nothing prepares you for the swing of a fist, though.

You’ve never been punched before, surprisingly, and it strikes you that maybe its one of the only things movies do justice. It’s less the impact itself, but more the way that your head wrenches to the side that sends you reeling. Before you can even recollect yourself there’s a hand clamped around your jaw, tugging your face back upwards. Most of the man’s face is covered, donned in all black, but there’s a cruelty in his eyes that collapses your chest. It’s disgusting, the way one of his fingers hooks around your teeth, keeping you trapped like a fish on a line. You contemplate spitting in his face, but as if out of instinct, you snap your teeth shut.

It makes you retch as he pulls back, the thick, hot metallic sheet that coats every surface of your mouth. Abject horror is the only phrase to describe the look of the man opposite you, clasping his mangled finger gingerly to his chest. Before you can revel in your small victory, another slap sends you clattering across the floor, wood splintering beneath your fingertips.

If a punch was a bee-sting, a kick to the ribs is a bomb going off.

“You fucking bitch!” The man hollers, drawing his foot back for another swift kick. His boots must be metal capped, you think.

“Haven’t you heard? Bitch is so 1800s.”

It’s a rough modulated voice that draws you from your stupor – it’s difficult to make out shapes through the tears that have spilled over, but if the shrill whimpers of the men around you are enough to go by, you’d say help has arrived. The pause gives you enough time to shuffle back against the wall, gradually shifting to something akin to a sitting position.

“Hood,” One of the goons whispers, and you’re not sure if its double vision or the man is actually trembling, “What – this isn’t your turf –”

“Don’t care. Goodbye.” The echo of a gunshot is so much louder up close, and you can’t help but slam a hand over your mouth as the giant of a man seems to crumple to the ground, brains splattered all over your bookshelf. One of the other goons attempts to make a run for it but is stopped by a gloved hand that shoots out and catches him by the throat. It’s a horrible wheezing sound that sneaks its way out of his windpipe, all while the Red Hood takes his time strapping his gun to his thigh, before bringing his other hand around languidly to snap the goons’ neck.

It’s all so quick, you think, not like the long-winded tit-for-tat action movie sequences where they trade blows, it’s just sheer overwhelming force. A black hole that’s come to consume anything that dare move in its presence.

It’s Jason.

Out of your peripheral you can make out the man, your main attacker, breaking from his stupor. You recognise the way his hands begin to curl in his pocket, a hand wrapping around an all too familiar shape that he begins to draw outwards painstakingly slowly. Before you can clamber to your feet, the gun is aimed straight for him, a clear shot, and Jason seems to realise just as you do that the man’s finger is contracting on the trigger.

You can’t even process your own movements, let alone pain, yet you feel your feet underneath you, pushing you forward. The cool feeling of the pen between your fingers feels so familiar yet so absurd, and with all the force you can muster you slam it round into the side of the man’s throat. It’s so much worse, watching death this way; Jason had the decency to make the others quick, but here you were watching a man bleed onto your rug as he stares at you with surprise and your engraved pen in his jugular.

It’s only seconds before he flops to the ground too.

Jason’s there before your knees can buckle, wrapping a solid arm around your waist and holding you up like a puppet on a string. As much as you try and move your tongue, it’s like lead in your mouth, and you can’t do much more than stand there gaping as Jason checks your injuries.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” You didn’t know a modulated voice could sound so tender, “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time.”

“Jason, I –” It sounds so wet and broken, barely recognisable as your own voice.

“I know,” he coos, bringing a hand round to cradle your less injured cheek, “But you did so good, so good. You saved me.”

The tears begin to flow promptly after that, and you wonder if the Red Hood often has people sob into his chest, and if he ever lets them. Slowly, he lowers the pair of you to the ground, and as soon as you hit the floor it feels as though every drop of energy has been drained from your body.

“I’m so sorry,” you hiccup, “I’m sorry about what I said and –”

If you’re not mistaken, he laughs, and even through the robotic filter you can hear the hint of amusement, “You’re an idiot.”

“What?”

“You’ve just killed a man and you’re worried about apologising to me over an argument we had months ago.”

You let out a wet laugh, “Can’t help it. I don’t want to like you, but I think I do.”

“Maybe we should start again,” Jason hums, pulling off his helmet. You know deep down that he’s just trying to distract you from the weight of your evening, and you’re sure that it will hit you when the brain fog begins to wear off – but right now, you can’t seem to care. Clearly, a near death experience has changed your perspective.

You mumble your name quietly, offering your hand out to him, “I’m a journalist, I’m allergic to cats and I have a kill count of one.”

Jason only barks out a laugh, those mesmerising green eyes finally rimmed with mirth rather than rage, “I knew there was something I liked about you.”

Spring

You’d never thought that such a dingy, depressing bar tucked away in the veins of Gotham could feel so much like home – but the regulars at the poker table wave each time you step through the front door, the bartender smiles while she pours your regular and asks how your latest article is coming along. But your favourite part, without a doubt, is slumping in after a long day at work and seeing your closest companions huddled together at your booth in the corner looking up at you with beaming smiles.

You slide into the booth next to Jason without a word, and his arm drapes itself across your shoulders automatically. It’s still new, the pair of you sharing bashful smiles at every intimate moment, but there’s a love that burns in your chest brighter than any feeling you thought yourself capable of.

“You guys are disgusting, I hope you know,” Dick whinges, letting out a chuckle as Babs punches him hard in the arm.

“Be quiet, you,” Babs chuckles, “Our plan finally came to fruition.”

You narrow your eyes at her across the table, quirking your head to the side, “I knew it. You did want to set us up.”

“Well that was obvious from the get go, Princess,” Jason chuckles, pressing a kiss to your temple. “I like to think we gave them a challenge though.”

“I certainly didn’t think you would develop a body count on the way,” Babs brows go up and she sends a grin in your direction.

“That’s my girl,” Jason whispers, throwing a grin in your direction, “What a fearsome thing to behold.”

“God, I love it when you quote Pride & Prejudice to me.”

“I know you do, baby, I know.”

This has been a WIP for sooooo long, like since before I even started this account. I don’t know if it’s obvious but I really struggled to finish it, I had absolutely no idea how to leave it. But oh well 🤷‍♀️

also im SORRY for making Bruce the BAD GUY it was the only way i could make it work in my head 💔

If you liked it, well, like it - a reblog is always appreciated. If you don’t like it, leave me alone.